Pearl’s acrylic nail extensions first became a permanent fixture due to the fact her natural nails split with a sneeze. They were wafer-thin and brittle as a breadstick. With just a bit of pressure, they’d fold like an envelope. As a little girl, she’d bitten them right down until they became sore and puckered, little flecks of hang-nails she’d gnaw off with a whetted wince. When her Mama noticed those “stubby little boy” fingernails, she’d invented a punishment that would act as a deterrent for the bad habit. Soaking them in acetone, the chemical stinging extra good as it sunk its claws into the little nibble wounds, was something her mama ordered sometimes as much as once a day. It took a while to establish a successful causal effect. Not only did it set her skin on fire with every soak, Pearly’s fingers then tasted chemically acidic every time they absent-mindedly found themselves between her incisors. Consequently, even in adulthood, her nails never grew past her fingertips. They’d crack and fissure if they managed to become anything more than just pink pillows. So the trademark nail extensions became a necessity as soon as Pearl discovered she could simply pick and choose a length and style with the sweet little Vietnamese girl downtown.

She always asked the girl to make her pinky nail extra long and shaved into a sharp point. Then the extensions became more than just an aesthetic choice. They were useful tools. Like a pocket knife that doubles up as a corkscrew or somethin’. Her elongated, pointed pinky became a miniature shovel to plunge in her packets of white. It was more practical than a rolled up bill or a plastic straw cut in half. Felt more divinely feminine, too. It was transportable, no chance of her ever getting caught short. All she had to do was pluck the baggie from her bra or her panties and she could baby bird that shit right into her nostril of choice. Plus, it was real good at hooking boogers. And tappin’ rhythms on the bar top. They weren’t so useful when balled into a fist and flying into faces, though. No, they tended to get in the way those times. Though Pearly never failed to find a way of blaming the person on the receiving end of those beatings for her broken nails. Nothing quite irked her like the clatter of an acrylic nail pinging across the floor.

“And that’s why I couldn’t do it, Winifred!” the Madam exclaimed, waggling her fingernails as if she were playing keys in the blues band downstairs. “These babies just ain’t built for hard labour. And I don’t think even I could pull off those overalls.”

Winnie didn’t answer. She was making quick work of resetting Dixie’s room. The hunched, hobbling troll-like physique moved with slow, deliberate precision without so much of a grunt in response to Pearl’s projectile-vomit conversation. It was a far cry from the mess the Cleaner was accustomed to:

“You could’ve dealt with this in-house, Pearly…” she’d grumbled when her wonky form first shuffled into the bedroom. Her pebbled eyes swept across the room, taking in the scene.

There was none of the usual blood spatters, no murder weapon, no body. But Winnie had still treated it like a surgical procedure, as usual. Scrubbing in with her Marigolds and pinny, she didn’t even spare a second look for the naked babydoll stood shivering in the corner, still cradling the phantom swaddle of clothes that Roge had snatched from her moments before. Dixie hasn’t said a word since Pearl had instructed her to keep quiet. Save for the occasional sniffle, Dixie obediently stood silently as if she were just a part of the backdrop. A cardboard cutout of a whore whose dilated pupils and trembling bones were the only giveaway she was indeed flesh and blood. Occasionally, Pearl fixed her with a disapproving look as Winnie made her way around the room, the grim realisation that this here was an animal in need of putting down knitting the Madam’s brow together.

The Cleaner stripped the bed sheets and vacuumed the whole room. She plugged in her steamer with a huff but not before excessively spraying every surface the eye could comb over. It smelt like citrus and headache-inducing disinfectant. She ran her rag over each and every touch point; The headboard, the bed-frame, the doors, the handles, the light switch… No square inch was safe from Winnie. Clouds of intoxicating cleaner spritzed into the air, their mist settling on unsuspecting skin in a sheer chemical curtain. Pearl’s eyes rolled and she sucked corrupted air through gritted teeth.

“I can’t stay in here no longer, goddamn!” Pearl griped, tottering over to the entryway, clutching her chest and theatrically struggling for breath. “You’re damned near disinfectin’ the oxygen out the air, Winifred!”

A small smile poked its head round the corner of Winnie’s mouth, her focus firmly fixated on the circular motion of the rag in her pruned hand. There was something hypnotic about watching the cyclicism of Winnie’s handiwork, like the trance of your favourite pair of panties swirling round the washing machine at the laundromat. Pearl hovered at the doorway for a moment, lips parting with the conception of a premature thought, quickly deciding against any parting words before slinking away back to Soirée.

Whenever Pearl left a room, the silence that fell in her absence was cavernous. Winnie set free the bird of her breath that had been caged in Pearly’s company. She straightened for a beat, hands hanging loosely by her sides, rag pinched between fingertips like a hankie. The itch of irritation skittered down every knob of her spinal cord. That devilish Madam got under her skin better than any medical-grade disinfectant ever could. The Cleaner’s dark brown eyes softened as she finally noticed the naked, twiggy body in the corner of the room. She cleared her throat, awkwardly fingering the rag as she searched for words that didn’t feel too-tight wrapped round her tongue.

“This your mess I’m here for?” Winnie asked, distributing her weight onto the handle of the vacuum for support. “Don’t worry, chile. You alright. I’ll be out your hair in no time. Then you can get yourself to bed and sleep away them bags under your eyes.”

Dixie’s widened eyes flitted across Winnie’s face searchingly, her bottom lip wobbling with words unsaid. The Cleaner sighed, turning back to the tasks at hand.

“You poor lamb,” she muttered, her daughter and granddaughters faces superimposed onto this bag of bones that rattled as it stood. “You must be exhausted, huh? Why don’t you get into somethin’ a lil more comfortable? You’ll catch a cold.”

Like a wary street cat, Dixie shied away from the caressing tone and the coax of Winnie’s softness. The Cleaner busied herself by making the bed, wrapping the mattress tight like Christmas, then nodded her head at her handiwork.

“Why don’t you climb on into bed, hmm? I’m sure Madam’s busy elsewhere for now. Get some shut-eye.”

Like a ghost, compliant and obedient, Dixie floated across the room. Her naked body sighed between the fresh sheets. Winnie tutted. Her chalky, weathered hands shot out and caught Dixie’s ankles before they disappeared beneath the sheets. The Cleaner unbuckled the straps at her ankles, letting the heels thud to the floor. Then, she tugged at the covers to tuck her in. Brushing invisible crumbs from the duvet, Winnie looked upon the woman that could be no older than 21, who still had the dismay of a scolded child draped across her face. The Cleaner never usually involved herself like this, preferring to take a “don’t speak unless spoken to” approach. But Tony had opened a door for her earlier, a slither of freedom creeping through the gaps, and it sweetened her. If she were to keep an ear to the ground for Luca as requested, she’d have to network. So, despite discretion always being her default, the next sentence clumsily tumbled from her lips spurred on by Tony’s promise.

“I’m going to start packing away now, mmkay? Think I’m just about done here!” she side-eyed the young woman, inching away from the bedside. Those weary, bloodshot eyes were staring back at her from above the duvet, tracking her every movement. “You know… People disappear all the time in these streets. It’s dog eat dog, right? So I don’t want you worryin’ yourself sick about this. Madam’s got it covered, ain’t she? And Winnie’s got this place so clean you could do open heart surgery right here.”

It was meant to lighten the burden, maybe even ignite the spark of a smile on her face. But Dixie’s eyes fell onto the bed she’d been tucked in to, the same one she’d been sprawled across just hours earlier, and an injection of horror spread across her features. To Winnie, it seemed like the poor girl was reliving some godawful memory. Quickly regretting her rebuffed offer of comfort, the Cleaner began to pack up her cleaning paraphernalia, clicking her tongue in tuts of disappointment. But it was too late. The dam had been broken. Dixie’s silence melted away into uncontrollable tears. She didn’t wail. There was no dramatic eruption. She muffled her cries into a pillow pressed so firmly against her face that Winnie despaired for the crumpling pillowcase. Those suffocated sobs, stifled of their chance to be heard beyond these walls, disappeared into the depths of the lumpy cushion.

“I d-d-didn’t mean to!… I didn’t fucking mean to!…” Dixie’s almost inaudible, wretched cries were nearly lost. But Winnie caught them in her wrinkled palms. She folded her fingers around them and clasped them closer to her curious, pricked ears. “It was an accident. A goddamn accident. He liked it! He s-s-said he liked it!”

Winnie was back at the bedside in a couple of shuffled steps, crooked back bent over Dixie, patting the inconsolable girl like a stray dog.

“I didn’t know it was him! I didn’t know, okay? If I’d have known… If I’d have known?… Oh, I don’t fucking know! I would’ve been more careful. Or s-somethin’. If I’d have known it was him I-“

There was no interjecting. No pacifying. This girl had finally snapped what little string of sanity tied her together. She bawled. Winnie watched on, unable to look away.

“You sh-should’ve seen her face when he said his name!” she’d ripped the pillow from her face now. It was pinned down at her side, her mouth freed and louder for it. Those eyes were 8balls in her upturned face. “P-Pearl. Her face! Oh fuck, her face when he said all casual ‘It’s Luca what’shisfuckingname.’ She looked at me like she could k-kill me!…” Then, all softly, Dixie added in a hoarse whisper “She’s going to kill me.”

