Committed (13 page)

He ignored the changing lights at the corner and jogged across the street. Hookers and loitering do-nothings eyed him suspiciously. Even in plain clothes he stuck out in this crowd. It wasn’t a good sign.

“Sanctuary allows anyone to enter. You just have to sign their paperwork and show an ID.” Yamamoto spoke as if bored.

Damien collided with a man exiting the building. He looked like a hobo and smelled of pungent, week-old beer and urine.

“Sorry, man.” Damien offered a steadying hand, but was shoved aside.

“You thinking about going there?”

Damien entered what appeared to be a secondary entrance. A hallway stretched out in front of him and a stairway rose to his left. He headed down the hall, hoping to find a lobby or desk area, maybe a management office, if he were lucky.

“I think so. I imagine my best chance of talking with Poppy is to start there. I can’t really corner her at work without getting her in trouble.” He peered into a few open doors, spying efficiency apartments with worn furniture, when there was any at all. A few streetwalkers stood in doorways, giving him sultry, begging looks.

“You could try online,” Yamamoto suggested.

“I wouldn’t know where to start. Besides, I need to see her in person.” There were a number of social networking sites targeted to the kink crowd, but the problem was that Damien had no idea what name she would go by, or even if she’d use a picture of herself. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack, and kind of crazy.

“Is that a good idea? She was pretty adamant about not seeing you again.”

“Gotta try one more time.” Or five.

“I didn’t think you did the public scene.”

“I don’t. But this is a special case.”

“I bet.”

“Let me call you back in a bit.”

“If I don’t hear from you in twenty minutes, I’m calling some backup in for you.”

“I don’t doubt you’d do that.”

“For you? Anything.”

Damien hung up and surveyed the building’s lobby. The front double door was propped open, eliminating any benefit of locks and the buzzer system. The front desk was empty, and the phone ripped out of the wall. But an office door stood open, with a fan nearby to circulate the stagnant air, though all it did was move the scent of body odor, sex, and pot around, mixing them into an eye-watering, fragrance.

He approached the door and peered in, looking for a sign of life. Besides the hookers, he hadn’t seen many people, and it made him curious about where they all were.

An Indian man sat at a desk that was wedged into what looked more like a janitorial closet than an office. He was bent over a file, flipping through paperwork that was upside-down.

Warning bells went off in Damien’s head. Either there was more than just drugs and prostitution going on here, or he was close to his target. And somehow he’d been made.

“Excuse me?” He tapped on the door.

The man jumped, acting as if he were startled, but he was a bad actor. Though his eyes were large and round, his body language was relaxed. He laid a hand against his chest and sighed. “You startled me.”

Yeah, right. If you were that easy to sneak up on, you’d have gotten a knife in the back a long time ago in this neighborhood
.

“Sorry about that.” Damien smiled his most disarming smile.

“What do you want?” He closed the file and stared up at Damien.

What did he do now? He’d planned on coming in and saying he owed Emilio some
money, and was looking for one of his people. His gut was telling him that was the wrong thing to do.

“I was just wondering how much it would be to rent here,” Damien asked instead.

The man rattled off prices on floor plans, and terms and conditions. He doubted they were the real prices. Most of the tenants couldn’t pay what he was quoting Damien, but it wasn’t as if he were about to trade in his house for a shitty apartment.

“Awesome. Mind if I look around?”

The man eyed him, obviously deciding whether or not to allow him in. He then shrugged and grabbed a clipboard. “Sign in.”

Damien scrawled an alias he hadn’t used in close to seven years and returned it. “Thanks. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

He grunted and turned away, dismissing Damien, which was fine with him. There was something going on here, and he intended on getting to the bottom of it.

The elevators had Out Of Order signs taped to the doors, and judging by the age of the paper they were written on, they’d been up there for a while. He stepped into the stairwell and started up. A couple of teens sat on the second flight and eyed him as he passed.

If he had to guess, they were lookouts for the second floor, so he skipped it and climbed to the third.

