Facil waved it down with his gun. “Unhook it.” Von Stern moved fast, cutting the drip and sliding the tube from Scarla’s vein. Facil looked around. Everything needed for a functional emergency room was there. Except, apparently, a hospital gown. Scarla opened her eyes. Facil glared at Von Stern.
“Clothes.”
The doctor waffled. “Oh, they … must be upstairs.”
She sat up and Facil grabbed the top sheet, wrapped it around her. She quickly grabbed his wrist, snaking her trigger finger over his, unloading the clip into Von Stern’s chest. He died on his feet, white shirt flushing deep red, and slid down the wall. Facil gently removed her hand from his. “I’d have done that for you, y’know,” he offered, reloading.
They came off the stairs into the foyer, moving into the den. The fire was dead. Bodies and blood in the dark. Scarla immediately noticed Robert missing.
“Goddamn,”
she hissed.
Facil raised his gun at nothing in particular.
“What?”
She flipped a light switch and the grand chandelier sprang to life over their heads, like New Year’s Eve after the rapture. “He’s gone,” she spat.
Facil scanned the corpses, saw the bloodstain Robert left behind, pointed. “Him?”
Scarla found her dress, stripped the sheet. “Yeah, him.” Facil turned his back as she dressed fast. “There’s someone watching the cameras too, I dunno where.” She grabbed the cash and knife, jammed them in her purse, blew past him. “C’mon,” she called. He trailed her through the foyer, gun ready. She stopped in the doorway. Her eyes said it all. It was time to go.
Facil shot a look into the foyer cam on his way out that said
you, motherfucker, are on borrowed time.
He wondered if the owner of that body count would call 911, or if the mess would just magically disappear. Either way, he’d secure a search warrant and have the house on the market before its realtor could blink.
Scarla stood in the shower, head back, eyes closed, letting the hot spray rinse her clean. Blood mingled with the water, pink by the time it hit the tub, gone down the drain soon after that. She breathed deep.
In
…
out. In
…
out.
The water stung her arm, reminding her of her wounds. She unwrapped the elbow, saw two small gashes. She felt something hard lodged under the skin, threw the curtain back and grabbed a pair of tweezers from the sink drawer. She wiped the steamy mirror, lifted her elbow and dug into the flesh. Blood streaked her armpit, tracing the curve of her breast. She pulled out a tooth, half-an-inch long and sharp. She felt another one under the skin, got it out too. She left them on the sink, climbed back in the shower.
* * * *
Facil threw a combination at the worn heavy bag that hung in the corner of Scarla’s loft. He stilled it, noting the bloody knuckleprints on its canvas, and moved to the large open bay windows to see her panoramic view of the city. She lived on the top floor of a renovated brick high-rise. It was comfortable, and high enough that the bustle of the streets didn’t reach it. It was the first time he’d actually been inside. Strange, considering all they’d been through. Or maybe not strange at all. Maybe
they
hadn’t been through nearly enough to warrant entry into what was likely her last vestige of solitude in the world. Maybe he was even soiling
that
for her, by his mere presence. The glass of cabernet suddenly thrust in front of him put the question to rest. She leaned against the bricks to his right and downed half her glass before he tasted his and met her gaze. Her hair was wet, silk robe clinging to her body, barefoot on the hardwood, cigarette blazing.
“Thanks,” he whispered.
She shrugged, took a drag, blew it out the window. “$3.99-a-bottle, let’s kill it.” She finished hers, motioned for him to follow suit. He downed his glass and she went for the bottle. He caught himself watching her hips, turned to sprawl on the sofa. It was deeper than it looked, and he wondered if he’d fall asleep if he allowed himself to relax. He’d been up for days.
Scarla returned, kicking his leg. He moved so she could sit. She refilled the glasses, lifting hers, leaving his on the table. Silence. “I don’t know what happened tonight,” she said, eyes on the floor. He waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. She traced her finger along the rim of her glass, downed it fast. She took a drag, reached for the bottle.
He eyed her bandaged wrist. “You sure that’s gonna be alright?”
She topped off her glass and turned to him, not particularly concerned. “No.” She flexed her fingers. “It looks worse than it feels.” He nodded. She watched him. “Welcome to my place, Face,” she said, swilling the wine.
“Thanks, it’s …
nice.”
