Page 7 of Slow Burn

For a second the world tilted, and Robby was back in a Dublin train station, and the words were something she’d said as she’d reached out to her father for the last time. She took Velvet’s arm more gently than she’d meant to.

“Okay,” she heard herself say. “Okay. Just bequiet.”

Behind her she heard car doors slam, and looked around at an approaching Dallas cop; his face had a wary thousand-yard stare. His partner waited behind the wheel of the cruiser, looking a little too interested. A white flash of panic zigzagged painfully through her body.

Easy. Easy.She found a smile somewhere, shook out the wrinkles, and put it on for him.

No matching smile, no change in his eyes, nothing at all.

“Having some trouble?” he asked. Robby felt the hooker’s weight start to drag at her arm and held her up in a grip strong enough to leave bruises.

“Well … sir, it’s kind of embarrassing—” Robby tried a blush; that seemed to work better than the smile. She avoided his eyes and talked to his name tag, HARTZ. There was a thick fingerprint on its shiny gold surface. “Ah—my friend just had a few too many, officer. I’m walking her home.”

“What’s your friend’s name?” HARTZ asked. The name tag shifted, and she caught a glimpse of her own startled face, brown eyes wide and earnest.You’re trying too hard, she told herself.Relax.

What thehellwas the hooker’s name? Silk?

“Velvet,” she heard herself say. “I’m sorry we were causing trouble, sir, but I’m just taking her one more block.”

The cop’s chest moved calmly, in and out. She risked a look at his face. He was bored. His eyes had already moved on, checking the street.

“One more block to where?”

“Home. Her home.”

God, now he’d ask her where home was, and she didn’t know, couldn’t even find anything that looked like a home. Stores. Parking lots. Warehouses. Oh, god, she couldn’t point out the warehouse, not to save her life. Panic tried to rise again; she fought it down and waited, waited.Please…

The next time she felt the cold touch of the cop’s gaze, she raised her chin and met it squarely.

“I’m very sorry for the trouble, officer,” she said. He had light blue eyes, tired, cool, suspicious. His smile was tight and unconvincing. He nodded and stepped back.

“Go on, ma’am.”

Robby tugged the hooker’s arm to get her moving, and they stumbled away. Behind her, she knew he was turning to track them.

Once she heard the door slam and the car pull away, she allowed herself one quiet whispered curse. It sounded shaky. She looked over at Velvet, who was pasty and wide-eyed and very, very quiet. The hooker concentrated on walking, one careful step after another.

Neither of them had anything to say.

“Wow!” The hooker’s voice echoed loudly in the silence. “Wow, big. Big. Really—big.”

On the whole, Robby had liked her better scared. She let go of the hooker’s arm and pulled the door shut behind her with a gritty scrape of rusted hinges. The little sunlight coming through the high dirty windows streaked over the floor, but kept most of the warehouse in shadow. It smelled dirty and stale.

“Why’re we here?” the hooker continued. She hugged her mink closer. “’S cold.”

“Quiet.” Robby flicked on a row of overhead lights; they made patches of watery gray in the darkness, enough to see by, barely. Acres of concrete floor, pitted and cracked, covered with broad sweating patches of dirty oil, stretched into shadow. “What’d you do with your shoes?”

“Shoes?” Velvet repeated blankly, and looked down. “Oh. Dunno.”

They were sticking out of her coat pockets. Robby rescued them and handed them over; Velvet dropped them with a clatter, frowned, and aimed her right foot at her left shoe and kicked it across the grimy floor. She went after it, padding right over a big oily stain. Once she’d captured it, she sat down on the floor to put it on; her face turned tragic when she realized she’d left the right shoe ten feet away.

Robby gave up on her and crossed to a corrugated tin door some nonspeller had spray painted to read NO ADMITENCE, knocked twice, and waited. Psycho Jim opened the door, a wild-haired wino stinking of cheap booze and clothes that had been left to ripen in a landfill. She handed him the briefcase, and his face relaxed.

“Jesus, kid, I was getting worried,” he said, his low voice a quiet rumble. He looked over her shoulder, and his face went blank. “Who the hell—”

“She’s with me,” Robby said. Jim transferred the blank look to her. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“You—didn’t—” He stared at her another few seconds, shook his head, and stepped back. “Come in, if you’re coming. Bring her.”

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