Ace Atkins - Dark End of the Street

I felt the mug. Still hot.

I took a seat in the chair and picked up the October Playboy sitting by the mug. Girls of the SEC and some pretty lame music reviews. I skipped past the reviews and some kind of rich man’s guide to stereo gadgets and went right to this month’s centerfold before leaning back in the chair and studying the wall of televisions.

A woman stood by a slot machine picking her nose and a young Hispanic boy was sitting on his father’s shoulders as the man danced in a disco. Two security guards hung out on the hood of a Pontiac, smoking cigarettes and talking shit.

“Hey,” someone said. “What the fuck are you doing back here?”

Perfect ran a towel over Abby’s reddened skin, the dirt scrubbed away with the hard loofah. The girl was crying because she’d gotten a little chapped and was bleeding. How else was Perfect supposed to get that stench away? God, that girl smelled so rotten and awful.

Humes had his gun pointed at the girl’s chest and licked his lips looking at her wet bra and chest. He smoothed his hands over her little stomach, soaking in the control he felt. Perfect smacked the gun away, told him to go back to his seat, and bound Abby’s wrist with handcuffs to a metal water pipe.

The girl now lay lengthwise on an elevated bed the casino used to give guest in-room massages. Abby was still crying and bleeding when Perfect dripped the hot wax into the girl’s armpits and spread it with a plastic spatula.

“Abby, don’t worry, I’ll take care of you. You’ll be fresh and smelling like honeysuckle when we let you go. Don’t worry,” she said, caressing Abby’s face in her hands. “You and me will be just fine.”

Perfect spread strips of cotton paper on her armpits, smoothing it in the direction the hair grew. She held Abby’s face in her hands, feeling the blubbering and whimpering, as she quickly ripped the paper backward, taking away a thick collection of dark hairs by the root.

Abby screamed and cried more.

“I remember the first time my mother made me get all dolled up,” Perfect said. “I was eight. She made me sit in a hot bath till my toes turned to prunes, and then rolled me in baby powder. She put gobs of blue eyeliner on me, painted my lips fire-engine red, and dressed me in my Sunday sailor suit. Told me I had to look right for my uncle. Said he liked sweet little girls. Are you sweet, Miss Abby? Are you my sweet little girl?”

The girl coughed and then spit right into Perfect’s eye. Perfect just smoothed away the spit and poured more of that hot yellow wax into Abby’s armpit. Abby was yelling and screaming and kicking now.

Perfect nodded over to Humes and they tied her legs to the table with some torn bed sheets. She used a short piece to gag the girl. Didn’t even know this was good for her.

She applied the wax and another strip just like she was taught and ripped it back away. Abby screamed a muffled scream, her eyes reddened and full of tears.

Perfect found a comb from her purse and then started roughly pulling away the tangles from the girl’s wet hair. She whistled a little bit as she worked.

She liked to feel good about helping someone be clean.

Iturned to the door where I saw a kid in his early twenties with slick black hair, wearing a blue blazer and khaki pants.

“Sent back here to see Mr. Humes,” I said.

“No one told me,” the kid said.

“Are you Mr. Humes?” I asked.

“No,” the kid said, studying my face.

“Then maybe that’s the reason.”

“Nobody likes a smart-ass,” the kid said.

“You’d be surprised,” I said.

The kid’s jaw muscles twitched and he grabbed a radio at his hip.

“You stay here, buddy,” the kid said. “Don’t leave.”

I made a pistol with my thumb and forefinger and dropped the hammer. The kid shook his head and walked back down the hall.

Maybe Humes didn’t handle collections or maybe they’d already found Clyde. Or maybe I was wasting my fucking time. At least this was better than sitting in my warehouse in New Orleans rearranging vinyl.

I walked over to the cooler and poured some water into a paper cup. Really was pretty cool the way they had all these monitors set up. I laughed at some white dude in a white suit trying to dance and at some old lady who was beating the shit out of a losing slot.

I was about to turn back to the Girls of the SEC when something in the far right corner of the monitors caught my eye.

The scene wasn’t in the main casino. Looked like it was in some storage area with cinder block walls filled with old slots. Two people talking.

A woman leaned over a young girl who was lying down on a long table. I stood and walked toward the screen, transfixed and sickened by what I saw.

The girl was almost naked and tied down. Her arms were cuffed above her head to a water main and her legs were attached to the table by some kind of strips of cloth. Her loose hair fell into her eyes and she was twisting her head away from the woman’s face. I could feel my heart pound faster and heated adrenaline shoot through my body. The woman mashed a revolver in the girl’s eye as she poured something down the length of her legs.

Below the monitor was an imprinted plastic tag reading #102.

PERFECT LEIGH WANTED to tear into Abby’s cuticles so bad that her temples throbbed, but the little girl was flailing about and screaming so much that it’d be tough. Maybe she could work on her hands with them still attached to the water pipe, she thought, as she tore off another strip of hair from Abby’s leg causing another muffled scream and another laugh from Humes. He was really getting his jollies watching a young girl twisting about her in her little undies. Sick bastard.

Hmm. It seemed the heaviest concentration of blond hair was on Abby’s calves, but that would come off with just a quick spread of wax and a flick of the wrist. Perfect stopped for a moment, pulled Abby’s wet, now-detangled hair into a ponytail, and stood back to admire her work.

Yes, there were possibilities. Her armpits were clean and her legs were almost done. She’d work on the cuticles next and then apply the makeup. Perfect found a long strip of what looked like stubborn hair and loosened the gag around Abby’s mouth. “Just a word, darlin’,” Perfect said. “Just a word. Where did your daddy keep those papers? Y’all have a bank? Or does he have a hidden safe at his office? Come on. You’re about all clean and then we gonna have to start li’l things that are much, much nastier. Mr. Humes over there is kind of kinky, too.”

Humes smiled, gave a short bow, and walked out the door. He’d be back. He’d be back because he didn’t think Perfect could handle getting what they needed. She looked down at Abby who was turning kind of a bluish color.

Perfect traced her bare white belly with the pistol and watched her try to stretch from her bound hands and legs. “All right, girl, your choice. I would like to put you in a nice little black dress before he starts. And we’ll have to burn that nasty T-shirt and jeans you got.”

She put down the gun for a moment on a stack of clean white towels and concentrated looping sticky gobs of wax up under the girl’s calves as she hummed along. “You’re going to be so pretty, Abby. Don’t you worry, I’ll make sure you are the belle of the ball before you take that last breath.”

Iran through the twisted concrete corridors searching for the room I’d seen from the monitor. Everything I’d come for seemed unimportant now. A girl was strapped to a table with a gun to her head. Hell, I didn’t know what I’d do if I found her. Kick in the door, pull a fire alarm. Something. I couldn’t just stand back and let everything shake out.