with nothing. They ferried dope from the dealers to buyers in their cars, breaking off bits of the buyer’s rock to feed their habits. The girls had it better than the boys. On slow nights, the girls could hook for extra cash. The boys had to resort to petty thievery.
If he squinted, Poe could make them out, scurrying and scattering like roaches in a Manhattan tenement. He found a dark vantage point, looked and waited. A Honda Accord with darkened windows slowed, pulled curbside.
Immediately, they came to service it. The winner was a green-haired girl in short shorts, fishnets, and leather brassiere. She came over to the open window, nodded. Glancing over her shoulders, feral eyes in the moonlight. Reaching into her black bra, she pulled out what Poe assumed to be a rock crystal of cocaine.
And that was it.
Transaction finished: the car went on its way. She darted back, her loose breasts flapping like water balloons. Disappearing under a pile of construction.
Another car.
Another transaction.
The scene was repeated over and over.
Sometimes the cops roared in and swept the place. More often, they let them be. Besides, more than one detective had a stoolie who worked the area.
No one daring to make eye contact, Poe knew he’d have to take action. Go out and turn over a rock. He spied a young white girl taking orders from an older black man. Poe could barely make out his features before he withdrew into the shadows. Poe made his move, pulling out a fifty, showing it to the girl.
She stepped forward a few feet, then stopped. Over here, buyers came by way of cars; no one was used to walk-ins. But Poe was patient, knew that eventually the fifty would prove to be the needed lure to catch the young girl.
Really young.
Behind a mask of makeup was a child of maybe fifteen. One of her eyes was swollen, and she had cigarette-burn marks on her arms and legs. Painfully thin, with pink hair and red lips that were cracked at the corners. She wore a torn black halter and a miniskirt with no underwear. She had to be freezing. It broke Poe’s heart. He actually debated running her in, just to get her off the streets for a night. But without her hourly fix, she’d turn monstrous. LVMPD wasn’t set up to do detox.
Poe waved the fifty in the air.
Still, she was hesitant.
Then he spoke. “More where this came from. And you can keep the shit. All I want is informa—”
She darted away.
Smooth one, Poe.
God, how he hated this place.
A moment later, the girl returned with her dealer. Around thirty, with a thin face and a goatee. He wore jeans and a leather bomber jacket. His fingers were encased in leather gloves with the fingertips cut off. Beckoned Poe onto his turf with a bent index digit.
Heart beating, Poe came forward, stopped short of being nose to nose. The dealer had a good four inches of height on him. He also pointed a snub-nose Special in Poe’s face. His voice was surprisingly high. “You be a cop?”
Poe nodded.
“Lemme see some ID.”
“Put away your piece. Then I’ll show you ID.”
“Why would I be doing that?”
“Because I reach into my pocket, you shoot, saying it was self-defense. C’mon, sport. I’m obviously not from Narc.”
“Whatchu want?”
“Information about a girl.”
“How much you be payin’ for it?”
“Depends on what you tell me.”
Slowly, the dealer lowered his pistol. “Talk.”
“I got a picture in my pocket,” Poe said. “I’m gonna show it to you.” He brought out Brittany’s photo. “She ever work for you?”
The dealer looked at the photograph. His face soured. “That be Brittany.”
Poe rocked on his feet, restraining himself from snapping his fingers. “Yes. She was one of yours, then?”
The dealer smiled a mouth of ivories. “She didn’t be no runner, but she be my bitch for a month. A good ho. Do anything I tole her to do. Got lots of money from her legs. But I see her again, I cut a smile in her throat. The bitch stole from me.”
“Ah,” Poe said. “So she hasn’t been around lately.”
The dealer shook his head. “She come in here again, she don’t leave breathin’. No patience for that kinda shit. You see the bitch and she axes for me, you tell her what I said.”
Poe said, “She isn’t going to be asking for anyone. She’s dead.”
The dealer didn’t blink. “Don’t surprise me. You be stealin’ from people, they got a right to take action.”
Did you take action, buddy?
Poe held out the fifty. The dealer snapped it into his fingertips. Then he pointed to the teenager with the cracked lips and bruised eye. “I let you poke her for only twenty bucks. But you be wanting some crack … that be standard price.”
The thought of sex with that child made Poe’s stomach turn. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”
Without a further word, the dealer disappeared.
Poe’s eyes hunted around. It took him a moment to find the waifish pink-haired girl. She was hiding behind a pile of broken concrete. A flick of fire from a match illuminated her ravaged face. She brought the match into the wire-mesh bowl of her crack pipe. Sucked on the bit and inhaled deeply. Throwing back her head. Then it dropped forward, her chin plowing into her chest. Slowly, she found the strength to bring her head up as it lolled from side to side. She wiped her nose, her eyes gazing out to nowhere. Viewing a world out of focus.
From dealer to buyer, from buyer to dealer. Nicking off bits of crack to stave off the dragon. Her life disintegrating into the netherworld.
Hell had nothing over Naked City.
As the hour approached midnight, the urge got stronger. Not as strong as last night, but Alison knew she was powerless. It was better to prepare for it than to be caught off-guard. Last night had been bad because the urge had caught her off-guard. And she had tried to resist.
Never resist.
Never, ever resist.
Had her mother resisted? Is that what had driven her over that edge?
Or maybe the urges had driven her to take off on those long disappearances—the fugue states which were anything but musical. Had she felt the urge as strongly as Alison? Had the urge compelled her to run, to leave her earthly body and ascend to a higher place?
Well,
