Page 37 of Antihero

“Why do you care where I sleep, perv?” She waved the pistol vaguely in his direction. Her clothes carried the reek of recent cooking, onions and meat. “Comes with the apartment above.”

“Yeah?” Evan said. “You rent this out?”

“Why? You lookin’?”

“I suppose I am. Looking.”

“You’re trespassing’s what you are. Don’t think I don’t deal with tough guys.”

“That who you rent to? Tough guys?”

“Not me. Guy who stays here does. Fucking dumb move, that was, me letting him stay here.”

“Why’s that?”

Easing inside, she tugged at her fatigued elastic waistband, let it snap back into place. “Not like I can report him, can I?”

Evan got it. “You’re subletting, too.”

“None of your fucking business what I do. I scramble like everyone else to afford to live in this fucking city. You wanna judge me?”

“No,” Evan said. “Your guy, he sub-sublets a lot?”

“‘Sublet’ is a bit grand a term for what he does.” She scoffed, her folds shifting, and waved her pistol around some more. “Put it this way. Turn on a black light in here, it’d look like a paintball fight.”

“So he doesn’t stay here?”

“Rarely. Runs his scams instead. Leaves me to clean up the messes. And there are messes.” She might’ve been forty or seventy. What were once pretty sea-green eyes flashed out from the wreckage of her face; in their present context, they looked trapped. “But isn’t that what we do? Clean up your messes?”

“I don’t know. Is that what you do?”

“Why are you here?”

“Have some business with your subtenant.”

“Osman? You gonna beat his ass?”

“Want me to?”

She considered, chewed a chapped lip.

“Where is he?” Evan asked.

“Where’s he always.” She jerked her chin. “Strip club across the street. Oh, I’m sorry. ‘Sports bar.’” Somehow she managed to make air quotes even around the gun frame. “You’ll recognize him. He’s the smug fuck. Turkish or Armenian.”

“Those are,” Evan said, “not the same.”

“No?”

“So I’ve been told.” He edged toward her. If she did any more baton twirling with the 9-mil he was prepared to break her arm. But he’d prefer not to touch her.

Now she had the pistol pointed at his crotch. His patience was thinning.

“You should be careful,” he said. “Any altercation could escalate into a gunfight.”

“You’re not packing.” Clearly, she couldn’t make out the ARES hidden in his appendix holster. “So how exactly’s that gonna happen here?”

His hand shot out, stripped the crappy pistol from her. He dropped the magazine, caught it between the ring finger and middle finger of his right hand, and jacked the slide to clear the chamber. With his thumb, he flicked the rounds free from the mag one after another so they rained down across her long-suffering house slippers.