“What a waste,” he says. “I thought you’d do something with those tits at least—so much better than I expected, once I got them out. You never know what you’ll find . . . flat as a board under a push-up bra, or a pussy that looks like a handful of roast beef.” He laughs crudely. “Sometimes though . . . sometimes it’s better than you hoped. Sometimes it’s near perfect . . .”
“Not my type,” I repeat dismissively.
His face darkens.
“The fuck she wasn’t. You did something with her before you tossed her down the shaft.”
I hesitate a fraction of a second, puzzled by Shaw’s words.
I didn’t put the girl down the mine shaft. I didn’t move her at all. But Shaw seems certain I did.
Mistaking my pause, Shaw chuckles. “I knew it. Tell me what you did to her.”
I rise from the table, setting down my glass.
Shaw is ravenous for details, his tongue darting out to moisten his lips. “Did she fight? She looked like the type to fight.”
“What was her name?” I ask him, “Do you know?”
Now he’s grinning, flushed with triumph. He really thinks he got me.
“Mara Eldritch,” he says.
Alastor rises in turn, walking around the kitchen island, rummaging in a drawer.
He pulls out a small plastic card, tossing it on the island so it slides across the polished marble, stopping right at the edge.
“I fucked her roommate in the stairwell. Stole her ID out of her wallet.”
I pick up the driver’s license of a voluptuous redhead with heavy-lidded eyes and a languorous smile. Erin Wahlstrom, 468 Frederick Street.
“I didn’t touch her,” Shaw says, his voice husky. “I left her fresh for you. As fresh as you can find one these days, when they’ll suck and fuck anything that walks. You don’t even have to buy them dinner anymore.”
His upper lip curls in disgust, both at the promiscuity of women and the loss of the challenge when hunting becomes too easy.
“Please don’t tell me you’re into virgins,” I scoff.
He really is so fucking cliché.
“Nah,” Shaw laughs. “I just don’t want to get crabs.”
I set the license back on the counter with a soft clicking sound.
I’m not interested in this confrontation with Shaw anymore. A much more pressing concern demands my attention.
I head toward the door, planning to leave without further comment.
But I can feel Alastor’s smug satisfaction radiating at my back. His happiness displeases me.
I pause by the doorway, turning once more.
“You know, Alastor,” I say. “The way you talk about these women . . . that’s exactly the way I feel about you. Your taste is horrendous. Just standing in this apartment makes me feel like I’ll catch herpes of the aesthetic.”
The smile drops off his face, leaving a vacant absence in its place.
It’s not quite enough.
Looking him dead in the eye, I make a promise:
“If we’re ever alone in a room again, only one of us will walk out breathing.”
The next morning I watch the front door of Erin Wahlstrom’s house. So much paint has peeled off the sagging row house that it’s difficult to tell if it was originally blue or gray. An obscene number of people seem to live inside, as evidenced by the lights that flick on as one by one the residents haul themselves out of bed. Half the windows are covered by sheets instead of proper blinds or, in one case, by a square of aluminum foil.
After a short interval, these residents begin exiting down the steep front steps, some wearing backpacks or shoulder bags, one trundling an oversized portfolio under his arm.
I see the voluptuous redhead, owner of the missing driver’s license. She shouts something back inside the house before hurrying down the steps, heading in the direction of the bus stop.
And then, when I think that must be all of them, the door opens once more.
Mara Eldritch steps onto the landing.
I’m seeing a ghost.
She was dying, almost dead. Bleeding out on the ground.
But there’s no mistaking the willowy frame, the long dark hair, the wide-set eyes. She’s wearing a heavy knit sweater that hangs down over her hands, covering any bandages that might remain on her arms. Beneath the sweater, a ragged pair of jeans and filthy, battered sneakers.
Did someone help her?
It seems impossible, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere.
How did she do it, then?
It was three miles to the nearest road. She couldn’t take three steps.