Free The Long Good Boy by Carol Lea Benjamin

social status.
    â€œChi Chi,” I said, my chin on my chest as she picked and brushed at my hair.
    â€œSsh. I’m not finished. Whatever you got to say, it could wait till you look proper.” Her hand slipped under my chin and lifted it, the way a mother does to a child who may not be telling the truth. “Better,” she said, but she looked scared, and when I opened my mouth, she put one finger to her lips and then began on my jacket, thoroughly absorbed in the task at hand, or so it seemed. “I got friends coming soon, and I don’t want you to embarrass me, have them ask me all kinds of questions.” She shook her head. “Where you get so dirty? Where you been?” Afraid of what my answer would be, but asking anyway.
    â€œThat’s why I called you. That’s what I have to tell you about. Next door.”
    â€œUm-hmm.” She brushed something off my cheek.
    â€œNext door to Keller’s.”
    â€œThe rabbit place? What you doing there?”
    â€œOther side.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œExactly. It’s closed down. Kaput. Gone and all but forgotten. But it’s exactly the layout you described, for Keller’s.” When she looked confused, I added, “They’re twins, Chi Chi. They’re all but identical.”
    â€œSo? They don’t got identical files, do they?” Despite the fact that we were alone, no one else anywhere near the corner of Hudson and Fourteenth Streets, she looked around for applause. Everyone’s a wit.
    â€œNo—but here’s the thing. I thought I was going to have to ask you to lend me Clint so that I could use the deserted building to teach him how to get me into Keller’s, but now I don’t have to do that.”
    â€œSay what?”
    â€œThere’s a skylight. In fact, I can get to Keller’s roof from the roof next door, jimmy the skylight, get into the office at Keller’s, and—”
    She was shaking her head.
    â€œSlow down, sugar. There’s no skylight at Keller’s.”
    â€œYes, there is. In the back. To give the back room light and air. I saw it. I was on their roof, just a little while ago.”
    She was shaking her head again, the wind pulling that near-white hair across her face. She brushed some out of her mouth, checking to see if it had lipstick on it before letting it go.
    â€œNow, listen carefully. Whatever’s behind the offices, you know, where you said, in the back of the building, it’s locked up tight. I tried that door once, the first time I was there, thinking it was the bathroom.” I opened my mouth, but she kept right on going. “No, honest. It’s not like there’s a sign on the head. They just got one. Unisex, Vinnie said. I see where you at, but you wrong. I didn’t steal nothing. You think I’m a hooker, makes me a thief.” She shrugged, sighed, and looked away. “Fine. I’m a thief, a liar, too. But I’m telling you this, you fall into the room in the back, that’s where you be stayin’, bitch. That door’s locked. You don’t take my word for it, try it and see. And I sure hope you can get back up to that skylight, because that’s the only way you’re getting out of whatever’s there.”
    â€œShit.”
    â€œYou can say that again, my own client acting like I’m—”
    â€œCan it,” I said. “That’s your paranoia. I never said you were a thief. And I never thought that.”
    â€œWell.”
    â€œThen it seems I will need Clint.”
    Chi Chi put her arms around herself, squeezing so tight that Clint began to growl.
    â€œIt’s just for a few days. I’ll give him back.”
    â€œHe my signature,” she said, looking away from me, trying to make me disappear.
    I touched her arm. “He won’t get hurt, Chi Chi. I promise.”
    â€œHe’s my right-hand man. I can’t.”
    â€œNo, Chi Chi.