Suddenly a shrill, eardrum-perforating ringing struck out in Winnie’s lugholes. She blinked. She did nothing save for blink. Had the hysterical girl just said what she thought she’d said? That downturned, agonised mouth was sliding in slow motion over her gums. The words she so nonsensically stitched together sounded distant and garbled now. All Winnie could hear was that name, echoing as if called into the tunnel of her mind. A shaking hand, tremors of disbelief trembling her fingers, hovered up to the girl’s snot and tear-streaked cheek. She rested her skin against hers. A genuine, whisper-soft touch. Dixie ground to a halt. Quickly, the sobs were snatched from her quivering lips. The girl did nothing, said nothing, simply staring back at Winnie whose hand stayed gently cupping that hollow cheek.

“That’s enough, chile…” Winnie crooned. Once again, she was a mother. An adoring, gentle mother. “Now. I want you to get some rest. It’s time to sleep. That’s right. It’s bedtime.”

Dixie blinked, her lashes thick and clumped together with salted tears. She looked like a child now more than ever. An exhausted breath flickered from her lips and like butterfly wings, her eyelids fluttered shut. Winnie stayed for a few precious seconds, her thumb brushing the damp cheek in those same circular movements she’d used with the rag in hand earlier. This time, the hypnosis lulled Dixie into an almost-slumber. The Cleaner edged away from the bed. She moved as if so much as a loud breath would wake the girl. A faint, bemused smile tugged at the corner of Winnie’s lips. The girl had no idea the gravity of the gift she’d just bestowed upon her. Ignoring the remorse that pooled beneath her cushioned ribcage, she excused herself from the whorehouse. Making herself scarce, Winnie gathered her cleaning utensils in a hurry. Roger nodded curtly to bid her farewell and watched from the entryway as Winnie took a couple of trips to load her stuff into the van. She almost left it all there. Abandoned it all. What use to her was it now that she wouldn’t be cleaning? This would be her final job, after all. All because she’d stumbled across a goldmine when she accepted the Madam’s late-night end of tenancy clean. The invoice, creased and crumpled, passed hands. It was futile and inutile now. Rendered null and void thanks to Dixie’s confession. The van’s engine reluctantly sprung to life and Winnie fumbled to shift the stick into gear. Once again, this body resisted cooperation. But she didn’t care. She was free. Soon, she could finally let these weary bones rest. Shooting a final thankful glance up at Soirée, the Cleaner pulled away from the curb. The wider implications of what she’d heard didn’t occur to her. She simply waved away any concerned voices that asked her conscience to consider the distraught whore’s fate. If that was the price of her freedom? So be it. It weren’t her mess to clean up. Not anymore.

3 whole hours of sleep. A rare treat for the doctor. His wife stirred at sun up, and so did he. He opened his eyes sharply and his mind began racing. He had a busy day. He sloughed on yesterday's suit and shouldered his satchel, running out the house before his family had a chance to pester him. A single piece of toast clenched between his teeth.

He swerved his way to the clinic, settling himself quickly with a bump or two as he reached for the phone. The police report didn't take long. A cold draught crept in as he waited for the inspector. They had a succinct conversation on arrival, Joe was busy. The detective couldn't stay to take prints. He took notes of the details, including the painkillers Joe claimed were missing. Then the officer took off, in just as much of a hurry as Joe. After that he called his insurance. That was like pulling teeth. Then an old friend came in with one of her little girls, he cleaned the poor thing up and put some quick stitches in. Nothing too unusual. After he finished up with that affair he had another call patched through.

An 'exotic'; his specialty. Not a voice he recognised. Requesting a home call. He frowned. Home calls were consistently the worst ones. And he charged exorbitant premiums for them. He told the oafish sounding man on the other side exactly that. The man responded by offering another half on top of the asked price. Good money, terrible sign. Joe would be a wreck of nerves. He'd have to search for some urgent muscle, someone to watch his back so he didn't end up with a caved in skull in some wretched thug's apartment. He scrawled down the address and said he'd be there when he got to it, probably a lot later in the day. He set down the receiver with a huff.

Likely time for another fucking phonecall. But before he could figure out which number to dial he was blessed with ringing first. He didn't even have time to take his hand off the handset before picking it back up. As usual he waited for the other line to speak first. Just as well, the voice on the other side didn't wait. "Joe. It's Sean. We need to meet." He immediately recognised his cousin on the other side. "Aye, we do. Meet me on the corner by the warehouse?" Joe heard men chattering on the other side, "Right you are lad, see you in 40?" Sean was born across the pond, he still had the accent of their homeland. Unlike Joe. Joe confirmed and set the receiver down.

He brushed off his lab coat and grabbed his shoulder bag, along with a large doctor's bag. He popped out the backdoor and set them both in his car, before dashing back into his office and unlocking a drawer. He took his lab coat and his suit jacket off. He hoisted an armpit holster on, and inspected his handgun. A pocket colt hammerless, he loaded two magazines with care, loaded the gun and set the spare in his pocket. He kept his concealed carry permit in his wallet.

Finally the doctor exited his office, locking the back door and the main door. He flipped the sign with his name on it, indicating he was out. He passed the counter, Becca was on the phone. He scrawled her a note: "out of office. take care xx" and tossed it on her desk as she glanced up at him, phone clenched between her cheek and her shoulder and she wrote briskly in her thick binder.

After a quick bump and a fresh scratch on the fender of his dinged up car, Joe pulled up to the corner outside the warehouse. Sean was standing there, and reached for the door to get in. Sean looked a lot like a younger Joe. He had a full head of hair, and no glasses. He was also bigger than Joe, which was impressive given Joe was already a large man. One might describe Sean as a brick-shithouse.

As Joe crunched into gears and took off with a jerk, Sean grunted and wound the window down, poking an arm out and resting his hand on the roof. "Where we headed?" Joe glanced at him sidelong, Sean knew well enough what Joe's real business was. "House call. Need an 'assistant'. You're watching my back, make sure some scumbag isn't trying to rob me. Why'd you call, Sean?" Sean's accent was blurry and his words were half formed, "The lads back'ome got in touch withmae. They're ontha prowl for hardware. Got some big plans for the Galls." Joe smirked. "Aye, you might be in luck. Not sure about bulk though." He paused to brake suddenly and switched the car off outside a wretched looking townhouse. He nodded at Sean before exiting the car and retrieving the doctor's bag from the back seat. He had hidden his personal bag beneath one of the backseats.

The front yard was full of unrecognisable refuse, with overgrown grass. Paint was peeling off of the once grand walls and the attic window had been smashed in and never repaired, just boarded up. "Y'sure this the place, Joe?" Joe nodded as he glanced shiftily at the house number precariously dangling from the door. He knocked sharply, more times than anyone would need to. After some time the pair heard grunting and shuffling they heard the door unlocking. It was a long process; multiple latches.

The heavy door opened a crack, still chained shut. A single eye peeked through the crack and hissed at them, "Waddyawant." Sean raised an eyebrow while Joe responded. "You called me. For an 'exotic' housecall?" The man huffed, as he exhaled Joe was assaulted by the foul stench of sulfur. He winced as the door was being opened and glanced at Sean, his face was a mix of disgust and abject curiosity. The massive door opened to reveal an even more massive, vile, fat slob of a man standing behind it. His ill-fit polo shirt was heavily stained and his gut poked out obscenely. He looked at the pair of men shamelessly; mouth hung open gormlessly. "Who's this prick?" He gestured limply to Sean. Who was sneering in disgust.

Joe was lucky enough to be in the know of how to shut off his sense of smell, so his reaction wasn't as visceral as Sean's. "My assistant-" Sean butted in after he mustered up a shit-eating grin, "Ai'm his annie-stee-ollo-jist." Joe smirked as he stumbled over the word but rolled with it, "He's the guy that puts 'em to sleep." The fat slob grunted, "Well don't think I'm paying extra for that shit. No one needs to go to sleep today." Joe raised an eyebrow, "Well what is it you got me out here for? Can't get up to the clinic?" The slob ignored the obvious jab. "Better I show you."

He stepped to one side and gestured for the men to enter with a hairy arm. The two cautiously stepped through the threshold and examined the hallway. The walls were covered in eldritch stains and the floor was carpeted in soiled newspapers. The glimpses they got of the other rooms revealed a house much like the garden, completely uncared for and full of waste. Sean scowled at Joe, Joe shrugged back at him as the slob walked to the end of the hall to a squat door. He opened it to a reveal a dark stairwell going down, and gestured for them to enter again. Sean chuckled and poked him sharply in the love handles, "Think we're dense, slug? You first."

The fat man recoiled pitifully and heaved himself down slowly, as he reached the bottom he flipped a switch and lights lit up the dank basement. Sean went first, with Joe close behind. They both had their heads on a swivel and their strong hands in their jackets. But all that was irregular as they entered the basement was the unusual tidiness for the man's house... And the gentle sobbing coming from the far corner. Sean turned to face it first and gasped. Then Joe did as well, furrowing his eyebrows. There was a small woman, chained to the wall. Naked. On a soiled blanket. Her dark tan skin was pallid under the dingy basement lighting and her head was bowed, her ratty black hair hanging in front of her face.

Joe's eyes shifted between the man and the woman nervously, he asked the man: "What's wrong with her?" He looked at Joe with a smug grin, "I need you to lobotomise her. You know what that is right?" Joe's eyebrows shot-up. "Why?" The man's response was completely sincere, like he felt no guilt, no shame. "She won't stop screaming when I fuck her." Sean hadn't stopped staring at the woman since he had entered. The fat man didn't notice his breathing become slower, deeper. Joe responded, masking his disgust and rage frighteningly well. "Show me the money first."

