Currency of Souls (12 page)

Exasperated, I frown at him. "What is it?"

"Town's awful lonesome this time of night, ain't it?"

"Yeah."

"You find yourself in need of company, or backup, you just let us know."

This sends Maggie into renewed hysterics, but Horace isn't laughing.

"Who's your passenger?" Maggie asks, loud enough for Brody to be alerted. His pale face presses against the window of my truck and he smiles.

"Never you mind, Maggie."

"Handsome," she remarks.

"Trouble," I call back.

I cross the street, ignoring Brody's toothy grin. There are no lights on anywhere on Winter Street, but that doesn't mean much. Iris's place is the only one occupied, and it's late.

My knuckles hurt like hell so I turn my fist to the side and thump the door like a pissed-off landlord coming for rent. It sounds like a gunshot, then the street gets awful quiet, as if I'm not the only one curious to see if I get an answer. Even Horace and Maggie have quit their banter.

Another bang on the door hard enough to send painful vibrations up my arm, and I hear soft slow footsteps descending the stairs on the other side.

A moment later, a sleepy voice filters out to me from behind the door. "Who is it?"

"Tom."

"Sheriff Tom?"

"None other."

"You here to arrest me, Sheriff?" I'm sure the playfulness in her voice is meant to be cute, and probably works for her customers, but it's late, I'm tired and I'm in no mood for it. "Open the fucking door, Iris."

"Not if you can't be civil."

"I don't have time for this. Where is he?"

"Who?"

I take a deep breath, time enough to consider kicking the door off its hinges and her off her feet in the same shot. "Kyle."

"He ain't been here."

"Cut the shit, Iris. I know he has, now either tell me where he went or I'll knock this door down and you'll spend the night behind bars."

She laughs, as sweet a sound as any woman's laugh, but it makes my teeth hurt. "Iris, so help me..."

"You seem awful uptight tonight, Sheriff. Tense. I'm almost afraid to open the door case you explode all over me."

"The only thing that's gonna..." I start to say, then decide to change tack. "Look, this is serious. Kyle's in trouble, so you need to quit the crap and either open the door or tell me where he is."

Her sigh is just loud enough to hear through the thick wood of the door. "Well now Sheriff, it's all a bit fuzzy. You can't come knockin' up a girl and expect her to have a good head right away, can you?"

I press my head against the door, and wish, not first time tonight, today, whatever the fuck it is, that I had my gun. But then there's the sharp snap of a lock, the door cracks open and I catch myself just in time to avoid pitching forward on top of the girl standing there with sleep in her eyes and a coy smile on her face.

"You're no fun," Iris says, her pout so dramatic I almost applaud. Her act might hold more water with me if I didn't remember her back in her store-owning days, when she'd blush at the slightest of compliments and get flustered as all hell when anyone got up the nerve to ask her out. She was a decent sort and I reckon somewhere beneath the too-thick makeup and scandalous facade, she might still be, if years of lying beneath fat sweaty old men, drunks, and addled young guns hasn't soured her on life completely.

She's short, about five feet tall, and most of that's legs, which are bare now beneath the hem of a man's logging shirt. Her red hair is cut short, not long enough to touch the small slopes of her shoulders, and the shirt's buttoned only at the middle, so when she moves her belly's exposed, and there's enough cleavage on show to let any man know what he's walked himself into. A soon as I'm clear of the door, she steps close, and despite my feelings about her and the urgency that's on me to find Kyle, there's a lot to appreciate right there in front of me.

Her hands find my shirt and she runs her fingers over my chest, her blue eyes gazing deeply into mine, a small smile on her soft lips. "I was hopin' you'd stop by, Sheriff."

"Yeah, why's that?"

"Well, why don't you come up for a coffee and I'll tell you all you need to know?"

She peers around me at the two hobos. I hear Maggie chuckling, then the door is shut and Iris is leading me by my hand up the dark stairs. Her skin is warm. Everything in me tells me to pull away, not to get suckered in by her games, though I'm full sure I won't, not with the way my mind's set, but this night/day hasn't followed any rules but it's own, and it's hard to keep track of it without the mind just shutting down. So even though I'm trying hard not to look at the pale curves of Iris's bare ass as she leads the way, I'm back to thinking of sleep, and it starts getting easier to imagine rest knowing there's a bed right up here complete with a woman to share her heat with me.

Sand fills my eyes, approving of my train of thought, and I yawn, then immediately clear my throat and tell myself to snap out of it. I'm in danger of putting a whore over my son's life, and though I'm guilty of a lot, I won't be guilty of that. I withdraw my hand, and she lets me, doesn't even look back.

"Long night, Sheriff?"

"The longest."

We're at the top of the stairs, and she walks ahead into a large room lit by more candles than I've ever seen in one place in my life, except maybe the church. They're spread out around the floor so densely I wonder if there's a trick to navigating it without setting your pants on fire. Not that I imagine too many folks are still wearing their pants by the time they reach this room. Iris doesn't look the patient type, and given that her customers are lonely desperate men, I doubt they need to be asked twice.

There are mannequins in every corner of the room, sexless, naked, and tilted back so they're all staring up at the ceiling with bored expressions on their plastic faces.

"Why don't you take off your boots?" Iris says and all that's missing from that suggestion is:
And slide 'em under my bed
.

"No thanks. I'm not staying long."

"Maybe not but you're trackin' mud all over my floor."

I look down and see that's she's right, but I've got no intention of taking off my boots. I'm sure I'm not the first visitor she's had who ignored the mat inside the front door in their eagerness to be right where I'm standing now.

"It isn't so bad that a quick sweeping won't take care of it."

