Poisoned Pearls (3 page)

“She’s involved,” Ms. Monroe said flatly, turning to
Detective Ferguson.

“What?” I asked. I was
not
involved in Kyle’s death.

Ms. Monroe waved her hand at me, dismissing my objections.
“Not now. But she will be.”

Ferguson turned his cold stare at me. “We don’t need any
sort of vigilante going off half-cocked on this case. We still don’t even know
the cause of death, if it was even accidental.”

His tone implied that he doubted this was anything other
than an OD, just another stupid street kid who’d found a new creative way to
off himself.

“I’ll stay out of it,” I lied. Particularly if the cops had
that kind of attitude.

Ms. Monroe glared at me. “Be careful what you seek. Or
you’ll see things you don’t want to.”

My mom had named me Cassandra in the hopes that maybe I’d
turn out to have some sort of powers. She hadn’t appreciated it when I’d
pointed out that Cassandra hadn’t come to a good end.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I told her dryly. “Look, can I
go?” I asked Ferguson. “I need to get back to work. And you know where to find
me.”

“You work here?” Ms. Monroe said, indicating the building
next to us.

“Yes, ma’am,” I told her proudly. “Chinaman Joe’s Good Luck
Parlor. We have all the toys you want—even the ones you didn’t know you
needed.” I winked at her.

Surprisingly, Ms. Monroe wasn’t insulted; instead, she
laughed, a clear tinkling sound through that dark alley that caused all the
cops to look up. It had that joyous sound that you rarely heard these days, that
promised warmth and safety and a really good time in bed.

It sent a warm jolt through my middle that the thought of
going inside couldn’t match.

Not my type,
I
told myself again, though I knew I was well and truly screwed, particularly
when Ms. Monroe told me, “I’ll come see you sometime.”

***

I wasn’t about to tell Chinaman Joe that I’d had to close
the store for more than an hour. Normally, we had one person in the afternoons,
with two people running the place at night. But the schedule had gotten screwed
up: Travis had needed the night off, and Amy, the other worker, hadn’t been
available. Plus, it was a weeknight. I knew the place wouldn’t be hard to
manage on my own.

Knowing my luck, Chinaman Joe would probably find out
anyway.

Cheap bastard had better not dock my wages.

I was living close enough to the edge as it was. A couple
hours’ pay meant the difference between being in nicotine withdrawal and
bumming smokes and alienating all my friends until the New Year or coasting in
a happy smoky haze.

I knew better than to hope for some kind of Christmas bonus.
Not like Chinaman Joe celebrated the season, despite the cheery red and silver
garlands strung up on the wall, the candy-cane vibrators proudly on display as
you walked in the door, or the “elf” costumes that were merely green and red
corsets.

The store was in west downtown, in one of the many
warehouses that had been converted into more livable space. Though the
conversion had been recent, the store had that groovy ’70s feel. The shelves
were cheap metal and plastic; the gray linoleum floor always looked dingy, no
matter how much time I spent cleaning it; and the lights were all fluorescent
and buzzed annoyingly.

Still, it was kind of home for me. Chinaman Joe had given me
a job when I was still “in between” residences, living at a halfway house.
Plus, even all through the winter, it was blessedly warm. Chinaman Joe might
have been a cheap bastard, but he hated the cold more than most.

I’d been born in Minnesota, so while I could claim I was used
to it, no one really got used to forty below. I peeled out of my jacket and
scarf, then held my hands over my ears so they might have a chance to warm up.

I refused to play any damned Christmas music while I was
running the store. I argued with Chinaman Joe that our customers were looking
for a different kind of home cheer. But I had to play something in the
background, otherwise the hum of the lights would drive even the most sane to
vodka. I spun up my favorite ’70s rock mix.

I figured if I could keep moving, I wouldn’t get morose over
Kyle’s death.

Before I could grab my phone and start calling people, soft
chimes let me know that someone had just come in the door.

I braced myself. It wasn’t Ms. Monroe, was it?

No, it was Angela, one of the hookers who worked Hennepin
Avenue, who I’d let crash at my place a couple of times that summer, when she’d
been in a bind. She’d never brought a john up, and hadn’t minded sharing a bed,
though neither of us took it further than that.

I didn’t see how she or the other girls could work a street
corner in Minneapolis during the winter, particularly not in that
getup—short, fake leopard-fur coat, black hot pants that rode all the way
up to her crotch, gold fishnets, and matching gold ankle boots.

