When the Thrill Is Gone

39

We were on the road in the yellow Prius, well on our way to the train station, when my phone made the sound of a growling bear. The Bluetooth was already in my ear because I had called to get my messages. So all I had to do was reach into my pocket and press a button to make the connection.

“Hello,” I said.

Chrystal touched my shoulder.

“Mr. Mack-gill?” a woman said.

“Yeah?”

“This Seema.”

“Why... hello, Seema,” I said with forced sangfroid. “What can I do for you?”

“Did you mean what you said yesterday?”

“Every word.”

“Can you come get me right now?”

“It might take an hour or so, but I’ll get there sooner if I can. Where are you?”

“I stoled his money,” she replied, giving me a way out, I supposed.

“You mean the money you collected by asking strangers for a train ticket to nowhere?”

“I guess.”

“Then it’s really your money.”

“I’m at a laundromat on Phillips called Dusty’s.”

“That’s an odd name for a place to clean clothes.”

“That’s the name of the woman that owns it,” Seema said with no humor whatsoever. “She was a friend’a my mother’s.”

“Does Brody know where you are?” I asked.

“You remebah his name?”

“Does he know where you are?”

“He thinks I’m out shoppin’ fo’ food, but if he looks in his money draw he gonna know what I did.”

“Give me the address and I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

I disconnected the call when I had what I needed, handed the phone to Chrystal, and asked her to enter the address in my GPS.

“Where we going?” she asked with no distrust that I could glean.

I explained about Seema and Brody.

“Hm,” she grunted.

“What?”

“Most people would have just waved that girl on and gone about their business.”

“Turn left in fifty yards,” commanded a woman’s voice from my phone.

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right about that,” I said, to Chrystal, not the phone.

“Is it some kind of sickness with you?” She might have been serious.

“Can I drop you somewhere while I take care of this?” I replied.

“No.”

“No?”

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

“It might be a little risky.”

Her grin might have been mine in the mirror.

Dusty’s Coin-Op Laundromat was a dingy little place with a big exhaust pipe over the front door letting out great gouts of steam.

“You have arrived at your destination,” the GPS woman said.

When I drove past the establishment, Chrystal said, “It’s right there.”

“We’ll go around the block.”

Everything looked all right. Brody was nowhere to be seen and there weren’t any lookouts waiting in the recesses or doorways on Phillips Avenue.

There was an alleyway behind the little laundry. A pass through there showed me a back door.

I drove around the block again, finally parking across the street and at the far end from Dusty’s.

“Got anything that needs cleaning?” I asked Chrystal.

“Just my mind.”

“Well, come on, then.”

“You’re not going to ask me to stay in the car?”

“You’re safer with me.”

Dusty’s coloring matched her name. Her skin was grayish brown, like some mouse fur, and her eyes glinted an unhealthy yellow hue. Seated behind an old teacher’s desk, she was my age but looked older.

The establishment was a long, slender aisleway with double-stacked washing machines and solitary dryers down the right side and wooden benches on the left. There were no customers in sight, but five or more of the machines were running.

I supposed people dropped their clothes off with Dusty and she washed them, charging by the pound.

“You got laundry?” she blurted.

“It’ll just take a minute,” I said.

“No funny business in here, mistah.”

“Just lookin’ for a friend.”

“This ain’t no bar,” she said, “ain’t no ho’ house.”

“It’s okay, DD,” a voice called from behind a big chrome washing machine that stood like a sentry guarding the rest of its machine brothers and sisters. The huge unit had a round glass door throwing up flashes of red and orange inside the frothing of dirty suds.

Seema poked her head around the side of the vibrating chrome-and-glass monster. Her eyes fixed instantly on Chrystal.

“Who’s that?” she asked.

“The friend I came down here to visit,” I said simply. Every word was true, even if there were some temporal disconnections.

Seema was suspicious, still wearing the dowdy clothes she’d had on the day before. The only additions to her ensemble were a little red cloth bag, clutched in both hands, and a swollen, discolored left eye.

“So?” she said.

“That’s what I should be asking you, girl. Here we are. What do you want?”

“I need to get outta here,” she said. “I need to get away from him.”

Saying this, she glanced at Chrystal, and I realized that she was thinking that I had been offering to take her on in some romantic or maybe business capacity. This was a revelation, because I was distracted by the ill-advised dalliance with my client.

