Skelly blinks. She’s flanked by a couple other bad girls in thigh-highs. One’s got a telescoping baton. The other a switchblade. They look confused, and give Skelly a quizzical look. She waves them off. Then she looks to the girl with the wrench tat.”You OK, Lou?”

“Yeah.” The girl cradles her paw. Mookie sees a little blood. Ripped the nail good.

He mutters a clumsy apology. Then a lightbulb flickers in the darkened refrigerator that is his brain. “Wait. Lou. You’re Louisa?”

“Uh-huh. I go by Lulu.”

“I know your girl, Karyn.”

Lulu’s face brightens. “Oh, hey. You know Karyn?”

“She’s my butcher.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“Yep.”

“And her pussy tastes like angel sweat.” Her lips suddenly wrinkle into an uncertain sneer. “Not that I’ve ever tasted angel sweat.”

Mookie feels a bloom rise to his cheeks.

Skelly rubs her eyes. “Hey, dolls, this is sweet and all, but anyway to cut to the quick?”

“I want to see Nora,” Mookie says.

“Don’t think so.”

“In case you missed the news, I’ve got a shotgun.”

Skelly stands firm. “Ho ho ho.”

“Jesus, Skelly, she’s in trouble.”

“She’s just fine, Pops,” says one of the stocking girls in the back. “You’re the ones who are in trouble, Meat Man!”

Skelly shushes her. “Your babygirl’s gone, you big gorilla.”

“Gone. Like outta the gang gone?”

“Like, not here at the moment gone.”

“So, she’s coming back.”

“She didn’t say.”

Mookie feels like a patch of skin got scraped off: rough, raw, abraded. “I don’t got time for this.”

“I’ll tell you where she went,” Skelly says.

“Will you, now? And what will it cost me?”

“You poppin’ the clutch and getting’ the hell out of here. Sound good, Pookie?”

“Pookie.” He grunts. “Sounds fine. Where’d she go?”

“Jersey City.”

“Jersey City. Where in Jersey City?”

“West side somewhere. I don’t know. She knows a guy out there. Someone she’s dating.”

Mookie feels a hot steam blast inside: an acid reflux sear at the back of his throat. Jersey City is a shit-hole. And a maze, to boot. It will take him a while to get out there and put the word out that he’s looking for her – he knows some folks in that direction, but not enough, not nearly enough, and soon as she sniffs the scent of him coming she’ll be like a trapdoor spider back in her hole. And a boyfriend? A boyfriend? His daddy brain goes haywire, picturing her with some Jersey City shithead, him getting his greasy hands up under her shirt, the punk thinking he can do things to Mookie Pearl’s daughter. And it’s then and there that Mookie decides he’s going to steal a fucking city bus and hit the Holland Tunnel and find this guy’s house and drive the bus over his head.

Except–