The man argued meekly, "After you've done it. I promise." Joe shook his head, Sean said what he was thinking: "Not how this works." The man cringed as Sean spoke. He sighed and grumbled as he turned around, pulling a plyboard panel out of the wall and dragging out a duffel bag stuffed full of loose bills. As he leant over and rummaged around his foul crack was on full display. He didn't hear Sean walk up to him with a hand over his nose. But he certainly felt it when he stood and Sean pulled the hammer out of his jacket and cracked him against the temple with it. The woman heard the slob hit the floor. She looked up. She looked at the pair of men. They looked at her. Sean walked over to her and began to fuss at her shackles. She recoiled as he touched her. He looked at her, she saw earnestness in his eyes. The shackles were locked firmly shut. Sean began fumbling in his pockets for something when Joe walked over. He had rummaged the fat man's pockets for keys. No luck. But he had found a chisel.

Presumably what he was going to offer to help Joe carry out the lobotomy. Joe nudged Sean, "We could try to hammer them off, lad." Sean shook his head, "You'll just end up hurting her man. I got it." He fished a small object out of his pocket. A metal shim. He fiddled with the bindings for a moment before he caught the latch and they came away. The woman looked up at Sean in awe, she offered him her ankles, and he repeated it for each of her limbs. As she was freed she rubbed at her wrists and her ankles. When Sean was done she had begun crying again. Seemingly tears of relief. She stood up and flung her arms around Sean. She was excitedly babbling. Joe realised after moment that she was speaking a very foreign language. Nothing he even remotely recognised.

He patted her on the back and glanced at Joe nervously. After a long wait she separated herself and looked back and forth from either man expectantly. The slob had been forgotten about but they remembered him when he groaned in the corner, blood streaming down his face. The naked woman dashed towards him and began kicking him in the stomach, he sprayed vomit across the plyboard wall, he tried to right himself and stand but Sean kicked him savagely in the head with his heavy boots and he fell back to the concrete floor.

While the two continued kicking the slob; Joe quietly picked up his bag and the bag of money and went up the stairs. He left his bag up there, and when he returned he was holding a kitchen knife. His sleeve covered his hand. He calmly tapped the woman on the back. She paused her assault to look at him with confusion. Then her face lit up as she saw him offering her the knife handle. She took it with glee. Before she could begin stabbing away Joe pulled Sean away, up the stairs. "Best leave her too it, don't want any evidence you were hear. Good on ye' though, I'm glad you did that instead of me having to shoot 'im." Sean responded with a grave nod, paying more attention to the woman who was stabbing the fat slob repeatedly in the chest. He managed to groan a little before the death rattle took him. She continued stabbing him long after that death rattle, covering the basement in blood.

Finally she paused, realised he was dead, and dropped the knife. She stood up, turned, and went up the stairs to the pair of men, leaving a trail of bloody bare footprints. She was covered in blood. Joe grimaced. He peered around for something to wipe her off with. Seemingly nothing. Nothing that wasn't dirtier than her at least. He unbuttoned his lab coat and offered it to her. She gladly accepted. At least now she had an ounce of dignity. Joe instructed Sean as they neared the door, "Take the money. Get her in the back seat. Quick like. Get her to stay down. Don' want any cops seeing her in my car like that. Sit with her if you have to. You can have the money." Sean responded, "In the car? What are you gonna do with her Joe?" Joe chuckled, "I could ask you the same Sean. You hammered the guy. You got an empty apartment don'cha? Looks like you've got a new girlfriend." Sean muttered something about 'ruined plans' and 'alien women' but didn't really argue.

They opened the door, Sean dashed onto the street and looked around. No one in sight. It was the middle of the day on a workday. In the 'burbs. He waved at her, she cautiously stepped outside, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun. Sean waved at her to hurry up and opened the back door of the car. She climbed in and sat down. He tilted his head to one side and rested his hands together under his head. She looked at him incomprehensibly. He sighed and climbed in next to her, budging her over. He placed a heavy hand on the side of her face. He paused when she flinched. Sean gently pushed her head down till she was lying on the bench seat back there. She looked at Sean's face. He was looking back at her with a finger pressed against his lips. She knew what that meant. Joe climbed in the driver's seat and drove to Sean's building unusually carefully. No police. He switched the engine off. He placed a hand on the passenger headrest and craned his neck to look at Sean. "Get a garbage bag. Get a change of clothes. Get a towel. Get back here, stat." Sean nodded and hurried off.

He arrived with a faded threadbare towel. He offered it to the woman. She accepted gratefully and tried to wipe the congealing blood off as best as possible. As she cleaned up and changed into Sean's ill fitting manual worker's clothes Joe hit a bump and stood outside the car, peering around suspiciously at the handful of passers by. No one really paid mind to the car. But Joe sure as fuck looked odd. When she was done Joe told Sean, "Put the coat and the towel in the bag. Leave it in here." Sean looked at him incredulously, "But that's my only towel, Joe!" Joe's eyebrows shot up. "That's foul, son. Use tha' money to get a-many more. And some nice clothes for the poor woman. Now I gotta clean this shit up. Gwan' git." Sean covered up a laugh, and led the shoeless woman into his apartment. He only got a handful of strange looks for it.

Joe sighed as he glanced back at his white leather upholstery. Covered in blood. He hid the garbage bag under the car seat. He drove through the cold afternoon and swerved slightly as he checked his scribbled to-do list. He parked outside the Soirée haphazardly. He saw the light of a fire glinting off a building wall in the side alley. He pulled the bag out from under the seat and passed the entrance to the club, turning the corner to the alley. Some bum was warming his hands in an old metal drum he'd built a fire in. Joe strode up and tossed the bag in the fire. It went up in black flames, "Hey!" Before he could continue to protest Joe hipped his wallet out and offered him a crisp pair of Hamiltons. The man gladly took them and Joe walked off wordlessly into the club. He paid his debts to Miss Sackville by passing on some of the morphine that he'd reported as stolen onto Roge. Then he had a few stiff drinks and as much blow as his wretched heart could handle before driving off wildly into the early Wisconsin evening.

Static filled noise from the TV droned on. Mike sat up on the sofa in a haze, all he saw on the screen was blurry. The words were too sophisticated for him to understand in this state, he just laid his head back in vain hopes they would go away, and he could get back to sleep.

“The Yamaguchi Steelworks might not be what one would expect to find amidst a city that still boasts about its age-old pagodas and ancient wooden gates, but inside this building we are witnessing a quiet revolution.”

It would not stop. He didn’t know what hour it was, but the TV was still loud.

“Behind me sits a carefully engineered vessel holding over two hundred tons of molten iron, but a mere forty five minutes from now it shall be steel suited for the most demanding engineering uses. Such a process would normally take up to twelve hours in a typical American steel mill. This remarkable feat involves injecting pure oxygen into the mix and reaching unimaginable levels of heat, but the men of the Yamaguchi Steelworks are betting their livelihoods that they can get it right.”

Mike stirred some more but then the language turned to what he knew only as “Jap” and he tried to sleep again, drowning it out as white noise.

“Germans were very stubborn….Bessemer Process…Ore Quality.”

Ah, damn it, there’s a narrator. He forgot what he was watching last night.

With a throbbing pulse in his head and one hand clutching his forehead he sat up enough to gain his bearings.

“Low quality ore in Japan…International pressures... up to 25% scrap metal”

He stepped forward, eyes blurry from the light. What channel did he leave it on? Was it that new-fangled PBS one wasting his tax dollars or did he have that pinko Cronkite on again. He was walking past the coffee table on the way to touch the dial when his elbow clipped something. A bottle fell with a heavy clunk on the table as room-temperature beer poured forth. It was enough to remind him of how his mother used to shout; that was the only way she got him care enough to clean up. He took off the stained t-shirt he was wearing and used it as a rag. No one to complain about the job he did these days. The TV continued on in the background, now the scene was something inside an American office.

“You have to understand; I have obligations to balance. There are certain rates of return expected by shareholders, and the way I have run this has never disappointed them."

“But surely they’d understand if they knew it was necessary.”

“Let me explain to you in a way even a tv reporter like yourself can understand. You see that letter on the wall back there? That’s from one Miss Tilly. She’s been a shareholder for thirty years now and she’s been writing us letters ever since. Right now, she’s 82.”

“I don’t see what that...”

“What she tells us every year is how wonderful this stock and it’s dividends have been to her, how it helped her even when her husband passed, how proud she is of it and how she hopes her grandchildren will be able to keep her shares, because the we’ve done such a great job with the dividends each year.”

“So, Miss Tilly…”

“Miss Tilly and the millions of shareholders like her that rely on us for their retirement are not going to understand any fancy words like “Basic Oxygen Process” or “Collective Bargaining Agreement”, but they will understand if they see me shaving cents off of that dividend. A steel company of this scale is run like a precise machine, the finance boys will tell you that we’ve kept it on the same course with the same spending for fifty years and made a company that is the envy of the world, and we are not about to start fiddling with those because of Union agitators or foreign governments trying to undercut American prosperity.”

Click. Mike finally found the dial. He bothered to finish the beer before he turned it off. The taste was awful. That wasn’t enough for him to reconsider drinking it.

More pain in the head as he figured what he wanted to do. Get some food. Probably. Eating was a good way to solve unhappiness.

He shuffled over the cheap linoleum and the thin film that covered them in the kitchen, kicking aside something metal that he didn’t bother to look down to see what it was. In the fridge he picked out some old casserole to microwave back to warmth, then looked out on the gray skies outside the window. No neighbors out now. Good, miserable bunch of pricks who want to tell him all about their kids grades or what color they want to paint their door this season. He paid all this money for a house near the water and even then, it was still downwind of the mill on a bad day, the nicest neighborhoods got the water and less smog, but he didn’t have the money for those. He barely had enough for this one.