She almost spit, swallowing fast and wiping her mouth with her sleeve. “What the fuck were you expecting?” The way she said it reminded him of years ago. She even flashed the same slack-jawed, tackle-the-world smirk she wore back then. Back when she fought for sport, for prestige, for titles, not for her life. He hated those moments, which happened occasionally, mainly because they made him want to snatch her in his arms and kiss her.
“I dunno,” he chuckled. “Never gave it much thought, to tell you the truth.” And that was a lie.
She nodded, her smile fading. The silence stretched out. She got up again, moved to the windows with glass in hand, looked out over the city. “How’d you find me tonight?” she asked.
Facil didn’t answer right away, happy her back was turned and she wasn’t looking him in the eye. “I triangulated your phone.” He noted the way her body held the silk robe tight against the small of her back, down around her hips.
Stop it.
He focused on the night sky instead. A mosquito fluttered around his head until he swatted it away. Two roving spotlights from the rooftop of some gala event criss-crossed back and forth. His eyes followed them like a hypnotist’s pendulum. He felt his body relax. “What do you say we take a couple days off?” he asked, knowing what her response would be before he finished.
She replied without turning.
“Fuck yes.”
He nodded, laid his head back. She eyed the streets, continued. “Sometimes I think about moving to the middle of nowhere, living in a little house on a lake. No traffic, no neighbors, no bullshit.” She smiled, but her eyes didn’t. Her voice grew distant. “I dream about that place a lot.” She paused. “Ever wonder what you’ll do after this?” No reply. She looked back, saw him sound asleep. It looked like the place to be. She took one last drag and threw the butt at the city, leaving her glass on the sill and padding across the room to a canopy-framed queen-size. Her robe hit the floor. She slipped through the curtains, under the sheets. She was asleep in seconds.
* * * *
That morning, warm sunshine woke Facil. He’d only slept about two hours, but it was better than his usual nothing. Truth was, it had been over a week since his last full night’s sleep. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was. He sat up, looked around, remembered.
Interloper.
He went to the bathroom, eyeing the robe on the floor and Scarla’s sleeping silhouette behind the curtains. Her sleep looked more comfortable. He raised the seat, unzipped, saw the teeth on the sink. When he was done, he folded them in bath tissue, splashed water on his face, exited quietly.
Big H’s Fighting Gym was on the corner of 2nd and Allums, a bad place in a bad part of town. It had been around longer than any of the fighters who trained there, owned by a decorated army vet and otherwise general ne’er-do-well, Harold Fields, aka “Big H.” At five-feet-ten and a hundred-seventyfive pounds, the nickname seemed a bit of a misnomer, until you saw him in the ring. “Big H,” legend had it, was as much a reference to Fields’ fighting heart, as it was to the black tar heroin he purportedly played a role in introducing to the city in the late ’70s. By ’82, with most of his boys either dead or jailed, Fields had cleaned up his act and dedicated himself to kickboxing, eventually wearing the middleweight title for a record four-year run. He was forced to retire in ’89, when his tibia broke in half in the first round of a title defense. He finished standing, losing on the scorecards by split-decision. Big H, indeed.
It had been a hard year for the gym, producing neither a champion nor a title shot for anyone on the roster. Granted, the talent wasn’t what it had been in years past. Neither was the economy, but that didn’t matter to Big H. He’d gladly groom a fighter free-of-charge, if he felt the individual wanted it badly enough and possessed the necessary skills. A world championship mattered to an inner-city gym’s survival more than he cared to admit. Truth was, Big H was in the toughest fight of his life twenty-plus years after retiring, battling just to keep the doors open for any kid with enough guts to walk in off the street and reverse the gym’s fortunes. That kid hadn’t showed up in a long time. But the last one who
did
was in the ring, sparring three rounds with the roster’s current bad boy and best hope, Clayton “The Green Giant” Gibbons. Why he’d been tagged as “The Green Giant” was as banal as it was obvious. He stood at six-feet-eight, weighed two-hundredeighty-six pounds, and liked to make money. Big H took the kid on as much to see if he had the goods, as he did to keep more drugs off the city’s already-addled streets. Ironically, having been instrumental in ruining his city’s future years ago, it was now that damaging foundation that was quickening his own demise. And no matter how hard he tried to make it right, some things were simply inevitable.
