Ghost Story

Matilda wanted Honey the moment she passed her on the street. But she didn’t fall in love with her until three minutes later, when she realized the bitch had lifted her wallet.

It wasn’t hard for her to track Honey down. She’d gotten a good look at her, for one. On the short side, though most women were short compared to Matilda. Sharp features: too-dark eyes set in a too-pale face. Short auburn hair, cut so crisp it was like she’d done it with a razor blade, except for two forelocks falling across her brow that struck Matilda as strangely feral.

Her lips were dark too. Plump, on that small face that was delicate without being delicate. It made her mouth look wider than it was, being jeweled in such a narrow little face. If she’d worn red lipstick, she would’ve been a heartstopper. She wore black lipstick. Maybe she figured her bloodshot eyes were enough red.

Hoop piercing went through one nostril, glinting silver and making Matilda think of the gold tooth some cartoon desperado would have. Another ring went through her eyebrow, the opposite side as the nostril—left half of her forehead, right nostril. A silver stud in her earlobe and a big fuck-off barbell piercing up in the helix. Same ear; nothing in the other one except a bandage up on the cartilage.

By this time, Matilda had her suspicions about getting such a good look—why she’d been so distracted that she let some skinny little dropout lift from her. She knew she was bisexual: eight years with Corben Hinch and his skinny penis were better at dissuading her of heterosexuality than an unrated cut of Gia. But actually being attracted to some punk… not just fleeting attraction, but take-a-second-look, schedule-a-daydream desire…

It had to be something along the lines of a hallucination. She’d imagined the girl with clearer skin, higher breasts, a tighter ass… that face, it had to be the product of her fantasy life. Like one of those artists who woke up from a deep dream and immediately painted a portrait of Venus. Matilda pictured herself like one of those cartoon characters that starve for so long they see someone else as a talking hamburger. Eight years of Corben Hinch was thin gruel enough to make her blow out of all proportion a bit of… candy apple.

That reminded her of the little fox’s eyes. Bottle-green. Hard to tell, with the bags under both and the fading bruise around one. Maybe that’d been Matilda’s imagination too.

She wanted to find out.

She wanted her wallet back more.

She could’ve told Corben’s boys about it, but that would’ve been overkill. Worse, unsporting. She didn’t need his gorillas to handle a mangy little stray. So Matilda thought about it over a quick latte—the barista didn’t dare charge her if she didn’t want to pay.

Not Corben Hinch’s woman.

The girl must be a newcomer to the city. Otherwise she’d know better. She wasn’t dumb, though. Matilda may have been a bit distracted, but she knew better than to let an amateur rip her off. So the girl had clever hands, at least.

(Matilda vaguely pictured digits slim as scalpels inside fingerless gloves; the nails painted black when they were painted at all, like how her dark roots showed under the shade of red a bottle had given her hair.)

It wasn’t hard for Matilda to figure out where she’d gone. It’d been a long time since she’d worn a life like that girl’s: still she’d done it and she hadn’t forgotten. Not that she cared to remember.

She hadn’t been homeless, but had breathed a sigh of relief every time she came back to her apartment and the key still worked. Never relieved, only less tense. Because Matilda still worried what her landlord might want from her to reward his largesse.

Back then, with nerves that kept her heartbeat racing like whips keeping a forced march going, eight years of Corben Hinch would look like a relaxing prospect. But less stress wasn’t worth no relief.

If there was one thing she’d learned in those eight years, it was the city. It was Corben Hinch’s city and she knew Corben Hinch. If she forgot her own name, by God, she’d still know Corben Hinch.

And like its master, the city didn’t change. It got a fresh coat of paint now and then. Sometimes the signs changed as one store became another, one restaurant served different food. More often than not, it got new cracks in the sidewalks. But as Corben Hinch didn’t change, it didn’t change.

(As Matilda feared she didn’t change—only kept cracking until the real her made more of an emergence.)

So after eight years of heels with sammy-red bottoms and wearing more silk stockings than socks, Matilda still knew where to squat and only need one eye open to stay safe. The burnt-out hotel that wasn’t as burnt as the insurance company had been led to believe.

Two decades after the corpse had been bought and paid for, it still hadn’t rotted away. The cops came by frequently enough to keep the predators in check, but some deal or another blinded the more officious eye. If you kept your head down and your hands to yourself, you could breathe a lot of breathes in that twilight area between being a citizen and being meat. The hard part was stepping out of it again.

Even in that warren of lost souls and souls trying to lose themselves, the girl was easy to find. Too new, too fresh, too defensive. She might as well have slept in a cemetery; it was that obvious she didn’t belong. Though where she did belong, Matilda wouldn’t place a wager—not if she was drunk on payday.

“Hello again,” Matilda said. Third floor, second door on the left, the room still smelling of the death that the girl had cleared out to claim the space.

Maybe a stray dog. Maybe.

