Rob Thurman - Doubletake

Rapture had been thrown into hooking when she was sixteen, two years after coming over from Puerto Rico. Her favorite line had been, “My name be Rapture, honey. I’m so good, sugar pie, I’ll make you see God.” I think she came up with the line first and then picked her street name. I had no idea how big she’d been then, but she was large enough now to bring her chosen name to the whole world or at least an entire continent. I had a feeling she’d been close to the same big and beautiful three hundred and fifty some-odd pounds she was now as when she’d shot her pimp’s cousin at the same time she sat on her pimp’s head and suffocated him. She said they called him Tiny Tino for a reason. It was a good story and I believed it.

After two years of hooking she’d decided it was time for a career change. She loved telling her success story. It gave hope to other whores with stupid pimps, she said. Tino had a cousin who sold weapons, and he made money Tino couldn’t dream of. And he didn’t have to give blow jobs in alleys. She watched and learned and made that profit when she brought the Rapture to Tino and shot the cousin with one of his own guns. Of course, then it was her gun and that was a quicker profit than a BJ any day. Now Rapture was thirty-five and not the only gunrunner in the city, but one of the top ones. And she gave you a free cupcake with every purchase. How the hell can you beat that?

We’d left Kalakos driving the car around a few blocks until we were finished. With what I was buying, those random checks on public transportation these days would give a transit cop a heart attack and have us running before the government buried us so far under that the word “lawyer” was a myth.

She closed the door behind us and stripped off her baker’s jacket and hairnet. The last thing she’d want was the health department coming around and finding even the rats carried Uzis. She fluffed her curly black hair and pulled down a sequined tube top that Niko, Kalakos, and I all three could’ve stood in. “I had the boob job. What do you think? I have money. Why should I not give the angels a look at what they’re missing?”

They were perky, and as she was half an alphabet past a D cup, that made me both doubt gravity existed and think she had one damn talented doctor…who used concrete instead of silicone. “They’re…damn. I’ll bet men fight to the death for you when you walk down the street.” Hey, I didn’t want to get shot by my supplier. If they made her happy, good for her. For someone who sold guns and had put a few people six feet under, she wasn’t bad.

She hugged me thoroughly until my bones creaked and I was inhaling sequins. I heard the click in Niko’s throat he made when he was desperately trying not to laugh. His laughter was rare and I’d have wanted to hear it if it weren’t at my expense and would get him shot as well. Rapture let go of me, pulled up the glittering top again, and then waved her arms. “So? What is it you need? Wait. My book.” Opening the book, she flipped pages and ran a finger down.

“Ah, here. Cachorro Gruñón .” She didn’t know any of her customers’ real names in case the police ever tracked her down. She gave us code names, and I got Grouchy Puppy, as I’d started buying from her when we’d first moved to New York. I’d been seventeen. Apparently that had gotten me “Puppy.” “Grouchy” I’d earned on my own. She always tried to get me to smile. At that point I was being chased by the entire Auphe race. I didn’t have a lot to smile about.

“Yes, tsk , you take vacation? You should be low on everything. Explosive rounds. Jaivin made a good batch last night. Your usual forty?”

“Nah. Thirty should do it. They’re not quite getting it done on my current job. What I really need is about twenty grenades,” I’d want some spares around if we survived Janus. “C4 with military detonators, all you have. A grenade launcher. A little more distance than my pitching arm would be a good thing.”

Her round face beamed. “With this, I might get the butt lift too. Very popular in Brazil.” She wrote a couple of check marks in her book and then, unusually, scribbled what looked like three words. “I am sorry, Cachorro. I sold my last grenade launcher last week. Am waiting on new batch to fall off truck. But lucky, lucky you, bebé, I have something that would have you spit on that. I have a thing of such beauty. For almost a year, it sits sad and unwanted on the shelf. I should know you would be the one to buy it. To appreciate the virilidad magnifico .”

I knew a few Spanish words, but that wasn’t one of them. I glanced at Nik. “Virility,” he supplied dryly. That sounded right. If it swung a bigger metaphorical dick than a grenade launcher, bring it on.

She opened yet another door at the back of the room and shouted, “Marco, bring us the Javelin.”

That word I knew, and not in the Olympic throwing-competition category. “You have an antitank rocket ?” I asked, incredulous at that as I was at the fact that her tube top was staying up.

“An antitank system.” She planted a kiss on my cheek. I could feel the thick coating of bright red lipstick. I carefully waited to wipe it off until she was focused on Niko. Do not offend the woman with the antitank system. “Your puppy brother. He has vision and like all good men knows the perfect tool for the job.”

Niko said, “You mean as a terrorist would?”

She waved her hands vigorously. “I sell to no terrorist and your brother has good heart. He doesn’t want to think so. He hides it. But one day, you will see, your brother is a hero. One day he might save the world. My abuela had the sight. Me some too. You will see.”

Before I could tell her she’d better get some glasses for that sight, as she was way off about world saving and hearts, she was shouting again. “Marco, you lazy, worthless bastard. I have the order of the week. Are you back there with the porno magazines pulling on your polla again? I told you next time I would cut it off and bake it in a turkey-apple cobbler.” That was the Thanksgiving special. “This is work time, not pervertido time.”

Marco was up for the list in less than five seconds and his belt was buckled in the wrong hole, pants bagging low on his hips. I wouldn’t be eating the cobbler here for a while, on Thanksgiving or otherwise. While he was back pulling the inventory, Rapture added up the bill. “Since you are good customer, Cachorro , I will give you discount.” That and the fact that she was having a hard time selling the antitank rocket. Discount or no, it was about half a year’s pay. It was a good thing I’d brought almost all the cash we had on hand, because at this rate we’d be lucky to pay the six-fifty toll on our way to Tilden.

When we left, I was carrying three large bakery bags by white twine handles. Each bag had pink boxes with RAPTURE’S BUNS written in flowing white script. The boxes were cake-size but held C4, detonators, grenades, and a small box of explosive rounds. Niko was carrying the Javelin on his shoulder. It was wrapped in brown paper painted and dried ahead of time with garlic butter. As far as anyone was concerned, he was toting a piece of Italian bread almost four feet long…and close to thirty pounds.

“Grouchy Puppy.” This time Niko did laugh as we walked along the sidewalk waiting for Kalakos to come by. “She labeled you impeccably on your first visit.”

“I wouldn’t push it.” I snorted. “She thinks you’re my ‘hot brother.’ She’s got brand-new boobs ready to try out. I could tell her you’re up for some mountain climbing.”

Before he could get me back, and he would have, his cell rang. It was Promise. Robin’s condo was empty; his phone was gone; nothing appeared out of the ordinary except that our couch was still beside his. Salome and Spartacus weren’t perturbed. What would perturb a dead cat, I didn’t know, but they were batting around an old skull Goodfellow had given them. Yorick. It was their favorite toy. It seemed as if Goodfellow had taken his cell phone and gone. “What about his coat?” I prodded Niko. “He wouldn’t go out without his coat to cover his sword.”