“From sailboats to rats. Now you’re mixing your metaphors.”

“I’ll assume you can keep up.”

“You’re father doesn’t know I’m here. Just so you know.” He clears his throat. “This is all me, little girl.”

“My father can go fuck a duck.”

“Interesting image. He loves you very much, you know. He shouldn’t. But he does.”

Another laugh, this one loud and echoing and hollow. “Right. Love. Like he loved my mother? The only thing Mookie loves is you and your Boss. He loves the work so much it’s not even work. I was always the chore. The hard work wasn’t going down into the dark. The hard work was just… sitting with me. Playing dollies. Listening to my stupid stories. Pretending we were cooking food for princesses and presidents.” She sighs. “After he left us, I asked him to stay… I don’t know how many times. He never did. Not once. So don’t sell me on his love. It’s a lie, a scam, a joke.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

“You said you needed a messenger.”

“Yup. I want you to send a message to your Boss and all his people. Actually, I want you to tell everyone.”

“Tell everyone what?”

“That I killed Casimir Zoladski. And I’m just getting warmed up.”

As if the fall wasn’t enough, they worked him over pretty good. The one called Lulu picked him up. Got a belt around his neck. Held him as the others brought the gauntlet to him – Skelly clubbed him with her skates. Another chick in a slashed-up mint-green poodle skirt whacked him in the face with an old-timey sap – he didn’t even know they made those anymore. The rest just got him with fists and elbows and feet.

Then they dragged him up the ladder by a pulley. A pulley system on an old track high up in the warehouse ceiling – way they moved things around before forklifts.

Skelly patted him on his head, and then stole his tin of Blue. That crafty twat. He could’ve used that to feel better – a temporary fix, but a fix just the same.

After that, she tossed him out onto the sidewalk. Wound a chain around the broken lock and then popped a fresh padlock on it. Then: she was gone.

Now: everything hurts.

His head pulses like a balloon someone’s flicking with an annoying finger. Thwump thwump thwump. He tastes his own blood. Spits it out – with it comes a tooth that clatters into the street just as an off-duty street sweeper truck passes by. He hopes that it’s his dead tooth, but it’s probably not. His luck it’s probably one of the still-good ones.

He can barely stand. His leg is shaky, the pain almost liquid now. Sloshing up and down from heel to hip. He’s not sure anything’s broken. But something’s torn.

Into the car. Glove compartment. Got a bottle of Vicodin. Pop the cap. Dry-crunch a couple like they’re Tic-Tacs.

His phone rings.