The girl flashed a look at her. Not seeing her for the first time, exactly, but ringing her up as a threat instead of a mark. The window was open, letting out the dirty air and letting in the dirty air-that-smelled-better. But, irony of ironies, the fire had done a number on the fire escape. Matilda wouldn’t have set a drink down on it.

“I want to talk,” Matilda said, though it wasn’t a peace pipe she showed when she hauled her trench away from her hips. Still, she hadn’t put a hand on it and anyone who’d ever been on the streets knew the difference between playing offense and playing defense.

The girl smiled at her and her gun. Pretty smile. Better teeth than Matilda would’ve thought. Lots of dentist appointments. She hadn’t been long on the street. Or maybe she’d done her time in a home that just felt like the street. Or maybe she was a natural. That was always an option.

“Day-mn,” she said. Southern accent, but one that hadn’t barbecued long. Modulated with a bit of Cajun. Florida, Matilda thought. If the girl was making a production of it, it wasn’t a very flashy production. “I heard it was easier to meet women in the city.” She picked up Matilda’s wallet and jiggled it at her. “Heard it was easier to make money too. Does it just rain from the sky?”

“What’s your name?”

“Fuck you. You’re not getting to know me. Shoot me or throw me to the cops… I bore easy.”

“You try hard to sound like a street kid. But anyone who’s been shot wouldn’t be in a hurry to have it happen again. And if a girl with your looks had been in the backseat of a police car…”

“You sayin’ I’m slummin’? Lady, your make-up’s too good for you not to have seen yourself in a mirror lately.”

“Sit down,” Matilda told her, putting some juice into the words. Charity was one thing, but she hadn’t put in eight years as Corben Hinch’s woman to listen to moldering teenage bile.

“Fuck you,” the girl said again. And to her credit, she sounded like she meant it even more. “If you shoot me, I’m throwing your wallet out the window.”

“I don’t care about the wallet,” Matilda informed her. “But if the next word out of your mouth disrespects me further, I will turn you over to the police. And you can forget about rolling the dice on a Jane Doe juvie sentence. I’ll find your parents, or whatever passes for parents in your unhappy childhood, and I’ll deliver you straight back home with a ribbon on your head.”

She waited, pleased that she could stun the girl enough to get a word in edgewise.

“Or you could be polite,” she finished.

The girl didn’t growl, but that was the closest translation to her body language as she parked her ass on a mattress that had newspapers as a topper. “I ain’t read much Miss Manners columns… but I’ll try not to say ‘fuck’ so much.”

There was a dresser across from her. Matilda leaned against it under the dubious proposition that it would be better for her dry-cleaning bill than touching one of the walls. “Name.”

“Honey Song,” the girl said in an overfriendly chirp. She extended her hand for a shake she must’ve known wasn’t coming.

Matilda snorted. “You don’t look Asian.”

“No shit, lady, ‘song’ is an English word.”

“I thought you said you were going to try and be more polite.”

“I said I wouldn’t say ‘fuck’ so much.”

“How old are you, Honey Song?”

Honey picked herself up off the bed. “Why? Your boss looking for girls who need a venue for their Sweet Sixteen?”

“I don’t have a boss. And you’re no high schooler.”

“Got me pegged for a college girl?” She took off her jacket. The big black army thing was much too big for her, but it seemed to fit the attitude she wore it with.

Matilda shrugged. “I can’t tell if you’re a seventeen-year-old that’s wise beyond her years or a nineteen-year-old that’s a complete dumbfuck.”

Honey exaggeratedly winced. “Don’t say the F word; you’ll tempt me. I’m trying to be good.”

Underneath, her white scoop-neck blouse could’ve been tailored. It groped her pert breasts and caressed her flat stomach. A clunky ankh necklace stretched for her cleavage the way Matilda’s eyes did. Size of a gingerbread man. The kind of thing kids ran out to get just after they ran out of a theater showing The Crow. Matilda didn’t know if it was a hand-me-down or if Honey had dumpster-dived. It still seemed to suit her.

Honey Song was a woman that knew who she was. Matilda envied her. Not because of that, but because she seemed to like the knowing.

“Have you opened the wallet?” Matilda asked.

Honey pinched her lips together; pulled her shirt down to straighten it, making her bared cleavage even lower. “Yeah, I’ve been to the Benjamin convention. Must be my lucky day. Even the bitch who came after me at least had a nice rack.”

“Thanks for the compliment. You should lead with that next time.”

“Wear a more flattering outfit and I will.”

“My boyfriend wouldn’t like that.”

“Boyfriend? What are you, thirty-five?”

“Twenty-nine, and don’t try to neg me,” Matilda said tiredly.

“I’m just saying, if he’s telling you how to dress, he oughta put a ring on that finger.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Is he an asshole?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t sound complicated.”

Matilda smirked despite herself. “How would you like to keep the money?”