I was cold just looking at her.

Angela’s wig that night curled tightly around her ears,
streaked in blonde and black. I wouldn’t have called her makeup subtle, but
there was still a beauty to her exaggerated red lips, the dark brown skin
growing darker in the warmth, the extra-long lashes and sparkling blue
eye-shadow.

“Hey, girl,” I called to her, waving her to the front of the
store. “
Whatcha
doing?” I leaned against the cool
glass of the display case, bringing my head closer to Angela’s height.

She joined me at the counter, leaning her hip against it,
rubbing her hands together, trying to force some warmth back into them.

“Stupid cops chased away all the traffic tonight,” Angela
replied. “You know what’s up with that?”

Did Angela know Kyle? I didn’t think so, but then again, you
never knew. “They found Kyle Magnusson’s body out back.”

Damn it. Why did saying that out loud make my voice shake?

Angela looked over her shoulder and blinked her wide black
eyes at me a couple times. “Nope,” she said after a few more moments. “Can’t
recall. Friend of yours though, I guess?”

“Yeah,” I told her. My throat suddenly hurt. I wasn’t coming
down with something, was I? ’Cause I wasn’t about to cry.

I didn’t cry that way.

“I’m sorry,” Angela said, her voice as soft as if she was
trying to make nice with one of the feral cats out back.

“You know Helen Eaton?” I asked, standing up straight,
trying to shift the conversation away before I maybe embarrassed myself with
tears or some such useless thing.

“Helen of Troy?” Angela asked. “Cops think she’s in on it?”

I shrugged. “Where’s Helen working these days?” I asked.

Angela shook her head. “No one’s seen her for at least a
week. Celine was wondering if maybe Helen had finally found that ride out of
town, gone someplace warm.”

Now I was worried. The street girls sometimes fought, and
occasionally put each other in the hospital, particularly if they thought one
of them was stepping into their territory. But they also looked out after each
other, kept tabs on each other’s whereabouts.

It wasn’t as if they’d get any sympathy from the cops if
something happened to one of them.

“Did she have a pimp?” I asked.

“
Naw
, she was part of the
association,” Angela said.

More than one of the groups of hookers—excuse me,
sex workers
—in the downtown area
had organized themselves when the shootings and gang violence had gotten real
bad, before the cops had gotten involved and started cleaning up the place.
They’d pooled their money and hired actual security, some muscle men who
delighted in taking down any john or pimp who bothered their girls.

The cops were right to be worried about vigilantes,
particularly in this neighborhood.

But what had happened to Helen? I figured it had to be
something bad if that detective was asking about her.

Before I could ask anything more, Angela said to me, “The
streets are clean. The people are good. But be careful of what you see.”

“Excuse me?” I asked. What the hell did that mean? She
wasn’t on something, was she?

Angela blinked her too-wide eyes at me again. “The streets
are clean. The people are good. But be careful of what you see.”

“What are you on?” I asked. I couldn’t tell if Angela’s
pupils were dilated, but I assumed they were.

“The streets are clean. The people are good. But be careful
of what you see,” Angela repeated again, seemingly frustrated.

“You’re not high, are you?” I asked.

Angela shook her head. “The streets are clean. The people
are good.”

“Yeah, I have to be careful of what I see,” I told her. “Got
that. Thanks.”

So the TV did get some things right—there was such a
thing as a pre-cog loop. I’d never seen one before. Angela hadn’t ever been
trained, though. Had she taken the PADT? I would have thought that if she had
any real ability, she wouldn’t be hooking.

Angela had once told me that she’d taken a correspondence
course in paranormal ability and that she’d scored the highest in her class.

Tonight, I believed her, though most of the correspondence
schools were a scam. Taking people’s money and giving them false hope.

Still. She had to have some level of pre-cognition to get
caught in a loop that way. The next time I saw her, I was going to be sure to
ask about it. Maybe this had been the first time it had happened, though.

I pulled a pack of cigarettes from below the counter and
passed a smoke to Angela.

She nodded her thanks, then hurried away, her boots clicking
across the floor.

Maybe getting out of my presence would shake Angela free.
She wasn’t going to be good for any kind of conversation until she could get
out of the loop.

Then again, her clients didn’t pay her to talk.

So the streets were clean, though that didn’t mean anything
to me. Since the new mayor had decided to “Revitalize the Downtown Area,”
garbage got picked up off the streets and out of the alleys every other day.

