The Disposables Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t find out for two more weeks. That’s all I needed was two more weeks.
    I paid the cabby twice the fare to take me up to Crenshaw and then gave him a twenty-dollar tip for busting some of the red signals at empty intersections. At the gate to the apartment my hand was almost too swollen to get in my pocket for the keys. Chantal lived in a three-story apartment building, one as upscale as they came for the Crenshaw district. I fumbled the keys, got the gate open, and looked back to the street for the light-blue, nondescript government car Ben always drove. Still too early for his visit. Though, this was an extraordinary situation that added variables. He never made a home visit on Sunday. Something was definitely up. And added fuel to the theory that the cops on Long Beach Boulevard may have been watching for more than the torch, the guy robbing his victims and afterward tossing the can of gasoline on them.
    I had a key to the apartment door and had promised to always knock out of courtesy to Chantal, a kept woman, a high-dollar executive’s, on-the-side squeeze. She allowed me to give her address as my residence of record as long as her sugar daddy never knew about it.
    I’d met Chantal back before the big fall, back when I was running and gunning on the Violent Crimes Team. I’d helped her out with a problem her nephew had with the law, and she returned the favor. Ben Drury promised to always call and it worked out as long as I let Chantal know where I could be reached.
    I stopped at the door, fist raised to knock. If her sugar daddy was in there, that would be it. The jig, as the saying goes, would be up. I’d have ruined her life, and she’d be madenough to tell Ben some simple, basic details to get me a year’s violation back in the joint. And worse case, an add-charge, a new case with ten to twenty years’ exposure.
    But she’d been the one to call. She had to know I’d be coming over. I knocked and waited. Knocked again. Out on the street I heard a car pull up. A door slam. I went to the open balcony in the hallway and looked out. The light-blue nondescript government car sat at the curb. I saw the top of Drury’s brown hair bob as he walked toward the gate. Back at the door, I knocked again, this time with more urgency.
    The door opened a crack. I shoved my way in. Chantal started to protest. I put my hand over her mouth and closed the door behind us. “It’s okay, it’s me. Paroles are coming up right behind me, right now.” Her body hot, against mine, my hands slick on smooth silk.
    I yanked my shirt off, the white t-shirt underneath was splotched with drying blood from my hands. I yanked my t-shirt off and tossed them both to her.
    â€œWhat happened to you?” She asked, calm as if nothing of import ever happened, her eyelids pinned and her pupils constricted. Heroin. Shit. Perfect timing, girl.
    â€œDitch that stuff, he’s going to be here any second.”
    â€œRelax, would you?” She sauntered back into the bedroom. She wore a silk eggshell-white nightgown that clung to her body and let every beautiful curve in the cleave of her lovely heart-shaped bottom show off with each rise and fall of her long, perfect legs. Her skin was cocoa smooth, without blemish. She kept her hair down around her shoulders, a different look. She always wore it up.
    I sat on the living room couch and tried to control my breathing. The couch, made of cushy white leather, matched the white fur carpet. I sank in. Everything else in the room was hand picked, all chrome and black.
    Ben knocked at the door. I looked to the hallway. Chantal was taking her sweet damn time.
    â€œChantal, someone’s at the door.”
    â€œCan you get it for me, babe?”
    â€œI guess, yeah, sure why not?”
    I quickly untied my boots and kicked them off as I walked to the door. I was about to open it when I realized what I still had in my pocket, twenty-two