“Uh-uh, sugar. I ain’t going to nobody’s damn house. You might have all kind of freaky shit going on there.” She points to the flophouse. “We can go to that motel right there, or just do it in one of these alleys. I’ll suck your dick in your car, but I ain’t about to go to no house with you.”
He reaches out and takes hold of her elbow. The first contact sends a jolt through him. His confidence surges. “How much for a b-b-blow job?”
“Fifty.”
“Okay.”
He leads her to his car. Along the way she brushes her hand against his crotch a couple of times. She’s trying to get him excited. She has no idea it won’t work, that all she does is disgust him.
His car is parked on Gravier Street, in the middle of the block. He selected the spot carefully when he went looking for the woman. This section of Gravier is lined with run-down houses, many of them abandoned since the storm. The few residents still living here park on the street. His ten-year-old Honda Civic blends in well.
Late on a weeknight there is no one else out. He opens the door for her and watches as she lowers herself into the passenger seat.
“Put your s-s-seat belt on,” he says. “I don’t want to do it in front of all these houses.”
She pulls the shoulder strap across her breasts and snaps it. “Don’t go too far, sugar. You’re already on the clock.”
He walks around the car and slides behind the wheel. “How about under the overpass?”
She nods. “Momma got you to stop stuttering, huh?” She leans toward him and reaches for his belt buckle. “Let’s see what else she can do for you.”
“Not until we get to the bridge,” he says, an edge to his voice.
She sits back in her seat. “Okay, sugar. I can wait.”
He starts the car and pulls away, making the first left onto South Salcedo. A block ahead Salcedo ends at Perdido Street. He stops for a moment and stares straight ahead at part of the sheriff’s prison complex across the street. He once spent four days locked up inside that hellhole. He raises his hand to finger the jagged scar those four days left above his right eyebrow.