Author's Note: John is not a reference to Hartigan.

Becky

The night I meet her for the first time I'm in Old Town following some creep who has a duffle bag full of drug money. I'm repaying a favor to a cop friend of mine. I sit alone in my car in the alley and look up at a window on the third story. Stupid bastards don't even know how to pull the shades. I can see their black silhouettes against the dull yellow light from an exposed bulb as they pace and argue with rushed gestures.

I sit back against the upholstery, the nine in a holster under my left shoulder with plenty of extra clips under my right.

Through the half-open window, I can hear heeled boots strike the pavement louder and louder as a girl approaches. The empty resonance lingers and leaves my spine cold. But I don't look at her, not even when she's right beside me.

"Waiting for somethin', sugar?" her juvenile voice inquires. No other voice would I have turned to acknowledge. Radiant blue eyes encourage me. A dozen silver crucifixes hang in a web of necklaces. Her long dark hair is partly tied back with a slash of bangs. And if nothing else does the job, her face is an unmarred and gorgeous billboard for her youth. But no matter how she looks, she's not younger than sixteen. She might be my age.

I roll down the window the rest of the way and she sets her arms on the car door. Her dangling earrings have peace signs with more crosses below them. "You a cop?" she asks amiably.

"No," I tell her and decide to keep even the interests of the cops out of Old Town altogether, "doing a favor for someone." I look up to the silhouettes and she follows my gaze. Then her attention turns back to me, but I keep to my business. Blue eyes linger on the nine that is exposed by my open jacket. I am armed and alone like most of the city.

Her hand invades the car to touch my shoulder. She has my attention again. Her hand looks smooth like a doll's.

"You're all by yourself in this dark alley," her smile shines with promise. She tilts her head to the side comfortably as her eyes do all the offering. The way she flirts makes me believe she can be innocent no matter what she's done.

"Business is dangerous tonight," I warn, because saying 'no' is just too hard. I set my hand on the knob to roll up the window, but I don't move it. As I tear myself away to look back at my silhouettes, she leans in. Her lips almost touch my ear. I am sure she will be the end of me.

"Darlin', business is dangerous every night," she tells me. I shiver. A white business card floats into my lap and she's gone. Her steps fade down the alley. I roll the window up half-way again before examining the card.

It says Becky with an address to an Old Town apartment and calling hours. I slip it face-down into a niche in the dashboard as I see the light go out in the window.

The two men come out of the building and get in a car, the headlights pouring yellow over the grey streets. I start my car and follow them without making myself a beacon. The oblivious bastards go to the docks to make the deal. I could have predicted that in my sleep.

The Pier

I stop the car between buildings near the end of the pier. My silhouettes keep driving all the way to the end. They stop about a hundred feet from another car and get out. Two other people meet them in the middle. Silhouettes have the bag, the others don't have anything that I can see.

Veiled by the dark, I get out of the car and move as silently as snow.

Gasoline seeps over the trunk of the car as I tip the gas can. The silhouettes are still talking in hushed quips when I back away. I pull out the nine with my right hand and hold it steady. One squeeze with my index finger and the car ignites and explodes with a hop and a wave of heat. The two pairs of men yell at each other. One silhouette draws a gun on the sellers and then all four of them exchange bullets.

Only flames and the silence of the dead.

The nine at my side points to hell as I walk forward to lift the duffle bag from between the bodies and check out the sellers' car. What had they been buying, my cop friend wanted to know.

Part of the windshield shatters and it feels like I've been shot in the shoulder.

But there's no sound.

Strafing into a building on the end of the pier, I empty a clip into the car. I press the release and the clip falls to the floor as I back into the dark space and lean against a wall. My entire left shoulder screams as I hoist the duffle bag onto my good side and pull another clip to reload. The end of a throwing knife is sticking out of me.

I hear nothing outside, so I climb a ladder to the loft level that goes around the inside perimeter. I set the duffle bag down. Moonlight comes in through the large windows that line the loft level. I take in a breath and tug the knife out of myself with both hands, one that is also gripping the nine. For a moment it feels like the air has been knocked out of me completely and I gasp, my hands buckling as the knife falls and clatters at my feet. Red seeps out of my jacket.

When the window beside me breaks, I leap back. An inhumanly thin woman, entirely clothed in black with a face covered ninja-style runs toward me. Her speed is like an animal's. I move backward, avoiding her attacks for a few moments before she strikes my wound with the heel of her palm.

I grit my teeth, growling as I hit her across the face with the butt of the nine. She catches my right arm and twists it, disarming me and turning me around. A solid impact near the center of my back sends me through the window face-first. I fall with a rain of glass that reflects white from the moon.

The cold ocean embraces me and I sink for a moment. The rays of moonlight coming down are like lots of silver crucifixes in the dark water. Silver crucifixes like Becky's necklaces.

I follow them to the surface and pull myself (mostly with my right arm) onto the dock. Sopping wet and bleeding from all over, I lie still for a moment. The red brake lights from the sellers' car shine and weaken at the exit of the pier and then the ninja is gone.

