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  “Well, well, look at you, McAuley,” DeBoer says.

  The man is almost entirely constructed of bones and skin with no underlying tissue, everything sharp angles and stretched white. He’s stripped his overalls to the waist and they lie folded back there and tied in a knot like flayed skin. The shock of white hair on his head is smeared with grease.

  “What’s this, you’ve finally gone all respectable on me?”

  McAuley shrugs. “I have a kid now.”

  DeBoer snorts. “Dragged from the shallow end of the gene pool just like Daddy I’m guessing. And don’t tell me you spawned it with that whore you were with last time I saw you?”

  Anger flares in McAuley but he holds it back. “I’m just trying to do what’s right by them, Detective. Getting things straightened out. What do you want?”

  “Don’t get uppity with me you piece of shit,” DeBoer snaps, stepping up to McAuley and shoving the man’s head into the brick wall behind him. “I can drag you down to the interrogation room if you prefer? Huh? You want me to haul you down there?”

  McAuley shakes his head, rubbing the back of it and avoiding eye contact.

  “Good.” DeBoer reaches into his coat and pulls out one of the posters of Katja which he had torn from a wall, holds it up.

  “You know her?”

  “No.”

  “I want to find her, you hear me?”

  “B-but it says right there she’ll be at the Wheatsheaf tonight.”

  “I fucking know that!” DeBoer snaps. “But I don’t want to have to wait that long! Spread the word through this shitting city, I want everyone to know I’m looking for her. I’m about to put a cat amongst the chickens, you hear me? Go tell all your little rat-bastard friends.”

  “Detective, I’m not hanging with that lot any more, I already told you. I’m going straight.”

  DeBoer laughs. “Where have I heard that one before?”

  “I’ve got a job, I’m taking care of my family.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about your fucking family, McAuley!” DeBoer shouts and slams the man’s head back against the wall again. “You think you’re going straight then just fucking unstraighten yourself, you hear me? Get back into the gutters you came from and find out where this girl is or so help me god I’ll make sure you have no reason to go straight. Do you understand me?”

  “Detective, I—”

  Another shove of the head and this time McAuley staggers and almost falls over, only just steadying himself against the wall. DeBoer can see the anger in the man’s eyes, the frustration and sadness, and it makes the detective grin broadly.

  “People like you don’t go straight, McAuley,” DeBoer says, brushing at his coat. Then over his shoulder as he walks back to the car, “I’ll be expecting to hear from you shortly.”

  14.

  Nikolai crosses to the washbasin, while Katja continues to check for a way out.

  He squirts liquid soap from a dispenser mounted on the wall above the sink into his hand, sniffs it. Licks it. Grimaces. It tastes like a hospital smells. He ducks down and squirts more of the stuff into his mouth and swishes it around.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Katja asks, staring at him with disgust.

  “I can get us out of here,” he says, the words distorted by the pinkish mess dribbling down his chin.

  “By eating soap?”

  He holds up a hand to tell her to wait. She crosses her arms impatiently.

  “Well?”

  And then he punches her.

  The blow sends her spinning sideways. She stumbles towards the wall, steadies herself, then looks up, blinking and holding the side of her head. Her skin is flushed at the impact point, the promise of a nice dark bruise to follow.

  “What the fuck did you—”

  He grabs her, shoves her into the small room’s only door. Katja grunts and pushes back and they struggle for a few moments before she breaks away. Nikolai trips her and she crashes to the ground, slamming her head off of it.

  Then there’s the sound of the door’s locking mechanism disengaging. Nikolai backs away as the surgeon enters.

  “What in the name of god is . . . ?”

  His words fade. Katja on the floor, the side of her head red and slightly puffy, dazed looking. Nikolai standing over her, eyes bloodshot, frothing at the mouth.

  The surgeon goes to Katja, wary of the insane druggie sharing the room with them but far more concerned with checking that she is okay, and as he reaches for Katja she lashes out, her boot slamming into his neck and knocking him off balance.

  Immediately she jumps to her feet and follows up with an elbow to his left cheek and he crumples to the ground. She pulls the surgeon’s lab coat up over his head then kicks him in the stomach for good measure. The pair race through the door and slam it shut behind them then Katja mashes the buttons on the security keypad until it beeps erratically.

  She rubs at the side of her head. “We couldn’t have just pretended that you attacked me?”

  “I didn’t . . . I mean . . .”

  “You hit like a girl,” she says, crossing the room towards the small staircase which is the only way out. She climbs a few steps then stops.

  “What are you just standing there for?” she asks. “You coming or not?”

  Nikolai shrugs. “I need the money.”

  “Jesus, Nikolai, you can’t stay here now. Look at the pictures on his wall there—you really think that he just wants to run a few blood tests on you?”

  Nikolai considers this for a few moments then follows her up the stairs.

  At the top is another door with a keypad mounted on the wall beside it but this one has a green unlock button illuminated on it. Katja presses it and there’s a heavy thunk then the door springs opens a half inch. The muffled sounds of the club music trickle back in. She pushes the door open the rest of the way and it leads out into a short, white corridor lined with doors. All closed.

