When he gestured that he was ready, I stuffed a piece of gum in my mouth, raised my hand, and almost knocked.
Garrett questioned me silently with an urgent shrug.
I leaned toward him and whispered, “Why were we holding hands downstairs, playing star-crossed lovers, if I have to go in here alone?”
The grin that spread across his face was so full of mischief, I almost laughed.
“You are a dirty, rotten scoundrel,” I said, teasing him.
He winked as I straightened my shoulders, then really knocked.
“What?” a male voice yelled out, clearly annoyed at having been disrupted.
But I’d knocked too soon. I forgot that the only gum I had was the super-duper sour kind. The kind that promised a pucker with every piece.
I blinked back tears, tried to realign my eyelids to the same width, and said, “Crystal sent me,” in my best New York accent. No idea why.
He wrenched open the door before I could get my lids completely realigned. I could feel one squinting against the powerful atomic mixture squeezing my cheeks together like an overzealous aunt. The kind with too much lipstick and sharp nails. He paused a moment to take me in, during which time I forced my lids to chill, smacked the gum as annoyingly as I could manage, and winked. He nodded a greeting with his big head. It sat atop his big shoulders only to be outdone by his even bigger belly and what had to be size 14 shoes.
After he surveyed every inch of me in much the same way I’d surveyed him, he glanced up and down the hall. When he was satisfied no one had taken up position around the nearest corner—Garrett was good—he gestured me inside. “Muffy’s in here.”
“Muffy?” I asked, following him inside. I was going to have to pretend to want to have sex with a girl? A girl named Muffy? What the hell kind of name was Muffy? If I were a prostitute, I’d go for something cool and exotic like Stardust. Or Venus. Or Julia Roberts.
From my periphery I spotted Javier round the corner, at the opposite end of the hall, narrowly escaping the observant gaze of Daniel the bad guy. Garrett eased forward as our target closed the door, sealing my fate like a ziplock bag sealed in freshness. I could only pray they’d hurry. If I had to kiss a prostitute dumb enough to call herself Muffy, I was going to demand compensation. She couldn’t possibly practice good dental hygiene.
“The shampoo’s under the sink,” Daniel said. “Try not to clog it up.”
Okay, this was getting way kinkier than I’d expected. I’d need therapy when it was all said and done. No, wait, I already needed therapy. Never mind.
As my overactive imagination conjured all kinds of scenarios of why Muffy and I would need shampoo, an adorable Yorkie yapped at me from behind a recliner. “And do her nails,” Daniel said as he plopped into a creaky recliner. “Last time the girl didn’t do her nails.”
Wait? Was he serious? I thought I was supposed to be a prostitute or something.
I scanned the area for other occupants, but he appeared to be alone. “Okay, I gotta text Crystal and let her know I’m here, ya know?”
“Fine, whatever.” He picked up the remote and turned off the mute. A game of some kind was on, the sound of a cheering crowd blared through the room. Good thing. The noise would muffle any ruckus the guys made.
I scooped up Muffy to keep her out of harm’s way, then texted Garrett the situation: One male. Alone. And a Yorkie. Count to thirty. I wanted to get Muffy into another room before they broke down the door.
“I ain’t seen you before,” Daniel called out to me. “You work with Crystal long?”
“Um, yeah, you know.”
He muted the TV. Damn it. What’d I say?
“How long?” he asked. He stood again and came into the kitchen just as I sent the text.
I stuffed my phone into my pocket. “Only a couple of months. She needed someone while Valerie was out.”
“Who the f**k’s Valerie?” he asked, easing into the kitchen. Keep it simple. Keep it simple. But before I could answer, he asked, “Is she that skinny chick that ran off with Manuel?”
I laughed and shrugged. “I don’t know. I never met her.”
“That chick was psycho, man. You should have seen what she did to Muffy’s ears. She just needs a trim, okay? I don’t want no sissy-ass do with bows and shit. Fuckin’ Valerie. I told her that, and she still gave her pink highlights.”
You could give a dog highlights? “Okay. No bows. No highlights. Got it.”
“Okay. Just so we’re—”
The front door crashed open, and I took a dive with Muffy. I couldn’t keep the term muff diver from popping into my head as I did so. Daniel wasn’t stupid. He didn’t hesitate a second before he went for the large kitchen window. He slid the dirty pane up and scrambled headfirst through the thing, his large body deceivingly quick.
“Swopes!” I called out, tossing Muffy onto her pallet and hurrying through the window after him.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that Daniel was a planner. A suspicious sort. He knew if anyone came at him from anything other than the front door, they’d have to take the fire escape up to his apartment, so he’d loosened the rails. No one could come up without it collapsing, and only he knew where to step to get down safely. The poor man’s alarm system.
I never got the memo. Thus, the moment I basically fell through the window, following him onto the rigged fire escape, the railing gave beneath our weight and toppled over, secured to the exterior wall only by the bottom bolts. Daniel clung to a set of bars he’d installed, probably for that very purpose, but without a stable foothold, he couldn’t hang on for long. The railing swayed, metal clanging against metal as the third guy from our party stood in the alley at the bottom, his eyes large as he watched. Daniel grunted as his hands slipped, and he fell onto the rocking fire escape, his weight causing another bolt to go.