Two Can Play (Entangled Ignite) (9 page)

Gearing up for the weird world of the Lounge, he headed for the employee entrance, pulling out his Lifer ID as he walked. The air was sweet with orange blossoms, the sun gentle on his scalp, barely hinting at the oven blast to come. Spring was great in Arizona. Out at his place, baby quail were fluff balls scampering behind their parents through the sage, bright with yellow and purple blossoms. The desert had great beauty if you knew when and where to look.

He slid his card through the reader and the door opened to him. His first stop was the personnel office, where his girl was at the front desk. Perfect.

“Hi, baby! How’s it going?” she gushed.

“I looked for you in the Lounge yesterday.” He threw on the slow smile, aiming to reel her in. It troubled him how easily he could fake warmth. A tool of his trade, but not good for his soul, he was sure.

“Too many new hires for me to make Lifer Monday,” she said with a sigh. “But I can take breaks…” She held out a box of cinnamon Tic Tacs and tapped one onto his palm. “I just have to have my fun real fast.” She slipped a candy onto her tongue, shifting it slowly side to side, making her point clear.

If he went after half the sex points he’d been offered, he’d get laid every night for a month. The idea made him weary. “Keep me posted on that.” He leaned closer and winked. “For now, maybe you can help me on another thing. I need to find a friend who transferred out of here. Could you check for me?”

“Someone special?” Jealousy flared in her dark eyes and she rattled the Tic Tac against her very white teeth.

“Just a friend.”

She seemed to believe him. “Sorry, baby boy. Only managers have full access to personnel files.” She leaned in to whisper, giving him a shot of cleavage and a blast of cinnamon. “The secrecy is nutty. To do my
job
, I have to get signed approval and a timed-access code. They don’t even trust Lifers. Can you believe that?” She shook her head, making a
tsk
sound.

“That’s a shame.” Damn. Dead end.

“Now those Roomer bitches should be locked out. They’re all bitter because Lifer guys won’t hook up with them. They think it’s ’cause they’re only Dead employees, not Lifers, so there’s no points, but it’s really ’cause they’re pure skanks.”

“Are Roomers the ones who assign Quarters?”

“Yeah. Can you believe they give such a big-deal job to Deads? It should be a Lifer job for sure, but they don’t ask me or I’d—”

“Think they’d know where my friend went?”

She waved that away. “Forget your friend. She’s gone. I’m off at six tonight. How’s that sound?” Her voice took on a honeyed lilt.

“Mmm, that’s a shame. I’m booked, I’m afraid. Let’s talk next Monday, if you can slip into the arena for a fast break?” He hoped to be long gone by then.

“Yum,” she said. She squinted at his shirt pocket, where a Girl Power Brochure rested. She tapped it with a long red nail. “You into Girl Power?”

“Sure. It’s fair.”

“I
knew
you were all that. You’re making me hot and wiggly.” She gave an exaggerated shiver, then got serious. “Astra says our cause is DOA without boy support. And we need to win this.” She motioned at the women working at computers near her. “You see any boys slaving sixty hours a week over point schedules? No, you don’t. Because
they
need their gaming time. What about us? Girl gamers rock. Equal and fair, that’s all we want. It’s like when they used to pay men teachers more than women because they—supposedly—were the breadwinners and women only worked
for fun
.”

He bumped knuckles to signal agreement and left. In the hall, he noticed the sign for the Roomer office and headed in.

He rolled out a tale for the bored receptionist about finding a ring in L.E.’s room and needing to know where to mail it to her. The girl cut him off, eyes flashing fire. “Look, even if we didn’t purge room records every seven days, which we
do
, no
way
am I sending
nothin
’ to
no one
. You Lifer boys think you’re God’s gifts.”

“Sorry.” He raised his hands in surrender. “Didn’t mean to upset you.” His girl in reception had been right about the “Roomer bitches.” He backed out fast.

Two dead ends behind him, Gage headed to the van office to learn where they’d taken Cassie. He found a check-in window at the side of a garage with a half dozen white vans parked outside. Doves in some nearby mesquites cooed softly, contrasting with the harsh
rat-tat-tat
of a bolt remover going inside the garage. From the window, he could see one mechanic bent over an engine and another changing tires. The smell of motor oil and rubber rushed out to him.

The guy at the counter—Eric, according to his jumpsuit patch—leaned out, looking eager to talk. “You need to check out a van?”

