Pin the Tail, part four. PG.

[roadstergal]

The last part of the fiction. Crit is always welcome.

I didn't know it was legal to have alleys like this in SoCal. It was narrow enough that it only saw light for maybe thirty fucking seconds each day as the sun flew over, and so it was dark and dank. Things moved around that I had a hunch I wouldn't want to know anything more about. Something kept tugging at the hairs at the back of my neck, but every time I whipped my head around, there was nothing there. It was the kind of cruddy little hive you'd expect to find in Chicago, not out here.

"This sucks," Perry muttered in my ear.

As always, the man had a way with words. It sucked. It was also the only way we had a chance in hell of breaking into this place without getting shot. Shot right away, that is. In important bits of ourselves. Bits I rather like.

We skulked up to a service entrance at the back of the warehouse. It was the kind of wood that was so old and nasty and full of peeling lead paint that no self-respecting termite would be caught dead in it. Perry kept watch while I picked the rusty lock. It didn't take long. I'm pretty damn good at picking locks. A mis-spent youth - and a fair chunk of mis-spent middle age - can be a useful thing.

The inside of the warehouse was dark even compared to the dingy alley, so we slipped in and paused to let our eyes acclimate. Afterimages swam in front of my eyes, in the shape of a surprised-looking dude in a do-rag. I suddenly realized it wasn't an afterimage, just in time to see it get clonked over the head and pass out.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty," Perry hissed, "wake up. You, me? Breaking and entering? Getting the bad guys?"

I glared at his rear end as it crept down the dusty corridor, then followed, walking as lightly as I could. There's another advantage of a mis-spent youth. Kids, math and biology is well and good, but if you want some useful skills for the future, try a misdemeanor or two. But get it out of your system while you're still a minor. Otherwise, it gets really tough to buy a car.

Fake public service announcements couldn't distract me from that fact that we were breaking into a place where people who didn't feel at all bad about killing people they didn't like hung out. I mean, I like to think I'm a genial kinda guy, and that people get to like me once they know me, but it's not something I can really count on when someone's pointing a gun at me. It's not a time when my winning personality shines, you know? My hands were getting clammy with sweat. I hissed ahead, "Perry! I just thought of something."

He slowed down and let me catch up with him. "What?" he muttered.

"I just realized that this is fucking insane!" I hissed in his ear.

He shrugged. "You had your chance to think of something better. Now shut up." I let him lead on ahead, skirting the old boxes and crates that littered the corridor. He was right, too. If I had been able to think of something better, I sure as shit wouldn't be crawling along a dusty corridor in the back of a warehouse where mean people worked at... something. Something that was, apparently, illegal.

Music floated down the corridor, horrid hip-hop being played with far too much bass. Light filtered into the corridor from the same direction as we got closer to the source of the racket. We flattened ourselves against the wall on the same side of the opening we could just see, and sidled towards it.

Perry peeked around as soon as he reached it, then do-si-do-ed around so I could take a peek. The opening lead into the center of the warehouse. The space had been used to set up a makeshift lab; a motley mix of men, from their teens to a few who looked mid-thirties, were engaged in making LSD or Ecstasy or some such shit. The place smelled like sweat and cigarettes and stale piss, and I thought about people buying whatever it was they were making and actually fucking ingesting it, and I felt ill. Newspapers and empty cigarette boxes and crumpled fast-food bags were scattered all over the floor.

"It looks like there's an office in the far corner," Perry muttered. "Not many options, here. I'll run out and make a distraction, and then you can..."

"Wait," I said, pulling out a cigarette. "I'm going to have a smoke first."

Perry tried to grab it, but I stuck it between my lips and swatted his hands away. "Wait just a goddam minute, mister I-gotta-hardon-to-be-a-martyr!" I hissed. I pulled out my lighter and the slip of paper that girl whose name had already forgotten had written her number on. I inverted the lighter over it, dampening half of it with fluid, then flicked the lighter on and lit my cigarette and the paper. I tossed the paper into the main room, where the litter caught the flame.

