The Devil She Knows - Hardcover

Blood. Maureen sniffed again at the dark smears on her fingertips. Pungent sweetness and a hint of iron. Definitely blood. Not the answer she’d hoped for, but the fresh stains couldn’t be anything else. She studied the spray pattern of red dots peppering the outside of her windowsill. That’s the effect of sharp teeth, she thought, punching holes through skin. She hadn’t seen or heard anything, a surprise since she’d left the kitchen only for a few moments to answer the phone. Nothing left of the body but what looked like sticky feathers. The culprit sat in plain sight. These attacks had to stop.

“You’re killing me!” she shouted out the window, down at the fire escape landing a floor below her kitchen. Narrow yellow eyes stared back at her, fearless and devoid of mercy or empathy. “You’re absolutely killing me, you fuzzy little prick.” Maureen put the phone back to her ear, turning away from the window. “And you are too,” she said to her caller. “You know that, don’t you, Dennis? You’re gonna be the death of me.”

“You better not call me fuzzy,” Dennis said.

“I wouldn’t know about that.” Maureen headed to the kitchen counter. “And I don’t wanna know.” She grabbed a half-full beer bottle and carried it back to the window. “All I know is I worked the past five nights.”

Reaching out the window, she emptied the beer bottle over the skinny calico on the fire escape landing. With one twitch of its tail, the cat launched onto the railing and away from the beer shower. The cat looked down at the beer, up at Maureen, and then sailed without a sound from the railing to the leafless bough of a nearby tree. A dozen sparrows hit the air, chirping in panic and warning. “Sorry.”

“C’mon, Maureen,” Dennis said, teetering on the edge of whining. “I’m really stuck here. Help me out.”

Maureen sat at the kitchen table, jamming the phone between her ear and shoulder, crossing her ankles. “You’re totally murdering me. One more night might do me in, for real.”

She pulled a cigarette from the pack on the table and lit it, listening to the bar manager, her boss, apologize and then beg some more.

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with Tanya,” Maureen said, “in three words: O. Pee. Ates. She’s either too high or too sick from getting high to work. Don’t believe that bullshit about her sinuses, please…Yeah, she told me she was done with it, too, but you know better. We both do.” Maureen leaned forward, pressing her forehead into her free hand. “Okay, I’ll come in, but not as a favor to you. I need the money. This is for me. Not for Tanya, not for you.”

She disconnected and tossed the phone on the table. Well, so much for the gym. Good thing she had maxed out her credit card renewing the membership yesterday.

Maureen got up from the table and went back to the window. Leaning out from the waist up, she grabbed the bird feeder and pulled it inside. She’d have to move it again. Taking the feeder down meant letting the cat win, and Maureen hated that, but it wasn’t fair to make the neighborhood birds pay the tab for her pride. Eliminating the cat, which Maureen knew damn well she couldn’t stomach, was the only other option. Besides, punishing the cat for doing what it was built to do wasn’t fair, either. I’m the person, she thought. It’s my job to be smarter, to find the high road. She was sure a situation existed where cats could be cats and birds could be birds and everyone could go about their business in peace. She just had to find it. She set the feeder on the counter, silently promising to get it back outside in a cat-proof location as soon as possible. She couldn’t let the situation linger; the birds needed her. Winter was coming.

On her way to the bedroom, she paused at the calendar hanging on the kitchen wall. For a full five seconds she let her eyes rest on the picture above the black and white grid of dates. The Outer Banks, at sunset. A vast pink and orange sky floated over the sea like a clean sheet floating over a bed. Silhouettes of seagulls hovered over purple water flecked with gold. What island was in that photo? Not this island, she thought, that’s for sure. It’s not cold, gray, late-November Staten Island. Well then, boohoo for you.

Her eyes dropped from the picture and she found the date. Who was playing the bar tonight? Full House. Okay. At least there’s a decent band, a great band, really, on the schedule. Old-school R & B. Large crowd, older crowd. Liquor drinkers, top shelf. That meant good money, possibly great. All she had to do was get there to make it. She walked into the bedroom where, arms crossed, she surveyed the contents of her closet. Two days ago she’d organized it. Work clothes, hanger after hanger of black, on the left. Real life clothes on the right, a few skirts, tops, dresses. Twice as much black as color, a depressingly accurate portrait of her life.

She slid her hands in among the blacks and examined her options, listing her selection criteria in her head. One week before rent. Her maxed-out Visa. And the electric bill was due yesterday. She pulled out a thin sweater and held it up. Tight and nearly see-through. Long sleeves but cut low at the neck and high at the midriff. With her free hand, she pinched the collar of her T-shirt and peered down. Already wearing the black bra. Sweater’s a go; she put it on. Now where was I?

Business, she thought, this is business. I need to make three hundred tonight. She tossed a brushed leather skirt, very short, extremely short, onto the bed. Let them think she looked like a slut. Probably did already anyway. She made four hundred dollars in that outfit last time she wore it. Can’t hurt to leave some room for error. Service would be surly tonight; she could tell already.

Maureen stuffed the skirt, plus black leather flats, black stockings, and her apron into her knapsack. She slipped out of her running shorts and into a pair of jeans. She paused for a quick look in the mirror. Her nose glowed red and raw around the false emerald stud she’d had punched through it a week ago. It was cute, it really was. A good birthday present, no matter what her mother said. “A nose ring? I gave you money for something nice. For chrissakes, Maureen, you’re freakin’ twenty-nine years old. Be an adult. You’re almost thirty.”

Yeah, I’m an adult, Maureen thought, leaning closer to the mirror, and I bought jewelry for my birthday. And it looks good. So leave me alone about it. If only it would heal up already. Really oughta put some powder over that red. Then again, why bother? The dim lights of the bar hid a multitude of sins, red noses being the least of them. Hopefully, the black circles under her eyes would disappear as well. Christ, she was exhausted. Her nose twitched. Something smelled stale, like an old book left in the back corner of the attic. Was it the sweater? Her? She yanked open her bureau drawer and dug through the socks and bras. One thing the bar wouldn’t do was make her smell better.

She pulled out a fistful of glass vials, her collection of scented oils, tossing them on top of the bureau. Lavender, patchouli, some junk she’d borrowed from Tanya called Wind Spirit that turned Tanya into a Turkish princess but had left Maureen smelling like a lamb kebab. Real perfume was out of her price range, but the oils came cheap from the Rasta shop over by work. Some of the vials had lost their labels so she twisted off the caps, smell-testing them....