Page 47 of Triple Threat

“Are you available around seven AM?”

“I mean, I’ll have to reschedule my meeting with the Prime Minister, but I think we can make it work.” She smiled.

* * *

When I openedthe door into the garage, Sadie’s eyes bulged.

“Lamborghini, McLaren, Koenigsegg, Audi.” I gestured to the small fleet of exotic cars. “But we’re taking this one.” I gestured to the diminutive and rounded form of the antique Aston Martin DB5. She looked at the choice of cars and then back to the satin silver and chrome DB5.

“Why this one?” she asked.

“Because it is mine, and if it’s not in the garage, Lach won’t care. He’ll know I went somewhere,” I said. “Plus, these other cars, too loud, too flashy, too chavvy for my tastes. Even the McLaren, it’s just too much.”

“Chavvy?” she asked.

“Chavs are people who have no taste and are loud and obnoxious. Like this.” I gestured to the Koenigsegg. “It’s loud, and obnoxious. It’s dreadful to ride in, and aside from being fast and expensive, it has no redeeming features.”

“Your car seems familiar,” Sadie said, a hint of a smile on her lips.

“I don’t know how many movies you’ve seen, but her Majesty’s finest spy, James Bond, used to drive a car like this,” I said, opening the door for her. She slipped into the car and gave a laugh.

“Your steering wheel is on the wrong side!”

“Oh, that is where you are wrong. My steering wheel is the only one that is on the correct side. All of these American cars have the wheel on the wrong side. It’s okay, at least you’ve not made the mistake the Germans did and put the engine in the back.” I shut the door and clicked the button for the garage door to cycle open. I sat in the driver’s seat – clutch, break, ignition, and the car purred to life.

It was pleasant driving with Sadie. She didn’t have a smartphone and hadn’t developed that certain bubble posture where the spine and head are curled down to face the upturned phone in the hand. She was alert, looking at the scenery, and she pointed out things that were of interest to her. I appreciated that more than she would know. I drove until I got to where I thought Lach had found her but picking out the spot was difficult. The guardrails along both sides of the highway had years of abuse beaten into them. She pointed toward the Blue River District – row after row of abandoned and dilapidated warehouses.

I took the next crossover, leaving the highway behind for the neglected service road. There was a single lane of still present but struggling businesses fronting the district, notable only for their omnipresent iron bars over all the windows, and the reinforced doors. Title loans, cash for gold exchangers, a battered laundromat, several hole-in-the-wall pool hall dives, and a food truck lacking wheels, but apparently still shilling some sort of fried sandwich.

“The food there is terrible,” Sadie said.

“I don’t think I would patron a food truck without wheels,” I said.

“It was bad before the wheels were stolen.” She laughed. “We can park somewhere around here and walk.”

“You think I’m going to let this car out of my sight, in this neighborhood?” I shook my head.

“There are several gates, and some of them are locked. You can’t drive through, and I was maybe five lots back. You can see the building from here.” She pointed, indicating one of the larger structures, one with a sawtooth skyline and faded tan paint.

“I can open locks.” I gave her a wink. When we pulled up at the first gate, a tubular steel gate designed to only stop cars, I laughed. I left her sitting in the car, walked up to the lock, and popped it. Sometimes the police-issued lock popping tools didn’t work, especially on the newer cars or higher end locks. On these cheap locks, it worked like a charm. I left the lock hanging from the pole and swung it open.

There was only one other lock that had to be dealt with, a chain-link gate closed around the large building Sadie had indicated as her prior residence. She pointed at where the fence was broken and we could squeeze through on foot. I opted to use the tool again and slid the gate open. It was a hard job, it seemed like it might have been years since someone worked the wheels or rollers. Sadie ended up helping me push it all the way open. I pulled the car up next to the building while she walked up to a side door.

“This is where I’ve spent the last half a year, or so,” she said, dragging the door open. I gave the car a look and then followed her into the perpetual gloom inside. There was no power, but the warehouse had large skylights, high above in the ceiling. Some of them were broken, but the darkness inside was consuming. The stink inside was likewise consuming. “Yeah, that sort of happens from time to time,” she said, noticing my expression. “Sometimes something will get inside and can’t get out. It dies, then starts to reek. Usually it’s a bird, but the worst time was a snapping turtle. No idea how it got in.”

“Splendid.” I coughed. I followed her across the main floor, and I could see impressions form the past – damage in the concrete floor where heavy machinery had been, factory equipment, the worn paths where decades and millions of footsteps had shaped stone. She didn’t seem to notice as she avoided where part of the ceiling had fallen in to the offices. Wooden frames and boarded up, they looked amateurishly built, maybe even by men who had worked here before. She opened a door and vanished inside. I felt a lurch of panic. If she bolted, I wouldn’t be able to catch her.What am I thinking, doing this?

She was immediately inside. It had been an office, one the size of a large closet. There was an improvised pallet of blankets and cardboard, a shelf made from blocks and old scrap wood with a few battered books and tchotchkes accumulated from living in absolute squalor – an unusual rock, a roll of toilet paper, some fragments of makeup, a mangled bar of soap. I could feel my heart breaking. She hadlivedhere.

I saw a crumpled box of supersaver cold medication, and wads of discarded tissue. The remnants of her sickness, she had almostdiedhere, too.

Sadie picked up a battered nylon backpack and unzipped it. She let out a sigh, and it seemed like she found what she was looking for. The irrational part of my mind surged with a twitch of adrenaline.Was there a gun in the bag?But I knew there wasn’t, she wasn’t the sort who would own a pistol, and given that she had dollar brand over-the-counter drugs, there was no way she could have bought or stolen one off the streets. Instead, she had a handful of film prints. She clutched them to her chest and almost gave a sob of relief.

“This was my family, my parents.” She held a picture out for me to see. They looked like almost any other family, which was expected. There were several Polaroids. “This was Kyle, back when he was a teen, and this was me. This one was both of us. You can tell it’s him because he wanted to look like he was too cool to have his picture taken.”

I laughed.

“This was Sister McDowell, she worked with me when I was still kicking around in the orphanage. I saw her a few times after that. She volunteers at the soup kitchen on Promenade Avenue, or she did.” She shuffled through several more picture. “This is Agnes, but she wanted us to call her Razor, because Agnes was an old woman’s name.” The girl had a bad dye job and cheap tattoos on her shoulder. She might have been pretty once.

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