Perry nodded. "Not bad," he whispered, as shouts of alarm started to sound. We scrambled to huddle behind one of the bigger crates. Perry licked his fingers, grabbed my cigarette, dropped it on the floor, and stepped on it. "They'll see it," he hissed, as footsteps started to pound by.

"They wouldn't've," I muttered, looking at it mournfully. Fuck, how was I supposed to keep calm while invading a drug shop run by homicidal maniacs if I didn't have a cigarette?

I ran out from behind the crate when the footsteps disappeared, however, with Perry on my heels. My nifty goddam plan had one disadvantage; we were now going to have to raid an office in a flaming warehouse, one that might not maintain its structural integrity for long.

I ducked low and covered my mouth with one hand as I ran through the large room. Fortunately, though the fire looked all nasty and flamey and shit, it was still just the litter on the floor that was burning. I made it to the office, my eyes watering and my throat burning. Perry stumbled in after me, clasping a handkerchief to his mouth and nose, and swung the door shut.

I hacked and wheezed my breath back in as Perry started to tear the office apart. I had never, ever owned a handkerchief - only pretentious assholes owned them, I had always figured, since normal people did fine with a fucking Kleenex - but Perry certainly seemed to be less affected by the smoke. I wondered if they needed that little embroidered monogram on the corner in order to work.

I finally caught my breath and started to help Perry tear into the office. We upended drawers, upset file cabinets, and picked flimsy desk locks with pocket knives. I nicked a few quality pens that were on the desk, and Perry finally found the camera box in a locker in the corner. He tossed it to me, and I slung it across my back.

"Ready?" Perry asked. He did not look for my nod before hyperventilating, sticking the handkerchief over his face, and knocking the door aside.

The fire had only gotten smokier, and I stumbled after him, half-blind, trying not to breathe. I got about halfway to the corridor before stepping on... something. No, I don't know what the fuck it was! I couldn't see dick! It wasn't important, anyway; all that was important was that it made me cough, and I pulled in a breath that was all roiling smoke. My lungs said they didn't like it one bit, and tried to jump out of my mouth. My head swam, and I just knew that I was fucking finished. Great work, Amazing Harry!

I felt something tug at my wrist, and let myself be yanked by it. I felt a whiff of real air cut through the smoke, and stumbled towards it gratefully. I knew from our earlier skulking that the alley smelled like rotting vegetation, but at that point, it was fucking roses to me. I blinked as dim light stabbed at my retina, tears streaming down my face, and let Perry drag me to a sitting position somewhere.

Rationality returned as I breathed. I was sitting in some unspeakable glop in the grotty alley, leaning back, the camera that was slung across my back threatening to leave an imprint in my spine. Perry sat next to me, hacking, and if I looked anything like him, people would be asking me where the Halloween party was.

"We gotta.." he choked, and took another breath. "Gottago." He stumbled to his feet, and I made my wobbly way to my own. He looked up the alley with regret, but sirens were already audible, and coming closer. We were going to have to sneak out to a more discreet exit point.

I'm going to do you a favor. I'm not going to describe to you what the walk through the skanky alley or our skulk back to the car. I am certainly not going to talk about how Perry fucking insisted on putting towels down before we got in the car. I mean, I just wanted to get out of there, and he was having a fit about the upholstery. It wasn't even his fucking Mercedes! Total fucking anal-retentive (no, I'm not done saying fuck, not when it comes to him). And I won't describe the shower I took when Perry dropped me off at my condo, saying he'd take the camera right to the cops. I won't tell you how long I had to scrub before the water stopped running black. Aren't I nice?

I will talk a bit about how Harmony was sitting there when I got out of the shower.