He approached the third-floor landing with caution, peering through the door into an intersection of hallways. There wasn’t anyone around that he could see. The carpet was some indeterminate color, and the musty smell of stale beer and cigarettes clung to everything.

Damien struck out to the right. None of the doors were open. A few of the overhead lights were out. He could hear a TV turned up too loud.

He reached the second stairwell without incident and peered down to where he’d entered. A pair of Hispanic men stood just inside the doors, talking in low voices. Damien backed toward the wall, checked behind him, and descended to the second floor landing.

No one was there to stop him.

Damien entered the hall, staying light on his feet and not allowing his gaze to linger anywhere for too long.

Most of the doors were closed, but one stood open, with a calligraphy banner hanging above it, and little placards next to the door. Chinese gods, symbols for good luck, and others to ward off evil.

“I’ll be damned,” Damien muttered under his breath. Yamamoto was right. He stepped
into the open doorway, tapping the thin, particleboard door. “Xiaojian?”

A Hispanic woman, with a little boy doubled over with tear tracks running down his face, glared at him from a futon near the door. Damien nodded at them, flicking his gaze over the floor-to-ceiling shelves that lined every wall, blocking out the light, displaying a number of Oriental healing tools, powders, and God only knew what else.

“Who there?” A little, angry man pushed past a beaded curtain separating the living room, or customer area, from the kitchen.

Damien did not want to know what Xiaojian cooked in there. He smiled at the healer, who stopped suddenly and glared at him from behind his glasses.

“Hi, Xiaojian. Go ahead, I can wait.” Damien gestured toward the woman.

Xiaojian glanced from him to the woman and her child and back again. He crossed to the woman and handed her a paper packet, rattling off instructions and ushering her out the door. He flipped a sign in the hallway and slammed the door shut behind him.

“What do you want?” Xiaojian snapped.

Chances were Xiaojian didn’t recall Damien’s name, and he was fine with that. The old man wasn’t a DEA asset, so he was depending on his willingness to share, and nothing else.

“Calm down, Xiaojian. I didn’t even know you were here. Just happened by looking for a friend and ran into you. These are different digs than the last time I saw you.” He pulled a folded photograph out from his back pocket.

“After that last deal you people did, I had to move. What do you want from me?”

“Chill. I’m not going to bust you for selling opium or practicing medicine without a license.” He didn’t doubt the old man was the only doctor a lot of these people would ever be able to afford. “I’m looking for this guy. Seen him around lately?”

Damien handed Xiaojian the picture of Emilio and watched his face, which unfortunately gave away nothing.

“He was here. Three times. Once after getting shot. Another last week. And just a few minutes ago.” Xiaojian handed the picture back. “Let that one stay lost.”

Damien froze, stunned to silence for a moment.

Damien had just missed Emilio.

“Where is he? Did he say anything to you?”

“Yes. He said if I told anyone he was here, I would be split from collarbone to cock, disemboweled, and have things done to me.” Xiaojian didn’t appear bothered by the threat, but the man was valuable to a number of people. Damien wouldn’t be surprised if the man was better
protected than the mayor.

“Anything else?”

Xiaojian leaned close to Damien, pulling his glasses off. “I don’t want to know anything about where or what Emilio Molina is doing. He’s psychotic. The man will kill someone.”

“He already has.” Damien ground his teeth together.

“I can’t help you. He was here, and now he’s gone.” Xiaojian glanced at a clock on the wall. “You need to leave. Now.”

“I just got here. I need some more answers, man.”

“No, you don’t understand. You breathe police. The building enforcers are going to be coming for you. You’ve been in here for what? Seven minutes? They’re going to be looking for you and the last thing I want is to treat a dying cop. It’s bad for business.” He added the last sentence with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Point taken. If you see Emilio, let your contacts know?”

Xiaojian was the PD’s asset, not his. While Damien could probably get away with using him, it wouldn’t keep relations between the agencies running smoothly. Damien would have to figure out things on his own.

“Fine. Leave.”

Damien pivoted and pulled the door open. The sound of heavy footsteps thumped down the hall. He peered in the direction where the two boys were supposed to be watching for people like him.

