Fic: Selfie In Blue, Part V
Rush hour traffic was chaotic and the downtown congestion -- daunting in the best of circumstances -- was now complicated by the gathering dusk and the darting of brazen pedestrians. So Reese wasn’t surprised that Joss’s brow furrowed in concentration as she maneuvered the unfamiliar car while keeping a heavy foot on the pedal.
But when she cursed and threw the vehicle into a hard right turn after three blocks, he became concerned.
Looking at Joss’s face in the rearview mirror, he thought her eyes were strangely unfocused and vague. She didn’t seem to be paying attention to the traffic stream or street signs, but instead to some inner prompt that only she could hear.
He hadn’t given Joss any suggestions about where to go because he didn’t have any ideas himself. In the press of the crisis, he really didn’t care where they went as long as they were out of the reach of the men trying to harm Badge.
But Joss seemed to have a definite destination in mind and he was content to let her lead. Her mouth set in a firm line, she didn’t ask any questions or give him and Badge any clue to where they were going.
As they careened through the streets, the girl pressed into a corner of the bench, clutching her backpack against her stomach, staring out the darkened windows at the passing scene. She said nothing.
After fifteen minutes of erratic lane changes, jarring stops, and sudden turns, the neighborhood became more familiar. Reese recognized where they were heading, although he was baffled as to how Joss could know the way.
Then they emerged from a one-way street into a leafy enclosure in the Bowery that Reese knew as Cooper Square.
This once elegant park was surrounded by red-brick houses, relics of a more genteel time when hopeful young girls fleeing the countryside could find safe harbor in these gracious buildings. Now the block was still quiet, but the girls and men here were on the prowl, scuttling any hopes they might once have had in favor of hard transactions and easy hook-ups.
Broken bottles and dented cans bloomed in the gated park, glinting in the moonlight from a blanket of dingy snow. The wrought iron fence surrounding the enclosure was missing many of its pickets, their delicate scrollwork mocked by the haunted neglect of the place.
Reese rented a bolt-hole here in the Taj Mahal, a seamy hotel with four stories and a thousand dismal autobiographies. He retreated to this flop-house as a last resort when pain or desperation or wrenching shame drove him to seek its decrepit comforts.
He had never brought Joss to the Taj Mahal or even mentioned its existence to her.
And yet she had guided them to this forlorn address without hesitation.
She sat in the car, still as death, even after extinguishing the motor.
Reese ran around to the driver’s door and pulled it open. He whispered so that Badge couldn’t overhear them.
“Joss, why are we here?”
She shrugged and looked through the windshield at the abandoned pavement, the littered street, the winking neon sign.
“You know this place, don’t you?”
Her voice was soft and muffled, as if she were speaking from inside a cloud.
“Yes. But how do you?”
Wistful and dim, her eyes glowed as she looked straight at him for the first time. He thought he could see a few tears.
“I don’t know. He said where to turn and I just followed the directions until I got here.”
“Who, Joss?” Reese placed his hand on her shoulder, willing her to emerge from the fog.
“Him. This voice. You know. You’ve heard him too.”
She tapped the ear piece with some impatience.
“Yes.”
“It was my dad’s voice, John. Exactly his: the same deep tones, even the Virginia drawl. How could that be?”
“I don’t know how it works. I just know that it does.”
His own version had been different, of course: a bright tenor voice, the beguiling notes of his own father.
She shook her head as if to jostle the cobwebs.
Reese knew this was her first time, her first direct interface with the machine. He wondered why it had contacted Joss now, why it had responded to their urgent predicament this time.
We need to get somewhere safe. Now. Move.
But that was a problem they could tackle another day. He promised himself he would watch Joss closely to see that she regained her equilibrium in the new circumstances. When this was all over maybe they would talk about it, if she wanted.
Joss cleared her throat with a cough. Her voice lost the dreamy inflection and became practical again.
“Then let’s go. It’s cold out here.”
+++++++++
The argument with the night manager of the Taj Mahal took longer than Reese had anticipated.
While the two women stood in the middle of the matchbook lobby, he tried to persuade Larry the Worm that he just wanted his usual take-out order from Mei Lin’s Emerald Garden: shrimp fried rice, Kung Pao chicken, an order of Buddha’s Delight, two egg rolls, and two bottles of Yanjing beer.
“Sure you don’t want to double the order? Seeing as you got guests and all?”
Larry the Worm was familiar with any host’s primary responsibilities - feed ‘em and entertain ‘em.
He rolled his eyes in the direction of Joss and Badge and leered, running a hand through the lint-colored strands of the comb-over that decorated the top of his head. Reese’s stomach revolted at the gross gesture and he wanted to cancel the order, but he knew they all needed to eat.
