Page 20 of Slow Burn

“First of all, you have to understand, I don’t normally do this kind of thing. I’m new at it.” Velvet tapped long fingernails nervously on the table. The fallen-angel thing was always good with prep-school guys—that and cheerleader outfits. “Used to be a model, you know? But then I got too old. This date thing, this is pretty new to me.”

“You like it?” Bradshaw asked. She glanced up at him. His face was innocent and chubby-cheeked. “Just asking.”

“I like it okay. Most guys are nice enough.”

“How about Burt Marshall? Was he nice enough?”

She fought the urge to look away, because she just knew that if she did, she’d see Burt out of the corner of her eye, burnt red and black like Fong’s barbecued pork ribs.Oughta tell him he beat me, she thought.Oughta tell him about bruises and broken bones. Good copy.But she couldn’t lie like that, not for this little stack of bills.

“He was nice,” she said. “Nothing special. Never done him before, but yeah, he seemed pretty nice.”

“He has a wife and three kids out in Lakewood, did you know that?”

Time to look away, now. The street was safe, cars a bright smear of speed, a few pedestrians bundled in coats and scarves. Behind her, on the other side of the counter, Fong cursed his cook, a singsong wave of sound. The cook sang harmony.

She smelled something burning and closed her eyes, felt for her abandoned Ginseng Special and sipped half-heartedly. It tasted like old sweaty socks.

“Sex scandals make good copy. Did you have sex with him?”

“No.” A glance at his face warned her it was the wrong answer. “Well, yeah, sure. Took my clothes off. I was sucking his dick when it happened. Hey, can you print that? Sucking his dick?”

He looked uncomfortable, tapped his pen on the pad.

“We can call it engaging in oral sex.”

Velvet waited for him to break a grin, but he looked serious.

“So I was engaging in oral sex with the guy when he started burning. Poof.”

“Where did it start?” Lenny Bradshaw was studying her carefully, maybe wondering why her hair wasn’t burned off. She hadn’t thought of that. Wig. Yeah, she’d tell him she was wearing a wig, and the wig got burned.

“Jesus, I don’t know.” She rolled her bottle between two palms and thought about it. “His chest. Around his chest, I guess.”

“Was he smoking?”

“Like a sonofabitch.”

“No, I’m sorry, I meancigarettes.”

She shrugged and went back to staring out the window. Traffic was tying itself into a knot; the rumble of frustration came through the glass like airplane turbulence.

“I tried to help him, swear to God. Got water, tried to put it out, that kind of stuff. Then the alarm went off, and the sprinklers.”

Bradshaw made a littlemmm-hmmsound, one they probably taught in reporter school. He hadn’t made very many notes, she noticed. Mostly doodles. Did he think she couldn’t read upside down? Probably thought she couldn’t read, period.

“When you left, was he dead?” he asked. She snapped back around to look him in the eye. Cute little prep-school asshole, all smiles, just like the ones back home with their she’s-an-easy-lay grins. Some of it must have shown in her face, because he looked startled and a little ashamed.

“Ofcoursehe was dead, I wouldn’t leave him there like that if he wasn’t dead. Jesus.”

God, she hoped to hell he was dead. He had to have been dead. Why the hell would he ask something like that—unless Burt hadn’t been dead. Unless she’d left him there melted into the carpet like somebody else’s garbage, oh Jesus, no.

She couldn’t think about that. She just couldn’t.

He was doodling again, but stopped when she slammed her hand down over the page.

“Listen. I don’t know where the hell you got my name, but don’t use it. Don’t even use the initials, understand? You can call me Deep Fucking Throat or whatever you want, I don’t give a shit, but I got to protect myself.”

“My sources are always confidential,” he said, and looked pointedly at her hand covering his pad. She pulled it back. “So, um, what else?”

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