A shark fin skirts the surface of the water.

She took nothing else. Not the money, not her own knife. I take the duffle bag with me back to my car and decide to deliver it to John the cop. I check my face in the rearview mirror. It's cut up pretty bad and gleaming red. On the drive I wipe blood from my eyes with a hand that is also cut up.

At my cop friend's building the old doorman lets me up to the apartment without taking a second glance or asking any questions. The apartment door itself is unlocked in expectation of my arrival. I toss the duffle bag down inside.

From the kitchen John looks at me, surprised.

"So?" he asks through a mouth full of food as he stands by the counter. A pig if only he had the weight. I sum it up for him.

"I spook them. Sellers and them kill each other. I get attacked by a ninja from the sellers' car. Ninja gets away in the car, but doesn't take the money." I don't show him the knife because he won't know shit. "Bodies are still on the pier untouched."

"They were selling the ninja," the missus informs her husband as she enters the room. Everything about her is sharp. She looks at me. "Oh Jesus. John, get some bandages."

I take off most of my clothes. John and his wife help me clean and bind my face, neck, hands, and shoulder. He knows something about patching people up I guess, because they give me a fucking piece of wood that's a candle holder or something to bite on as he puts a few stitches in my shoulder.

Afterward I put on dry clothes to sleep in. My face, neck, and hands are covered in strips of white medical tape and a few butterfly stitches for the deeper cuts. My shoulder has gauze wrapped over the stitches which are slathered in polysporin.

John offers me the couch for the night, which is funny because my suitcase is under it and I've been staying there for a while. He tosses me a stack of bills from the duffle bag as a cut and I say nothing.

I don't think he was expecting to get the money.

Becky (II)

After I have my bloody jacket laundered, I sew up the cut in the shoulder. When I'm done it looks like a cross tilted mostly to the side. I meant for that.

Once in the car I immediately reach for Becky's card and head to Old Town.

I park a block away. Silhouettes of a few girls look down at me from the tops of buildings like sentinels.

In the entry, several women lean back against the counter. They look at me with focused eyes like natural hunters in tight leather. Uzis dangle from straps around their shoulders or waists. One woman pats me down wordlessly and takes the nine, ammunition, and the knife. She searches the pockets of my jacket until she finds Becky's card and the bundle of money. She leaves the cash in the pocket she found it in, but looks at the business card before placing it roughly back in my taped-up hand.

I take the stairs instead of the elevator. Down the narrow hallway on her floor, some of the doors are boarded over.

Room seven.

I knock.

As the door opens, I hear her draw in a breath, ready to say that it's still ten minutes before the beginning of her hours. Blue eyes practically shining, she recognizes me right away. She isn't wearing jewelry.

"Aw, hun…" her eyebrows raise as she looks at the bandages. She steps aside to let me in and closes the door. The bolt makes a heavy sound and the small apartment is like a sanctuary, candles and all. I turn back to her. She touches the side of my face and then brushes back my hair. "What can I do for you?" she asks with a sincerity and compassion I had forgotten existed. She searches my face.

"Be gentle," I tell her, looking into her blue eyes. She wraps her arms loosely around my neck and moves close to me carefully, delicately. She looks into my eyes as long as she can, and then we kiss. She backs me toward the bedroom.

Her teeth carefully close on my lower lip. My knees hit the edge of the bed and I sit down. She tips my head back to continue kissing. Her hands on my shoulders, it's like we're thirsty for each other.

I must make some kind of pleasure noise, because she shushes me and touches my neck softly. She smiles like she's innocent no matter what she's done before. With the hand on the side that doesn't hurt to move, I pull back the side of her open jacket. She shrugs it off and then puts her hands under the shoulders of my jacket. She's so careful she doesn't even irritate the stitches, all the time looking into my eyes for permission.

I fall back on my elbows, enjoying the way she advances with me. Her dark hair falls on either side of my face. We kiss like there is nothing else.

When she unbuttons my shirt, she sees the gauze around my shoulder.

"Is this the worst of it?" she asks, voice filled with the concern of a lover. I nod and she treats me like she knows I could have died.

Afterward she lies beside me on the bed, both of us in underwear. The sheets and covers are pulled up to our hips. I'm on my back and she's on her side against me. She runs her fingers through my hair and traces the bandages on my neck and cheek. Our clothes are together also, intertwined on the floor.

I feel like I've found the eye of the storm and the sea is calm.

"Do you want anything?" she asks. I could listen to her girlish voice forever. "Are you thirsty?"

"Nah, I'm okay," I tell her.

"You sure, sweetie? I can get you some water," her offer is so sincere it hurts.

"I'd… like that." I give in. She gets up to go to the kitchen and seconds later I can't help but follow her. I walk in just as she turns from the fridge.

She looks beautiful. Her skin everywhere is smooth and unblemished. She kisses me.

"Here you go, Patches," she hands me the glass of water, still smiling.

I drink the entire glass.

Patches.

Have I ever had another name?

Continued in Chapter 2