Ding, that’s the casserole. He ate with a spoon from the dishwasher, one he didn’t bother to check if it was clean or dirty, and placed the dish next to an opened liquor bottle sitting on the laminated wood of the table. Nothing he cooked was good food; a side effect of the primary means of instruction for cooking being parents and siblings screaming at him. Once the casserole was in his stomach it was time to get cleaned up a bit, so off to the bathroom it was. Did he have to look presentable anymore? That was a question he asked himself as he shaved the stubble away. Easier to answer that than what his old buddies would be doing now. He heard Costas got some kinda security work at the Mill, and of course Lieutenant Robinson kept his job, heaven forbid Minenoona’s finest lose someone whose best work is done apologizing and filling out forms. The rest? Who knows. Hughes is probably mooching off his wife’s salary from teaching; pure bitch move like that would fit him.

In the bedroom he found a pair of jeans on the floor and new shirt in a laundry basket that he hadn’t bothered to fold yet. Being here made him feel like he should check something, something important. Not the safe, with its door cracked open by a hair, all he kept in there were guns and mementos, like his father’s World War 1 Victory Medal that he pried out of the hands of his other siblings. No, where he checked required him to push the nightstand aside and to pull up the right wood panel. There was a hole in the drywall behind it. With one arm he reached in and fished out a shoebox caked in dust.

The only thing in the box was wads of cash. Mike touched them, feeling a rush of calm when the texture of bills reached his fingertips, and then came the urge to count. He gave up halfway through knowing it wasn’t as much as he hoped. He knew he’d need more soon, might not be able to find the day, but it would come. He put the box and the wall panel back with wordless sigh.
It took him longer than he would have liked to admit to find his keys. He trudged outside, hands shivering in the cold, but once he got in his Mustang and heard the revving of all three hundred-some cubic inches of a cast-iron American V8. To him, it was the most beautiful sound in the history of the world. For those miles down the main strip, behind the wheel of his pride and joy, he felt like the biggest man in town. Then he parked at the Straight Shooter bar and remembered this would be his first time walking into it having to explain what he’s been up to since he got laid off from the force.

Amid the clinking glasses and rumbling conversation of the growing crowd, Mike found there was still a seat for him at the bar. At least that remained. In the corner, he saw Hughes, shooting pool with some schmucks. Guy was all smiles and laughs, outside of Mike’s ear range, Hughes was using phrases like “reset” and “new focus in life”. Mack was the bartender today, out of the crew, he was the least talkative and quick to shut down anyone creating trouble, but fair and hospitable to newcomers. Mike didn’t bother trying the “just lost my job” routine with him and just ordered one glass of Old Style off the tap and planned on doing his best to make it last.

Minutes rolled by and the guy they all knew as Stokes walked in. Normally he’d have been here over an hour ago, but his shift ran long. The spot he found was a few seats down from Mike; that was better, give him some time to get settled and to let Mike think about what to say to a friend who came out lucky when the axe fell. Stokes was already well into a story when Mike got up and walked over.

Stokes said

“So anyways, they’re on the radio tellin me bout this girl with broken ankles and bloody soles, and she’s talkin’ like fuckin crazy, lotsa words but trouble getting all of them through. Anyway, it’s near the end of the shift but they can tell it’s something crazy, so they give me a few hours overtime and tell me to check out some place because she got an address.” He paused when he saw Mike.

Stokes said

“Door was unlocked, halfway open and then I get this awful smell just in my face the moment I come in.”

Mike said

“Oh Yeah?”

Stokes said

“Yeah, so I go in and I’m finding blood, finding vomit, some guy with no pulse, and that’s just one room. It only got more fucked up later. They were still telling me about stuff they found when over the radio when I was heading down here. And y’know what the craziest thing about it was?”

“What?”

“The house was the one with all the boards on the windows, the one that the neighbors kept bitchin’ about. Robinson found five different complaints on file about the place when he dug through the files, but we never had checked inside.”

Mike was pretty sure at least one of those complaints reached him. He couldn’t remember for sure. When you’ve checked the “COMPLAINT UNFOUNDED” box as many times as Mike has, they all blur together. What’d they expect him to do, stake out a place because someone said the owner smelled bad?

Stokes said

“Ah y’know, maybe I shouldn’t be saying more, police business an all. You understand, right Mikey?” looking around at the others, expecting a knowing nod from Mike.

Mike said

“Well, yeah, guess I do. Guess you don’t need go telling everything to everybody.”

Stokes said

“Ex-act-ly.”

Mike said

“Now, I’m not a guy that needs to know everything, but y’know, I ain’t just a bum off the street, right? Old times gotta count for something.”

“Sure, sure it does. Mikey, if you’d been another guy I wouldn’t a said as much as I did, I know you’re a guy I can trust with a lot, but, uhhh, there’s always gonna be some stuff I can’t share.”

“Well, yeah, but we all know it’s just the BS that doesn’t matter, the important stuff ain’t gotta stop.”

“Ehhh, maybe. Lots of things could happen, I can’t tell you what I might have to keep my mouth shut about until I hear about how each situation is.”

There was silence. Mike looked at his beer. Stokes strained to see the lone TV in the corner. Then Mike looked him in the eye and spoke.

“If it was something about me, like if there was someone after me or something they were trying to stick on me, you’d let me know, right?”
Stokes said

“Mikey, what kind a question is that?”

“That ain’t an answer, bud. Now give me something.”

“Well, I prolly would.”

“What’s this prolly business? You fuckin’ got my back or you don’t, nothin’ else to it.”

“Well, Mikey, I think you of all people know that things can get complicated. You sit back and think it’ll be simple but of course, circumstances come up. Ain’t you said that a lot before? I can’t figure out how it’ll be til it happens, y’know?”

“Some fuckin’ pal you are.”

“Hey man, I’m what you got so next time you wanna bitch maybe look around and ask how you got here.”

It was easier to sulk and finish the rest of his beer than it was to try to find another person to talk to in hopes of proving Stokes wrong. He paid his tab and left, managed to do the whole transaction through gestures and nods with Mack. On his way home he thought and thought some more. He had to get gas for his car, maybe that’d keep him from asking the same questions about how much cash he had and who really had his back. The change in his wallet was short of what it took to get a full tank; he cursed the Arabs as he watched the numbers tick by. Outside there was a pay phone, a sight he could not look away from. He flicked and fidgeted with the coins in his pockets while his eyes remained fixated on it.

He knew what he had to do. He knew what he needed. It wasn’t about pride, it wasn’t about integrity, it may have been about ounces of fear inside him; one hard look at the payphone was enough for him to suppress that. In the cold he grabbed the receiver and chucked a coin in, dialing a number he had the good sense to never write down. His hands shivered in the Wisconsin cold. Someone picked up and Mike knew better than to ask too many questions about the person who was taking this call. He just had a simple thing to say.

“Hey, uhh I know when we talked back den, I said some, I said that some of those tings, I said I maybe wasn’t interested in ‘em. Well, uhhh I think maybe now I’m thinking I might be, I think I can give you some ‘elp with ‘em, you know. All you gotta do is let me know what you need done.”

Mama always taught her Precious Pearly Girl that a John was the reason she had a roof over her pretty lil’ head, clothes on her back and food on the table. Johns weren’t always called John. Sometimes they were Brad. Or Elijah. Or Terry. Or José. Sometimes Johns weren’t even Johns. They were Janes. When she was just 16 years old, Mama said that Janes were Pearly’s weakest point.

“What’s wrong with you, Pearly? A Jane is just as important as a John. You ain’t to treat them no different, ya hear? They’re the reason you got a roof over your pretty lil’ head, clothes on -“

etc etc

How could she explain to Madam Moira that she wanted to flinch every time a Jane touched her thigh? Her eyes would sting like the acetone on her nibbled fingers each time a Jane pressed her velvet lips on hers. How could she articulate the sickness she felt with every scrape of a fingernail down her walls? Johns were fuckin’ easy. Pearly just followed set steps of service with the men. It was like a game of hop scotch in chalk on the sidewalk. Left foot. Right foot. Both feet.

etc etc

But those empty husks of women that arrived at Soirée looking for company? The ones that smelt like lavender, talc and tobacco with their hosiery and kitten heels? They made Pearl want to scream until her lungs fissured, fractured and fell apart.

Mr Theodore Buxton was different, though. He wasn’t really a John anymore, anyway. They’d surpassed that stage! He didn’t even really pay anymore! He said it wasn’t normal for a boyfriend to pay for his girlfriend’s time. Pearl’s heart had practically dropped out the bottom of her lollipop ankles when he’d said that. Boyfriend? Theodore? He went from a John that visited her once a month to a once a week regular. Theodore had always been sweet on her. He liked missionary and kissing and talking. He always started with the talking. She liked that part the best. Pearl and Theo spoke about everything.

He was a Military Man, he said. He was just taking a break, though. That’s what he said. Something about his mind needing a rest. Sometimes Theodore would tell her tales of his bravery and once upon a times of rescuing comrades and dodging bullets by the skin of his teeth. He had medals. At home. Other times, he didn’t want to say a word about war. Those times, Theodore didn’t want to hug her or hold her hand or stroke her hair. His face would twist like a pretzel and he’d shove his thing in her so hard she’d gasp for air that would ball its fist inside her throat and tug on her tonsils. He’d grunt and snarl and tell her nasty things. Things he’d apologise for weeks later. She’d smile and say it’s okay and tell him she loved him. But those nasty little words would thread themselves like chicken wire into her brave, wry smile. Those things would make her palms slick with sweat and shake beneath the sheets. Theodore liked to be called daddy. At first, Pearly’s teeth would natter around the word, nibbling around it like a child may avoid greens on a plate. Like how she’d pick out the raisins from the cookies he’d bring her. But she got used to it. She’d greet him at Soirée by running and jumping into his arms, giggling and kicking her feet as they hung inches and inches off the ground.