  “Come on,” she says, moving up the passageway.

  Each door they pass has a small blacked-out window cut into it and from within there’s the sound of skin on skin, of skin on latex, and of latex on latex. They head straight for the exit but when they get there realize there’s no handle on the door, just another keypad.

  “Shit,” Katja mutters.

  “What do we do?” Nikolai asks.

  “I don’t know,” she says, looking back down the corridor as if another exit would miraculously appear through force of their desperation.

  Then there’s the sound of one of the doors behind them opening, laughter spilling out from within.

  “Quick, just try a combination,” Nikolai says.

  “Yeah, it’s not like it’s going to be alarmed or anything.”

  “Katja, they’re going to find . . .”

  And the door in front of them unlocks.

  They both freeze, aware that there is no other escape other than back into the surgery, Nikolai expecting to see the nurse’s pink hair and purple gloved hands, but instead it’s a man, pale and shifty, rubbing between thumb and forefinger one of the beaded necklaces he wears.

  “Excuse me,” he says, standing to one side and avoiding eye contact. Beyond him is the heavy electronic heartbeat of the club and the rainbow neon seeping into the medicinally blank corridor.

  Katja and Nikolai say nothing as they push past him, leaving him to whatever corrupt deeds he was hoping to find in the corridor beyond.

  15.

  A fresh glass of whiskey in her hands and all thought of Stasko and the punk girl gone from her mind, Bridget looks at Liz’s text message.

  Caught Mr. Right. U won’t believe it.

  She flips her phone shut, crosses to the TVs.

  She smacks one of them to stop the image sliding up and down, forcing it to settle into place.

  She adjusts the contrast dial until the apartment comes
into view, Liz in the background pouring some drinks. She hands a glass to a tall man and then clinks it against her own, tilting her head coquettishly.

  She beckons him to follow her with a curled forefinger and leads him towards the bedroom.

  Bridget switches to another screen in time to see them enter and recognises the resemblance to Johnny Cash—no wonder Liz picked him. His facial features aren’t clear enough to get a good impression of them but the black shirt and bolo, black trousers, spiked cowboy boots, and quiffed hair certainly didn’t do him any harm in her selection.

  Liz pulls him towards her by his bolo tie then starts to unbutton his shirt but the man pushes her hands away whilst kissing her. There’s just the slightest moment of worry, long enough for the feeling to make its way through the TV screen and into Bridget, but then Liz smiles. The man removes her T-shirt and says something. She lays herself down on the bed. He removes her trainers and jeans then slips off the bolo tie. He takes her hands, raises them above her head, pressing the wrists together. He leans in to kiss her and as he does so he wraps the bolo around them, knotting them together and to the bed frame.

  Liz’s legs, clamped together, twist from side to side, a sign, Bridget knows, of her growing lust.

  The man runs a hand across her stomach and then down her legs. He clasps her crossed ankles in one hand and slips his belt from his trousers with the other then ties it around them and to the foot of the bed. Liz arches herself towards him as he hovers above her. He kisses her on the stomach, his hands lingering over her as if he were performing a psychic surgery on her. He circles around her, almost out of sight, stops by the dresser at the very edge of the screen.

  He opens the drawers of the units one by one then takes something out. It looks like lipstick. He glances over his shoulder at Liz then begins to write on the mirror.

  Bridget leans in to see what he is doing but he is blocking her view.

  He finishes and caps the lipstick then returns it to the drawer. Steps to one side and finally Bridget can see what he has written.

  SHE’S MINE NOW.

  And the man is looking right at the camera.

  The screen goes dead.

  16.

  She runs the short distance to Liz’s apartment, along the street and up the stairwell which she had more often seen through the grainy CCTV footage than in person, stopping when she reaches the door, gasping for breath. She presses an ear to the door and listens for any sound coming from within.

  Nothing.

  She reaches up and runs a hand across the top of the door frame, finds Liz’s spare key wedged into a little gap in the plaster up there. She fumbles with it in the lock, her hands shaking uncontrollably, panic welling within her. She opens the door and bursts in, calling Liz’s name but getting no reply.

  The only light is that coming from the bedroom.

  She calls Liz’s name again.

  Nothing.

  She realizes she has no weapon and looks around for something but all she can find is a small umbrella. She picks it up and crosses to the bedroom.

  “Liz?” she asks shakily, hopefully.

  She eases the bedroom door open.

  Liz’s clothes remain scattered across the floor but there is no sign of her or the man. Even the bolo and belt are gone. Bridget looks up at where they had hidden the camera but all that remains is a spray of fractured wires spilling from the small hole in the wall into which the device had been placed.

  Then she turns to the dresser, to the message the man had scrawled there—and finds it has been added to. In smaller letters underneath the original message:

  YOU CAN HAVE HER WHEN YOU BRING ME THE PUNK.

  2 HOURS. ALLEY BEHIND LINDENMUTH BLVD.

  The note is signed LADY D.

  Bridget clutches a hand to her mouth. She should never have let her pick the man up without her being in the club too but by the time she had gotten back from Stasko’s it was too late.