I remembered Kyle’s body slumped in the alley behind the
shop, how the EMTs had taken it away and swept everything clean. Was that what
she’d meant? That though there was a body, maybe more, that they wouldn’t stay
around for long?

And that people were good? I couldn’t contain my snort. That
sure as fuck wasn’t true. I’d learned that early, at my mom’s knee, when she’d
found me making out with another girl on my sweet sixteenth and given me the option
of turning straight or leaving.

Fucking Republican Senator wannabe.

I hadn’t seen her for years, except on the other side of a
TV screen, and I still hated her guts.

And how the fuck was I supposed to be careful about what I
saw? Admittedly, that part fried my ass the most. I wasn’t about to stop
looking, or look away, if I saw something.

Particularly something bad happening in my neighborhood.

Sure, most of my friends were junkies and whores. But this
was still my patch of turf, and they were still my friends. I always had my
friends’ backs, whether they reciprocated or not.

Nope. I wasn’t about to look away.

Of course, my night didn’t get any better. Not given my
luck. No, it had started sliding down that sweet slope of sheer fucked when the
cops had first shown up and demanded that I accompany them and identify the
body of my friend Kyle in the cold alley out behind the store.

Then, after the cops, and my friend Angela’s warning, who
should show up at my store but Ms. Monroe, the post-cog who was working for the
cops on Kyle’s case?

She seemed perfectly at home in Chinaman Joe’s Good Luck
Parlor, despite the fact that she was way overdressed for such a dive. Her mink
looked like it was more expensive than all the toys in the store combined. I
swear even the fluorescent lights overhead stopped hissing above her.

The almost-tasteful display of condoms on the large table at
the front drew her attention first. Black velvet covered the table and the
display stands, with a sprinkling of white glitter in the center to suggest
snow, or at least that was what Chinaman Joe had claimed.

Every condom on the table had been filled with air. Each
waved proudly on its stand like a party balloon. Instead of the standard
colors, we’d done a group of red and green ones, with some gold and purple
mixed in as well.

After Ms. Monroe had circled the table, she wandered down
the first aisle.

I called out to her, “Let me know if you need any help.” I
wasn’t about to go any closer to her than I needed to. I was already in enough
trouble as it was, wondering how soft her hair really was, what it would feel
like when I pulled it, if she’d moan or squeak when I pinched a nipple.

Three times five is fifteen.

Ms. Monroe poked her head out from the second aisle, holding
up “Black Billy”—the supposedly realistic dong of some porn star that was
almost as big as my fist and about as long as my forearm.

And I don’t have small hands.

The “real flesh tone” color was a corpse-like gray-brown,
and I bet there wasn’t a man out there whose dick actually felt that smooth. Or
who smelled like plastic and melted rubber.

“Really?” Ms. Monroe asked, incredulous. “This is the most
popular dong in your store?”

We had put up helpful, handwritten signs on some of the
aisles, suggesting products to those too shy to come up to the counter and ask.

I shrugged. “We sell a lot of them.” I didn’t know if many,
or even any, of them got put to serious use, or if they were primarily gag
gifts.

“Huh,” was all she said before she disappeared back into the
aisle again.

Three times six is eighteen. Three times seven is twenty
one. Three—

“You know, whatever you’re doing won’t work.”

Damn it. I hadn’t seen her sneak out of the aisle and
approach the front. “What do you mean?” I asked. I knew my guilt was probably
written all over my face—damn my Swedish mother and my fair skin.

“I’m not a telepath,” Ms. Monroe said. “You can’t distract
me from your thoughts. I’m a post-cog. That’s all.”

“Sure,” I told her. Three times three is nine.

She smiled and shook her head at me, as if she were dealing
with a particularly endearing, if stubborn, child.

“So how can I help you tonight, Ms. Monroe?” I asked.

“Please, call me Sam. Short for Samantha,” she said, holding
out a beautifully pampered hand for me to shake, the nails done in a perfect
French manicure that probably cost more than I made in a month.

“Cassie. Short for Cassandra,” I told her. I clasped her
hand, then figured, what the hell, and brought it to my lips for a quick kiss.
Her lotion smelled surprisingly of lemongrass, not anything girly. The skin was
softer than silk and, I suspected, very addictive.

“Sorry,” Sam said, pulling her hand back.

“I’m not,” I told her cheekily. “Wrong team?” I asked.

