Unexpected Dismounts (8 page)

I clutched the handgrips, but my palms sweated inside my gloves, so I ripped them off and flung them and hugged myself hard to keep my heart from slamming its way through my jacket. Utter hopelessness chained me, paralyzed, at the curb, until I could convince myself that what had just happened to Zelda wasn’t happening to me.

Just days before, I was so sure I had ministry to drug-addicted prostitutes down to a science. You did what you could for them and let God fill the gap between that and anything else they needed. It was working. Now I was a quivering mess, as if the whole thing, not just Zelda’s thing, was taking place inside my soul.

When my pulse stopped hurting, the rain, too, showed signs of slacking off, and I started the bike. I made a U-turn in the middle of King and looked toward C.A.R.S. Sherry was still standing in the window. I should go in and reassure her, but I wasn’t sure I could. I gave her a thumbs-up and rode east toward town.

Think, Allison. Think it through.

This wasn’t about me and what I felt. This was about Zelda right now. I had to find a solution, and I would. Like India said the day before, I didn’t have a personal ax to grind.

Huh, I thought as I rode through the drizzle. This felt pretty personal to me.

CHAPTER FOUR

I forced myself to wait until midafternoon before I went to the police station. It would take that long for them to book Zelda, especially in the shape she was in. I hoped she spent more time on the spaced-out side of labile than the volatile side during that process. I didn’t have a lot of faith in the way Officers Jowls and Beef Face would handle it if she didn’t.

Besides, I knew I should take Chief with me. But I couldn’t get in touch with him. His overworked secretary said he’d be in court all day, and then accidentally hung up on me. I left him a message on his cell phone, but when I didn’t hear from him by two, I had to go on alone. If I waited too much longer, I would be late picking Desmond up from school. Chief was probably going to stop speaking to me altogether.

The St. Augustine Police Department building was the last nod to genteel history before West King Street wagged its head at the dissipated present. Right on the line between decency and decadence, the marble-look structure invited its citizens up wide, sun-washed steps and between not only two Grecian urns overflowing with lavender but a pair of Corinthian columns, which stubbornly promised that justice and fair treatment could be found within.

Of course, once you passed through the double doors, all bets were off. We’re talking bulletproof glass separating those who were in uniform from those who weren’t, and about thirty signs saying what wasn’t allowed there.

I ignored them all and went to the window, where a weary woman with an outdated perm looked from her computer screen to me with no visible change in expression. I might as well have been an icon she could click. Until recognition registered in her eyes. This wasn’t my first trip to the police department.

“One of your women get busted?” she said.

Dear God, thank you for this glass, or I would gladly rip this person’s nosehairs out.

“One of the Sisters is in trouble, yes,” I said. “I need to see her.”

“Name.”

“Allison Chamberlain.” As if she didn’t know.

“The perp’s name,” she said.

The perp. Yes, thank you for the glass. I was thinking red-hot tweezers.

“Her name is Zelda—”

“I’ll buzz you back. Sign in.”

Okay, so maybe there was something to be said for being a regular around here.

Still, I thought as I went through the lockdown door and followed a wide, spikey-haired female officer down the hall, I never got used to the place. The naked floors and stark cinder block walls, the metal-and-plastic chairs strewn where their last inhabitants had left them in haste or anger or despair. Nothing—nothing—in these all-too-familiar halls held any hope. I never wanted to get used to hopeless.

Officer Spikey stopped outside a windowed door. “You’re her attorney, right?” she said to me.

“No, I’m—”

“You’re her attorney,
right?
” She raised her eyebrows, plucked to within an inch of their lives.

“Something like that,” I said.

“That’s what Jack Ellington says.” The brows went down and she unlocked the door.

“Has he been here?” I said. I sure hoped not, or he was going to be ticked off that I was doing this without him.

“Nope,” she said. “We just have an understanding.”

She surprised me with a smile. A he’s-hot-isn’t-he? smile.

I had to smile back.

Until I saw Zelda.

There was a lone table in the airless room. The top half of Zelda’s body was draped over it, arms sprawled, head turned to the side so that the tabletop smashed her cheek into her eye. This should be an effective meeting. Unless she suddenly rose up and came at me with her teeth bared.