  She’s thinking about what she’s going to do when she stands on something. She picks it up—a wig, styled with copious amounts of gel into a quiff. And next to where it had been discarded, a pair of dark trousers and a shirt, a pair of black cowboy boots.

  The trail of clothes leads to Liz’s wardrobe, one of the doors slightly open. Bridget looks inside to find the clothes disturbed, in particular at the end where Liz kept some of Bridget’s own clothes for the rare occasion she actually stayed there.

  Who the fuck are you?

  17.

  Lady D drives past Kissy talking with a couple of college-age boys who have obviously stumbled out of the club they have been drinking in all night. Kissy gives them the flutter-eyes and ankle-tilts until she spots Lady D’s van pulling in at the end of the block.

  “Sorry boys, gotta go,” she says, blowing them a kiss and then walking off with the most-pronounced ass-wiggle she can manage.

  “Hey babes,” she says when Lady D winds down her window.

  “You planning on giving those boys a little shock later tonight?”

  “Nah, just playing,” she says.

  “Kissy, the sort of games you play would break them,” Lady D tells her. She rolls a throat lozenge around in her mouth. Kissy is her final collection of the night and already Lady D’s mind is on the long, hot shower which awaits her at home. “So you got some sugar for me?”

  “Hella yeah.”

  Kissy reaches into her clutch-bag and removes a thick wad of cash. As Lady D takes it she notices the fresh swelling and bruising on Kissy’s knuckles.

  “They took a little convincing?”

  “They took a little reminding that a debt is a debt,” Kissy tells her.

  Lady D drops the cash into a bag sitting on the seat beside her but not before fishing a couple of notes out and handing them back to Kissy. “Here. Get that broken nail sorted and Frenched. Granny Cilla will take care of you, just let her know I sent you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Can’t have my girls not looking the part,” Lady D says, staring off into the distance.

  Kissy slides the notes into her top. “You okay, Delicious? You seem a little distracted.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Anyways, that girl we . . . uhh . . . chatted with earlier?”

  “The punk?”

  Kissy nods. “Yeah, look, I think I saw her—in Flesh Heel.”

  “Performing?”

  “No,” Kissy tells her, her tone more serious now. “She was brought in by this other woman and she looked drunk or something. I still recognised her though. Definitely the one we spoke to earlier.”

  Lady D shrugs. “If that’s her way of dealing with it then that’s her way. As long as she makes the gig tonight and pays up . . .”

  “That’s the thing,” Kissy interrupts. “She seemed drunk—but I don’t think she was. The woman that brought her in . . .”

  “What about her?”

  “I recognised her. She works at a little plastic surgery across town—dyed pink hair and legs to die for, you can’t miss her.”

  “So the punk is punching above her weight.”

  “I don’t think so.” She leans in conspiratorially. “I’ve heard rumours, Lady D.”

  “What kind of rumours?”

  “That this clinic, it does all the usual, Botox, lipo, laser hair removal and what have you . . .”

  “God bless it all.”

  “Well, yeah. But what I’ve heard is—that’s not all they do. The club, Flesh Heel, that is, you get some pretty strange types in there most nights. People who aren’t content to just pull on some latex and a gas mask. People who want something . . . something more permanent.”

  “And what’s this got to do with the punk? If you think she’s wanting one of these surgeries, I couldn’t care less. All I’m concerned about is her paying up. So unless she’s planning on blowing the money from the gig on getting a
zipper stitched into her lady garden then . . .”

  “From where I was standing it didn’t look like it was her decision to be there. She was spaced, Delicious, totally out of it. And if the rumours about that place are true then . . . then she might not be around for the gig tonight.”

  Lady D takes it all in, tonguing the throat lozenge from side to side.

  “I always get my money,” she says, more to herself than to Kissy. “That’s what I’m here to do, right? That’s why I have you and the girls.”

  Kissy nods.

  “The woman, she just hung out in the club with her doped-up girlfriend or what?”

  “I only glimpsed them. They weren’t there for long—at least I didn’t see them for long.”

  “So you think she took the punk to this surgery?”

  Kissy shrugs.

  “So where is this place? The surgery.”

  “It’s across town. You know Graphite, the tanning salon?”

  “Of course.”

  “Next block. A little row of stores. I think there’s a Chinese fruit shop a couple of doors along from it.”

  “And this woman, the one who had her?”

  “Her name is Solderberg or something I think—something Scandinavian anyway. She’s a nurse there,” Kissy says, then adds, “Had a jump of the old Botulinum a couple of times. Their prices are quite reasonable to be honest.”

  “And you think they’ve taken the punk back there for a little extra-curricular?”

  “Could be,” Kissy says.

  Lady D sighs deeply. “You ever wonder if it’s worthwhile us spending all this time chasing other people’s money?”

  Kissy shrugs. “We’re doing what we’re here to do.”

  Lady D considers this in silence.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know, Kissy. If I give it all up . . . then what?”

  “I, uh, I meant about the punk.”

  “Oh,” Lady D says, forcing her mind back into focus. “I’m going to make sure we get our money, what else?” she tells Kissy, starting the van’s engine. “Because that’s what I’m here to do.”