“Let's go,” he said, moving to the door and leaving me to follow.FourteenBreakerI was half-surprised when her place hadn't been ransacked. And when the surprise wore off, worried. It should have been torn apart. Whatever the fuck Lex had planned for Alex, it should have involved going through her shit, figuring her out. The fact that he hadn't done that was yet another thing in a long list of things that just didn't make sense.
Alex didn't seem phased by it as she went right to her closet and dragged out a large black duffel bag and started stuffing clothes into it.
I looked around her place again, this time able to take my time, see it with clearer eyes.
She really didn't have shit. No pictures. No knickknacks. No art or books. Nothing that would let you know who she was underneath it all. I wondered fleetingly if she even knew who that person was.
“How bad is the Chinese below?” I asked, thumbing through one of her coded notebooks.
“Bad. But I've had worse,” she said, grabbing a handful of bras out of her dresser.
“You ain't gonna need those,” I said, nodding to her hand. “I'm gonna go grab some food. Not that your burnt toast wasn't delicious, doll, but I need real food.”
“Ha ha,” she said, taking the bras and stuffing them into her bag regardless of my having no intentions of letting her wear them. “What? You're not even going to ask me what I want?” she asked, sounding genuinely annoyed at the idea as I stood in the doorway.
“Figured I'd get a bunch of shit to share.”
“What if I didn't like what you ordered?” she asked, putting her hands to her hips.
“Are we seriously arguing about fuckin' Chinese food?”
“It's more your presumptuousness that's the issue.”
She could argue about anything. Heatedly. I knew if I didn't give in that we were gonna go a couple rounds. For no good fuckin' reason. That was just how she was. And if it wasn't so fuckin' hot, I would probably find it annoying. “Fine, doll. What do you want to eat?”
At this, she dropped her hands from her hips and shrugged. “I'll eat anything.”
It was so ridiculous and unexpected, I found myself throwing my head back and laughing. “You fuckin' serious?” I asked through it. “You bitch at me about not asking you what you want when you don't give a fuck what I order?”
“Like I said... it was the principle of the thing.”
Jesus Christ.
She was a fuckin' nut.
But I walked down the fire escape smiling.
I was watching the people behind the counter load up the brown bag with soy sauce and mustard packets when my cell rang. The sound immediately filled me with dread. I had no other jobs going on. And while it wasn't uncommon to get a call about a new one, they usually began with a tentative text with a passcode first so they knew it was really me before they got me on the phone.
I reached for it and hit the call button.
“Yo.”
“Breaker,” Lex's slimy voice met my ear and confirmed the churning feeling in my gut.
“Lex,” I said back, sounding bored though the blood was whooshing in my ears.
“How is my girl holding up?”
Fuck. This was shaky ground. There was a chance I was being watched so I couldn't lie. But it also didn't look good that I was parading around with her not cuffed or looking the least bit disheveled. Hell, when we left my place, she looked freshly fucked and contented.
“Pain in my ass. Demanding I take her back to her place to get her a change of clothes.”
“Gotta love a girl with spirit,” he remarked making my lip snarl up. He liked girls with spirit because he enjoyed breaking them. Sick fuck.
“Why you calling Lex?” I asked, handing cash to the girl with the food.
“Keeping an eye on my investment.”
“Investment?” I repeated, taking the bag of food and walking to the door, stepping onto the sidewalk.
“Yes. I have plans for her.”
“Enough with the fuckin' code, man. What do you want?”
“I need you to bring Miss. Miller to my office tomorrow.”
Shit.
“Which office?” I asked, knowing this made a big difference to Alex's fate.
“Oscar Street,” he answered immediately.
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
“What time?”
“Eleven.”
“Be there,” I said, hanging up before I could say what I was really thinking.
Namely, that I should take Alex and get the fuck out of dodge.
Lex had a number of offices in a number of locations. There were the ones he called you to to discuss new business deals. Offices with a desk and bookshelves and a sidebar full of nice liquor. Then there were the 'offices' that were cheaply decorated in the front room because the meeting was really taking place in the back and it usually meant a lot of your blood would be washed down the drains in the floor.
Oscar Street was one of the office fronts.
And if he was being smart (which he usually was), there were eyes on me. There would be no running off.
I made my way back up the fire escape with a pit in my stomach, opening the door and freezing.
Alex was standing in front of her desk, piling the notebooks into a cardboard box. She had changed into a pair of light wash skinny jeans and a purple long sleeved t-shirt. And a bra, I noticed with a smirk. But that wasn't what had me pausing.
It was that she was singing.
A slow, somber song that was about smiling when your heart was breaking. I had a vague memory of it playing on some oldies station when I was growing up. But whoever I had heard singing it didn't do it justice. Something about it coming from Alex's lips, her voice a smooth, crooning sound, had the words landing heavy in my chest. She had a great voice. But it wasn't that. It was seeing the Alex behind the walls and fences for a moment- soft and sweet and unprotected- that had my breath getting caught.
“Oh,” she said, turning her head to find my standing there. A blush crept up on her cheeks and she doubled her efforts to get her packing done, pretending it took all of her concentration. “I'm almost ready.”