He always kept boiled sweets in a tin in his car. One day Pearly was suckling on one, making it small and smooth as a pebble on her tongue, when Theodore suddenly said he had to stop off somewhere and pick someone up. Pearly had nodded gleefully and stared out the passenger window at the rain-slicked, chewing gum dappled sidewalks of Minnenoona. She tapped her ballet pumps in the footwell, humming as Theodore drove the car in silence. When they mounted the curb minutes later, she’d watched through narrowed eyes as a little girl approached the parked car. She was in school uniform. A checkered pinafore dress and a bowler hat. She had his eyes. When she popped the back door and clambered into the backseat, Pearl looked at Theodore with a widened, pleading stare.

“Is Mummy not picking me up today, Daddy?” the little girl had asked, her voice squeaky like new shoes. Pearl crunched her molars down on the suckled boiled sweet. It shattered like shards of glass in her mouth. Shattered like the fragments of her heart that now tinkered like a wind chime in her chest.

“No, sweetheart” Theodore had replied, his eyes fixed on a streetlamp unblinking and avoidant.

“Okay. Who’s that, Daddy?” she’d barked, accusation refracted in the rearview mirror.

“This is Daddy’s friend’s daughter,” Theodore answered too quickly. “I’m taking her home now.”

“Was she at school today, too?”

“She wasn’t very well so Daddy picked her up. As a favour to his friend,” Theodore turned the wheel of the car. He repeated again, parroting his own stupid self. “I’m taking her home now.”

Pearl’s nails dug into her knees. They dug in so hard she wondered if she could scoop out her knee caps like sand into a bucket and launch them at the man sat rigidly in the drivers seat. She wasn’t sure who she hated more… The little girl in the backseat? Or the Mummy who hadn’t picked up her daughter that day.



As the sun began to rise beyond the windows of Soirée, Pearl retired to her bedroom with the remnants of a bottle of whiskey in one hand and her tin of cigarettes in the other. She clicked her bedroom door shut, flipping the latch and swaying like a willow tree in the wind before stumbling to her unmade bed. Kicking aside her high heels and fumbling with her dress, Pearly stripped to her skin and flopped onto the mattress. The springs cried out, creaking with rust beneath her. She wrapped her lips around the neck of the whiskey bottle, upturning it to deposit a full mouthful of her “goodnight” and “sleep tight.” It burned down the length of her throat. It deleted the noise in her mind. She stared up at the ceiling overhead, the image of a very dead Luca flashing before her. His bulging eyes were the last thing she remembered seeing before she let sleep accost her with its chilling embrace. She’d decide what to do with Dixie tomorrow. For now, she would get a precious few hours sleep. Theodore kidnapped her dreams last night, the smell of his cologne seemed to cling to her nose hairs.

Roger’s knock was like his fingerprint: Uniquely his (unless someone were to be silly enough to chop his hand off.)
He didn’t use his knuckles, one of the very few things he didn’t use them for, and instead chose to ball those fat fingers into a fist and bang thrice with the backside. It would always rattle the office door hinges. It would always make the blinds clatter together. It would always make Pearly startle. She was halfway through a deep inhale of a line of coke. It was chopped up into a slug atop the diary she used sporadically, only when she remembered she even had a diary, once or twice a month. Pearly paused, mid-sniff, the rolled note trembling slightly at the halfway line of the coke chem trail. If it hadn’t have blown away the powder, Pearly would’ve sighed. Instead, she ripped the note through the remainder and threw her head back, sniffing so hard her nostrils vacuumed in against her septum like a serpent.

“Yes, Roge?” she called out, tracing a finger across the residue and suckling at her tip like a teat. She sounded like a mother, tired of her child’s incessant calls for attention from another room.

The office door opened a crack, just enough for Roger to throw his voice inside.

“O’Malley’s downstairs for you,” he called.

Pearly pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes watering as the battery acid drip oozed at the back of her throat.

“O’Malley’s dead, Roge!” she called back dismissively, vexed that her quiet line had been interrupted with talk of an outstanding bill that was destined to remain unpaid.

“Pike’s not dead, Miss P. He’s downstairs. And he’s asking for you.”

Soirée wasn’t busy. There were some dregs scattered haphazardly but no thrumming atmosphere nor bustling crowd for Pearly to bury her buzz in. She pulled her shawl tighter around her body, wrapping it like a cocoon around her frame, heels thudding against the fraying carpet. His back was turned but she wondered if he could feel her imminent descent. She slumped into the stool next to him, legs scuffling to steady herself on the foot rest. Pearly fixed her posture. She straightened her spine. Lifted her chin. Clenched her jaw to fight the coke-induced tingle that itched beneath the skin.

“Peter?” she said, her lyrical tone implying that this was a pleasant surprise but the stiff upper lip exposing the opposite. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

Pike fished the remains of a cigarette out of his lips and squished it flat onto the ashtray as Pearl sat down. His eyes looked over her for a second, guarded and cautious. He didn't have the patience to indulge in other thoughts. He searched his memory, flipping through the scattered memories like a diary. He didn't venture much out to these parts but Muskie apparently did. The street talk about the woman in front of him passed through him like a fall wind blowing in leaves. The Soiree and Pearl were inseperable, like a tangled flyline in a river. There wasn't a single soul who ventured here who didn't know about the madame of the Soiree.

" I'm here on behalf of this," Pike fished out a piece of paper that felt like a brick in his hand, placing it with two fingers on the bar counter, and pushing it towards Pearl. His nose curdled at how twitchy she looked, the blown-up veins along her eyes. Ice, maybe. Dopeheads were always the worst clients. Their trigger instincts were itchy and you always had to hand the ammo seperately to them before whatever they were on gave them the wrong ideas. He tried to not let his disgust show, punching it down, as he spoke teresely.

"Muskie left many things to me when he died." He nodded towards the paper. It was a crumpled carbon slip of paper, ink stamped with the Soiree's address and a five figure number that made his eyes water. "I understand he's got an account with the Soiree. Now, 7 and a half grand is a little high. I was wondering if you could drop that down to a 5 and in return.....," Pike breathed as if he had run a marathon. Muskie was better at the negotiations." I'd be willing to offer your business a discount on my merchandise. Don't go telling anyone though."

Pike snorted in disbelief as he mused over the thought of Muskie with rows upon rows of empty shot glasses on the bar counter, "Can't believe my brother drank his way to 50 grand."

Pearl’s eyes lazily flicked down to the bartop, barely glancing at the Soirée bill. She didn’t need to read it. She knew what it said. She’d written it. She’d kept a record of the money that awaited her on the streets and Muskie’s bill had been gathering dust on her priority list until she’d heard news of his passing. So Pearly waved a hand at the bill dismissively and returned her icy blue gaze back to Peter O’Malley, marvelling at the similarities and consequential differences between the brothers. It had been mere seconds and Pearly already decided she preferred Muskie. He’d always been good to the girls. Soft. Never a problem. His only problem was that he never fuckin’ paid. And granted, tha was a big fuckin’ problem. But the girls liked him so damned much they’d always give him dances on tick, head on tick, time on tick. It wasn’t how Pearly liked to do things but Muskie always managed to sweeten the deal. His brother spoke like he didn’t know that. Was he not aware of why Muskie O’Malley got special treatment round here?

The Madam arched her eyebrows and levelled Pike with a searching look. She took her time to answer, heart struggling to beat against the tide of coke in her system, the buzz making her feel all racy and wired. She sighed, letting Pike’s words hang in the air, and gestured for Lloyd the barman to come over. He obliged. She fixed him with a brimming grin.

“Lloyd be a doll and pour Mr O’Malley another of whatever it is he’s drinkin’, won’t ya? Got a feelin’ he’s gon’ need another!” the Madam smirked before breaking into her dazzling albeit unsettling smile. “Oh and Lloyd? Grab me my pack of El Producto’s while you’re at it, honey bee. It’s what Muskie would’ve wanted if he were here.”

Lloyd nodded somber. The pack of cigars was placed into Pearl’s open and expectant palm. She tentatively slid one out and placed it between her teeth, leaving the open pack pointed to Peter in case he wanted to indulge. His lighter lay conveniently next to the ash tray in front of him and she reached for it wordlessly. The blue flame sprung forth and caught the reconstituted tobacco wrap, plumes of smoke chuffing from her lips like a steam train. She crossed and recrossed her legs, beaded skirt creeping up her thighs, the slit parting to expose her trusty Smith and Wesson snuggled in her garter.

“Now now, Peter” she purred, poised and draped across the bar stool. “I know I don’t need to tell you that it’s polite to at least start with a bit of light foreplay before you fuck someone-“

Lloyd and Shoshanna were working the bar side by side. The tattooed bartender effortlessly poured a generous thumb of whiskey for Pete. Lloyd began stirring Pearly an Old Fashioned. He knows it’s her tipple of choice when she’s enjoying a Producto. The Madam was still smiling, the scent of her cigar smoke billowing around them.