Lifers had free transportation, a nice perk, Gage had to admit. “Nope. I’m new, but I know engines. How hard is it to get to work out here?”

“You have Quarters?” When Gage shook his head, Eric said, “Once you do, you should apply. We always need mechanics.” He glanced over at the guy working on the engine, who swore and threw a wrench to the concrete. Eric turned back to Gage. “These old vans are shit balls.”

“Sounds like fun. What are the hours like?”

“Day shift’s seven to seven. Half shift seven to midnight.”

“Nothing after midnight?” Cassie’s eviction had been at 2:00 a.m. “I’m kind of a night owl.”

“Those are special assignments. Not a regular shift.” He glanced away, so Gage knew he was getting somewhere.

“That’s to transport Lost Lives, right?” he guessed.

“Yeah.” He seemed relieved that Gage knew. “It’s a stink-o assignment, so you get double points. Sometimes they carry on, crying and screaming and shit. It’s pitiful.”

“Is it far? Where they take them?”

“To the shelter? Nah. Used to be out to Mesa, but lately, it’s the new one down on Van Buren and Nineteenth Ave.”

They’d taken Cassie to a shelter?
So much for the rehab Maya had promised Rena. He doubted that was the first lie the shrink had told the true believer who hung on her every word.

“How often do the special assignments come in? For the double points?” He pretended interest in the money, but he wanted a better picture of the eviction system. How big were the crimes that got a Lifer kicked out?

“Hard to say.” The pissed-off mechanic walked up, wiping grease from his hands with a grimy red rag. Eric turned to him, “How often do we get SAs?”

The mechanic shrugged. “Sometimes five or six at a time, then nothing for a while.” He scrubbed absently at his forearm, drawing Gage’s eye to a tattoo across the tan muscle. It was the troll avatar from
EverLife
in brick-red ink just like the ones from Beth’s mural. “Nice tattoo,” Gage said, trying to sound casual.

“Got it when I got my new status tat.”

“A friend of mine uses that color ink. L.E.? She do it for you?”

“Don’t recall the name. About yay tall.” He motioned to about Beth’s height. “Blue stripes in blond hair.”

“Maybe…” The guy had been inches away from Beth’s face while she tattooed him, so maybe he’d have noticed her details. “She have a spot here?” He touched the place on his cheek where Beth’s mole was.

“Don’t remember. But a big ole dimple when she laughed.”

“That’s her,” Gage said, triumph spearing his chest. So Beth had worked at the place where Lifers got their tattoos—Body Artist. “So where’s the shop?”

“Down south. Broadway around Central.”

“Maybe they’ll know where she went.”

He shrugged. “So, you lookin’ to drive special assignments?”

“Once I get Quarters, sure.”

“Good, ’cause we hate those runs.” He turned back to his engine. Gage wanted to kiss the guy for giving him a vital clue and a direction to head.

He started with the homeless shelter, since it was closer. The receptionist recognized Cassie from her photo. “Sure, I know that one. Done nothing but whine—
ooh, the noise, ick, the smells, the food, the creeps
. She’s in the dayroom. Don’t rile her up, please. She’ll throw a fit about not having cable.”

Gage found Cassie staring blankly at a cartoon on an ancient TV. The room contained several weary-looking women, also watching TV, some men playing cards, and three kids napping on a love seat. The room smelled like dusty plastic, Lysol, and cafeteria food. When he called Cassie’s name, she looked over, eyes dull, face pale. “What are you doing here?”

He sat on the scuffed Naugahyde sofa. “Checking on you. Rena wanted to be sure you were okay.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, fuck Rena. Tell her it’s hell here and I don’t forgive her.” Her bloodshot eyes flashed fear as well as anger. Gage waited, not speaking.

“That it? All you got to say?” she demanded.

“Maya told her they’d send you to rehab.”

“I don’t need rehab. Maya can kiss my ass. She comes on all caring, but she wants to pick your bones clean, like you’re some bug squished between two slides.”

He could believe that. “How about I take you for something to eat?”

“Make it something to drink and I’ll consider it.” She pushed to her feet, assuming he’d agree, but wobbled until Gage caught her arm.

“Are you sick?” he asked.

She shook him off. “Nothing a shot of vodka won’t fix. Unless you’ve got some E? E would do it.” Her eyes lit with hope.

“Sorry. No.”

“Figures.”

