Free Immortality Is the Suck by A. M. Riley

cigarette, I could see her hand was
    shaking. But that could have been from speed.
    “Who?” she asked around a plume of smoke.
    “Don't know. Maybe the Mongols.”
    “Fuck,” she says. “I don't know nothing about that .”
    “He talked to me about the deal, so don't bother lying. Somebody had to
    have leaked to the Mongols that he was dealing on their turf. I figure his buyer
    set him up. You have his name?” I saw her gaze slide just over my left
    shoulder. Aha.
    “You know, I remember you,” she said, stalling. “You aren't bad for a cop.”
    “I'm glad I meet with your approval,” I said.

    56
    A. M. Riley

    “Freeway was good to me,” she said. “But I don't know nothing about him
    screwing the Mongols. I mean, that's stupid, right? Those guys'll kill you if you
    fuck with them, right?” She crossed one skinny white leg over the other. She
    wore a tight red knit skirt and thigh-high leather boots with about half a dozen
    buckles up the sides. The treads looked brand-new.
    “That's right.”
    She frowned and nodded and mashed out her cigarette. “Stupid,” she
    pronounced. She gave me a hard look.
    “You're not stupid,” I said.
    “I'd better not be,” she said.
    I looked around the tiny, one-room place. “Maybe you're dating one of
    them,” I said. “Maybe you've heard who killed Freeway.” I looked her up and
    down. “Nice boots,” I said. “They new?”
    She glanced at her boots, then licked her lips. “I liked Freeway. He was
    good to me.”
    I took a paper and pen out of my pocket and wrote down my prepaid cell
    number. “In case you think of anything,” I said.
    Smirking, she slipped it in the bodice covering her bony chest. I figured it
    probably slid straight to her navel. “Maybe I'll just call you because you're
    kinda cute.”
    “Yeah, you do that,” I said. She walked me to the door.
    The nosy neighbor was still standing there when I stepped into the
    hallway.
    “You making trouble, Betsy?” he said.
    “Fuck off, Barney,” said Betsy. And slammed the door. I heard the chain
    latch.
    “Hey, Barney,” I said. “You and Betsy been friends long?”
    He looked startled and retreated into his apartment, hurriedly latching the
    chain as I walked by.

    Immortality is the Suck

    57

    Outside I climbed a fence, jumped onto the roof of a bungalow next door,
    and sat and waited like a big Italian gargoyle on the roof until Betsy came down
    the fire escape, her heavy boots ringing out on the stairs as she descended.
    I followed her from a couple of blocks away down the seeping back alleys.
    It was fairly easy. Those boots made a racket, and I was hyperaware, it seemed,
    of the night sounds around me.
    She stopped in front of one of the old garages that had been converted to a
    studio. “Murch Galleries” was the name on the sign hanging out into the
    alleyway. Betsy took her cigarette out of her mouth and pounded on the door
    for several minutes.
    Finally I heard the screech and scrape of an old metal door being opened.
    Betsy was let in and the door slammed shut.
    I ducked down an alley and circled the building, looking for a way in. It
    seemed the door Betsy had entered through was the only one. A row of
    windows shone on the second floor though. There were no stairs or ladders,
    but I found a trellis on the back of a house next door. It was surprisingly easy
    to climb. I felt like a monkey moving through the trees, swinging myself up
    onto a wall and looking down at the roof of the building that Betsy had just
    entered. The perimeter was lined with barbed wire, and beyond that someone
    had strewed the flat roof with about a ton of shattered glass.
    More effective than a burglar alarm in an area where police are sometimes
    slow to arrive.
    I ran along the wall and could see no way over from here. So I slid down a
    fire escape, dropping off with ten feet of air beneath me and landing with all the
    grace and control of a gymnast off the uneven bars. My bad knee didn't