Upside Down

28

Marta and Arturo sat in her Lincoln Town Car, parked across the street from the Porter house. Marta was certain the Porter girl would return home, because she, like other normal children, lacked the skills to survive outside what was familiar to her. The kid had run straight to her comfort zone immediately after leaving her mother's office. Maybe she had seen the cops waiting here, but if she had, where would she have gone? Best the cops could discover, Faith Ann Porter didn't have any close friends.

There was no choice but to sit and wait like hunters in a blind. If the cops spotted the girl, they'd call the two detectives downtown and they'd call Arturo and Marta. Problem was that there was no obvious trail to follow, no list of friends and associates. Marta glanced at the sleeping Arturo and could see the golden crucifix through his open shirt.

Marta thought religion was candy for superstitious idiots. She couldn't stand nuns or priests, crucifixes, statues, or paintings of the Blessed Mother or of Jesus with His cut-out heart suspended in front of His chest. The only thing the Catholic Church had ever done for Marta was to use an ancient padlock on their poorbox. Marta had learned to pick it by trial and error-finally succeeding when she bent an ice pick tip between two bricks and used it like a key.

As a child, Marta had lived by her wits and her ability to successfully read people and situations. She had learned her lessons by trial and error, and by observation. She'd watched foraging raccoons and seen how they worked tirelessly to figure out how to get to sources of food that people had done their best to keep from them. Because the raccoons didn't understand people and were greedy, the animals left a big mess, so the people they'd outsmarted always figured out a new way to thwart further looting. For several years she had robbed the poorbox of its offerings, never taking more than a small percentage at a time. Picking that first padlock took the patience and ingenuity of a raccoon. Like the animals, Marta knew if she were found out the priests would change the lock to thwart her.

Marta had learned that often when a job went this wrong, somebody got caught, and then that somebody talked. Once people like Jerry Bennett started trying to save their own skins, they'd throw out every name they could remember to the cops.

Normally, as a matter of self-preservation, she would have already killed Bennett for his stupidity. Unfortunately, since this involved Arturo, she had amended her normal rules. She had to get the tape, which tied Arturo into this. And she would make sure there was no evidence in Bennett's possession that connected Arturo to any other wet work. Finding that out would only require having Mr. Bennett alone for a short time.

She had two methods of getting information out of a man. One was by using her sex. The other way, which involved her other skills, was infinitely faster and far more palatable.