“Out of your league,” she said demurely.

Wait a second. Did that mean that—

“You
are
involved
with your friend’s—Kyle’s—death,” Sam said, derailing any question
I might have asked.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked. “I didn’t get him
killed.” If she kept telling the police that, my life was sure to be hell. The
cops would start coming after me. I’m sure they still considered me a person of
interest in the case.

“You’re tied up in it,” Sam said vehemently. “I don’t know
how. I’ve never seen anything like it before. You weren’t there watching it,
but you were still there, present, the whole time.”

“I was working the entire time,” I told her hotly. “You can
check the in-store cameras.”

“I know you were here,” Sam replied, clearly as frustrated
as I was. “I don’t know how you’re connected. Just that you are. And you need
to be careful of what you see.”

I rolled my eyes. Great. Was she about to go off into some
pre-cog loop like Angela? Just what I fucking needed.

Cops might haul me down to the station out of spite if I got
their prize post-cog all in a twirl.

When Sam didn’t add anything after that, I asked, “Any idea
what I’m not supposed to see?”

Sam shook her head. “Nothing. Everything. I don’t know. I’m
not a pre-cog. Just whatever it is, it’s strong enough to break through to all
the
blessed
in the area. I had a
friend come down and check.”

Figured she’d call herself that, and not the more secular
term. If she even knew it.

“Well, thank you for that news flash,” I told her.

“I’m trying to help you here!” Sam insisted.

“How?” I asked. “By giving me these half-assed warnings?”
Seriously. What did she expect me to do? Keep my eyes shut for the rest of the
night? The week? The year?

Sam gave an exasperated sigh. “Look, I know this isn’t
making any sense. But just—be aware! Hopefully it will make sense before
it’s too late.”

“
Ain’t
that the story of my life,”
I told her. I was never fucking aware of
anything
:
not of my ex, Natasha, double-dipping with that whore Frieda right here in the
store; not of just how frigid my own mother was, how inflexible she would be
when it came to her own daughter’s sexual preferences; and not even of that
time at Kitty’s when that asshole I’d met for a first date had tried slip me a
roofie
and the bartender had saved me by “accidentally”
knocking over my drink, then talking to me later when she’d gone to the
bathroom.

I never figured out anything until well after the fact.
Never saw anything coming, despite my name. Might have just been irony, or the
gods fucking with me.

“Here,” Sam said. She opened up her mink and drew an
embossed white and black business card out of an engraved silver case.

I didn’t have to hold it up to my nose to catch the sweet
scent of her lemongrass perfume.

Great. Now Thai food was going to make me horny.

“Text me,” Sam commanded. “If anything unusual starts
happening to you. If you start to see things.”

“What, do you think I’m suddenly going to start having
hallucinations or something?” I’d never been into hallucinogenic drugs. That
just always seemed like a straight line to the loony bin. I’d heard too many
stories of losers who’d ended up taking a long walk off a short bridge after
taking a few hits of windowpane.

Plus, there were rumors that the right combination of
hallucinogenic drugs would unlock your paranormal abilities.

I liked being fully human, a mundane, thank you very much.

“No. Yes. I don’t know,” Sam said. “But just—text me.”

“For anything?” I asked. Might as well see if I could get a
rise out of her. “Maybe just for coffee?”

“Out of your league,” Sam rearticulated. “I don’t do
mundanes
.”

“Maybe you just haven’t tried the right one,” I suggested
flirtatiously.

“Please,” she said, rolling her eyes as she refastened her
coat. “And no, you won’t be having visions if you try to touch me. Just
visitations from the cops.”

“Hey, it’s okay. I know. You’re
special
,” I told her. “One of the
blessed.
”

“You know why we call ourselves that, right?” Sam asked.
“It’s the only way to get through the damned training. To believe that you’re
better than everyone else, smarter, more capable. There’s a high flunk-out
rate, and an even higher suicide rate. You have to tell yourself you’re
special. Make yourself believe it. Otherwise, you won’t make it.”

Like I was going to feel sorry for the poor little
over-indulged rich girl.

I’d been one, once. I knew all about being
special
.

“Don’t let me spoil your evening, princess,” I told her.
“I’ll just remember to be careful what I see.”

“You do that,” Sam said. Her face froze in that air of
superiority her kind had. That
specialness
wrapped itself around her as snugly as that fur coat.

But now, I could tell that it was a mask. I knew her
attitude would never keep her warm.