A scattering of half-hearted fighters worked speed bags, heavy bags, jump ropes. One muscled kid texted furiously with taped hands, a wide grin on his untouched face. Scarla was getting her ass kicked by The Green Giant. Huge right hand bombs behind an impossibly-long snapping left jab had reduced her to a sweat-soaked rag doll. Tree-trunk leg kicks stung her at will. It didn’t look good.
“
Guard,
girl!
Hands up!
” shouted Big H from ringside, where he stood with arms folded, stopwatch in hand. It wasn’t his most eloquent advice, but it was an impromptu afternoon. Scarla backpedaled into the ropes and sprang forward again, intending to duck a right but moving into a crushing head kick that rocked her to the corner. The Giant swarmed in, swinging for the fences with both gloves. Forget taking it easy on a girl, Clayton Gibbons knew
exactly
who she was and he wanted to finish with an exclamation point. Scarla covered up, pinned to the turnbuckles, trying to make the round. She didn’t look like the golden girl Big H remembered from her pro days, but she’d shown up unannounced and picked the gym’s biggest, nastiest, most promising fighter to spar full-contact with. Odd behavior for anyone, but a death wish for a retired women’s lightweight. Only Scarla Fragran could propose—and actually be granted—such an insane request.
“Got-
damn!
” came a froggy cackle from the front door. “What the
hell
goin’ on up in here?!”
H glanced over his shoulder, knowing full-well whose voice it was. Filling the gym’s doorway was a burly black dude straight from a bad joke, complete with ankle-length mink coat, bushy mutton chops, peacock-feathered fedora, perpetual shades, and gold accessories on every conceivable appendage that would hold them. His name was Conroy Flowers, larger-than-life 24/7, and stranger than any story ever told about him in the bars or on the street corners. A waify bottled-blonde of eighteen-going-on-thirty-five held his arm, her short shorts revealing more of the purple bruises on her milky thighs than was necessary. She dragged on a Newport, her heavily mascaraed eyes scanning the boys in the room—most of whom she’d either been with or been turned-down by—before focusing venom on Scarla.
Conroy and the girl strode to ringside, closing in on Big H, who chafed. “Come on now, Conroy, don’t hem me up like that,” he spat, stepping to his left, eyes never leaving the ring.
Conroy raised his hands. “Okay, okay, s’all good, baby! I jus’ heard leather smackin’ up in here an’ wanted to see the action, namsayn?”
They stood in silence, watching the goliath’s unrelenting assault. Blondie cooled on her perceived competition and started eyeing the room again, glancing back to the ring every once in a while, morbidly curious. An old janitor dragged his dirty mop bucket by, shaking his head at the spectacle.
Conroy lifted his shades and looked at H, incredulous. “You tryna kill dat girl, man?”
Big H showed no concern. “She knows what she’s doin’,” he replied, a quick glance at the stopwatch belying his cool. Fighting-shape Scarla was a lifetime ago in ring years. Or so he thought.
It was subtle at first. A barely noticeable change in The Green Giant’s posture, re-setting of his stance, slightly deeper breaths. But from Scarla’s point-of-view, it was like an alarm going off.
Gotcha, big boy. Feel that? It only gets worse.
She anchored herself in the corner and kept cover, absorbing the blows he kept throwing with all his might.
Keep it coming.
Big H saw it, too. A smirk crept across his face and he nodded, half in disbelief. Conroy looked at him like he was nuts. “C’mon H, ring dat
bell
, man! Boy
killin’
her in dere! I hate seein’ a fine-ass bitch go to waste, namsayn?” Big H raised a hand, cutting Conroy off. Blondie arched her brow.
The Green Giant threw another flurry of knockout attempts, stepped back and reset, sucking air. Scarla winked at him from behind her gloves, really pissing him off. He launched a high kick at her head that she forearm-blocked before stinging his inner thigh with a switch-kick counter. He threw another big right that she glove-blocked, the force of the blow shaking her whole body. She came back fast with an elbow-knee combo, the elbow glancing off his chest like a bug off a windshield. The knee, however, caught him under the ribs and he winced, bending just low enough for her to land another one to the solar plexus, and
that
hurt. He recoiled, gasping for breath and she charged, landing two high back kicks and another knee to the gut. He wobbled and ate an elbow that opened a gash the length of his brow. Blood poured down his face like a waterfall, obscuring his vision almost instantly.