Yeah, she was sitting on my bed, wearing a short skirt, smiling that winsome little smile that makes my spine limp and my dick not. I scrubbed at my hair with a towel and hiked my underwear up as if it would turn into a formal suit if I played with it, not knowing what else to do. "Harmony." Oh, yeah, I am mister fucking suave conversationalist, aren't I?

"Harry," she replied, and giggled. Somehow, she can make a name a complete sentence; something about how she dips her voice into that sexy low range just at the very last 'y' sound. She stood and walked over to me, hips swaying in a way that started a saxophone solo in my brain. "I just wanted to come by and say - I'm sorry. I just freaked out." She spread her arms and shrugged slightly. "It wasn't fair."

"So, are you," I swallowed, "coming back?"

"I'd like to," she breathed, pulling me close with an arm around the back of my neck, and kissed me gently on the lips. She has Satsuma lip balm that makes me feel like I’m kissing a fruit basket when she wears it. Not that I mind.

"Well." I was horny, no question, but despite what Perry would say if you asked, my brain just will not stop working, even when it really should. She was in front of me, looking like Nirvana on legs, and by all rights, a red-blooded male should have sex with her until he can't walk, but the fit I had thrown when I read her letter was fresh in my mind. How sure was she about all of it? "If it's what you want. Maybe," I shrugged weakly as she breathed in my ear, "take a day or two to think it over?"

She stepped back and smiled that spine-melting smile again. "Oh, Harry," she said, huskily, "you are just the nicest guy."

Yes, that's me. Meet Harry Lockheart, mister fucking nice guy. All metrosexual and caring and shit. Mister Harry fucking Nicey ordered some Chinese and ate it on the floor with Harmony (yes, on the floor and shades drawn - at that point, I was the king of paranoia). We watched bad TV, and she made her usual hilariously deadpan commentary on how bad it was. Then she fell asleep next to me in the bed, and I gave my erection a good, long talking-to.

All right, all right, I snuck into the bathroom after she fell asleep and wanked. Sue me. It got me to sleep.

We chatted slightly uncomfortably the next day, being a little too careful of each others' personal space, each of us just a little too eager to make sure the other one didn't need the bathroom before using it. That wired me up, so between that and the thought that the Bad Guys might be on the loose, I went into work seeing tails in everyone who was walking in the same direction I was and assassins in everyone who reached into their shirt to scratch an itch. I was somewhere between schizophrenia and Tourette's by the end, and danced into the office on very nervous toes, swearing under my breath at every shadow that startled me.

"Please," I told Perry, who was sitting at his desk placidly, looking as sharp and composed as if nothing more exciting than a hangnail had happened the day before, "tell me that when you had the photos developed, they were devastatingly convicting shots of those fellows who are so keen to kill us, and that they're all now under arrest."

"If you really want me to," he replied, blasé.

I sat down across from him, sighed, lit a cigarette, and put my feet up on his desk. He knocked them back down. "Just tell me what happened," I muttered around my cigarette.

"You suck at photography. The pictures showed... crates. And skulking around with crates is perfectly legal, around here.

The cigarette started to fall out of my mouth, and I grabbed at it, burning my fingers slightly. "Shit! So those dudes are just running free?"

"Not exactly." He smirked, and I settled back and waited for it, eyebrows raised. He continued. "The girl had tape on her. That was why she was there - she was DEA, trying to bust their ring. Well," Perry twisted his lip slightly, "memory card, not tape. A good thing, too. I'm not sure tape would have survived that soaking. It was magic. She got the three ringleaders, naming names, including each others', talking about how they had our lovely clients killed. And, of course," Perry frowned, "she got them finding her hiding in a corner, and shooting her. They must have thought she was just a druggie in the wrong spot."

"So they're down on two homicides?"

Perry started to say something, stopped, and started again. "Three. The girl died."