"If you say so." She walks into the room, making her way around that obstacle course of candles with the sure step only someone who put them there could enjoy. The flames dance in her wake. The combined heat from those candles brings sweat to my brow and I search for a chair. There's only one, at the foot of the bed, facing it as if it's there for spectators. I sit. The room is large, and there's a door to the left of it, leading to a small kitchen area, and presumably a bathroom beyond. Iris stops here and leans against the doorframe. "How do you like it?"

"Black," I reply without missing a beat. "Two sugars. You trying to save money on the power bill?"

"No. Lights don't like me."

"How's that?"

"I turn 'em off."

"Why?"

"Not on purpose. They just switch off whenever I'm around 'em. If I'm walkin' the street, the lamps'll go out. Same in here. Turn on a light and it'll stay on just fine if I'm in the other room. Soon as I come in though..." She snaps her fingers. "Dark. Radios and TVs go crazy sometimes too."

"Oh."

"Been like that since the day I was born. Streetlight outside my house went off and the TV went snowy. Must be my magnetic personality."

"Interesting." My voice makes it clear I think no such thing. "Can't say I remember you having that problem when you ran the store."

"Well, it was usually daylight, wasn't it? And when it wasn't, I used hurricane lamps. You remember, you used to call 'em quaint, made you feel like you were at sea."

"No, I'm afraid I don't remember that at all."

"Maybe because they were better times. Some people hang on to those like prized jewels; others toss 'em as soon as misery comes a-callin'."

She disappears into the kitchen, where I hear the hissing sound of her filling the kettle, the scratch of a match and the whumping sound of a gas ring catching fire.

The bed is rumpled, and I have to wonder whether or not Kyle even spent time in it tonight. I was sure I'd find him here, but for whatever reason, his visit was a short one.

A few moments later, with impatience ticking a countdown in my head, Iris emerges from the kitchen. She's holding a single cup of coffee, which she brings to me. "I'm out of sugar," she says. "Hope it's okay."

"It's fine." I take a sip that scalds my upper lip and tongue, but I don't mind. It chases away some of the exhaustion that's clinging to me like a shroud.

Iris stands close enough for my breath to warm her belly, and crosses her arms. "So you're lookin' for Kyle?"

"Yeah."

"You're a little late."

"I figured."

She turns and makes her way through the labyrinth of candles to the bed, and watches me as she unbuttons the shirt and slips out of it. God she's a pretty thing, but I avert my eyes to the vapid stare of the mannequin in the opposite corner while she tosses the shirt on the bed and slips beneath the covers. "You're welcome to join me," she says. "Despite what you might think, that's not an offer I extend to just anyone."

"Then you may want to change your ad."

"Funny. You got nice ears, Sheriff. Anyone ever tell you that?"

"How long was Kyle here?"

She plumps her pillows and sits back, the sheet drawn up over her breasts, nipples hard points beneath the flimsy material. "Not long. He wanted some company but..." She shrugs, puts again. "Seems he wasn't up for it tonight."

"He say anything to you about what happened?"

"Sure. Told me Eddie's burned. No great loss if you ask me." She sighs, then her lips curl in amusement. "Bet you're wonderin' why you never saw me up there with the rest of you sinners, aintcha?"

In truth, I wasn't, but I am now, so I nod.

"Well I'm not real sure about that, Sheriff. Maybe it's because women in my line of work get special consideration. Maybe we're needed just like we've been needed all through history, so when it comes time to open that great big book of black sins, we get left out. Or maybe it's because Reverend Hill, despite his bible thumpin', was still a man at the back of it and needed his poke just like everyone else and couldn't rightly put me up on the cross for givin' folks, and
him
, what they asked for. Besides, it ain't like I force people's hands. And I ain't never killed a man. Least, not yet."

"What else did Kyle tell you?"

"That he wasn't sorry to see those folks killed. But he was lyin'."

"How do you know that?"

"Call it women's intuition. You sure you wouldn't like to join me in here where it's warm?" She pats the empty space beside her. "You look like you could use the release."

"No."

"No charge."

"I said no."

"All right," she sighs.

"So tell me."

"I don't think he gave a shit about the black man. In fact, I'm pretty sure he didn't, was probably glad to see the back of him if the way he talked was any indication."

"Wintry? Why?"

"Because he had the murderin' bitch."

"Why would that—?"

"Wake up Sheriff. I know you're tired, but you ain't stupid. Kyle had a thing for her. Didn't mind tellin' me neither, 'cuz y'know...I'm just good for one thing, right?"

She's still wearing that smile, but a hardness has entered her eyes, splintering the candle light and I feel a small knot of shame because that's exactly how I've always looked at her—Iris, former store-owner, current whore.

"Didn't give a shit about Cobb, or Gracie, and didn't care too much that he put a bullet in that young thief's belly. Only one he really cared about was Flo. Said he'd planned to run away with her, get away from Milestone and start a good life somewhere." She snorts a little laugh. "You raised yourself a gullible one, Sheriff."

The coffee tastes sour and I set it down between my feet. "What else?"

"Well, I've already told you he needed lovin' and I put on my best show for his poor soul. Didn't work though. He wasn't—"

"Yeah, you told me. He say anything else?"

She stares at me for a moment, and the expression on her face is unreadable. The light warms one side of her face, leaving the other in shadow. She sits forward, and the sheet slides down, exposing her breasts for a moment before she draws up her knees and crosses her arms around them. "He's gunnin' for you, you know."

"Yeah, I do."

"Know why?"

"Off hand I can think of any number of reasons."

"Know why he's plannin' on finishin' you tonight?"

"No."

"Because he made a deal and said he would."