He checked out of his room, deciding against staying an extra night. Not a smart idea to make it easy for the authorities to find him, considering all the commotion.
He was carrying his duffel bag out to his car, when he heard something strange.
A thumping sound. Rhythmic. Like someone knocking.
It took him a minute to locate the sound. It was coming from the trunk of an Infiniti G35 in a bank parking lot twenty yards away. Unless the spare tire had magically come to life, which was unlikely, there was probably someone in there. And from the sound of the frantic knocking, that someone wanted out.
It took three swift kicks with his powerful legs before the trunk unlatched, yawing open.
A woman lay sprawled across the interior of the trunk. She was beautiful—curly, black hair, dark eyes, pale skin. A gag was jammed into her mouth. She wore only a nightgown, which hugged her ample br**sts and was riding up over a pair of very nice legs.
The night was looking up.
“Miss, is this your car?” Tequila asked.
She shook her head, slowly. He guessed she was drugged.
“Are you tied up and gagged in this truck because it’s something you enjoy doing?”
Another headshake, languid and slow.
“Do you need me to rescue you?” Tequila asked.
A half-speed, yet still emphatic nod.
“If I do rescue you, you want to go grab a bite to eat somewhere?”
She stared at him, eyes wide.
“Sorry. Hold on a second.” He undid her gag. “So, you interested? I save you, we go out?”
“Uh, sure,” she said, a slow smile creeping across her face.
Tequila figured it was heroin. He pulled a folding knife out of his chinos and cut her bindings. As he did, he noticed a butterfly tattoo on her hip.
Tequila held up his hand, which had a butterfly tattooed on the back. “I’m Tequila,” he said.
She giggled, high as a kite. “I’m Candi. With an I.”
“Are you a stripper, Candi?”
“I’ve done some dancing.”
“Do you like bikes?”
She swallowed. “I love them.”
“I’ve got a Harley softail and a pocketful of hundred dollar bills. Interested?”
Candi with an I nodded.
Tequila reached in and swept her out of the trunk.
She hugged him, hard.
“Thanks for saving me, Tequila.” She breathed hot into his ear. “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”
Yes, indeed, the night was definitely looking up.
The One That Didn’t
Michigan, 2004
Moni has the shakes. The shakes, and gut-wrenching nausea, and a jackhammer headache, and a dry, metallic taste in her mouth that makes her tongue seem twice as big. She looks down the alley, dark, wet, smelling like something died there, and doesn’t even hesitate to walk down it. She needs the fix so bad she’s come to this empty hull of a town just to get it.
How the f**k did I let this happen?
She’d been so good for a time. After she’d escaped that freak and his sick-ass video dungeon of horrors, Moni had gone legit. No more hooking. No more drugs. Moved out of the city, got a job at a health food store.
Out of the life. Respectable. Clean.
But the goddamn nightmares…
She shakes her head, as if that’s enough to rid it of the memories.
It isn’t.
She tried a free clinic, talking out her problems with some overworked shrink who got stuck doing community service. Was told she had post traumatic stress disorder, like soldiers get.
But knowing what her problem is doesn’t make the problem go away. Neither does the prescription shit the shrink told her to take.
Moni knows only one thing can dull the horror. Only one thing can wipe that freak’s leering face out of her head.
Glass crunches under the soles of her tennis shoes. Laces long since gone, the tread worn away. Above the stench of this alley, she smells something else—herself.
Something strange about knowing you’re at the low point of your life, and for her, that’s truly saying something.
But at least I’m not tricking.
And she could have. The motivation was there. So much easier to score a twenty-spot sucking some guy off for five minutes than stealing a purse. The one slung over her shoulder belonged to an eighty-year-old only four hours ago. She ripped it off the woman’s arm and sprinted off down the sidewalk. An older man had come after her, but he’d been too slow. She can still feel the burn from that run in the backs of her legs.
And the shame.
This is the last time. She keeps telling herself over and over and over, and she’s told herself this before, but it feels different this time.
One more high. One more fix.
And then she’s done.
She sees the fire in the oil drum up ahead, and her pulse accelerates.
Always a nervous proposition meeting a new dealer for the first time. And she certainly wouldn’t have chosen to come way out here into this veritable urban ghost town, but people don’t sell drugs in front of Gucci stores. A whore she’d shared needles with had recommended this place, saying it was the best.
Moni has her doubts. This town, like many others in Michigan, died years ago with the demise of the auto factories. The homes are all abandoned. The businesses all closed. The cops don’t bother patrolling, because there is nothing to protect and no one to serve.
Passing between the empty buildings, she slows her approach, wondering if she should make herself known.
“Hey!” she calls out to a black man leaning against the brick wall behind the oil drum.
He looks up from the cell phone in his hand and squints at her through the firelight, and the rising smoke between them.
“Hi, baby, you need something?”
“Yeah, looking for H. Can you help me?”
“Yeah, I got you. Come on. It’s aiight.”
Thank God.
Moni continues toward him, moving finally into the welcome heat of the fire.
The man is young, maybe nineteen, twenty tops, and he’s swallowed by a black down jacket.
“I need works too,” Moni says. In exchange for this address, she gave that whore her last syringe.
“Got all kinds of works for you, baby.” The man smiles, showing a gold tooth, but the smile isn’t for Moni. It’s for someone behind Moni.
She turns, senses suddenly on high alert, and sees two other guys strutting toward her. Black faces, black jackets, mean black eyes.
She’s seen eyes like this many times before. Knows with a sick, sinking feeling what’s happening.
“Look, uh, Jasmine sent me.” Moni hopes the girl’s name was Jasmine, but it dawns on her that it doesn’t matter. Jasmine didn’t send Moni here to score. She sent Moni here to get japped.