‘You’ll be thinking on it?’
I don’t say anything, because suddenly there is no air in the room. More than that, the room has become a vacuum, popping my ears and expanding my brain.
A metal tube. Glittery substance.
Detective Deacon is still talking. ‘Right, Dan? Yo, Danny boy. You’re gonna work with me on this?’
My fingers paw the desktop like a blind man’s, until I find the phone and cut Ronnie off.
I hate people calling me Danny boy. My father used to do that, and sing that goddamn dirge in pubs, though no one asked him.
‘I know you want to make changes, Dan,’ Brandi is saying, doing her best trailer-trash talk-show spiel. ‘I know that and I respect you for it. But I think, if you look inside yourself, you’ll find that you’re still in shock over Connie. She never went in the booth, so now you’re gonna shut the booth down. See what I’m saying?’
Brandi’s six-inch heels are in my face. Her trademark Catwoman boots. I’ve seen her kick sparks from the pavement with those boots.
She picks at a tiny square of body glitter on her forearm.
‘I hate to speak ill of the dead, Dan. But that girl’s morals were costing us all money. Hell, we lost a dozen high-rollers last month because little virgin Connie didn’t want any hands on her ass. My tips were way down. And I need my tips. Cat’s gotta have her cream.’
The phone is still at my ear, beeping. I can’t seem to remember where it should go.
‘I ain’t missing her. None of the girls are.’
I can see how it happened. They met in the parking lot, words were exchanged. Connie and Brandi differed on how the job should be done. Things got heated. Maybe a slap turned into a tussle. Connie went down and Brandi put her heel through Connie’s forehead. She’s capable of it; God knows she’s capable.
It’s true. My gut knows it.
I stare at Brandi’s heels, mesmerised. They are shining and wicked. After the deed was done, Brandi stood at the door beside me building her alibi. Hell, she probably had blood on her if anyone bothered to look.
‘So come on, Dan. What do you say to a little action in the booth? I’ll give you a free taste.’
The heel glints, and I see in the centre a tiny perfect circle of dried blood. Could be mud, coffee, anything.
It’s blood, I swear I can smell it.
Jason puts his head around the door. He’s half apologetic, half smiling.
‘Boss, we got a lady outside, looks like Material Girl Madonna. Got a casserole for you, says she’s your wife. You want me to show her the door?’
I can’t talk. Can’t say a word. I shake my head to defer the decision.
Brandi doesn’t want her meeting hijacked. ‘So, Dan? Is the booth back in business? You want me to slide under that desk?’
I keep shaking.
Brandi killed Connie.
‘Should I bring her through? She’s pretty hot, boss. And that casserole smells amazing.’
I manage one word.
‘Just . . .’
‘What, Dan?’
‘Just throw her out, boss?’
I try again. ‘Just . . .’
Brandi is doing a few slinky dance moves. ‘Just do it, Dan. Give me five minutes.’
‘Bring her in? Throw her out? Keep the food though, right?’
‘Just wait!’ I shout. ‘Just wait a goddamn second.’
The handset is still beside my ear, and suddenly the beeping is replaced by a familiar voice.
That bitch murdered me, says Ghost Connie. She made orphans out of my Alfredo and Eva.
No. Not another one. I slam the phone into its cradle. Not another ghost, no way.
I want to go back in time. I want to steal apples from an orchard in Blackrock and eat them with my little brother on the beach. I want to count the new stars as they switch on and stay out until we’re sure Daddy is passed out drunk.
Connie. Beautiful Connie. Brandi deserves to be dropped in the river.
The look on Brandi’s face tells me I’ve said this out loud. She wants to laugh, but is afraid to.
‘Who’s going in the river, Dan? Not me, right? All I want to do is sell a few hand-jobs. That’s not a crime, is it?’
I try to speak calmly. ‘Jason, please bring Mrs Delano to the back room, tell her I’ll be with her in a minute. Brandi, stay where you are. You take one step towards the door and I swear to Christ you’ll regret it.’
‘But Dan . . .’
I am not in the mood for argument, so I simply take my gun from the drawer and place it on the desk. It’s a clear message, hard to misinterpret, but Jason does anyway.
‘Hey, come on, boss. Guns all of a sudden? Did Mike initiate you into the gang? What, you got a shamrock tattoo now?’
It’s a tense situation, so I say something to Jason that I regret before the echo fades. ‘Get out, Jason. Go give Marco a cuddle.’
Brandi shrieks with joy. ‘Finally. Zing. Fuck you, Jason. Tough guy.’
Jason gives me a look like I shot his puppy and I feel like I’ve turned into my own father. He closes the door softly and I start figuring how I’m going to make it up to him. A weekend in Atlantic City at least.
‘The elephant has left the room,’ Brandi crows, her legs doing a little scissors kick on my desk. ‘You need to get rid of that faggot, Danny. He’s bad for business.’
This switches my attention back to her and gives me a nice segue.
‘Like Connie was bad for business?’ I say this ominously, but Brandi’s self-preservation cat sense is switched off.
‘No, not really. I’d say Jason would have no problem with some guy licking his ass. I’d say that’s exactly the kind of thing he’d have zero problem with.’
‘So, you’d get rid of him?’
Brandi winks, her eyelid heavy with crusted glittering eyeshadow. ‘Toss that boy on the street. Marco too. We gotta make some business decisions.’
‘Like you got rid of Connie?’
I don’t expect Brandi to fall into that trap, and she doesn’t, but her eyes give her away. It’s not much, just a quick flicker, but I notice.
‘Got rid of Connie?’ she says, haltingly, drawing her boots off the desk.
This to me seems like a crucial moment in the development of this whole confrontation. For some reason I absolutely believe that if Brandi gets her boots off the surface of Vic’s desk (my desk) then I have lost whatever upper hand I had, which was pretty crappy in the first place.
So Brandi is pulling her boots away from me, knees up around her pirate earrings, but she doesn’t move fast enough. I reach out and grab her right ankle and squeeze it till the patent leather squeaks, which kinda sucks the gravity from the moment.
‘This smells clean,’ I say, gritting my teeth with the effort of holding on to the boot and carrying on a conversation. ‘Real clean. I bet you used a whole pack of antiseptic wipes on this boot.’
‘Gotta keep germ-free, Daniel,’ says Brandi. Her voice is super-innocent, like a girl scout, but her eyes are darting around the office like something or someone is going to pop up with another surprise.
‘You should have burned this pair, Brandi. I know they’re your favourites, but you’ve got others.’
I’m rambling a bit, but that’s because half of me knows that the accusation I’m about to make is at best based on a hunch and at worst based on supernatural intervention.
‘Why the fuck are we talking about my boots? First no booth, now you have something against my boots? Let go of my goddamn leg, Dan.’
‘You should have burned them,’ I say again, using my old trick of repeating myself to buy a second. ‘Because all the blues need is one strand of DNA, caught in a stitch. All they need to do is match your heel to the hole in Connie’s head.’
Brandi is a little pale under her make-up. ‘Let go of my leg, Daniel. You’re hurting me.’