“A top secret business discount? Mmmm. Sounds sexy, don’t it? I appreciate your… Generosity. Cos I know the O’Malley’s have got the best shit in the biz. See, it’s a sweet deal, sure. On the surface. But let’s dig a little deeper…”

Lloyd tapped the metal bar spoon on the side of the rocks glass, signalling that the Old Fashioned was finished. Pearly reached and took the sweetened bourbon, sipping at the tang of bitters and honeyed smoke.

“Of course, I won’t bite the hand that feeds me, Pete. Never bite the hand that’s feedin’ me. ‘Cept your not feedin’ me are you, darlin’? Matter of fact, it’s quite the opposite. You’re taking the food right out my mouth. Ain’t even had the chance to chew on it before you’re shovin’ your fingers down my throat to grab it back. So hows bout this-“

She sipped from her glass again then pinched Muskie’s eye-watering bill between her fingers, slowly crumpling it with a wiggle of her digits. It balled up into a snowball of debt. Pearl set it down on the bar and flicked it behind the jump with a satisfying crunch. It flew past Lloyd’s left shoulder and pinged to the ground.

“Consider this little matter resolved. I don’t like it. Fuck no, I don’t like it one little bit. But for Muskie? God bless his fuckin’ soul, I’ll let your bartering slide. Your brazen negotiations piss me off no end but unpaid dues piss me off more. Somethin’ is always better than nothin’…” Pearl’s eyes narrowed at Pike, her tongue running the length of her bottom lip. Something flickered in her eyes. A lick of a challenge. A warning flare. “5 grand. And mates rates for as long as we’re both still breathin’. Debts can be paid. Appreciation is forever.”

Her lips curled around the cigar, the cherry twitching as she took tiny tokes. She sniffed. The buzz from her recent line had slipped away, mellowing to a gentle thrum beneath the surface. She felt sharpened, the liquor balancing her out nicely. Pearly leant back in the bar stool, taking up so much space despite her slight form.

“It’s not the liquor debt that’s tricky to let go. That’s the bill I’m willing to write off. It’s the girl’s time that cost our Muskie a pretty penny. Your brother’s real vice weren’t the pricey vintages or chasing the worm at the bottom of the bottle… His Achilles was was my Dixie’s pretty lil pussy. She was his favourite. Oh, they were like lovesick teenagers, the pair of em. She was beside herself when she heard of his passing. Least her grief ain’t for nothin’ now that you’re willing to foot the bill. I’m sure she’ll be grateful to ya.”

The whiskey boiled in his mouth, despair and doubt equally mixed, as he heard Pearl say those damned words. He swallowed, and his tongue was dry as sandpaper when he tried to speak. You idiot. It was speaking again, now using Maria's husky voice. It was the demon that writhed and roared inside him like a rabid beast the one he lent his soul to whenever he held a gun or pulled a trigger. The one he used to kill Garcia. You know Pearl's reputation. You think Muskie was some paragon, some untouchable summit that you couldn't comprehend. Principles? Please. You just sell death and destruction, Peter. He downed the whiskey again, but it didn't seem to help. The whiskey wouldn't help.

No, he had to stay calm. Just stay calm. Muskie would tell him to stay calm. He was here to negotiate and Pearl had forgiven his debts. He could forgive this. It was a successful deal. So, what if it was true? His brother was dead. He was dead. His fist clenched as he struggled to contain his breathing. But he was still alive in his heart. In the words that everyone spoke about him. In the stares that everyone gave him. In the shop he worked in, the bricks and rebar that they wove together with their blood, sweat, and tears. Muskie was dead, but Pike didn't know why everyone was intent on making him feel like he still lived.

The club began to remind him of river water; in a sickly pallor of amber light, pond scum danced in the air above the drowning masses of bodies around him. The whiskey was flowing down through his fingers, the color of blood,his brother's blood,and the jazz music transformed into a dirge that pounded against his skull. The singer on the stage behind them broke out into a wild verse and Garcia's blubbering voice sang from his throat. It was then Maria's on the next verse and then Muskie's voice at the crescendo. All taunting him. The next sentence pried its way out of his boiling stomach and flew out in one hot breath.

"You're lying," Pike said, uncertain, his face shining with a sickly pallor. He pushed away the shot glass and leaned in toward Pearl. "I know my brother. He's married. He wouldn't sleep with anyone in this rat shithole. He's married, ring and all. I know my brother and he wouldn't cheat. So, either this is a pretty sick fucking joke, Pearl, or you're fucking with my head. God knows everyone already is."

"Pike, just calm down, hey? Drinks on the - ," Shoshanna attempted to interrupt, raising her hands with a bar towel in one in a placating gesture, but Pike ignored it, barreling forward.

"My brother told me everything," Pike chuckled to himself halfheartedly. "He had to have told me everything. You think you know Muskie better than I do? I'm the one that buried him. I'm the one that fucking buried him!" He turned his head out into the crowd, some of whom were now staring at him, and spotted Roger trawling around like a bear, shouting out to him. "You hear that, Roger? You want to know what happened to Garcia too?"

"Pike!" Shoshanna grabbed his arm now. Her lips pinched tight enough to break a needle in half. Her face was smeared with disapproval, but her slate-gray eyes cast a soft gaze toward him. "It's true," she said.

Pike wrenched his arm out from Shoshanna's grip violently and then the fight drained out of him, the hubbub of the club returning to its regular rhythm. Shame flitted across his brow like a roach before he veiled it under a slow draught of whiskey.

"Well, shit," Pike groused, looking at Pearl apologetically. "If you want Roger to throw me out, now would be a good time. Your man's just itching to do it."

Pearl watched the realisation sweep across Pike’s features like watching a lifeless body plummet from a great height. She wiggled her backside further back in the barstool, angling her cocked head with exaggerated curiosity. Like a vindictive elder sibling may shatter their younger siblings reality by exposing Santa as a fraud, the Madam poked her bottom lip out with an inflammatory pity at Pike as his widened eyes flicked frantically between Shoshanna and the Madam. She ignored Pike’s vehement denials of reality, simply puffing on her cigar wordlessly, sneering at Shoshanna’s gentle reassurance. When her tattooed hand reached across the bar and flexed against Pike’s arm, it triggered Pearly’s neck to crick and fasten her employee with a disapprovingly withering look. She didn’t so much mind the blithering, grief-struck rebuttals of truth… It was the raucous behaviour which followed that really itched her shit. First he insults her with some piss-poor, lowballer offer? Then he starts running his mouth at a less than palatable volume? She tutted like a disappointed headmistress, shaking her head disapprovingly.

Pearl’s free hand ever so slowly floated to her garter, fingers tantalising the stock with a brush of her twitching pads. She wasn’t trigger happy enough to lap up the prospect of drawing her Smithy like a parched, stray dog. Pike O’Malley was not someone to point at with a pipe ‘less you were ready to bury a bullet firmly between his eyeballs. You better make sure your aim is flawless, too. No, Pearl wasn’t naive enough to think drawing Pike’s very livestock on him, turning his own metal against him, would result in anything positive. And at this close range? She’d be scrubbing his claret from her hair for days. Not to mention the buzzkill a murder at the bar would be…

Roger seemed to cross the Soirée dance floor in exactly 2 lengthy strides. She could feel his presence before registering the shadow of her bodyguard enveloping her from behind. He stood behind the bar stool, his girthy shoulders dwarfing Pearl as she sat a little stiffened in front of him. The bald, balky bouncer watched O’Malley as he washed down his shame alongside a mouthful of whiskey with a blank stare. Pearly shot a sidewards glance at the Soirée crowd that had stirred at Pike’s little outburst, smiling as they’d resumed whatever it was they’d been doing prior the interruption. She clicked her tongue, drew from the last of her cigar, and allowed a waterfall of smoke to slither up from between her lips. The Producto was as good as done. Pearl pinched it between thumb and forefinger, leant past Pike and stubbed it out in the ash tray.

“You’re quite right, Petey” the Madam conceded. “I’m pretty sure Roge is chomping at the bit to drag your ass outta here. Can you blame him? You made a right song and dance out of all this. But, listen, let’s kiss and make up.”

The Madam held out a hand like a high-flying businessman, eyes levelling with Pike’s, her elongated nails draping from her nail beds like talons. A handshake. As if they hadn’t just agreed to write off a couple thousands worth of his dead brother’s booze bill and settle the price of the pussy he was a slave for.

“Shake on it. I want the money in instalments, alright? Easier to bury that way. Bring me a grand a week.”

She unravelled from her barstool, tossing her loosened jet black pin-curls over her shoulder. Her body language told him this conversation was done. She placed a hand on Peter’s arm, in the exact same spot Shoshanna had grabbed just moments ago, and shot him a pitying smile.

“You stay as long as you like, darlin’. Have another drink. Then maybe have yourself another. But you pay as you go, ya heard? No tabs for the O’Malley’s no more. Ain’t no more brothers left to be pickin’ up your bill should you decide to go and pop ya clogs on me.”

Pearl disappeared in a plume of YSL “Opium” and the clatter of her beaded skirt. Roger lingered for a moment, his beady eyes narrowing at someone across the room then turning back to Pike.

“Thanks for stopping by, Pike” Roge said, his tone etched with warning. “Who’s your mate? He ain’t taken his eyes off you the last 20 minutes.”

The meaty man jutted a chin that melted undefined into thick neck at the general direction of a man sat a few seats away. With that, he disappeared in pursuit of Pearly who strutted across the Soirée dance floor, hips swaying.