Damn her for making me see even a little bit of her life.

***

There wasn’t as much down time at the store that night as I
would have liked. Idiots kept coming in, stumbling out of the cold, looking for
smokes (which we sold, and the cause of my current nicotine habit) and for
drugs (which I didn’t sell because I valued my skin too much) and for sex
(which again, I didn’t sell, though I did direct a few of the less idiotic
assholes down toward Angela’s corner).

I kept calling people on the phone in between interruptions,
standing in the empty sex & toy shop, the heat cranked up and soft rock
ballads playing in the background. I talked into the phone like it was a
mic
, though I generally hated when people did that. I just
couldn’t bear to hold the headset closer to my ear—that made everything
seem too personal.

The whole night turned cruel, regardless. First
de’Angelo
, then Tess, then Andre all assumed that I was
calling about some party or another, wanting to get together over the holidays.
It was nice to have so much support. More than one wanted to come over, hang
out, make sure I’d be okay for the next couple of days.

I didn’t want company, though. I needed…I don’t know. Maybe
to process or some such shit on my own, first. Then maybe in a few days we
could all get together. Mourn. Curse. Bitch about how unfair life was.

Sometimes I didn’t mind the idiots coming through the door
just so I could get off the damned phone.

No one had heard anything, though, about other prostitutes
getting hurt, other people getting killed. I didn’t know if anything bad was
going down, if that had been why the cops had asked about Kyle tricking, or had
asked about Helen.

But I’d grown up in Minnesota. I understood
prepared
. Winter taught you that,
particularly when you first hit the streets.

So I warned everyone I could, despite not knowing anything. On
one hand, I felt like a drama queen. I really didn’t know anything concrete.

On the other hand, better safe than sorry.

I almost let Tommy come over, escort me from the shop to my
place as he gallantly offered. I knew that I should be more concerned for my
own safety. But I was more pissed than anything else. Heaven help the poor
bastard who tried to take me on tonight.

In addition to the idiots and the phone calls, Chinaman
Joe’s list of online orders kept piling up. Besides being a penny-pinching bastard,
he was a smart businessman. While the storefront was important, it didn’t cover
all our bills, so he ran an internet shop as well.

Every minute I wasn’t busy with the customers standing in
front of me, I was supposed to be filling orders. Right behind the counter was
a second table stocked with boxes, plain brown wrapping paper, tape, and enough
bubble wrap to cover the North Pole, Santa, and all his reindeer. We had
discreet stickers for the packages that all said, “CJ LLC.”

Like every other business in the Western Hemisphere, we were
running Christmas specials.

Chinaman Joe had done a lot of experimenting. As I said, he
was smart. Just a set of free condoms or a couple of packages of lube wouldn’t
boost sales.

Throw in a butt plug, though? You were golden. A lot of
people were into that kind of shit but didn’t want to admit it. They’d never
buy something like that for themselves. However, if they could say, “Oh, look,
honey! It came for free! Let’s try it!” then it was okay.

So sales were through the roof. I should have been happy. It
meant I still had a job. Hell, maybe the cheap bastard
would
give me a holiday bonus.

But my mind kept drifting, seeing Kyle’s body in the alley.
Thinking about Ferguson asking about Helen. And yes, damn it, about Sam as
well, with her perfect teeth and skin and hair and how she really wasn’t my
type despite the fact that I didn’t really have a type beyond
female
.

Since my lying, cheating ex Natasha had left, I hadn’t
bothered looking for another girlfriend. Natasha hadn’t just broken up with me,
no, she’d torn my heart out and gleefully stomped on it with her spiked heels.

I still couldn’t believe I’d been such an idiot, that I
hadn’t seen she’d been cheating on me. Particularly since she’d been doing it
right under my nose, with one of the girls at the peep show out front, that
skanky bitch Frieda.

Though I knew Natasha had been friends with Kyle, I didn’t
bother to call her. I figured I’d let her find out on her own.

Of course, because that was my luck and my life, Natasha
called just as I was closing up the store for the night.

I just looked at my phone when her name popped up on the
screen. Damn it. Why hadn’t I blocked her number?

Calling myself all kinds of fool, I answered. “Hello?”

Maybe Natasha was hurt and someone else was calling all her
contacts.

“Cassie? Honey? Is that you?” Natasha’s warm voice flooded
the line. Chills ran down my back. I flicked off the last of the lights and
stood in the dark, just listening to her.