Free Form Jazz. Lee Lamothe

Well, go see that guy, not the redhead guy or the mooch, but the other fuck, the first fuck, you know?” She steered the Intrepid into an illegal left under the Interstate, ignoring a cloud of horns. “It’s a wonder how those mutts get anything done, how they understand each other.”

      “So,” Ray Tate was laughing, “this chick.”

      “Right. I’m back at the Hauser South building a couple days later and she comes creeping out the fire door. I bag her. She’s really afraid, Ray, she pissed herself. Turns out the guy she works for won’t let her go outside, keeps her in a stash house on the fifth floor. That’s why she rolled so quick for me when I grabbed her up at the pharmacy. She doesn’t mind going in the bucket for a few nights, waiting for a bail hearing, but if the guy she works for finds out she went out, well, not pretty, she said.”

      “You think she’s up there, now?”

      “Dunno. Anyways, we’re talking and I see she’s jittering, so I say, out of the blue, So where’s this super lab you were talking about the other day, that punches out of the double Cs? Fuck, she said, I told you about that? He’s gonna kill me. She started crying and shaking. Oh, God, he’s gonna pack me to death.”

      “Pack?”

      “She didn’t want to talk about it. This is three days ago. I tell her that each day, right about now, she should come down to the fire door, we’ll talk if I can make it, if she can make it. I missed the past couple of days, but I think now’s the time.”