Pike's eyes watched the two fade away into a world that he didn't dare understand, but Muskie understood. He thought about dwelling on it more before he decided to dwell on the whiskey he'd been ignoring in front of him all along. His calloused palms grabbed the glass and took a lick of it. His eyes then turned to the man Roger pointed out to him. It was hard to make out his figure. A light bulb was flickering above him erratically like a dying animal. His trenchcoat was one size too big for him, the coattails drapped over the bar-stool, swishing back and forth like a tail. His arms move languidly on the counter, accepting a glass flute from Shoshanna with a nod of thanks while his troused legs were tense, coiled like a spring.

" I think you've gone fishing before," The man said plainly without looking at him. Before Pike could clarify, the man replied again in the span of a heartbeat. "Oh, yes, you look like the type. "

"Once or twice," Pike half-lied.

" Folks say it's a matter of skill. I say it's a matter of patience. Everyone tries something different. A different spot, something more tasty to dangle onto a hook, wade out into the waters, but I like to wait. The longer you wait, the more satisfying the catch is," The trenchcoated man traced his finger around the rim of his flute before turning to face him. Pike could only see a tooth studded crescent scar cutting through a pepper stubble. " Wonder what it was it was always like for the fish. Caught a trout out at the Merrimac once. Used a little twine and a old tin can. Hook was in its jaw - " The man curled his finger around his lip and tugged at it. " - and I normally would have killed it on the spot but I just stared at it. Look at it in its blank eyes. Trying to see it could speak, frown, say anything to me. "

" That's because it's a fucking fish, " Pike retorted, trying to hide his unease..

"Maybe, but, I'm patient. I'm sure the next one will talk." The man finished off his drink, dabbing his lips with a napkin he produced from his trenchcoat and then, left Pike to wallow in the sea of jazz, spilt drinks and rat piss that permeated the Soiree.

The Madam awoke the following morning with a pastel painting of cigarette ash and mascara smudged across her pillowcase, smears of ruby-red lipstick swatches on the nicotine-stained bedding like blood spatter. She pressed her face back into the lumpy pillow, nose folding like plasticine, air whistling through squished nostrils like a boiling kettle begging to be taken off the stove. She wanted to fill the innards of that pillow with a guttural scream. Excavate last night's nightmares from every fibre of her being. Pearl's sleep-riddled mind still reeked of Theodore Buxton, his calloused hands skipping across her forearms like skimming stones, his unkempt beard hair scratching at her pointed chin, those storm-filled eyes staring out at her from behind the milk-bottle lenses he used to wear... Her naked limbs rustled beneath the duvet, tightened muscles and pounding headache plunging her in an ice-cold pool of sobriety. She squeezed her eyelids shut, skin puckering like sultanas, squeezing so hard that floaters began meandering across her line of vision. Soirée was quiet at this time of morning. The beams and the bricks remained haunted by the demons of corrupted souls who had trickled out of the front doors mere hours ago, the smell of stale smoke clung to the air, pigeons cooed on pylon wiring outside Pearl's bedroom window. But it was peaceful in the whore house between the hours of 8am and 10am. Pearl made it a house rule that any Johns paying night rates had to vacate the premises by 8am, giving the girls a couple hours of downtime before they clocked back in at 10. Daytimes were, of course, slower than evenings. But there remained daylight regulars that graced Soirée in their work attire: All pinstriped suits and briefcases and a belly full of breakfast cooked by their doting wives. The Madam slid her legs out from beneath the duvet and touched her soles to the sun-warmed wooden floorboards. She had the kind of hangover that felt like pinpricks beneath her skin and the kind of mind that sounded like a traffic-clogged freeway full of hot, frustrated drivers honking their horns and yelling through open windows.

Sobriety don't suit Pearly Sackville. Stretched and blue like a bruise. Crisp and cracking like a week-old scab. Sore like a whitlow, reddened and angry, protruding from a gnarled nail bed. She practically crawled, wincing through gritted teeth still furry from the late-night whiskey, to the en suite bathroom. The tiles were all tracked with black mould and peachy stale water sat swimming in the tub. When was the last time she'd showered?... The room soon filled with thick steam, puffing and pluming before her blood-shot eyes. Was that steam or Theodore's breath still lingering on her neck? She remembered how one day, all those years ago, he'd simply stopped calling by. Every time the Soirée doors had creaked open, her ears would prick like an eager hound, she'd bound through the corridors to greet the one person she'd been waiting so melancholic to see. Only to be shooed away by her Mother's dismissive wave and daggered sideways glance. Theodore Buxton never even said goodbye. No "It's not you - It's me." Not even a letter. He was simply there one minute and gone the next. Little Pearly Girl had cried so much her eyeballs may have drowned. She'd cried until her throat became raw, cried until saltwater shone across her lips, cried until her mum's babydolls had knocked on her bedroom door to tell her to keep it down. She'd wailed his name like a cat in heat, she'd clawed at the inside of her arms until her skin lobstered like sunburn. And when that shroud of inconsolable, unstoppable and impossible hysteria finally lifted, Pearl swore to herself she simply would never allow a John to have access to her the same way again. And like the final twist of a key in the lock, Moira's voice imprinted on that not-yet-formed brain of hers:

"Pearly, these Johns don't owe you nothin' 'cept a fistful of cash, alright?" her mother had said, the first and last time Pearl had sought comfort from Moira Sackville about Theodore Buxton. Or about anything, really. Desperate-flavoured advice. Words that tasted like stale bread and curdled milk. "He was fillin' your head with nonsense about love, weren't he? Said you were his favourite little girl? His pretty little Pearl? Buyin' you thangs? Takin' you places? Promisin' you a better life than this one, right? See? I weren't even there and I know damned well what that John had you fallin' for. Well, Pearly. Let this be a goddamn lesson to you. You are not here to be swept off your feet. You're not here to be loved. You are not here to be adored or doted on. That? That is a fairytale. It's not real. Sooner or later Johns get bored. And that's what happened with Theodore fuckin' Buxton. He got bored, mmkay? He's gone back to his wife and his life and his kids and his house. And you're still here. All that time you wasted with him for free? Not bein' paid? Not payin' your way round here? You ain't gettin' that back. Know what you can do, Pearly? Stop all that fuckin' racket and get yourself ready for work. And close the door on your way out."

Pearl had her towel wrapped round her back with one corner gripped in each fist, sliding it back and forth across her damp shoulder blades, the crisp material continually and relentlessly scraping at her dry skin. She sniffed and blinked and cleared her rasping throat. She avoided the eyes of that ghastly reflection above the sink, a misted mirror imitating her swallowed sadness, despite her shame she wiped away the condensation and forced herself to meet her own gaze. The crooked woman with blotched skin and soaked spaghetti hair was a stranger to her. A creature Pearl would look down her nose at in the street. Silver struck through her midnight sky curls like forks of lightning. Crows feet fanned out from the corners of her vacant, unblinking eyes. Flesh that once stretched so tight across her jaw and her neck had begun melting, textured like orange peel, seemingly flaking away like pith with a vascularity the red roadmap in her eyes envied. Pearl's upper lip curled. Her eyes lowered. She burst out of the bathroom as if leaving a gas chamber, breaths shallowed and sharp as paper cuts. The subject of Dixie seeped into her psyche, replacing the echoed words of her Mother from all those years ago, replacing Luca's slack jaw, replacing the resentment for her own reflection. She had to deal with her. Dixie. Today. Now.

The Madam opened one of her bedside drawers. Using the back of her hand, she knocked away an empty liquor bottle, rustled and riffled through miscellaneous wrappers and empty cigarette packets, tears still trailed down her cheeks. There, beneath the collateral, she found a likely clean G-String and a pair of tights. Dixie's pleading cries ring in her ears. Pearl's feet aim for the leg holes of her panties and miss. Twice. Dixie's widened eyes stare back at her. She looks like a deer in crosshairs. Acrylic nails scratch against her shins as she shimmies the lace up her legs. Dixie's bottom lip quivers. Her toe nails catch on the 15 denier as Pearl stomps into the hosiery with shaken determination. Dixie's doe eyes line up with the barrel of the Smithy and a desperate gargle bubbles in her throat. That sharpened pinky nail catches on the right and wrong thread. A ladder appears. It tears from Pearly's scarred knee all the way to the downy hair of her thigh. It's deathly silent as Dixie's body hits the carpet. The ladder, like a jagged staircase, creeps further and further up her leg as Pearly pries her finger between the material and pulls the tights up and up and up until the waistband sits beneath her bare breasts. The elastic pings comedically, slapping against her flesh as she lets it go. She looks down at the tear, blurry yet magnified through the looking glass of her tears. Dixie's lifeless eyes are fixed straight ahead, staring out into the abyss.

It's just a pair of tights, Pearl. For fucks sake. Nothing to cry about.

Maria Genovese was the kind of "good wife" men like Tony Genovese proudly proclaimed in a crowded room that they couldn't live without. The warm yellow glow of the porch light left on, a dinner plated and foiled untouched in the fridge, the scent of her moisturiser still lingering in their bedroom. She knew when to offer her insight. She knew when to press her lipsticked lips together in a hard line. She knew when to fuck her husband. She knew when to avert her gaze. Tony would often say "Behind every good man is an even better woman" - Maria was his home. It wasn't the hoover lines in the carpets nor the colour-coordinated place settings at the dining table. Nor was it the throw pillows, fluffed and chopped in the centre, perfectly arranged in size order like Russian dolls. Or the fact she'd fold his pyjamas on his side of the bed every morning. It was the soft cushion of her hips. The way she'd smile at him from the stove whilst wiping her hands on a tea towel. But ever since their beloved Luca had left his favourite meal getting cold on the kitchen table that night, Maria had become someone Tony barely recognised. This was a woman who would bake biscotti for the Family sat discussing gruesome business around her dining table, a woman who stoically watched her husband's fits of rage with merely a series of blinks and sighs. Maria was unflappable. Until Luca's bed was left empty for one too many nights. She quickly became jittery. Snappy. Overemotional. She wouldn't sleep, shuffling from room to room in her house slippers, lightbulb humming unblinkingly through the porch windows. Tony couldn't bare it. That's why he called Winnie's Wash. That's why he spoke to the Family, too. No pigs. No feds. These things were better handled "internally."

