She heard footsteps behind her. She thought about what she’d told Leigh—I’ll put myself in an obvious place.
If Andrew Tenant sent someone to look for Callie, there was one obvious place to find her.
“Well fuck me in the face.”
Callie turned back around.
Phil stood on the other side of the screen door. She hadn’t changed since Callie was in diapers. Thin and rangy like an alley cat. Eyes rimmed dark like a startled raccoon’s. Teeth sharp and fanged like a porcupine. Nose as red and distended as a menstruating baboon’s ass. A baseball bat was propped against her shoulder. A cigarette dangled from her mouth. Her rheumy eyes went from Callie down to the carrier. “What’s the cat called?”
“Stupid Cunt.” Callie forced a smile. “Stunt for short.”
Phil leveled her with a look. “You know the rule, smart ass. You can’t stay at my house unless you’re funding me, feeding me, or fucking me.”
The three Fs. They had been raised on the rule. Callie kicked off her sneaker. The folded twenties waved like an invitation.
The bat was returned to its spot. The screen door opened. Phil grabbed the sixty bucks. She asked, “You got more in your cooch?”
“Stick your hand down there if you want.”
Phil squinted as smoke curled into her eye. “I don’t want none of your lesbian shit while you’re staying here.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Tuesday
6
To her great disappointment, Callie was not afforded a moment of disorientation when she woke up in her old bedroom inside of her mother’s house. Everything was instantly familiar: the caustic bite of salt in the air, the gurgle of aquarium filters, the chirping of many birds, a dog snuffling outside her locked bedroom door. She knew exactly where she was and why she was there.
The question was, how long would it take Andrew’s detective to figure out the same?
From Leigh’s description of Reggie Paltz, the guy would stick out in the ’hood as bad as an undercover cop. If Reggie was stupid enough to knock on her mother’s front door, Phil could be relied upon to show him the thick end of her baseball bat. But Callie was fairly certain it would not go down that way. Reggie would be under strict orders to stay in the shadows. Andrew Tenant had come at Leigh straight on, but Leigh wasn’t his main target. Buddy’s son was not paying homage to his father’s murder by wrapping cling film around his victim’s heads. He was using a cheap kitchen knife, the same type of knife Callie had used to mortally wound his father.
Which meant that whatever game Andrew was playing, Callie was more than likely the prize.
She blinked up at the ceiling. Her old poster of the Spice Girls stared back, the ceiling fan protruding from between Geri Halliwell’s legs. Callie let a few lines of “Wannabe” run through her head. The great thing about being an addict was that it taught you how to compartmentalize. There was heroin, and then there was everything else in the world that didn’t matter because it was not heroin.
Callie clicked her tongue in case Binx was awaiting an invitation on the other side of the cat door. When the animal did not appear, she levered herself up in the bed, feet going down to the floor as her shoulders went upright. The sudden change in orientation dropped her blood pressure. She felt dizzy and nauseous and, suddenly, her bones were itching to the marrow. She sat there, investigating the early symptoms of withdrawal. Cold sweat. Aching bowels. Pounding head. Untamed thoughts nagging her skull like a beaver gnawing on a tree.
The backpack was leaning against the wall. Callie was on her knees, on the floor, without a second thought. She made quick work of finding the syringe in her dope kit, locating the nearly full vial of methadone. The entire time she set up the shot, her heart begged with every beat needle-needle-needle.
Callie didn’t bother to search for a vein in her arms. There was nothing left to use. She slid across the floor, sitting in front of the full-length mirror on the back of her closet door. She used her reflection to locate her femoral vein. Everything was backward, but Callie easily adapted. She watched her reflection as the needle slipped into her leg. The plunger pressed down.
The world got softer—the air, the gurgling sounds, the hard edges of the boxes scattered around the room. Callie let out a long breath as she closed her eyes. The darkness inside her eyelids turned into a plush landscape. Banana trees and dense forest peppering a mountain range. On the horizon, she saw the gorilla waiting for the methadone wave to break.
That was the problem with a maintenance dose. Callie could still feel everything, see everything, remember everything. She shook her head, and like a View-Master, she clicked to another memory.