Hot Wire by Gary Carson Read Free Book Online Page A

Brown, now this. "What're you doing here?"
    "I just wanted to see you. That's all."
    I took a deep breath. Steffy was a brunette tonight and she was wearing zombie mascara and bright red lipstick that made her look like a vampire with tits. Twenty-two going on twelve, she was a junky stripper who bounced around between the clubs and escort services when she wasn't comatose or getting kicked out by her latest scumbag pimp. I couldn't stand her, but she was my cousin on my father's side – the only family I had left. My parents got killed in a head-on collision with a drunk mortgage broker while I was still crawling around in nappies. A couple years after that, Steffy's mother ran off and her father got busted for shooting a gas station attendant in Sacramento – he got religion and wrote her letters about the Rapture from San Quentin, but she could hardly read them. Steffy was a dizzy leech with stretch marks around her mouth, but I felt kind of responsible for the brainless slut. Don't ask me why. We were both Central Valley mongrels chewed up by foster homes and Juvie, then spit out on the street to die.
    "Look, Steffy," I said. "I've got to get out of here."
    "Can I stay with you tonight? Larry kicked me out."
    "Tonight's bad, OK?" I sat up, tapping the floor with my shoe, clasping my hands together and looking around. The longhair had vanished. The janitors were heading for the door. "I've got some problems. It's a bad idea."
    "What kind of problems?" She got all bug-eyed. "Is it that fat guy you work for? He tried to feel me up once. He's got these big hairy hands."
    "I can't talk about it," I said. "And you can't stay with me."
    "Please? It's just for tonight. I'm getting paid Friday and Arn said there's a vacancy in the building next to him and I think I can make the deposit."
    "Friday's five days away," I said. "When did you talk to Arn?"
    "A couple days ago. Please? I don't have any place to go."
    "Jesus Christ." Vincent was getting ready to close. The place had cleared out and he was giving me the evil eye while he locked the front door and started to turn out the lights. The pinball machine flashed and chimed in the shadows, playing a little tune. "All right, come on." I got to my feet and started for the bar. "I've got to get my keys, then I'll drive you over there, OK? I'm not going to be around. I'm just going to pick up some stuff."
    "You're not going to be there?" She grabbed her purse, one of those monster jobs covered with sequins and plastic flowers, then stumbled after me on her spiked heels. "Why not? What's going on?"
    "I told you," I said. "I can't talk about it."
    "It's that fat guy, isn't it? What a creep."
    #
    I always left my keys with Vincent while I was working. He could tell something was wrong when I picked them up early, but he didn't ask any questions and just told me to be careful. After I got the keys, I used the pay phone to call the Radisson at the Berkeley Marina and got a room for two days – a lucky break since they were usually full on the weekends. The reservations maxed out my Visa, but I couldn't face hiding in a Motel 6 while Deacon tried to find out what was going on. His guy at the DMV could trace the Lexus and his bondsman could find out if Arn had been arrested, so it might only take a couple days for everything to settle down. If it took longer than that, I'd have to move someplace cheaper: I could only hole up for a week or two before I ran out of money.
    Finally, I was ready to go. I said goodbye to Vincent, bundled Steffy into my Dodge, then I headed over to Berkeley to drop her off and do some packing. She was fading fast, giggling and whining about her manager and his slimeball friends, or something like that. Her jabber made perfect sense if I didn't actually listen to it. Slouched behind the wheel, I watched the rearview, the headlights drifting through the streets. It was almost two in the morning.
    I lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the top floor of this dump on