Signature Kill by David Levien Read Free Book Online

demanded.
    “No.”
    “You think you can find her again?”
    “Think so,” Jonesy said.
    “Good.” Behr flung the bat across the yard, where it landed with a clunk in a pile of refuse. He put a knee on Jonesy’s belly and dropped a business card down on him.
    “If Shantae sees this guy and this car again, I want her to call you and then I want you to call me,” Behr told him.
    Jonesy nodded slowly.
    “And if I
ever
have occasion to come talk to you again and you welcome me with a baseball bat, I will break every fucking limb off your body.”
    Jonesy just lay there frozen as Behr stood and, to prove his point, went to the refrigerator, opened the door, and ripped it backward off its hinges. Then he picked up his pepper spray and walked away.

12
    It is afternoon, after the school buses have left the streets, in the pale before winter’s early dark, when he finally sees her again. Cinnamon. He is sitting at a traffic light, and the door to a package store swings open and she emerges carrying a small sack. Time goes liquid. The light changes. She starts walking south, toward Lowell Avenue. He watches her go until he becomes aware of a horn honking from what seems a far-off distance. He takes his foot off the brake and makes a right turn. He isn’t anxious. In fact, he is totally relaxed. He knew this moment would come. He creates a box, making the next right, and the next, turning the corner back onto Lowell. He doesn’t see her, not at first. He wonders if she’s gone into another store. Then a couple of pedestrians clear as they enter a fried-chicken stand and she becomes visible, walking away from him at her own smooth pace. Her head bounces slightly as she walks, and he perceives she is listening to music through small in-ear headphones, though he can’t see them. He remains where he is, allowing her to walk away from him. He will stay where he is until she’s almost drawn out of sight or she turns. He is good at this.
    After a few long moments she does turn: a left, onto Hawthorne. It is only then that he puts the car back into gear and drives slowly after her. He reaches Hawthorne as she nears midblock, and she is in his sight when she turns onto Marquette. He repeats the move of reaching the new street after she’s had a chance to go about halfway down it. He noses the car around the corner in time to see her walkup three stairs and into a small brick house. She doesn’t use a key—the door must be unlocked. She didn’t knock, though. Her manner is proprietary. She is home.
    He puts the car in park and watches and waits. He considers making entry. Going right in. The idea is always there. There is plenty of pressure for it inside of him. But not
so
much that
not
going in is out of the question. He is able to wait, so he does. No one else comes or goes as he sits and watches, but that is no guarantee she lives alone. Besides, his kit isn’t in the car. It is of no matter. He knows where to find her now. There will come a time when he can’t wait any longer, and when it does, he will be ready. Until then, his mind races off through the dark places and he waits. After three hours he has grown hungry, but not for food. He puts the car in gear once more and drives away from her house—one he will be back at again soon.

13
    Beating up pimps didn’t come cheap, and Behr waited for any one of the countless potential injuries that went along with that kind of activity to announce itself. At his age even winning a fight could result in a blown shoulder, a torn calf, a dislocated wrist or ankle, at best. But this time there seemed to be none. He’d come through his tussle with Jonesy clean. Of course he had tweaked his neck when the woman tackled him, and his foot was sore—bruised but not broken—due to his kick, because fighting a pimp’s wife and dog didn’t come cheap either.
    Behr had gone on and spent the rest of the day trying to find a known address for Shantae Williams. Now that he had her