“Pardon?”
“Are you looking at the flowers in the traffic circle?” she asked. “I water them sometimes.”
She walked toward me. Closer. Then closer. She had put on a long-sleeved magenta rayon shirt that seemed to change in the light, and a pair of khakis that had pockets all over them, and unzipped soft-leather, half-topped boots with white socks that a little girl might wear. I stepped backward.
“Hold still,” she said, her eyes a few inches from mine. She peeled the bandage halfway off my skin and kissed the stitched star-shaped puncture that Original Sin had left with his horn. She smoothed the gauze and tape back into place. She had brushed her teeth or used mouthwash; her eyes were hazy, iniquitous.
“You use redwings?” I said.
“Is that what you call them here?”
“They’ll melt your head,” I said.
“You like me?”
“Sure,” I said.
“How much?”
“I came to see you, didn’t I?”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t think you have any other friends. Because I wanted to help Detective Jenks.”
She leaned forward and put her mouth on mine. I stepped backward, knocking into the table.
“Don’t worry,” she said.
“About what?”
“What you’re thinking.” She picked up her bag, disconcerted. “If you didn’t have a girlfriend, maybe it’d be different. The French call it a transition, from the mother to the girlfriend. Why were you looking in my bag?”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t lie, Aaron. You wonder why I carry a gun?”
“No,” I lied.
“Grady’s father committed three million to a consortium. It’s bottled up in banks somewhere. That money was not only pledged, it’s already been spent on two casinos under construction. You think the guys in Kansas City and Chicago are going to let a spoiled shit like Grady keep it?”
“What does that have to do with you?” I asked.
“I’m supposed to get it back.”
“With your looks and brains, Miss Cisco, you could be a movie star. Why do you hang around with troglodytes?”
“Because I don’t want acid thrown in my face.”
I tried to follow her logic and my head began hurting. She brushed the hair out of my eyes, studying my features as though putting makeup on someone. It was obvious that I would n
ever understand her frame of reference or the world she lived in. “I think I should leave, Miss Cisco.”
“You can drive my Rocket 88, every teenage boy’s wet dream. I think I’ll put back the seat and sleep. I’m not myself right now.”
“Why are we going to this Farmacia place?”
“It’s where I get well. I need you to help me. Don’t argue.”