“You got family?” I asked.

“Not that I wanna see. An’ anyway, Brody know all my people.”

“You ever been to Eastern Light?” Chrystal asked.

“You mean the church ovah past the seaport?”

“It’s a retreat,” Chrystal said to the both of us. “The people who run it are Hindu, but they don’t practice or proselytize.”

“Huh?” Seema said.

“Brody out there,” Dusty warned.

There was a sea-green ’80s Chevrolet driving past the front door of the store. I reached into my pocket laying my hand on a gun I had no license to carry in Maryland. I could feel my back muscles bulging and had to take a deep breath to ease my natural impulses.

“Let’s go out the back,” I said to my charges.

They knew to take direction at a moment like that.

The back door of Dusty’s led into an alley that smelled of maggots and human feces. The lane was wide enough for a small car, and there were various denizens reclining in doorways, crevices, and other nooks and niches. I kept my hand on the pistol as I led the women.

We came out on Allen Street and walked the half block to Phillips. As we crossed the avenue toward my sunny little car, I saw Brody, followed by two other men, walking into Dusty’s. At that moment he glanced in my direction, looked right at me. Seema was on the other side, hidden by my bulk. Brody didn’t recognize my suit or frame.

Lucky for him and his friends.

Eastern Light was a temple of ancient East Asian design located in a nicer part of town. On the way over, Chrystal explained the place to both of us.

“They offer shelter for people, body and mind,” Chrystal said. “They teach classes, serve meals, and have small rooms with cots for special cases.”

“And how come you know so much about them?” I asked.

“I volunteer, and I also contribute money.”

“Brody gonna find me here,” Seema said.

“I doubt it,” Chrystal assured her. “They’re under everybody’s radar, and they don’t take many residents. For the first little while, at least, you will be in the inner circle and even the day visitors won’t see you.”

“I’m not givin’ ’em my money,” Seema said.

“They have their own resources,” my client replied. “If you want to hold on to that little bag, that’s fine, no one will try and take it from you.”

“So you just gonna leave me here?” Seema directed this question to me.

“For the time being, sugar. You need a place to get centered.”

“I thought you wanted me to be with you.”

“I never said that. I said I’d get you away from Brody. That meant I’d get you someplace safe, but I’m not a pimp or a gangster. I’m a detective, like the card says.”

“What if I don’t like it here?”

We were parked at the ornate gate of the temple grounds. Chrystal was sitting next to me, while Seema sat in the center of the backseat. I turned around to look her in the face.

“If you don’t like it, you can just leave, or call me and I’ll either come down myself or send somebody I trust to get you.”

“How’m I gonna call? Do they even have a phone in there?”

I reached into William Williams’ satchel and came out with a small black phone wrapped in a power cord, one of the throwaways that Bug kept me supplied with. This I handed to the girl.

“You still have my card?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Did Brody give you that black eye?”

Another nod.

“Then let Chrystal take you in there, and give it three days before you make up your mind what to do.”

It wasn’t what she wanted. It wasn’t what she expected. But Seema didn’t have much choice.

“Okay,” she said.

I waited in the car while my client escorted the girl through the gate and gardens and into the lavish domed building. I sat there for a quarter of an hour wondering at the odd connection between me and the solid-steel artist.

On the train, Chrystal and I sit side by side, mainly in silence. I used the time to consider the murder of my initial client; also Dimitri and Twill; also Gordo on his deathbed; and, to a lesser degree, the man William Williams.

An hour into the ride I called Seema.

“Hello?” she said after the sixth ring.

“Seema.”

“Mr. Mack-gill?”

“How are you?”

“Okay, I guess. They food taste funny but they nice.”

“You feel safe?”

“I guess. They give me this tiny little room and told me that I could work anywhere I want to for my rent — the kitchen or the laundry, whatevah.”

“I’ll call you at the end of the week to see how you’re doing.”

“If I get cleaned up, can I come down to you?”

“It’s not about that, girl. I’m just helping you.”

“Okay. But you gonna call, right?”

“Definitely.”

If Chrystal heard this conversation she gave no sign of it. She just stared out the window, blinking now and then like a camera on a very slow shutter release.