I turned to the officer, who was just closing the door behind her.

“You going to be outside?” I said.

“Don’t worry. She probably won’t even wake up.” And then she added, “Ten minutes.”

The door clicked shut with finality and I turned back to Zelda.

“Did you hear that?” I said. “Ten minutes between this or a future.”

“I ain’t got no future.”

She drooled more than spoke the words. Saliva leaking from the corner of her mouth, Zelda sat up and blinked at me with the only eye that was still working. The other was swollen shut.

“They hit you,” I said.

She put her hand up to her face as if that hadn’t occurred to her before.

“Who did this?” I said. “The officers who arrested you?”

“I don’t
know,
” she said, as if I were asking a ridiculous question.

Maybe I was. The now eight minutes and thirty seconds we had left wasn’t enough to deal with this and the ninety-seven other issues that sat before me. I lowered myself to the chair across from her and took a breath as she followed me with her head. I watched her mind catch up like a foot dragged sluggishly through the mud. I needed to get to the point before she sank down into it.

“You know who I am, right?” I said.

“Miss
Angel,”
she said. She wasn’t too loaded to sneer.

“Then you know I want you out of here and back to Sacrament House. But you’re going to have to—”

“Who says I want to go back?”

“It’s there or this.” I looked around at the bare room I could hardly breathe in. “This can’t be what you want.”

“All I want is for you to leave me alone,” Zelda said. “Just lemme be.”

She dropped her torso onto the table again, and then jerked her head up. I forced myself not to bolt for the door.

“No, wait,” she said. “Don’t leave yet.”

“Wasn’t planning to,” I said.

She tried to lick her lips, though she’d have gotten more moisture out of a piece of sandpaper.

“Have they given you any water?” I said.

“They ain’t given me nothin’ but a bad time.” Zelda gave me a misshapen smile. “See how far I come? I was gonna say they ain’t given me nothin’ but—”

“Great,” I said. “You can go further. Chief and I will go to the judge, ask him to release you to Sacrament House.”

I waited for her thoughts to slog forward.

“God gonna be waitin’ for me there?” she said.

“God’s waiting for you
here.
”

Zelda slitted her functional eye and looked around the room. If the Almighty did make an appearance, he could expect a spit in the face.

“I’ll go back to Sacrament House,” she said, more to the wall above my head than to me.

I waited. Something made me wait, and I waited. Nothing filled the silence but the heaviness. Even God seemed to be holding his breath.

“I’ll go,” Zelda said again.

“You know it isn’t going to be easy,” I said. “We’ll love you, but you have to do the work. You and God.”

“See, that’s where … that’s where, no.”

“No what?” I said.

“No God. I’ll go back, but I don’t want to hear about no God.”

She tried to raise her chin at me, and though her head wobbled, she was a picture of defiance even Desmond couldn’t have drawn.

“That would be like pretending Mercedes wasn’t there,” I said. “Or ignoring Jasmine like she was invisible. You know that’s not going to happen, Zelda.”

“Then what I always knew is right.”

“And that is?”

“You don’t care nothin’ ’bout me. You just one more person tryin’ to shove their religion down my throat.”

I leaned across the table. “Is that the same throat that I spooned water into the night you came to me with no place else to go?”

An expletive exploded from that throat. Before I could recoil from it, Zelda’s claw hands snatched at the hair on both sides of my face and yanked me into her forehead. I heard our skulls slam together before I felt a blinding pain.

Another expletive burst from the doorway, this one out of Officer Spikey, who had Zelda pinned against the wall by the time I could see again.

“You okay?” she said to me.

“Fine,” I lied.

“She assaulted you. You can press charges. ”

I looked at Zelda, but her good eye was closed. And so was her face.

“No charges,” I said. “I’ll be back, Zelda.”

I started for the door, and stopped.

“Just one thing,” I said. “Who gave you the drugs today? And don’t try to tell me you bought them. Who gave them to you?”