And he didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention from the busybodies of the Emerald Garden, so he kept the order the same as always.
“I said the usual. That’s it.”
Reese slapped five twenties on the counter of the registration desk and pushed them under the scarred Plexiglas barrier that protected the night manager from the inhabitants of the Taj Mahal. And vice versa.
This was four times more than the total charge for the food, as both men knew.
“Keep the change, Larry.”
The Worm shrugged and pocketed the cash.
+++++++++
As usual, the sallow women lounging in the tiny vestibule of the hotel didn’t let Reese get to the staircase without a barrage of comments.
“Long time no see, Beautiful!”
“Johnny, I been keepin’ it hot for you! Any time, any place! You know you got it, just hafta ask!”
The jibes from LaKeisha and Shelley were loud and friendly, like the lobby’s ruby red décor and gold flocked wall paper. And their invitations were just as fake as the acrylic on their fingertips or the squeaky leatherette on the chairs strewn around the room.
Reese remained silent as always, hoping to make it to the stairs without incident, but when Joss turned around to eye one of the girls, he cringed.
Patty, wearing an auburn wig this week, took up the unspoken challenge:
“Girls, any a you know the Priest of the Taj was into threesomes?”
She clucked and adjusted her straps so that her breasts spilled perilously close to the edge of the push-up bra.
“If I’d a known you was into that scene, Magda and me coulda worked out some kinda deal. Special arrangement just for you, Johnny.” She pursed her lips at him and shimmied in her chair.
But Magda’s blue eyes flashed.
“Aw, Patty, he don’t want nothin’ you got to give him! The man’s got taste, can’t you see that?”
“Taste! Mmmm, you said it!”
Shelley pulled a long draw from her slim cigarette. With its glowing tip, she inscribed a circle in the air around Reese, Joss, and Badge.
“That combo right there reminds me of that old-style Neapolitan ice cream. You know: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. All smashed up in there together. And tasteee! Mmmm, yes!”
She smacked her lips and the other girls joined in the chorus, their mouths gaping and closing like painted fish.
Reese dug his fingers into Joss’s elbow and steered her toward the steps, pushing Badge in front of them until they reached his third floor room.
The girls of the Taj were a sad bunch, with their garish make-up and tawdry outfits. But Reese knew they had his back, the best sentinels he could ever hope to enlist.
He was confident no intruder or cloaked assassin would ever get past their eternal watch.
But when she cursed and threw the vehicle into a hard right turn after three blocks, he became concerned.
Looking at Joss’s face in the rearview mirror, he thought her eyes were strangely unfocused and vague. She didn’t seem to be paying attention to the traffic stream or street signs, but instead to some inner prompt that only she could hear.
He hadn’t given Joss any suggestions about where to go because he didn’t have any ideas himself. In the press of the crisis, he really didn’t care where they went as long as they were out of the reach of the men trying to harm Badge.
But Joss seemed to have a definite destination in mind and he was content to let her lead. Her mouth set in a firm line, she didn’t ask any questions or give him and Badge any clue to where they were going.
As they careened through the streets, the girl pressed into a corner of the bench, clutching her backpack against her stomach, staring out the darkened windows at the passing scene. She said nothing.
After fifteen minutes of erratic lane changes, jarring stops, and sudden turns, the neighborhood became more familiar. Reese recognized where they were heading, although he was baffled as to how Joss could know the way.
Then they emerged from a one-way street into a leafy enclosure in the Bowery that Reese knew as Cooper Square.
This once elegant park was surrounded by red-brick houses, relics of a more genteel time when hopeful young girls fleeing the countryside could find safe harbor in these gracious buildings. Now the block was still quiet, but the girls and men here were on the prowl, scuttling any hopes they might once have had in favor of hard transactions and easy hook-ups.
Broken bottles and dented cans bloomed in the gated park, glinting in the moonlight from a blanket of dingy snow. The wrought iron fence surrounding the enclosure was missing many of its pickets, their delicate scrollwork mocked by the haunted neglect of the place.
Reese rented a bolt-hole here in the Taj Mahal, a seamy hotel with four stories and a thousand dismal autobiographies. He retreated to this flop-house as a last resort when pain or desperation or wrenching shame drove him to seek its decrepit comforts.
He had never brought Joss to the Taj Mahal or even mentioned its existence to her.
And yet she had guided them to this forlorn address without hesitation.
She sat in the car, still as death, even after extinguishing the motor.
Reese ran around to the driver’s door and pulled it open. He whispered so that Badge couldn’t overhear them.
