The Bad Kitty Lounge Read Online Free PDF

her belly, graffiti under it.
    I tried to change the topic. I thought about the women who’d made love to me. My ex, Corrine, who I loved and who loved me, though we’d broken every promise we’d ever made to each other. A twenty-year-old with black hair and blue eyes, whose name I barely knew. Lucinda Juarez, though we’d spent only one night together.
    But as I drifted toward sleep, as I approached the edge where I would fall into the warm hole where consciousness would shed like a dirty second skin, flashes of a naked, brutalized woman, her dress pulled up around her neck, and a man with a hole in his head raced through my mind. I jerked awake and turned on the light.
    When we were married, Corrine had talked me down at times like this. I grabbed the phone and dialed her number. The phone rang and rang. Maybe she was lying awake in the dark, listening to it ring. Maybe she was lying in some guy’s arms, ignoring the sound. Maybe she was making love with him and they heard nothing but each other. Maybe the guy was Detective Stan Fleming.
    Ah shit,
I thought, and I turned out the light. I thought aboutthe burning Mercedes. I thought about Samuelson and his gun, and about Sister Terrano, her tattoo, and the inked words, BAD KITTY . I thought about the forensics man who dressed like Smokey the Bear and inspected the skin cells of a dead nun, all in a day’s work.
    I thought about a lot. All of it exhausted me, and none of it made me tired enough to sleep.
    At 2:00 A.M ., I considered ordering out for mice. I smiled at Jason sleeping a room away. The last time I looked at the clock, it said 2:13 A.M . I slept then and dreamed of nothing at all—a deep nothingness—and woke up frightened.

SEVEN
    THE CLOCK SAID 6:40 , and the first light was glowing through the window blinds. I pulled up the covers and fought against the morning. When that didn’t work, I put on shorts, a hooded sweatshirt, and running shoes. I checked on Jason, who was sleeping the sleep envied by guys like me, and ducked outside into the morning chill.
    I ran north to Montrose and west toward the North Branch of the Chicago River. The wind had dropped overnight and I ran hard until I broke a sweat. I stopped and stretched on the bridge over the river. The river keepers had been scrubbing a hundred and fifty years of chemicals from the riverbed, and a fish or two had been spotted testing itself against the sluggish current. Now and then a pleasure boat motored past on summer days. Signs for luxury apartments were advertising river views. But the water still looked as brown and dirty as the city was old.
    I ran south into Horner Park. The park was fine for a run in the early morning, great for an afternoon softball game, andnot a bad place to buy crack after dark. By the field house, a granite bas relief of ex–Governor Horner, with a crowd of orphans and widows around him and an image of Justice behind him, watched over the park. On cold, windy evenings, the crack dealers set up shop in the shelter of the monument.
    I picked up my pace and ran home.
    At the curb in front of my house, a couple of guys in baseball caps sat in an idling Lexus SUV. The driver had licorice black skin, and the guy on the passenger side had skin a couple of shades lighter. I nodded to them. The passenger nodded back and unrolled his window. He gave me a smile and I slowed to see what he had to say.
    He said nothing.
    He lifted a nine-millimeter pistol and pointed the barrel at my belly.
    His smile fell, and then he said, “Bang!”

EIGHT
    AFTER THE BURNED RUBBER of spinning tires faded into the cold air, I swallowed my heart and let myself into my house. “What kind of jerk-ass stunt was that?” I muttered, and Jason answered, “What kind of jerk-ass stunt was what?”
    I joined him for a bowl of cereal, shaved and showered, and, good son that I was, tucked my Glock into an over-the-shoulder rig as I got dressed. No more