You little red-haired bitch. I’ll find you.

We ran. From the roof of the King’s to another roof and another until we were at the end of Yates Street, and I could see the blue bridge rising up from the docks. The roof was low and flat; it was like standing on a long tar prairie.

I don’t know why I’d never thought of going up there before. Maybe when I saw Justine, she was running toward a fire escape. As if she was reading my mind, China said:

All the Red Zoned girls come up here. The cops have no idea.

Then she spat on the tar. I spat too even though I had less of a reason to.

Fuck, that was hilarious, man.

Hilarious wasn’t exactly the word I would have used to describe the Lee Majors episode.

You look so clean, man. He never suspected he was about to get rolled. Oh man, what an idiot. He thought he was in for a ménage à trois!

I guess she didn’t realize that Lee Majors had threatened me, and I hadn’t really gotten away with anything.

I felt very cold and scared and alone. I wanted to go home.

Hey, Sylvia, what’s up? I just kissed a forty-year-old man while my hooker friend bent down on her bruised knees. Do you still love me now?

I’d never been threatened before. Being raised by a man like Seamus, I’d never so much as heard an insult. Call me sheltered, but his threat really frightened me. I kept hearing his hissing, hating, horrible, straight-to-hell words. You little red-haired bitch. I’ll find you.

China was no help. She was pouring Love’s Baby Soft on a T-shirt and wiping the sweet rag over her face to remove all her makeup. She looked so different when she was clean-faced. I saw her chapped lips, her raw, wary eyes.

Three hundred bucks, she declared. I told you that dude was loaded! That’s enough for a scholarship, right?

Sure, I said, though I didn’t have a clue how much a scholarship cost.

I didn’t want any of his money. I told her to keep my share.

Visa, AmEx, MasterCard—I can sell these, China said. My uncle knows a biker who pays big bucks for plastic. I’m set for life. I’m gonna get my life together, you know. I am. No more hospitals. No more sucking—

I put my hands over my ears. I didn’t want to hear those words.

Dude’s name is Dirk Wallace! she screamed. Dirky!

She hurled his wallet down onto the street. I watched it twirl, like a fluttering fusillade.