Page 28 of Spade

She stepped around Colt’s body, stared down, and then back up at me.

I waited.

“Two of the girls he ‘managed’ died in that fucking storage unit,” I said. “Like I told you and the others, I only kill those who hurt women.”

Selene considered and then nodded. “I get it, Spade. But you've got to keep a distance between this and the club. We've got your back. Just keep it on the down low.”

She nudged Colt’s shoulder with her boot, then crouched and searched his pockets, her hands steady. “He’s got cash and keys. Should we take them?”

“Leave the cash. Take the keys.”

I wiped the blade on my jeans. The pink neon flickered off, then on.

Dario’s canvas bag was still on the ground, spattered but intact. I bent, unzipped it. Inside: a fat roll of bills, a cheap .38, a stack of motel keys, and two vials of something clear with a Russian label. I pulled the vials and pocketed them. Selene watched, keeping silent.

The bodies didn’t look human anymore. Just weight and meat.

Selene’s phone buzzed. She looked at the screen, then held it out to me. “Joker’s asking for a status.”

I took the phone, typed: Done. No issues.

Selene watched me type, then looked down the length of the alley to the van parked in darkness.

“You really don’t feel anything, do you?” she asked.

I said, “I feel relief. I feel like I saved those women in that storage unit and those who would have come after them.” I shrugged. “Maybe it’s a cause the club should take on. Vegas is full of this shit. We could stop it.”

She let that hang in the air, then turned toward the van. “Come on. I’ll drive.”

I hefted the canvas bag and followed, the weight comfortable in my hand.

Selene got into the driver’s seat and started the engine. I climbed in, shut the door, and set the bag at my feet. The heater hummed, blowing away the stink of death with something worse.

She drove in silence for a block. At the light, she turned to me, her mouth soft for the first time all night.

“Where’s the storage unit?” she asked.

I gave her directions, and thirty minutes later, we were standing in front of unit 180. We unlocked the door and stepped aside as ten young women filed out, dehydrated, crying, and looking for someone to trust.

“We get them in the van and take them back to the casino,” Selene said.

Minutes later, we were back on the road.

The girls in the van were silent, staring at the dash as if the numbers on the radio meant something. Most of them were too strung out to make sense of where they were, or where they’d been. The youngest one, maybe fourteen, tried to light a broken cigarette with a spent book of matches, then gave up and pressed her head to the window. Two older girls spoke soft Russian; the others just breathed, little more than mammals waiting for the next shoe to drop.

I sat shotgun while Selene drove, kept my hand out the window, letting the wind dry the stick of blood along my wrist. When we hit a red at Charleston, she pulled a crumpled pack of Winstons from the cupholder and stuck two cigs in her mouth, offering me one. I took it. She lit them both off a Zippo so old it was more black gunk than chrome.

“You still want to be left alone after this?” she asked, eyes on the traffic, and not on me.

I waited, trying not to let hope show. “You said you’d consider it.”

Selene shrugged, lips curled around her cigarette; the cherry glowed with each inhale. “You’re too good at this. We’d be idiots to let you go.” Her eyes slid to the rearview, at the girls huddling in the back. “You’re not the only one with ghosts, you know.”

She flicked the ash out the window and looked at me sideways. “We could use a new crew of prospects.”

I tried not to smile, but my cheeks remembered how. “You want me to run it?”

Selene barked a short laugh. “I want you to be yourself. But if you train a few more Spades for me, I won’t stop you. Fuck, I might even pay you.” We crossed Las Vegas Boulevard in silence, a new plan coming to light.