When it's Safe to Die

Going back to Philips, I crouched before him, took his face in my hands so he could see my eyes good and proper.

"You do that to the girl?" I asked, turning his head so he could see. "Can't hear you."

I nodded his head up and down. "You sayin' you did?" His eyes grew wide in terror, trying to shake side to side, no. "Don't lie to me, fucker. Just say you did, and I might just go away."

I suddenly pistol whipped him, the metal butt a sharp crack on his cheek. "Or I might not."

I stomped down hard on his foot and he shrieked again.

"Ahh fuck, that's disgusting." I stepped back to avoid a trickle of piss that spread over his lap.

"I'll ask you again. Did you do that Miss Quinn? Because you see, I don't see anyone else here."

I waited, until eventually I heard a low moan. "I'll take that for a yes.

"And was it you, ordered some dumb punk to kill Milo? Because again, you see, I don't think you'd have the guts to do it yourself."

Again I waited, while he did his best to calculate the odds. Not that he was going to put money on a horse, more like money on his life.

I got bored with waiting, so pistol whipped him again. Something to do, to pass the time. Which was running out for Maven. I made up my mind, not needing much time to do that.

I looked around the room, looking for the heroin fit. The thought of horses... well, in the circumstances it seemed a natural connection.

I found it, found the spoon and the needle, and some skunk in a bag. I put my lighter under the spoon to cook it up.

I heard muffled sounds behind me, and turned around. Philips was frantically shaking his head side to side, his eyes wide. What the fuck did he want?

I pulled the cloth from his mouth so he could speak. "What's with the noise?" I asked, taking a guess already.

"I don't use," he croaked, flailing his head side to side.

"You don't use? Well, that's a fucking shame." I leaned down to whisper in his ear, our little secret. "A real fucking shame. Because I doubt Miss Quinn used either, before you came along. What ya do, fuck her while she was stoned, unconscious?

"Ahh, fuck, will you stop doing that." The little turd nearly got my shoes this time. "Jesus, you got no self control?"

I finished cooking up the hit, and pulled it into the needle. It turned a pretty pink with what must have been Maven's blood. "Will ya look at that, ain't that pretty?"

Philips didn't think so, but I'd never cared much for what he thought.

I grabbed his arm just below the elbow and squeezed it tight instead of a tourniquet, waited till a vein thickened on the back of his hand, and slid the needle into it.

I thought for a second of leaving him like that, to scare him within an inch of his life. But then I remembered I didn't like tan and white shoes, and emptied the syringe.

"You shoulda got a new cobbler when I told you, and you want to hope this stuff's clean."

I watched as the dope hit him, not caring much how long he'd stay alive.

I shrugged, turned my back on him, and went to Maven, picking her up in my arms. "Come on honey, let's get you to the turkey farm. Get you off this stuff."

Five minutes later she was in the back of my car, and I drove on out of the gate. I drove a few minutes, my eyes up and down to the mirror. Satisfied I was alone on the road, I turned the headlights on, and started to make up a story.

By the time I got her to the hospital, even I believed my own bull-dust. I carried her into the building.

"This girl got mixed up in bad company in a party down Venice Beach, where some asshole left her. I found her when walking my dog."

"You expect us to believe that, Dan?" Captain Simmons asked, a couple of days later. "Seems to me there's a connection to my new case. Funny thing though, the crime site's nowhere near Venice Beach."

"Don't give a fuck where your crime site is. That's where I found her."

He looked at me and nodded. "Uh huh. Long way to go to walk a dog."

"I don't own a dog."

"That's what I thought."

Cap'n Simmons looked at me, and I looked back at him. "And get your fucking car registered. Check the tires. Probably needs new ones."

"Jesus. Fucking Frankie. He swore I'd get five thousand mile on them. Fucking seconds!"

"Yeah. If you can't trust your mechanic, who can you trust?" He turned away, then turned back, lookin' at me with a question in his eyes.

"What?" I asked him.

"Why?"

"Why? Don't like tan and white shoes. What can I say?"

"Tan and white shoes, huh? Can't say I like them either." This time he lit a cigarette and touched his fingers to his cap in a quick salute.

"Catcha round, Dan. Next time, take up interior decoratin'. Much safer."

I laughed. "Yeah, a nurse told me that."

"Nurses are like your mamma. Do what they tell ya."

"She told me that, too."

* * * *

A couple of weeks later, Ruby came to see me.

"That little girl's clean, Dan, went cold turkey. Alexandra Cain, she runs a place protects women, you know, the beaten and battered. Maven ended up there. Kittie, she makes a good little nurse."

"She going to quit movies, Miss Quinn?"

"I think so. Get a job as a waitress, I'd say. Something safe."

We sat in a companionable silence. A while later, she lit another cigarette, then commented, "That Captain Simmons dropped by to give his condolences for Milo. He asked whether you have a dog."

"I don't have a dog."

"Yeah, that's what I told him."

She smoked a little bit longer. "Know anyone wants a DeSoto? I don't need Milo's car."

"I'll ask Frankie. He done me a good deal on new white-walls just the other day."

"Nice," she replied. "Flash."

"Hey, it's a good car, just needs constant love and attention."

"Yeah, there's people like that." She smiled, and God knows, I coulda got lost in that smile.

"I gotta go, Dan, it's been good knowing you," Ruby said, as she walked out the door. She turned back. "Sometimes, I think I shoulda had more brothers."

I nodded, back atcha, and watched Ruby's fine ass sway down the corridor, the cloth of the dress clinging to those slinking hips. She stood facing the elevator grill, waiting for it to clunk open. Once inside, she turned and looked back at me. She winked, then descended.

I looked in the desk drawer and found the check she had written, signed in a fine curlicue, Ruby Jones. I turned it over, just the once, then tore it up, dropping the pieces into the waste paper bin.

She shoulda had a sister. Two dames like Ruby would have passed the time better than a burger on a Tuesday afternoon.

I got up to kick the door shut.

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