Honey guffawed and shook her head. “Got-damn, that compliment shit working wonders…”

“No, I know I’ve got a good rack. This would be payment.”

Honey’s lips twitched. Her eyes shone with little stars of furious consideration. Matilda thought she was turning over the offer in her head, looking for a catch. But then she said “So you’re the one throwing the Sweet Sixteen party. Do you dress up as the cheerleader or should I?”

“I don’t want to fuck you, swamp girl.”

Honey screwed up her generous little mouth. “Yeah you do. You want something else more, but my pussy’s definitely on the list—sorority girl.”

Matilda blew out a puff of air through pursed lips. “That supposed to insult me? Sorority girl?”

Honey shook her head. “Nah, I don’t wanna screw up my chances of getting your legs apart.”

“I’m not going to fuck you.”

“So we’re through you pretending you don’t want to fuck me—”

“Enough,” Matilda stressed.

“Short hop is all I’m saying.”

Matilda took a deep breath. A lock of hair had come undone from her ponytail. She blew it away from her face and watched it dance in the wind. “You’re too young for me. So young you think sex would taste better than putting that stack of bills in your pocket.”

“You should really fuck me before you say something like that.”

Matilda brushed the stray lock behind her ear. “Talk about us fucking one more time.”

“I knew you’d ask eventually…”

Matilda pulled her trench aside again. The butt of the 9MM gleamed darkly where the textured grip rose enough to catch the light.

“Shit, sorority, be a little easier to figure out? You’ve got enough of a sense of humor to let the pickpocketing slide; now you’re all-business.”

“It customarily goes before pleasure.”

Honey made a show of zipping her lips shut. Arms crossed, she waited patiently for Matilda to fill the silence.

“I want you to do what you did today again. A specific individual, at a place and at a time of my choosing. Precisely. This would not be a job you arrive five minutes late to.”

“Another wallet?” Honey asked.

“An envelope.” Matilda held her hands apart. “This big. Thick as, say, a rolled up newspaper.”

Honey nodded. “Cash?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Bad people cash?”

“With this much, there’s no other kind.”

“And for this, you pay me what I already got from your wallet.”

“Yes.”

Honey’s lips twitched: caught between biting her lower lip and snarling a smile. Like a comedian trying to keep a straight face. She finally decided against it; grinned at Matilda like the joker in the deck.

“What’s to stop me from taking the money and never showing up? Or stealing the envelope and never giving it to you?”

“Play that out,” Matilda told her. “Think past your next hot meal. Would you feel safe around here with a roll of hundreds? Or in some no-tell motel?”

“There are other places to sleep,” Honey needled.

“Places that won’t pay any attention to a ragamuffin paying for her stay with C-note after C-note? There’s a reason people put their money in banks. You can’t do that, but I’m the next best thing.”

“So you’ll hold all my money for me so I can keep sleeping on the streets? Wow, thank you sooooo much!”

Matilda hoped the girl wasn’t as young as her love for sarcasm indicated. “I’ll give you a place to stay. Whatever you want, I’ll buy it for you.” Honey opened her mouth—no doubt with some novel vulgarity to share—but Matilda beat her to the punch. “It’s a treasure chest. We both put into it. When it’s full, we split it fifty-fifty and go our separate ways.”

Honey clicked her tongue in pleasure. “Then that’s it. You want an escape hatch.”

“Don’t you?”

“I’m not wearing Gucci from head to toe.”

“Would you like to switch places?”

“No, but getting your clothes off does sound like a good start.”

Matilda scoffed. She was used to Corben Hinch’s attention—he was all Goldilocks. Too hot or too cold. Bored indifference or…

The way Honey seemed to want her was positively flattering in comparison.

“I told you. You’re too young for me.”

“But we could be doing this for a while. And I’m not getting any younger.”

“I’m not either.”

“Well, start. We’ll meet in the middle eventually.”

Matilda’s smile popped up on her face like she was breaking out in hives. “No, I can’t have you getting any more immature than you are now.”

She laughed at her own joke, then grew serious. How long had she wanted this? Not planned it, not daydreamed about it, but wanted it and been so afraid of the totality of it she’d even been afraid of the first step?

It wasn’t an unjustified fear. She knew what Corben would do if she left him. So she might as well take enough money to live it up while she waited for him to kill her. Matilda couldn’t be fearless, so she would simply have to be brave. And smart. Brave and smart and she might actually live long enough to die of something other than her ex-boyfriend.

And die rich.

Brave, smart, and rich. There’d been worse obituaries.

“You’ll need new clothes,” she told Honey. “Nothing too showy. Ralph Lauren. Tommy Hilfiger. And a haircut. Make-up too. You need to be invisible; it costs money to be invisible.”

“Didn’t need to be invisible with you,” Honey reminded her.

“If I’d caught you, I wouldn’t have slit your throat and dumped you in a landfill.”

“Right,” Honey nodded. “Ralph Lauren and who else?”