Three burly men, gold chains hanging down their chests and bandannas around their heads, were banging on doors.

“Yeah, this is my sign to leave. Later, Xiaojian.”

Damien blew out a breath, visualized the hall, the stairs, and his path back to the car.

“Here goes nothing,” he muttered to himself, and charged down the hall.

“There!”

“After him!”

Bad movie dialogue much?

Damien sprinted, the sounds of hot pursuit behind him. He’d had better days, by far.

He hit the stairs and took them three at a time, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He’d be hearing “I told ya so” from Yamamoto, if he ever found out about this.

Damien vaulted over the banister and hit the ground on the first floor running, shoved past the two men he’d seen earlier, and burst out onto the street. He didn’t stop for traffic, just
kept running and weaving between people, but the enforcers had stopped chasing him.

Emilio watched the cop run out of the building. He had recognized him from a drug bust he’d narrowly avoided a year or so past. He never forgot the face of someone he’d vowed to kill.

The cop slid into a nondescript SUV and pulled into traffic, no doubt off to report on whatever scraps he’d found.

Emilio had bigger things to worry about. He rolled his shoulder, testing the soreness in his arm. Two and a half weeks and he could still feel the bullet holes.

He turned and strode down the street toward the abandoned property he’d confiscated for his own uses. The brick building didn’t look that bad from the outside, but the trashed interior spoke of previous squatters and other unsavory types who’d once trembled in fear at his name.

Now, his crew had scattered, his wife and boss were in prison, and people laughed in his face.

They’d regret it in days to come.

Emilio would make them pay.

Every last one of them.

Poppy sat across from Kyle, the paper plates in front of them strewn with crumbs from their snack. The regular Friday-night crowd clustered in groups, chatting and catching up. Sanctuary was a place that embodied its name, and had always made Poppy feel safe.

“You here tonight?” Kyle waved her hand slowly back and forth.

“Sorry, totally zoned out on you for a second.” Poppy shook her head and glanced at her pad of paper.

“Dude, you got some serious attention-to-detail issues. I don’t think I’ve ever done negotiations with someone who comes with a color-coded list of kinks and a fill-in-the-blank survey for me.” Kyle laughed and pushed the sheet of paper back to her.

“I just want to make sure I cover everything.” She grabbed the paper and glanced at it. Kyle’s answers were everything Poppy already knew about her friend, but in a more formalized format.

“I know, and really, I should do something more like this when I play with people, but I never do. So, where and when do you want to do this?” Kyle shook her red plastic cup and the ice rattled. “And how crazy is it that we’ve never played together?”

“It is strange, but you haven’t been bottoming much and I’ve been trying to top more lately.” Poppy shrugged and shuffled the papers into a neat stack. “Want to go in an hour?”

The typical flow to the Friday-night events was an hour or more spent socializing over potluck finger foods, followed by several hours of open playtime in the dungeon. Kyle had met Poppy at the dungeon early so they could hash out their terms.

“That works for me. I need to talk to a guy about some rope.” Kyle pounded the table with her fist and got to her feet.

Poppy sighed and leaned back in her chair. She was grateful to Kyle for suggesting they play together as a way of getting her over Dom Cop and back in the groove. There wasn’t anything romantic, or even sexual, about their play. It was just harmless fun, and at this point, she was willing to try anything. She’d had one wet dream too many about a man with chocolate skin and a sultry voice.

She pushed her shoulders back and shook her hair out.

Tonight would be amazing.

“Poppy, there you are, darling!”

Poppy turned and grinned at Nikki in full, radiant glory. If Poppy didn’t like her friend so much, she’d be jealous. Nikki looked better dressing as a woman than Poppy did born as one. Besides, it was hard to compete with Nikki’s natural beauty.

Nikki posed against a backdrop of gauze curtains with strings of Christmas lights hanging behind them. She seemed to glow in an outfit of white and gold, complete with a white latex bodysuit, gold leggings, a white-and-gold underbust corset, and a white wig woven with strands of gold. Even her eyelashes matched.