“Joss, why are we here?”
She shrugged and looked through the windshield at the abandoned pavement, the littered street, the winking neon sign.
“You know this place, don’t you?”
Her voice was soft and muffled, as if she were speaking from inside a cloud.
“Yes. But how do you?”
Wistful and dim, her eyes glowed as she looked straight at him for the first time. He thought he could see a few tears.
“I don’t know. He said where to turn and I just followed the directions until I got here.”
“Who, Joss?” Reese placed his hand on her shoulder, willing her to emerge from the fog.
“Him. This voice. You know. You’ve heard him too.”
She tapped the ear piece with some impatience.
“Yes.”
“It was my dad’s voice, John. Exactly his: the same deep tones, even the Virginia drawl. How could that be?”
“I don’t know how it works. I just know that it does.”
His own version had been different, of course: a bright tenor voice, the beguiling notes of his own father.
She shook her head as if to jostle the cobwebs.
Reese knew this was her first time, her first direct interface with the machine. He wondered why it had contacted Joss now, why it had responded to their urgent predicament this time.
We need to get somewhere safe. Now. Move.
But that was a problem they could tackle another day. He promised himself he would watch Joss closely to see that she regained her equilibrium in the new circumstances. When this was all over maybe they would talk about it, if she wanted.
Joss cleared her throat with a cough. Her voice lost the dreamy inflection and became practical again.
“Then let’s go. It’s cold out here.”
+++++++++
The argument with the night manager of the Taj Mahal took longer than Reese had anticipated.
While the two women stood in the middle of the matchbook lobby, he tried to persuade Larry the Worm that he just wanted his usual take-out order from Mei Lin’s Emerald Garden: shrimp fried rice, Kung Pao chicken, an order of Buddha’s Delight, two egg rolls, and two bottles of Yanjing beer.
“Sure you don’t want to double the order? Seeing as you got guests and all?”
Larry the Worm was familiar with any host’s primary responsibilities - feed ‘em and entertain ‘em.
He rolled his eyes in the direction of Joss and Badge and leered, running a hand through the lint-colored strands of the comb-over that decorated the top of his head. Reese’s stomach revolted at the gross gesture and he wanted to cancel the order, but he knew they all needed to eat.
And he didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention from the busybodies of the Emerald Garden, so he kept the order the same as always.
“I said the usual. That’s it.”
Reese slapped five twenties on the counter of the registration desk and pushed them under the scarred Plexiglas barrier that protected the night manager from the inhabitants of the Taj Mahal. And vice versa.
This was four times more than the total charge for the food, as both men knew.
“Keep the change, Larry.”
The Worm shrugged and pocketed the cash.
+++++++++
As usual, the sallow women lounging in the tiny vestibule of the hotel didn’t let Reese get to the staircase without a barrage of comments.
“Long time no see, Beautiful!”
“Johnny, I been keepin’ it hot for you! Any time, any place! You know you got it, just hafta ask!”
The jibes from LaKeisha and Shelley were loud and friendly, like the lobby’s ruby red décor and gold flocked wall paper. And their invitations were just as fake as the acrylic on their fingertips or the squeaky leatherette on the chairs strewn around the room.
Reese remained silent as always, hoping to make it to the stairs without incident, but when Joss turned around to eye one of the girls, he cringed.
Patty, wearing an auburn wig this week, took up the unspoken challenge:
“Girls, any a you know the Priest of the Taj was into threesomes?”
She clucked and adjusted her straps so that her breasts spilled perilously close to the edge of the push-up bra.
“If I’d a known you was into that scene, Magda and me coulda worked out some kinda deal. Special arrangement just for you, Johnny.” She pursed her lips at him and shimmied in her chair.
But Magda’s blue eyes flashed.
“Aw, Patty, he don’t want nothin’ you got to give him! The man’s got taste, can’t you see that?”
“Taste! Mmmm, you said it!”
Shelley pulled a long draw from her slim cigarette. With its glowing tip, she inscribed a circle in the air around Reese, Joss, and Badge.
“That combo right there reminds me of that old-style Neapolitan ice cream. You know: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. All smashed up in there together. And tasteee! Mmmm, yes!”
She smacked her lips and the other girls joined in the chorus, their mouths gaping and closing like painted fish.
Reese dug his fingers into Joss’s elbow and steered her toward the steps, pushing Badge in front of them until they reached his third floor room.
The girls of the Taj were a sad bunch, with their garish make-up and tawdry outfits. But Reese knew they had his back, the best sentinels he could ever hope to enlist.
He was confident no intruder or cloaked assassin would ever get past their eternal watch.