Gregg Hurwitz - Prodigal Son

Still his little girl.

For a moment he forgot himself, taking a step away from the tree toward the apartment building. And then he halted, the circumstances crushing in on him.

What was he thinking? If he had any contact with Bri and Sofia, that would put the fake deputy marshals on their tail. The same people who’d used dark magic to open up Jake Hargreave’s carotid and bleed him dry.

All these long, lonely months, Duran could have swallowed his shame and shown up, could’ve given Sofia a Daddy Hug, the one where he picked her up and swung her around till her Crocs flew off. And now when every last instinct tugged at him to cross the dark alley and knock on that door, he couldn’t.

Not without putting her at risk. Her mother, too.

He started to turn away when a flicker of movement caught his eye. A man melting from the shadows along the front of the building. He stood before the very window Duran had been watching, his hands in his pockets, staring into the living room through the security screen.

The man was perfectly still. Thirty yards away beneath the ancient oak, Duran stayed perfectly still, too.

Then the man headed for the apartment’s entrance.

Duran stepped forward, plucked the rusty knife from the gutter, and started after him.

21Busted Creatures

Evan kept his hat off and wore short sleeves, the better to distinguish himself from Andrew Duran in the event that a guided missile was watching from ten thousand feet above.

How odd that after so many years spent flying below the radar, he now had to make himself visible for his own safety.

The hardware-store Schlage on the apartment building’s front door yielded to a rake pick and a tension wrench, the pins popping into alignment with a readiness that suggested they’d been compromised enough times to know the drill. A rectangle of unpainted wood delineated where the latch-guard plate had been snapped off with a crowbar.

The hall smelled of onions and garlic, someone’s dinner hanging heavy in the unventilated air. Laughing and gossiping issued from a lit room with a wide doorless entry up the hall—a lounge? a communal kitchen? As Evan neared, he heard the thump of machines, the scent of laundry detergent cutting through the stale air.

The conversation became audible. “What’s Jimmy up to?”

“Twenty-five to life.”

Laughter. “You know how to pick ’em, girl!”

“Don’t I, though?”

“Lemme guess. Armed robbery.”

“Nothing so glam. Check kiting. Seventh offense. Se- vunth . Got him on RICO or some shit ’cuz of his dumb-ass cousin Renny.”

“Renny? He the peach who said LuLu’s diapered baby had ‘junk in her trunk’?”

“The very one.”

Evan reached the doorway and peered inside at four women and a girl sorting their laundry from various mismatched machines. Brianna stood at the end, thumping a shuddering dryer with the heel of her hand; he recognized her from the DMV photo he’d pulled up. At her side Sofia held a basket brimming with more clothes.

“Thing’s been broke two weeks now,” Brianna lamented.

A woman with copper skin and well-kept hair the color of snow mm-mm-mm -ed her agreement. “Busted lock on the front door, gang tags spray-painted above the garage.”

Another woman in an ill-fitting spandex dress chimed in. “Yeah, well, the squeaky wheel don’t get shit if it ain’t in a zip code where rich folk hear it.”

“Language, ladies,” Brianna said, giving up on the dryer. “Can’t you see this innocent child here?”

Sofia had secured one of her mother’s bras over her head, the cups rising on either side like mouse ears. “Who, moi ?”

As the other ladies laughed, Brianna tugged the bra free and flopped it back into the basket. “See what I deal with?” As Brianna spoke, Sofia mouthed her mom’s words, engendering more laughter.

Brianna swatted her daughter on the arm, then planted a kiss on her forehead.

Evan stepped forward into a rush of warm air. Specks of lint snowflaked over the dryers, and a softener sheet remained impossibly airborne above a leaky vent, a feather riding a cartoon character’s snores.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Duran?”

Brianna stiffened. “ Miss ,” she said. “Ramirez. My maiden name.” She took the basket from Sofia and set it on a cocked hip. “What’s he done now?”

“I wanted to talk to you about that,” Evan said.

“Is he okay?” Sofia’s dark eyes were wide, glazed with fear.

“I don’t know. I’m trying to help him.”

Brianna bulldozed at him, leading with the basket, forcing him to step aside. “You can talk while I fold in my apartment. And don’t get no ideas. You try anything stupid, all these ladies up in here saw your face, ain’t that right, ladies?”

Evan was treated to a chorus of suspicious glares and disapproving clucks.

He said, “I will be the picture of chivalry.”

As he followed Brianna and Sofia up the hall, he heard one of the ladies say, “Chivalry, hell. My ass would settle for employed .”

Brianna’s apartment was tidy and well kept, a contrast to what he’d seen of the building. Vacuum marks in the carpet, dishes neatly stacked on the kitchen shelves, photos of Sofia lined on a side table. A rickety desk held an outdated laptop and a pile of bills.

“Sofia,” Brianna said. “Go to your room.”

Sofia looked at Evan. “Just tell me if he’s okay.”

“I don’t know,” Evan said.

Sofia took her index finger in her opposite fist, bent it till the knuckle cracked. “Did he kill that man?”

Brianna said, “Sof. Room. Now.”

“I’m guessing it’s more complicated than that,” Evan told Sofia.

Sofia retreated down the brief hall, closed the door, then silently opened it a crack and peered out. She saw Evan looking, raised a finger to her lips, and winked.

He winked back at her, returned his focus to Brianna. She dumped the laundry on the couch, got on her knees, and started folding. “Talk,” she said.

“I’m a friend of a friend of Andrew’s.”

“No you’re not. Andrew doesn’t have friends like you. Clean shirt, clean clothes, smell like soap. You need a better lie.”

Evan didn’t rise to the challenge. “I’m told he’s in some real trouble.”

She snapped a T-shirt harder than seemed necessary and folded it crisply. “You think?”

“I’m trying to find him.”

“Yeah? Good luck. I been trying to pin down that man for a year and change. Like when he used to go on them benders. Gone. Just gone.” She hunted through the mound before her. “How does that girl always lose one sock ? Does she take it off at school?”

Evan had never lost a sock, though Mia had made him aware that this was a domestic epidemic. He glanced up the hall again. From behind her door, Sofia mimed dramatic remorse, pressing her palm to her forehead. He bit down a grin.

When he looked back, Brianna tossed the orphaned sock aside and held a T-shirt to her face. Evan thought she was smelling it. But then he saw her shoulders trembling and understood.

“Ms. Ramirez?”

When she lowered the shirt, her protective toughness had dropped from her face, and now there was just grief, pure and simple. “He’s such an idiot,” she whispered. “But he’s Sofia’s father, and I still love him despite himself, and if he got himself killed, I’ll never forgive him.”

Evan stood there quietly.

“I mean, no one’s perfect, right?” she continued, talking at the shirt. “We’re just these … I dunno, busted creatures. And then you have a child. A daughter. And you realize you’re it—you’re the mold, the model, the example. God help them. And you pray so hard that they’re not doomed to fail like you. You’re so desperate for them not to repeat your mistakes. Marry the wrong guy. Wind up … wind up here. Like you.”