The thing about being undercover is, you get used to hanging with the very people no one messes with.
I didn't have those things here. I had a dark street with fewer people on it than I thought there should be and a dealer who had a lot of battle scars. I was on foot because it's San Francisco – you don't get to park that close to wherever you're going. If I was on the badge, sure. Even out of state, there's a certain quid pro quo. But I was driving a rental, which meant leaving it in a paid parking lot with an attendant if I didn't want to end up owning it.
And probably a part of me that wouldn't admit it had figured out that if I was on foot, I just might run into someone who was holding.
I moved fast away from him. I wanted to run but like with ferocious dogs and bulls in fields, you don't turn your back and run.
Turned out, it didn't matter. I was a half block away when he decided he ought to try and do me a favor, help me get straight by taking back the drug.
That, or more likely, he decided he could have my money and whatever else I was carrying and the drug to pass off to someone else. Good night for him.
I didn't run. I didn't turn. I didn't acknowledge the footsteps coming closer though he had to know I heard him. I waited until he was directly behind me and dropped into a crouch, letting him slam into my back and go spinning off kilter.
If he'd been coming up directly behind me, he'd have gone over me. That's what I’d hoped. But he'd been coming up on my left side and when I dropped, he hit my back and shoulder and spun out of control toward the edge of the sidewalk. He collided with a parked car, his back bowing over it.
That should have hurt, but maybe he was sampling his own product. Because he shoved himself off it like it was no big deal and came at me.
I met him halfway. He had a knife and that was a damned good thing because if that's what he went for it meant he didn't have a gun. It was also a bad thing because knives are a bitch to fight against.
I raked my t-shirt over my head, wrapped it around my left arm, giving my dominant hand room to move. And even then I took the microsecond to drop the baggies into my jeans pocket.
"Come on," I said. My teeth were gritted and my blood up, the way it always gets in sparring or weapons training or any time I've been in a fight. Only this time my heart was pounding like it wanted to beat its way out of my body and I was already sweating despite the cool bay area night.
Sick. I was sick. I was minutes away from not being sick and this fucker –
He lunged at me and the knife caught the streetlight and I did not want to fucking deal. There was room between us. His rebound off of me had given me about ten feet, more than enough time to see where he was coming from.
It was a really basic attack: Hold the knife up and run at the intended victim. No wonder he had scars. Must be luck that he did have scars and not a grave marker.
I pivoted on my left foot, brought up my right boot and slammed the knife edge of my foot into his gut as he came at me.
That knocked him back, jolting him again into the parked car. This time its alarm began to bleat. Who the fuck uses those things anymore? Nobody responded to them back when the technology was new. Now people were more apt to shoot the car than call in the robber. If there was one.
When he started to get up again, making a pained noise, I kicked him again, dropping him for the third time over the trunk of the car. This time either the kick or the car knocked the wind out of him. I heard it go, an agonized grunt as the air escaped him, and then he was sucking for oxygen like a fish out of water sucks to get back into its element.
He dropped off the car, forward onto his knees and for a second it seemed like he had exploded because suddenly bits of him were flying everywhere.
Next instant I realized he'd been holding a lot of China white and it was all pattering down onto the asphalt around him.
I stared at him, mouth open, and started to laugh. His eyes, shot through with pain, glared up at me. He mouthed cunt at me and I shook my finger. "Sticks and stones."
Then I knelt and gathered up all the little baggies I could find, tucking them into my pockets. Larry the Loser kicked at me, ineffectual and weak. He hadn't gotten his breath back yet.
For another heartbeat or two I stood laughing at him. His tough guy know-it-all, know what you're getting into? Hadn't gotten him anywhere.
Seconds later I thought about all the kids in Seattle who were dying because of this shit and my own weird descent into darkness.
I didn't even remember the first dozen punches. I only later remembered the sound of someone screaming and shouting to someone else to call 9-1-1. Then I was running through the night, my breath coming almost as harsh as his had, my pockets full of fet I wouldn't dare allow anyone to find on me.
I got lost. I found my way again. I knew what streets I was on and I Google-mapped my way back to the parking lot where the rental waited. In the distance I heard sirens, cops and ambulances.
It was possible I'd killed him but I didn't think so. Old timers called it a berserker rage. Not supposed to happen in our civilized day and age.
But there's nothing civilized about the world we live in. That's just a lie we tell ourselves.
I took my loot back to the hotel where I was staying. I checked every form of communications I had and had no messages from Cole or about Cole.
I took a cold shower and doctored my hand.
I cried. I paced. I almost called my mother, my father, my probably ex-fiancé. I almost went to a church. I almost called a trauma hotline.
In the end, I stood over the baggies and didn't even contemplate taking them to the bathroom.
I shot up and all the pain and anxiety and hurt floated away on a sea of pleasure.
I slept until noon. Then I ate and went back to bed and slept until six. I got up and tried to make myself flush the rest of the baggies and cried when I couldn't.
Then I checked out of the hotel room and went looking for Cole.
10
Annie
The next week was like a waking dream. Or a waking nightmare. I woke every morning with a sick stomach, pounding headache and anxiety crawling through my veins. Wake up, get up, throw up, shoot up.
Then I went looking. I scoured the internet. I made phone calls. I called in every favor from every perp I’d ever let walk in case I needed an informant. Because they all have friends. I could cover multiple cities that way and still there was nothing.
Not quite. There were reports of Cole missing events he was supposed to be part of and sending proxies to board meetings and blowout extravaganzas alike. Wherever he was, social media and mainstream media had no idea.
When you're a billionaire, you can get away with shit like that.
Negative news didn't help me. No outlet seemed to want to figure out if he was in Southern Nevada or Timbuktu. More than once I caught myself before slamming my fist into the hotel room walls. More than once I did slam my fists into the bed, making it rock.
I didn't go back to the dungeon. I was afraid to. Afraid I'd never leave the area if I did. My life would dwindle down to drugs and sex or drugs and whatever it was because I hadn't seen any actual sex, come to think of it.
For me, I thought I'd want it. I thought that's part of what made Cole laugh behind his eyes when he told me I didn't have to sleep with him.