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“Just remember to tell him that I helped you,” Paulie grumbled. “I could have gone to Sean first with my information and let them do whatever they wanted with Janie. I came to you first.”
“Because you want me to do nasty things with you,” I said, completely convinced that was the only reason he had contacted me. “You’ve wanted that since the first time you came knocking on our door to collect money my dad owed your boss.”
“Can you blame me?” He leered in my direction, and I wanted to gag at the very thought of his grubby hands on my body.
Not wanting to spend another moment talking to him about anything to do with touching me, I asked, “Where are we going?”
“That way.”
That wasn’t exactly helpful, but I decided to let it go. “How do you know where Dad is hiding? Everyone has been looking for him. How did you find him?”
“I have my connections,” he said smugly.
Irritated, I turned my attention toward the window. I hardly even noticed the signs whizzing by—McDonald’s, Jack in the Box, a Dollar General. My mind was elsewhere. Had Dad hurt Janie? Why had he taken her? He must have been desperate, and desperate people were dangerous.
Paulie made a series of turns. The neighborhoods we were traveling through got progressively worse and worse. They were the sorts of places where gentrification would never reach. Decrepit old houses. Junk yard lawns. Mobile homes from last century with crumpled underpinning and tires on the roof. Chained up pit bulls barking aggressively.
“Listen, be careful where you step,” Paulie warned as he turned down another street and crept slowly to our destination. “Don’t touch anything either.”
“Why?” I asked, apprehensive.
“This place used to be a stash house for those white pride psychos. They split, and junkies started hanging out there, using it as a place to get high and sell blowjobs for drugs.”
“Ew.”
The trailer house he parked in front of looked like a rotten avocado with its ugly green siding and brown trim. There were no windows left. They had all been busted or torn out. The front door hung lopsided, and the rickety steps leading up to it looked as if they would disintegrate under my weight.
“Here?” I turned to Paulie in shock.
“Like I said—don't touch anything.” Paulie seemed genuinely concerned, and I was taken aback. Maybe somewhere, deep down inside that stinky shell of a lumpy man, there was a sliver of goodness hiding.
I got out of the car, all the while wondering if this was some colossal setup. The hair on my arms stood straight up as I grew more apprehensive with each step. What if he had brought me here to murder me?
The rusty stairs squeaked as I cautiously climbed them. I had to yank hard on the door, failing the first time to open it. On the second try, I lost my balance and would have fallen if Paulie hadn’t steadied me with a hand placed right on my butt. His helpful touch turned groping, and two of his fingers slipped along the cleft between my cheeks. I reached back and whacked him hard. “Stop it!”
“I’m not doing anything! I was helping!”
“Helping yourself to sexual assault,” I snapped back, disgusted that he would try something so vile when we were literally walking into a crack house. “What is wrong with you?”
I didn’t let him answer. I hurried through the door and into the filthiest hovel I had ever seen in my life. The floor was mushy under my feet, and I nervously stepped across it, testing with my toes before bearing my whole weight. The smell inside the house was the worst mix of body fluids, hot garbage and mold with a hint of gasoline. I was glad not to have a strong gag reflex as I stepped around a congealed pile of vomit and blood.
There was no furniture left. The thin particle board paneling had been torn from the walls. It looked as if the place had been gutted for the wire and anything else worth a dime hidden in the walls.
“Macy!” Janie hissed in shock.
I found her in the wrecked kitchen, her hands chained with a bike lock to the oven door. She had a bloody nose and a swollen eye. Her hair was a mess, and she was sweaty and crying. “Janie!”
“We have to hurry! Burt will be back any minute.” She yanked on the chain looped and wrapped around her wrists. Her skin had started to turn purple, and I worried she was going to lose circulation in her hands. “I know,” she said, as if reading my mind. “That stupid bastard!”
“Paulie! Do you have something to cut this?” I glanced back and noticed he was just standing there like a bump on a log. “Paulie!”
“No. I don’t have anything to cut a bike chain.” He seemed skittish, and I had the sinking feeling he was hiding something.
“Let’s take the door off, Janie.” I had cleaned ovens plenty of times so I was familiar with the door removal process. “We’ll just take the whole door with us.”
“That’s what I was thinking, but I can’t get a good grip.”
“Here. Shift this way.” As soon as she had crouched out of the way, I grabbed the door and lifted it. “You’ve got to move down lower,” I grunted. “I need to open the door more.”
