Page 110 of Long Way Down

Up close, he smelled of smoke, beer, and BO so pungent it threatened to singe Pongo’s nose hairs. Breathing carefully through his mouth, Pongo made the cigarette swap, and breathed a sigh of relief when the Camels had been safely tucked into Jimmy’s pocket. He slipped the Marlboros into an interior pocket of his cut, the cardboard heavy with a fat roll of cash.

“Oh, hey,” Jimmy said. “That guy.”

“Yeah.”

“That guy wanted me to tell you something.”

This was how conversations usually went with Jimmy: vagaries and the slow teasing out of their meaning. Mav had said it was one of the reasons they never worried too much about Jimmy ratting them out if and when he got picked up for dealing.

“Uh-huh. Which guy?”

“The guy,” Jimmy said, helpfully. “You know. Tall. Angry. With the girls.”

“Titus?”

“Yeah.”

Pongo felt an unpleasant tickling in his stomach, and his fingers itched to pull out his real pack of smokes. “What’d he want you to tell me?”

Jimmy wiped his nose on a dirty sleeve. Regarded Pongo with watery, guileless eyes. “The girl is gone.”

~*~

Pongo didn’t want to go to Titus, but at this point, he’d sunk himself neck-deep in the shit, and figured he was obliged. He found the pimp in an agitated state, alternating between long puffs on a cigar and sips of something amber in a tall glass.

“Something’s happened,” he said, as he paced the width of his office. “I know it. Somebody got her.”

Pongo attempted a soothing tone. “You don’t actually know that. Her phone could have died, or she could have hooked up with someone–”

“No.” Titus whirled and stabbed a finger through the air at him, drink sloshing in its glass. “She wouldn’t do that, and her phone is always on. She’s my best girl – never fucks around, always shows up to work. If she was sick or something, she’d call and tell me. This?” He shook his head hard and resumed pacing. “Something’swrong, man. I can feel it.”

“Do you not have muscle on the streets with the girls? What about at the club?”

Titus made a dismissive gesture that Pongo took to meanno.

“How long’s she been missing? Have you tried to get hold of the john she was meeting last night?”

“He’s not answering either,” he growled, and threw back the rest of his drink in one long, angry gulp. His arm flexed, after, like he considered chucking the glass at the wall, but he dropped it on a filing cabinet instead, and brought the cigar to his lips. “It’s probably–” He froze, and in a movement that would have been comical under different circumstances, executed a slow turn toward Pongo. His eyes narrowed. “You.”

“Me?”

Faster than anyone his size should have been capable, Titus crossed the room in two long strides and had Pongo pinned back against a cabinet face, cold blade of a knife against his throat.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Pongo said, quietly. He lifted his hands, very slowly, out to the sides, showing his empty palms. “Take it easy.”

Titus bared his teeth, scent of bourbon rushing into Pongo’s face. “It was you.” The hand holding the cigar was against Pongo’s shoulder, the arm attached to it pressed like a bar across his chest, too heavy and solid to push back against. “You and your fucking cop girlfriend. You had her picked up, huh? Are they comin’ for me, now? Is there a whole fucking SWAT team outside waiting for you to give the fucking signal?”

Pongo wasn’t truly afraid – he’d seen far scarier things – but he couldn’t discount the threat of a very large, slightly drunk, very angry man holding a knife to his throat. When he swallowed, his Adam’s apple pressed against the edge of the blade, and he felt a sharp sting and a bloom of heat where it had cut him, just with that slight pressure.

“Titus,” he said, calmly. “I know you’re pissed, but listen to me, yeah? I didnotgo to the cops about April.”

“Somebody saw you in the club!”

Ah, shit. He should have guessed Titus would have eyes inside.

“With yourfucking cop girlfriend!”

“She’s not that kind of cop. She’s trying to find the guy who raped her. I’m trying, too – you reached out to me first, remember? You said you wanted him found, and I’m trying, but you won’t get any answers if you slit my throat right now. You’ll also be starting a war with the Lean Dogs that you don’t have a prayer of winning, so you better think about that real hard before you dig in any harder with that knife, man.”

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