I didn’t really expect an answer, but if I didn’t ask, I was going to be in more trouble with Chief than I already was. Zelda writhed against Officer Spikey’s hold and got nowhere.

“You gonna answer the lady or what?” the officer said. “You got ten seconds.”

“Satan,” Zelda said. “Satan give ’em to me.”

“Yeah, well, I already knew that,” I said. “Like I said, I’ll be back.”

I turned toward the door. Behind me, a wet sound spewed and hit the table.

I was right. She did spit at God.

As I stepped into the hall, I felt it running down my soul.

A restroom. That was what I needed, and then some ice.

Before I could get the WOMEN sign into focus, someone’s strong fingers curled around my arm.

“You just need to wear a helmet all the time, Classic,” Chief said in my ear.

“Yeah, right?” I said.

I gave up trying to tell him I just needed a restroom. He was pulling me down the hall at his top long-legged rate.

“We running from somebody?” I said through my teeth.

“Yeah,” he said. “But not fast enough.”

A door opened several feet ahead of us, and a familiar form crossed its arms in our path.

“Detective Kylie,” Chief said with a nod.

He didn’t slow his pace, but the detective stayed planted in the hallway. Chief’s idea of just passing through was squelched.

The instant we got close enough, however, the detective gave a low whistle. “You filing charges for that?” he said, pointing to my face. “That why you’re here?”

“We were just consulting with a client,” Chief said.

“Actually,” I said, “I’ll tell you exactly why I’m here.”

I felt Chief moan.

“One of the Sisters in my program was given a speedball on West King. Can you tell me how much that was probably worth? Just a ballpark figure.”

Detective Kylie’s arms tightened across his chest. “Somewhere around a grand. I guarantee you nobody just gave it to her.”

“Well, she sure didn’t pay for it.”

Chief’s fingers squeezed around my arm. If this day didn’t end, I was going to have more bruises than Mike Tyson.

“Let me get clear,” Kylie said. “This was one of your hookers?”

I glared, but I nodded.

“It’s not typical, I’ll give you that.”

“So who do we know that would have access to high-end drugs like that? Nobody on West King, surely.”

Kylie looked at Chief. “She’s getting streetwise, this girl.”

“Hello. Right here,” I said. “Who has that kind of thing going on? And why would they offer it to a woman who would have taken a joint and been happy with it? Doesn’t that seem like
a waste to you?”

“It all seems like a waste to me,” Kylie said.

He let one arm loose long enough to rub absently at the back of his head.

“So … does anybody come to mind?” I said.

“What did your client say?” Kylie looked again at Chief.

“She said it was Satan,” I said. “But that was just to spite me.”

I expected a nod, or at the very least an eye roll. What Kylie gave me was a double take.

“What?” I said.

“You think that could be an alias?” Chief said.

“I’ve heard worse.” The look had passed from Kylie’s face. He was back to scrutinizing the two of us.

“So, you going to try to get your latest off with rehab?” he
said.

Chief nearly squeezed my arm off. “She hasn’t seen the judge yet.
We don’t even know what bail’s going to be.”

“Yeah, well, talk about your waste, huh?”

Kylie delivered the nod I knew Chief was waiting for and went off down the hall.

“Let’s at least get outside before you blow,” Chief breathed into my ear.

“I’m past blowing,” I said.

“Well, I’m not,” Chief said.

Yeah. That was what I was afraid of.

By that night, Zelda’s scratch marks were no more than faded stripes on my face, and I managed to cover the bulge on my forehead with my hair. But India still had her fingers pressed to her mouth in horror ten minutes into our board meeting in my living room. There was almost no convincing her I didn’t need plastic surgery.

“If we do decide to bail her out,” Bonner said from his usual corner of the couch, “I suggest we wait until we’re sure she’s completely detoxed.”

“And declawed,” Hank said drily. From the other end of the sofa she pushed the impressive antipasto tray toward me, a little something she’d whipped up.

“I don’t think there’s any ‘if’ about it,” I said. “The longer Zelda stays in there, the harder it’s going to be to bring her back. She’s gone way further down than any of us thought. ”

“Honey, what are you planning to do with her when you get her released?” India said.