She pulled out a piece of paper and pen from her glove box, spun him around, and used his back as a desk as she wrote a phone number down. She handed it to him. “Here. Tell ’em El Cain sent you. It might help. I know the extra cash comes in handy. After they take out taxes and crap it’s around two-twenty a week.”
“Shit, that’s more than I make here. They pay me under the table so it’s less than minimum, but they feed me lunch and there’s usually some leftover donuts for breakfast.”
“There you go. You can buy your own donuts.”
He looked at the paper and said, “Thanks, I mean it, really.”
“No problem. Hope it works out.”
He looked at her bruised face, apparently focusing on it for the first time. “Damn, what happened there?”
“Got in a fight.”
“Who with?”
“Some other chick. She ended up in the hospital to get her jaw wired and to hopefully think about something else to do with her life. I ended up going home and having a beer.”
He chuckled as though he thought she was kidding. “But do you like guys?”
“I like some guys some of the time. I don’t like most guys most of the time.”
He grinned and stuffed the paper into his shirt pocket. “You’re not like what they said.”
“I’m not like what anybody says, because nobody really knows me. And that’s how I want it.”
CHAPTER
12
YOU, A RENTAL COP? Now that’s a good one.”
In the rearview mirror Cain was staring at herself in a plain gray uniform with chevrons on the sleeve signifying absolutely nothing. It was just more optics. She was perched in her tiny two-door Smart Car, with the name STEELE SECURITY SERVICES airbrushed on the side panels in nifty colors. There was an orange bubble light on top of the car that she would turn on from time to time and then she’d speed around just to break up the boredom. She had the seat all the way back but with her long legs she still felt cramped.
She had been on duty for about two hours; it was a bit after midnight. She had made several rounds over her area of responsibility and found zero cause for concern. Certainly, the rich were sensibly afraid that someone would try to take what they had, but the truth was most thieves went for easier targets, like the poor and working class and sometimes reaching up to grab on to those in the middle of the economic pecking order.
There was a gatehouse on the only road into the community and it was manned by an armed guard 24/7. There were also two cars patrolling the neighborhood during the night, one of which was hers. The homes had all the latest gizmos in security, with more cameras than a Hollywood back lot. All in all, this was one tough nut for someone to crack. You made a 911 call from here, the real and rental cops would show up before you put down the phone. Someone had broken into an apartment she’d had once in Detroit in an area that could have been generously called “in transition.” She called 911 but the cops hadn’t even bothered to come. They were probably scared to.
She started on another round through the subdivision. And even though she’d seen them many times before, Cain found herself still marveling at the size of the homes, or estates, that were located here. They looked like mini-hotels. They all had landscaped grounds, lavish in-ground pools, guesthouses, and elaborate statuary, with each owner clearly trying to outdo his neighbor, if the amount of remodeling and new construction work being done was any indication. But, hey, you had to do something with the cash. She had no idea what the homeowners did to earn enough to live in places like this, but she knew she would never be among their number. And she was okay with that. She didn’t want to live in a place so big that she might get lost.
Later, she pulled off the road, had a cup of lukewarm coffee poured from her thermos, and pecked in notes on the iPad the security firm gave her to use. The observations were perfunctory and were really only meant to show that she was actually doing something. She seriously doubted anyone read them. And if they did, it was a massive waste of time.
Nearly hit squirrel. Heard dog bark. Saw rich white girl sneak out and jump into clunker hatchback with poor brown boy and they drove off. Saw drunk homeowner pawing equally drunk woman half his age and not his wife as they stumbled into house getting naked along the way.
Same old crap.
Cain turned on the radio, drank her coffee, and scrolled through her phone. Amazing things, these phones. When she’d first learned of the internet it had blown her away. That was some seriously cool shit. There was so much she didn’t know that she had had to prioritize and focus on the things she needed in order to get by. That was it. All the rest, she just winged it.
Cain wanted to smoke some weed for the chronic pain she suffered from, but that would get her fired if her employer somehow found out. And she couldn’t afford to blow such a cushy job. She doubted after her last fight, and bust-up with Sam, that she would be getting any cage matches for a while. Besides her rotator issue, one doctor had told her she had an irregular heartbeat. She should be on meds for it, but meds were for people with insurance. She also needed some dental work done and she had to take care of a few other medical issues, too. But without health coverage, you just had to deal with it until you had the cash. She had already spent pretty much all her savings on having an old back injury remedied. She’d refused to put it on her plastic, not that her credit limit would have been enough. She’d asked the surgeon if she really needed to do it. He had told her, “Not if you don’t care about being in a wheelchair in five years.”
When she got really sick she went to the emergency room. They did what they did, then billed her a shitload of money that she couldn’t and didn’t pay.
It is what it is, I guess.
The Atkinses had not believed in doctor and dentist visits, at least for her. The first time Cain had seen either was when she had been on her own for two years. Three rotted teeth had come out of her mouth and two implants had gone in, and a month later she’d had surgeries for a hernia, a torn muscle, and a broken arm that dated back to when she was ten and had never gotten proper medical attention. The dentist, GP, and surgeon, respectively, had quizzed her as to why her parents had not addressed these issues before then.