I sighed. No matter how many times I saw people get killed - and hell, I had killed a few myself - I just never got used to it. The idea that someone was gone, bam, just like that. And somehow, the circumstances around this one just made it worse. I had exchanged a few words with her, and I just felt fucking cheated - like someone I might have gotten to know and like (even someone I might have gotten to know and be disgusted by) was just - gone.

"There's some irony there," Perry muttered. "If they had just left well enough alone, they would have been fine - as far as we were concerned, at least. We had nothing on them until they started to cover their tracks from us."

I leaned over the table. "I can go for the rest of my life without any goddam irony..." My rant was interrupted when it was barely even started by my phone ringing. I pulled it out, then stood and trotted for the door. "Harmony. Be right back." Perry nodded and started to sort through the paperwork on his desk.

I jogged out to the alley behind the office - a nice, clean broad alley. I put my back to the door and answered. "Hey, honey!"

"You fucking bastard!" I had to hold the phone back from my ear to keep my eardrum from ripping out. The hell? I started to say something, but she did not seem to consider this a two-sided conversation. "One night, not even one night, and you're already out banging other women! And then I come back and I think you're such a fucking nice guy for not doing me! And you don't even mention it!"

"Harmony... hon... I..."

"Don't fucking Harmony honey me!" I pulled the phone even farther from my ear. "Go do that bitch from the hills, Harry, and leave me fucking alone!" Click.

Well, isn't that just the best way to start a day at work?

I walked inside, seething. There was only one way Harmony would have gotten that news at all, let alone so fast, and perhaps what I was about to do would ruin a very profitable business relationship, but at that moment, I just did not fucking care. I thundered into the office and put my hand down, hard, on the stack of paper in front of Perry.

He looked down at it. "I have a paperweight already, Harry, and it looks better than your hand. Thanks anyway."

"You schmuck!" I yelled. "You told her!"

Perry leaned back and sighed. "I told who what?"

"Don't play that! You told Harmony that I slept with that girl the other night, so now that she's come back she doesn't want me anymore! Can't you stop fucking with me?"

Perry crossed his legs and stared at me like he was a guidance counselor and I had just said I want to make my living as a male stripper. "Harry, this isn't fucking grade school, all right?" He held out his hand and ticked off points. "One. I did not know Harmony had come back. Congratulations. Two. I did not know she dumped you again. Sorry. Three. I haven't spoken to her in weeks. If she found out you banged some other girl, it was probably through her network of gossipy friends, one that rivals Reuters for quick dissemination of news, provided it is completely useless news."

I seethed throughout this conversation. But on the last point, he was completely right, and I felt foolish for not having thought of that, and twice as angry at Perry for making me feel that way. "Right. Right." I sat down heavily across from him again, and took a deep suck on my cigarette.

Perry smiled and took out a slim file folder. "Well, now that you're single again, you'll have time for an extra case tonight, won't you?"

Ah, Perry "I feel your pain" van Shrike. Some people think it's best to pull a bandage off slowly, and some think it's best to just rip it off. Perry seems to think it's best to cut off the chunk of skin it's attached to. But I got over the dumping, after a couple of mopey days and some nights getting drunk. Harmony got over her irateness after much longer than that, and she actually makes good on the 'let's be friends' bullshit, so I find myself in a similar position these days to the one I was in back in high school - being very kind and considerate to her when she complains about how horrid her life is, because some guy dumped her or she did not get some piddly fucking bit part in a commercial.

Things could be worse.

They could be a hell of a lot worse, actually, considering. Perry's out tomorrow, so maybe I can tell you the Christmas Incident, which is one of the reasons things might have been a lot worse, therefore one of the reasons I don't feel bad at all about how they are. You know, everything seems to happen to me on Christmas. I'm thinking of skipping the whole holiday. Going Jewish or Pagan or some such - one of the Pagan branches that doesn't sacrifice men to appease the angered goddess of spring, or some such shit. In any case, I hope you enjoyed my story. Have a good evening - and don't do that any more than you have to. You'll go blind.