Page 10 of Fixer
“Whoof.”I snorted.“That’s foul.”
“Yeah.Bastard’s going to pay for making me inhale this.”He soaked the rag and passed it to me.“Get to work.”
“Yes, boss.”I started at one end of the foul word and he started at the other.The red came off well enough to blur the effect into a rusty blob.Several residents came home as we were working and called, “Hey, Wade,” and “Thanks, Mr.McKinley,” as they passed into the building.
“They don’t seem surprised to see you doing this.”
“I’m the unofficial superintendent.Mr.Owens is the guy who gets the free rent for the title, but he’s eighty-some years old.I help him out.”
“You’re a giving man,” I said with just a hint of sarcasm.Then under my breath, “Or you like protecting your territory enough to work without pay.”
Wade elbowed me, making me stagger, and snickered at my lack of balance.That was the first casual touch I’d had from him, and I hid my grin.
Once the wall was as clean as it was going to get, we tossed the rags into the dumpster and went back upstairs.Wade still had me go ahead of him, but he didn’t stick as close to my heels.He suggested food, and we shared sandwiches and finished off the milk from his fridge.The photos of Shawn lay spread out on the table, and Wade periodically gazed at them as if to be reassured he wasn’t having dinner with the devil himself.
By the time we were done, full darkness had fallen, but enough people were still on the move to make travel as a wolf dangerous.I ran through ideas about how to start a conversation.Ask him about the last seven years?Tell him about mine?Before I had an opening chosen, he went to his bookcase, took down a battered paperback, sat in a chair, and pointedly began reading.
Okay, then.I went and scanned the titles on his shelf— two rows of well-worn mysteries and SciFi.Several I’d read, and the thought we had those tastes in common went on my “good signs” list.I took down a cozy mystery about a Jewish rabbi involved in murder, and tried to give my attention to the pages.
Around two a.m., Wade set his book aside, rose, and peered out the window.I made my way to his side.“What do you think?”
“Pretty quiet.”He cupped his hands around his face against the glass to see better, peering down toward the street, then went and turned out the overhead light.I blinked in the dimness.When he pulled the curtains shut, the room became even darker, just the jar of phosphorescent paint emitting a feeble glow.
“All right.Stay there.”Wade pointed at my feet on the floor.“Do not move.I’ll be back.”He set down the stained towel and spread on a little of the paint, making the terrycloth folds glow, the rising scent odd but not nearly as bad as the turpentine.Then he yanked off his T-shirt.
I swear I didn’t make a sound when his lean, well-muscled chest and flat stomach came into view, but perhaps my heart rate accelerated.Wade flicked a frown my way, backed up a step, and his nostrils flared.“I’m gonna go shift now.”Whirling, he headed into his bedroom and clicked a lock.A scraping sound followed.Furniture against the door?Was that panic over being naked around a gay man, or fear of vulnerability mid-shift?In the pack, we watched out for each other when shifting, because a wolf in mid-shift was unable to defend himself.Surely, that’s all this is.
After a couple of minutes, I heard a growl and more scraping, followed by a thump on the door.Several thumps.A scratch.More scratching, as the door jiggled in its frame.Is he stuck, not being able to unlock the door?He’s probably never bothered to lock it before.I was tempted to go and let him out.I had lock picks in my pocket, and a bedroom door was no kind of challenge, but that wouldn’t endear me to him.I stayed put, and after another minute and a jumble of sounds, the door swung open.
Wade stalked out in fur, his wolf more filled out than he’d been the last time I saw him, but still near-black with those pale blue eyes.He gave me a cool stare, chin up, as if daring me to comment about the lock problem.I said nothing, and after a couple of seconds, he went over to the paint glowing on the towel and rubbed his cheeks and shoulders in it.
When he rose back to his feet, I whistled.“That’s something else.No wonder there’s a legend.”I fetched the pink spray paint.“Leave by the door or fire escape?”
He swung his head toward the bedroom, so I dropped a cloth over the glowing paint pot, and in the near-darkness, we went into his room.I eased the windowpane open.Soft, cool air flowed into the apartment.No one seemed to be about, so I slipped out onto the platform and began my descent, one careful foot at a time.Wade followed, every move of his wide paws deliberate, showing he’d done this often.I bypassed the dumpster, lowering myself and dropping silently to the pavement, and Wade leaped down with just a little stagger on the landing.
Once we reached the sidewalk, I kept back in the shadows while Wade slunk around to where he’d scented the trail of our graffiti painter.He took another brief sniff with his sharper wolf nose, then hurried off along the street, picking up his pace.I jogged after him, trying to move softly even though my caution meant I was falling behind.
At the end of the block, Wade paused in the shadows under a stoop till I got close.Once I was ten feet away, he darted across the open road, sniffed around, and turned right.His paint-daubed fur glimmered in the dimness and I wondered if any of the tenants might glance out and see the ghost wolf going by, but no one shouted.No one came out to look more closely.
Two larger buildings farther on, Wade turned into the alley, and I followed as discreetly as I could.He reached a storage shed, a rickety wooden structure perhaps fifteen feet wide with a sloped metal roof and locked door, and stopped there.I could hear his breath huff as he sniffed along the crack at the bottom, then he hooked his front claws under the door and tugged.
“Shh,” I murmured, hurrying over to him.“Let me.”The shed lock was no challenge for my picks either, and a moment later, I eased the door open.Most of the floor space held bicycles, most further protected by its own chain or lock.Many of the bikes were old enough to be pretty poor targets for theft, but in this neighborhood, caution was probably good.
Wade sniffed among them.Reaching a black bike with a banana seat, he let out a near-subliminal growl and bit a chunk out of the seat cushion.
“That one, huh?”I went over and deployed the pink paint, spraying the handlebars and the damaged seat.As the unpleasant odor of the paint filled the air, I sneezed, then contemplated the chain and gears.“You know, paint in the gears would gum this thing up good.”
That got me a whine and headshake from Wade.I wondered why, but this was his neighborhood.Maybe too much retribution would backfire, or maybe the graffiti creep smelled like a younger boy.
“Let me at least give them notice that we could’ve done worse.”I sprayed one pink splotch on the base of a pedal and another on the center of the gears.“Okay.”
Wade backed out of the shed, his glowing ruff vanishing from sight around the door.
I followed him, pulled the door shut, and used my picks to relock it.“Locked door mystery, right?Helps the ghost story.”
With a tiny chuff, Wade turned for home.We’d taken five steps when the back door of the building opened.I had just enough time to duck into a shadowed spot and crouch.Wade was caught as a man stepped out with his black-and-tan guard dog.
The man said, “Now go— Holyshit!”He goggled at Wade, then told his Doberman, “Get it, Luger!Kill!”The dog leaped off the step.
