Free Adrenaline by Bill Eidson Page B

Jammer’s selection. She felt sweaty and her ankles were dirty from walking the beat. Nasty, dumb girl.
    Jammer had told her to be on the lookout for a cabbie who liked to be called Mr. Boffo. He brought a lot of johns in, and so she had to service him for free. Work that Jammer usually relegated to Darlene.
    Just a month ago, she had been off the street and taking only calls. She could do her work at the Ritz or sometimes on the arm of a visiting businessman wanting a companion for the night. Five hundred a throw. That was before she’d tried to run, the time before last. Hours after the incident with Raul, Jammer had found her at the train station, bags packed.
    So Jammer gave her the punishment detail, back on the street. He said that Strike had called, saying Raul had been “disappointed with her performance.” That’s all Jammer apparently knew. If he had known what really happened at Raul’s, she fully believed he would make good on his favorite threat of spraying her face with lighter fluid and lighting a match. She was pretty sure he had it in him to carry it out.
    Why Raul hadn’t told all, she had no idea. Maybe it would make him lose face to admit to the pimp that she cut him. Men were like that, posing for each other all the time. She was nervous every time a car slowed down for her, nervous that Strike or Lee would be waiting in the back to take her to Raul’s.
    Her White Knight had been adopting some sort of pose, she was sure. That’s the name she had given the man in the park, just kidding around with herself. She knew he must have had reasons of his own for getting in the fight with Jammer. And her life had hardly become better for his interference.
    Jammer had slapped her around again this morning when she had pointed out to him that she had been making more money for the both of them by working as a call girl.
    “You think I’m gonna lose?” he said, his voice breaking with outrage. “You think I’m gonna lose money because you need your ass kicked? You make your five hundred, and I don’t care if it takes one trick or fifty!”
    No way she was going to do it, but if she brought in three hundred he might not hit her too hard. Dumbass pimp. He was losing out on all that cash just to make his point about the damn sword cane.
    But she knew the real issue was that he was afraid of losing face. Afraid that Raul wouldn’t let him in on the distribution deal. Afraid that if Raul heard some tourist in a suit took Jammer’s weapon away, he would smile like he was pretending he was sad while Strike or one of his other lieutenants smashed Jammer’s elbows with a baseball bat.
    Carly could have told Jammer that Raul wouldn’t have given a shit one way or the other about Jammer’s sword cane or anything else about him. Jammer was only half smart. Strictly small-time, but with an ego big enough to fill a small castle. Good at skulking around, following people. Tough enough to slap around whores. Mean enough to earn his nickname by jamming his sharp toys into anyone stupid enough to cross him and look away.
    But she knew Raul was just playing with Jammer. Maybe looking to suck up some of his cash and throw Jammer a dying territory. Carly sometimes felt the stirring of what she figured was the wife inside her. She wanted to tell Jammer sometimes what she saw; she wanted to let him know he was making a big mistake with Raul. But she always held back. Giving Jammer advice would only earn her a beating. Besides, she wasn’t giving him anything for free.
    Carly searched her reflection, not admiring her beauty, but trying to see if she was still in there, behind the whore’s clothing and makeup. For the millionth time, she thought, why me?
    She had grown up just outside Camden, Maine, a beautiful little town that attracted tourists from all over the world with its jewel-like harbor, complete with oh-so-perfect shops. But when she thought of Camden, she thought of the trailer park just outside of town where