Page 59 of Slow Burn

He gave her an address out in the ’burbs, a long cold bus ride. She wrote it on the back of her hand next to the smudged telephone number and chewed her lip some more, winced when a cut opened and she tasted blood.

“Yeah, okay, it’ll take a while. Like, a couple hours. Okay?”

“I ain’t going anywhere. Come on down.” Bradshaw sounded friendlier now, like a tamed bear. “Got a pot of coffee with your name on it.”

“Long as, you got a check with my name on it.”

“We’ll discuss it.” He hung up without any good-byes, which was fine; she felt warm and fuzzy enough. Whoever Mr. Dimple was, fuck him. If he came back, she’d get some more cash out of him, even if she had to do him a favor or two.

Things were starting to look up for her, she decided, and gave the two teenaged boys another smile. The taller one wandered over, deliberately casual.

“You waiting for somebody?” he asked. She lifted an eyebrow. Under the glasses, her eyes were still puffy and red, but what the hell, the only thing he was going to care about was her mouth.

“Why honey,” she purred, and linked her arm in his. “I was waiting for you. How about your friend? Might as well make it a party.”

Might as well. She didn’t intend to make her money back one blow job at a time, but, hell, she had to start someplace.

And the bus would be late. It always was.

The offices of theBig D Gazettehad an office-supply-warehouse feel—assemble-them-yourself desks, cheap bookcases that leaned forward like vultures, computers that looked put together from garage sales and public auctions. None of the chairs matched. Most of the desks were empty—and too clean.

“What happened?” Velvet sidestepped a dented trash can and waved a hand at the empty bullpen. Lenny Bradshaw—who turned out to be tuberculosis-victim thin, pencil-necked, and a big fan of garlic and Old Spice—shrugged slumped shoulders. He had on paisley suspenders, a blue-striped shirt, and a polka-dot bow tie, a man in terminal pattern indecision.

“You know. The usual.”

Cutbacks? Mass cult suicide? Ptomaine? She hadn’t seen any funeral wreaths on the door, but there hadn’t been a receptionist, either.

“Okay, Miss—what’s your name again?”

“Velvet.”

“Velvet.” His voice turned nasal and snide. She knew the tone, knew without looking that he’d be staring down her cleavage, except that Robby’s L.L. Bean wardrobe didn’t give that kind of view, not without a lot of work. “Yeah. So, you want to tell me what happened at the hotel?”

“Gee, Lenny—may I call you Lenny?—I’d love to, only I got this problem.” She seated herself in the chair he waved at, leaned over, and rested her elbows on his desk. It was clean, too—not ex-employee clean, but not-much-to-do clean. “See, I need money. That’s why I just took a long boring bus ride to get here.”

He coughed in her direction, a wet rattle that smelled like a six-day-full Dumpster. She’d bought a trial-sized bottle of Listerine and gargled at the bus stop—just to get the taste of the condoms out of her mouth. She thought about offering the bottle to Bradshaw.

“Ah.” He tapped a sharp-pointed pencil on a clean pad of paper. The eraser had never been used. “Well, why don’t you just let me be the judge of that.”

“Hey. Buddy.” Velvet pressed her hands flat against the desktop and stood up to lean over him. He either had a dandruff problem, or it had started snowing outside while she wasn’t looking. “Let’s get something straight. I’ll deliver. I … always … deliver.”

She used the patented Ming low-octave purr in the last of it, saw it register in his eyes. The pencil stopped tapping.

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat, “Yeah, I can see that. Tell you what, I got five hundred bucks that says—”

“Let me see it.”

He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a ragged cigar box. He flashed it open, showing an equally ragged stack of bills.

“Count it.”

Bradshaw’s eyes were a washed-out brown, squinty and tired.

“Count it,” she said again, very quietly. “Or I walk right out the door.”

“Cocky bitch,” he muttered, and slammed the lid back on the box. He laid out twenties, old and used, in stacks of five. At five stacks, he’d emptied the box. “Satisfied?”

“I believe in total quality management. I’m never satisfied.” She grinned when his eyes started to narrow more. “Forget it. We’re cool.”

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