Tony hadn't expected to hear back from Winnie so quickly. After he'd slammed the receiver back into its cradle and finished his cigarette, he'd looked up to find Maria hovering like a child up past their bedtime. Her chipped nail polish gripped the wooden door frame and her body seemed to be shrinking into the folds of her dusky pink bathrobe.

"Get yourself to bed, for God's sake, Maria..." Tony mumbled, shifting his weight in the Chesterfield Sofa, the buttons on his shirt straining to contain his hairy torso. "I've got this handled, alright? We're gonna find him. The boy's no doubt partying somewhere, laying low with a skinful. He'll be home soon."

His words were like puffs of air. They barely reached her. She flexed her fingers on the doorframe, immune to her husband's words of comfort. Like Aspirin lodged in her throat; The Headache was still there and there's a horrible powdered taste in her mouth. Maria's slippers remained rooted in the carpet fibres, breeze blocks. Her pasty lips opened and shut uselessly, weary eyes drifting to the ground where they lingered stubbornly. Tony huffed as he unfolded from the studded leather sofa and rose to his feet. He took a few cautious steps across the room, palms open and extended as if approaching an injured animal by the roadside.

"Maria, do you think for one second I'm gonna let this slide? No. I'm not. That boy's in so much hot water when I find him," he placed two hands on either side of her, swallowing back the blow to his ego when she flinched at his touch. "But we are gonna find him, alright? We are."

Maria's eyes barely moved, locked into that absent stare she'd worn the last couple days. Tony felt like he'd been locked out of his home, knocking uselessly at her empty bones and calling her name into a vacant room. She wordlessly backed away from him and into the dimly lit corridor. All he heard was the sound of her slippered steps, retreating up the stairs to their bedroom where she'd no doubt lay staring at the ceiling, listening for the sound of Luca's return. Tony returned to the sofa after pouring himself a glass of the good cognac from the crystal decanter on the cabinet. He reached over to the lamp beside him and clicked the light out, plunging himself into darkness. He drank. He waited. What for? He wasn't entirely sure. But when the phone trilled to life a couple of hours later, a sickening stir in his stomach told him it wasn't good news. Call it a Father's instinct. And when Winnie's worn syllables and diluted breath crackled the speaker, that sick feeling concreted like cement in the pits of him.

"Winnie? Jesus Christ. You work fast. You tellin' me you've found my boy already?"

Tony had given her his home address within the first few minutes of the phone call. She'd wasted no time after barrelling through her apartment door, cleaning supplies in an early grave in the back of her van. Duchess had padded happily to greet her, bell on her collar tinkering as she wound herself around Winnie's ankles, almost sending her flying face-first into the dining table. She tutted. Relaying the information to Tony Genovese was as if a newsreader was announcing the upcoming expectant showers and plummeting temperatures. She spoke of Pearl Sackville's phone call. Of the job. Of the inconsolable whore who'd she'd tucked in and who'd stuttered Luca Genovese's name between sobs. Tony listened. He didn't interject. He didn't interrupt. In fact, the only indication that he was still on the other end of the phone was the occasional whistle of his breaths. And when Winnie was finished, a silence fell. What she clung to was the promise that soon she'd leave this miserable apartment. She'd never have to clean up another mess that didn't belong to her. She pictured her granddaughter running to greet her at the bottom of the driveway. It was all waiting for her. And Tony was going to make it happen. But first? First he told her she'd have to come by the house.

"Now?" she'd asked incredulously.

"Now."

So after a 20 minute drive she parked the van on Silver Street in Hayward where the Genovese family operated out of. The cleaner clambered out of the drivers seat, knees knocking. She told herself, as her weary soles made their way up the paving slabs of the Genovese home, that this was just a transaction. She'd give the information to Tony. He'd pay her by granting her freedom. And the fate of the crying girl? That was the price that had to be paid. The backlash for Pearl Sackville was karmic, wasn't it? She was a woman who dealt in darkness, prayed on the vulnerable minds of twisted men, caged lost girls and gave them some sick idea of purpose, selling nightmares dressed as dreams. She treated those girls like commodities. Bodies for rent. And the worst of it was she convinced them it was a better life than the one they lived on the outside. Winnie had spent years struggling with the guilt that came with her job. She was sure that's what had deepened her wrinkles and what anchored her bones. But Pearly seemingly breezed through Soirée like a celebrity, unburdened by her own evil. Was she plagued by regret? Did she, too, dream of an alternate reality where this wasn't her life? Hardly likely. The Madam didn't even bother to address Winnie by her actual name. And that is why, when Tony opened his front door and invited her in with a somber expression on his face, Winnie stepped assuredly over the threshold. For the first time in a long time, the Cleaner felt light on her feet. She was doing the right thing. And when Mrs Genovese's shaky hands stirred the teaspoon, the metal clinking against the china, and when those same shaking palms handed Winnie the cup of tea, the Cleaner bowed her head in thanks. Tony Genovese cleared his throat.

"Maria, mia cara, why don't you go on upstairs and let me talk to Miss Winnie?"

"I'm staying right here, Tone."

"I told you I'd handle it, Maria. I told you I'd deal with it. Now let me deal with it."

Maria slammed her palms on the kitchen counter so hard that the cutlery drying in the dish rack rattled. Winnie jolted in her seat. She whirled to face Tony who stood deathly still, watching his wife with darkened eyes.

"I swear to God, Tony. If you say that one more time? I-If you say that? One? More? Time? I'm gonna lose it. I'm tellin' you I'm gonna lose it. I'm losing my goddamned mind, here. You think I'm stupid? You think I don't know the reason that Miss Winnie is sat at this table and not Luca? Goddamn it! Where is he, Tony? Where's our son?"

She snapped in half right there in the kitchen. Winnie watched as Tony tried to piece the shards of his wife back together, a wet pool of her spreading across the kitchen tiles like a leaking faucet. She suddenly felt the urge to up and leave, to give these people the privacy they deserved. But Tony hurriedly ushered Maria upstairs, whisperings of reassurance hushed into her ears, ignoring her flailing arms of protest. For a few minutes, all Winnie could hear was the drip of the tap and muffled voices overhead. She sighed. And when Tony reentered the room what felt like hours later, he appeared a few kilos heavier than when he left. The man made his apologies for the overtness of his wife's despair. Said of course she's struggling with all this. A Mother's heartbreak. He lowered himself into the chair across from Winnie at the dining table. There were wrinkles in his white shirt deeper than the ones that were carved into her own face. His slicked jet black hair was loosening itself from the grip of gel. He looked more human to her then than he ever had. A sigh rattled his ribcage. Tony Genovese interlaced his thick fingers and rested his elbows on the tabletop. He'd cuffed the shirt and rolled the sleeves halfway up his forearms. He looked upon Winnie with an intensity she struggled not to shy away from. Then, Tony asked her to tell him again. From the very beginning. He asked about Soirées layout. The entrances. The exits. The hours of operation. The types of people Winnie had seen there. Was it always busy? Did she see anything suspicious whilst she was there? What does this girl look like?

"Who works there?"

"Who lives there?"

"Tell me about Pearl. What's she like?"

"This girl say anything about what they'd done with him? Where they'd taken him?"

The barrage of questions flowed like a magician plucking a string of hanker-chiefs from his sleeve. Winnie answered them all. Well, the ones she was capable of answering. And what was indeed scarier than the prospect of Tony Genovese exploding across from her at the dining table? It was the cool, calm way he questioned her. The way he didn't seem to blink. The way his voice, monotonous and cold, hummed in sync with the whirr of the refrigerator. Tony didn't share in his wife's hysteria. The two of them were so polarised in their emotional responses in that way. She wept. He didn't shed a tear. Instead, Winnie watched the lace of revenge tie in a knot within the man's heart. And once he decided he'd had his fill, Tony showed her out. As if she'd simply popped round for a late night cup of tea. As the two of them said their awkward goodbyes at the door, Winnie hesitated on the front step. She turned slowly to face him, sheepish and coy in the dim light of the freshly mowed front lawn.

"... Am I... Am I out?" Winnie whispered. There was something hopeful and childlike about her wrinkled, furrowed brow.

Tony looked down upon the frail, hunched old woman. Something flashed across his face in the moonlight.

"Thank you again, Miss Winnie. I'll call you."

And then the door crashed shut in her face. The porch light was switched off. She waited a breath longer before floating down the cobbled footpath to her van. The engine choked as it crunched into gear. Winnie drove in a trance back to her apartment. Still, she clung to the lifejacket of her granddaughter's happy smile. Not even the tears of Mrs Genovese could erase that image. She wasn't sure when she decided to keep driving. Was it when she stopped at a red light and felt something cold and hard grip at her nerves? Was it when she circled one particular roundabout twice before slapping down the indicator? The only thing that made her turn around and drive back towards her grimy, saddened apartment was the idea of Duchess mewing at nothingness for her next tin of chum.