Velvet’s face stared at him from the inside bottom right. It was an old mug shot, not very flattering. She had that defiant crazy look in her eyes. He laid the paper out carefully and found the article that went with the picture.

He read it silently, lips moving, one thick finger marking his place. While he was still working on it, two or three cops showed up to haul the businessmen and jarheads out; he hardly noticed.

When he was done, he sat back and closed his eyes.

“Jeez, Velvet,” he whispered aloud. “Oh, Jeez.”

He knew he’d have to kill her.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Velvet

Agent Garrick James bought Velvet a hamburger and fries and a shake, which was a good thing, because even though she wanted to throw up she needed the stuff in her stomach to do it with. She took tiny dogged bites of the hamburger until she got it all down, licked the ketchup off her fingers, and munched nervously on french fries while he drove down Industrial to Oak Lawn. The shake was chocolate and too watery, and every time she sucked on the straw the taste of plastic made her want to gag.

“Where’re you from?” she asked, to take her mind off the throb in her head. Agent James looked over, surprised, and almost ran over a man in a red flannel shirt shuffling across the street.

“Kansas.”

Farmer country. She wrinkled her nose and took another gulp of shake. Shakes for the shakes, that was what Cousin Floyd had always said, and if anybody should know, it was Floyd. He’d emptied out every liquor store in Verbina County.

“Where in Kansas?”

Another look. She wondered if he was lying to her, or only wondering what the hell she was doing.

“K.C. How about you? Where’re you from?”

She looked out the passenger window of the car at a bunch of ragged-looking men sitting in an empty lot, passing a bottle back and forth. None of them seemed to be enjoying it much.

“Hell.”

“That’s melodramatic,” he said. She shrugged. “Look, I promise, you won’t be in any danger. You just sit in the car while I go into the dry cleaners and ask a few questions, then I’ll take you to my office. We’ll find a safe place for you, until we’re ready to arrest these men.”

She perked up a little at the thought of that. Witness Protection. Didn’t that mean, like, expensive hotels and nice food? Of course, the bad part was the testifying, but she’d done that before. At least this time she’d get something more in return than the dead shattered look in her mother’s eyes. Hey, Mom, I’m a fucking hero, how about that?

She could almost see Mom’s absentminded smile and hear her say, That’s nice, Amy. Happy birthday.