Outside, he gave her his jacket to cut the breeze, they mounted the bike, and he drove to the closest restaurant, where he let her order a double vodka with cranberry juice. Faking a john visit, he caught the waitress and made the drink juice only.

When he returned, Cassie said, “How did you find me?” She looked small and frail in his leather jacket and she was trembling. He hoped food would help.

“I talked to the van office and found out where they drove you.”

“Yeah. Final stop for Lost Lives. I’ve asked after the ones I knew, but they’re gone. Shelters boot you pretty fast I guess.”

The waitress arrived with Cassie’s cranberry juice in a martini glass. All it needed was a blue lightning stem to look like the V-Triques they served at Blood Electric.

Cassie claimed not to be hungry, but Gage ordered her potato soup in a bread bowl because it would be easy on her booze-ravaged stomach. He ordered a burger and fries, figuring he’d feed her the fries at least, maybe some beef if she could tolerate it.

Cassie picked up her drink in two shaking hands and drank it in one go. Setting down the empty glass, she seemed to be waiting for relief. A few seconds later, she said, “No vodka. You’re an asshole.” She turned to call the waitress.

But he stopped her arm. “Eat some food and I’ll consider something stronger.”

“You think I’m a drunk, but I’m not. Booze is not my problem.”

He didn’t say a word. He’d sat through his mother’s denials enough to know that arguing did no good.

“I was sick before I left, you know. I got fevers. I woke up a couple times on the floor with a bloody tongue and bruises. Like I’d had a seizure. Now it feels like broken glass in my veins. The only thing that helps is booze. Booze and E. E helps a lot.”

“Sounds like you need a doctor.”

“You think?” She snorted. “I went to the NiGo Health Center, right? They took blood. I sat there for an hour while they blabbed in the office, then they sent me home. Said they’d call with the results. No call. No nothing.”

“So go to county hospital now.”

“With what? I have no insurance or cash to burn.”

He took a hundred from his wallet and slid it toward her.

She eyed it, then him. “What do you want from me? It’s not sex. I know that. I wasn’t that drunk last night.”

“Maybe you could tell me more about the Life.” He pushed the bill closer. “Like why you really got kicked out.”

She frowned, lifting angry eyes to him. “I’ll tell you one thing.” She jabbed a grimy, nail-bitten finger at him. “I told secrets to no one. And I am not Angel.”

“I believe you.”

“Why would you?” But she couldn’t hide her relief. “What are you after? And don’t tell me it’s your artist friend L.E.”

“It
is
about her, I swear.” But Cassie wouldn’t buy that alone. “She took some money. Thirty grand.”

“Ah.” Her eyes sparked. This she believed. “She ripped you off. If she gave the cash to NiGo, it’s spent. Count on that.”

“You remember a deposit that big coming in?”

“Thirty K’s a lot of green for a Lifer. The managers have to cough up donations every month, but Lifers mostly come in dead broke.”

“So, if you saw that much money…?”

“I wouldn’t have. I did books for the bar and café.”

“So, who would?”

“My boss—Leland Thomas. He’s not a Lifer.”

“Think he’d tell me?”

She looked at him askance. “How old are you anyway?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Old. I thought so. You’re different. You don’t need the Life, do you?”

“The Life makes sense,” he said, wanting to keep her talking.

She softened suddenly. “It does. The bitch of it is that I want back in. When the Life works, it works. No one can hurt you. All the decisions are made. You’re safe.”

“Until they kick you out.”

“Yeah, well, nothing’s perfect.” Her eyes were clouded over and sad. “Supposedly I’m a Lost Life now, but I was lost before they found me.”

That seemed true for lots of Lifers. Not Beth. Beth had had him, dammit. Why hadn’t she known that? Why hadn’t she come to him?

“You go in empty and they fill you up with the Family,” Cassie continued, “like a big happy balloon. Then they let go of the string and you swirl away and it’s worse than being lost. What’s more lost than lost?”

“You got a raw deal, getting forced out. Maybe I can help you prove you’re not Angel.”

“You don’t even have Quarters, asshole. How could you do anything?”

“I could talk to that reporter. I found a photo of you and Rena in your Quarters. I could show it to him, get a signed statement that you’re not Angel.”

“If they want me out of the Life, I’m out.”

The waitress brought the food and he was relieved to see Cassie dig into her soup. He pushed his fries closer and she took a few of them. It troubled him that the food didn’t seem to give her more color or stop her trembling. He had to convince her to see a doctor—a real one, not whatever quacks NiGo sent their people to.