Chapter Two – New York City
She leaned against the cold brick of the wall, ignoring the icy wind that circled around her. The wind tousled her hair. Once blonde, it was now a violent rainbow of colors worn in a short spikey style. She reached into her bag and pulled out a cigarette that she lit with a large silver lighter. She took a deep drag on the cigarette, filling her lungs with the sharp but soothing smoke, flicked the lighter shut and stuffed it back into her bag.
She surveyed the scene around her with a jaundiced eye. Pickings looked pretty slim tonight, but it didn't matter. Something would turn up, it always did. She wasn't fussy. As long as they had the money, that is.
With a sigh, she pushed away from the brick wall and began to walk slowly down the street. There was a cop coming, and the last thing she needed was to get picked up on a loitering charge. She relaxed a bit when she realized it was Flaherty. He was the regular cop on this beat, and never gave her any trouble.
"Hey Angel," he said when he caught up with her. "How are tricks?"
"It's pretty slow, tonight," she said. "Where ya been? They had a real hard ass covering for you."
"Sorry, Angel, couldn't be helped. Took my kid out west to look at a couple of colleges."
"Oh yeah?" she said, pulling in on the cigarette and releasing a steady stream of smoke into the cold night air.
"Yeah, we made a regular family trip of it," said Officer Flaherty. "We saw the Grand Canyon, and took a swing down into Mexico. We even went to that UFO place, you know, Roswell."
"Yeah," she said, sadly. "I know the place you mean."
"Look Angel, this isn't strictly a social visit. We got word that some psycho is picking up girls and killing them, then dumping their bodies in the river. We've found three bodies so far. You be careful, okay? Stick to your regulars."
"Sure thing, Flaherty, thanks for the warning," Maria said, knowing full well she'd take any trick that came her way. Live or die, it was all the same to her.
"Well, I gotta be going," the cop said. "Spread the word, will you? Let the other girls know what's going on."
"Sure thing, Flaherty. Hey, you wanna grab a cup of coffee before you head out," Maria said, reluctant to sever contact with the police officer for some reason. "I'd love to hear more about your trip. What was Roswell like? All alien themed restaurants and stores everywhere I bet."
"I'll say it was," laughed Flaherty. "We even ate at this one place, the Landing Strip or something. All the waitresses wore these little antenna things on their heads."
"The Crashdown," Maria said softly. She felt a sharp pang in her heart, but ruthlessly tamped it down. There was no place in her world now for her old life. That life died with Michael.
"Yeah, that's it," said Flaherty in amazement. "How'd you know?"
"Just a lucky guess. See ya around Flaherty," Maria answered, walking quickly away.
"Hey, what about our coffee?" the cop shouted to her retreating figure.
"Rain check," Maria called, waving her fingers in the air.
Three hours later, she was ready to call it a night. She watched as her last trick pulled his pants on, and struggled with his shirt. Turning tricks wasn't as hard as she thought it would be. It wasn't Maria that sold her body time after time. It was Angel. Maria just floated up there on the ceiling, looking down, watching Angel. Maria never felt their grasping hands pawing at her body. And when it was all over, she became Maria again. She was what she was, a prostitute, a whore, a street walker. There were a thousand different names for what she did. She called it surviving.
"Pay up," she said, bluntly when his head emerged from his shirt.
"Yeah, sure," the man said, removing for what Maria thought was his wallet. Instead, he pulled a knife with a very lethal blade out of his coat pocket. "Or, I could punish you. You're a dirty girl, and you do dirty things," the man said. "You should be punished for what you do."
"Shut up, freak," Maria said. "And give me my money." She held out her hand for the cash, and waited tensely, ready to make a break for it if need be.
"You're evil, and you need to be punished," the man said again. "God is telling me to punish you for your sins. The blood will come out of you and wash you clean again."
He brandished the knife and Maria sprang off the bed and tried to make her way toward the door.
"Die, dirty girl, die!" the man shouted.
Acting instinctively, Maria raised her hand to stop the man, and a bolt of energy flew from her hand, striking the man in the chest, knocking him to the ground.
"Oh my God. Oh my God," Maria muttered. She wrapped her arms around her waist and knelt on the ground and began to rock back and forth. "Oh my God. What did I just do? Help me, can someone help me?"
She sat, possibly for only minutes, but to her, it seemed like hours. She rocked back and forth, her eyes darting around the dreary room like some kind of mechanical toy. Finally, she allowed herself to relax, trying to convince herself that what had just happened was only a figment of her stressed out, overworked imagination.
"I did not just do that," she said to the dead body beside her. "I did not hold out my hand and blow you up. You had a heart attack or something." Maria repeated it over like a mantra, until finally, she half believed it.
"Okay, the guy had a heart attack. He was a sick psycho with a knife and he had a heart attack. Flaherty, I have to find Flaherty, he'll believe me."
Maria got up off of the floor, giving the body as wide a berth as possible in the dingy cramped room. At the door, she looked back, and the site of the john's prone body, and another burst of fear coursed through her body. Out of habit, her hand shot out, reaching for the light switch, only this time there was a short blast of energy, and a lamp across the room exploded into pieces.
Instinct took over and Maria turned and ran. She made her way through the dank hallway and down the decrepit stairs that led to the door. Once outside, she took a deep cleansing breath of the cold night air and tried to steady her breathing. Without warning a heavy hand clamped down on her shoulder, and Maria spun around in fear.
"Yo, chill!" came an eerily familiar voice. "I been lookin' for you."
Maria turned quickly around and felt her world explode around her. Standing in front of her was Michael, her Michael, alive. But it wasn't Michael. There was a hardness about this man, that despite all his years of neglect and abuse, Michael never had.
"Yo, you ain't Ava," the Michael look-a-like. "I thought for sure it was you. I thought I felt, wait, I know you," he said, looking more closely at Maria.
"No you don't," said Maria, gathering her wits. "Now let go of me before I scream." She pulled away, readying herself to run.
"Whatsamatta? Whadda you afraid of, anyhow? Ain't you gonna say yo to you're old friend, Rath?"
Without warning, Maria burst into tears. The first tears she'd shed since the night that Michael died. It was like a floodgate had opened inside of her. Without warning, she turned and ran back inside the dingy hotel she used to service her customers.
After a seconds' hesitation, Rath followed her, taking the stairs two at a time. He spied Maria standing in the hallway outside of a room clinging to the doorframe as if it was a life preserver and she was drowning.
"Why'd ya run off for?" he asked when he joined her at the door. She said nothing, and looked into the room to see what she was staring at.
"Oh, he said, walking into the room. "Who offed him? Where's you're man? What's his name, Michael, right? He do this and leave you to deal with the mess?"
"M-Michael's dead," she managed to get out between the sobs that wracked her small frame. "They're all dead. I'm all that's left."
"That's rough," said Rath, his voice anything but sympathetic. "Who did that, then?"
"I, I think I did," Maria said.
"You didn't do that, you ain't one of us," said Rath, his voice accusing.
"Of course I'm not one of you!" Maria shouted, the years of suppressed emotion finally coming out. "I know I'm not one of you, you don't have to tell me that!" she yelled over the sounds of light bulbs exploding down the length of the hall.
"Or, maybe you are," said Rath. "Come on, let's get out of here, this is gonna take some thinkin'."