Hardcore

By D. A. Rupprecht

A subculture of intrepid travelers exists on the edge of American society. People see these wanderers in passing, never really considering from where they come or to where they go. They stand by roadsides and on off ramps, their thumbs out as they wait for a ride. They trudge through city streets and down back roads, their backs bent under the weight of their gear. They hop freight trains on the sly. They sleep under bridges and bushes. They roam wherever the wind carries them, some with purpose and others without.

Amid these frenetic movements of people is Zero, a freight train rider, drifting without direction. He thieves and cons to get by, not caring who he screws over. While in Austin, Texas he scams three fellow train riders, believing that he will never meet them again. After accidentally hopping the wrong train, he ends up in New Orleans, where his biggest scam comes back to haunt him. In the enigmatic French Quarter, Zero meets some strange and colorful characters, including Derek – a fortune teller who scams then warns him – Ghost – a fellow traveler who ultimately saves his life – Sugaree – a beautiful woman who seduces and deceives him – and the Wizard – who threatens to take from him the only thing that he holds dear, his freedom.

With the Wizard’s dark influence, Zero’s inner demons strengthen and nearly devour him. Life becomes a battle for Zero’s soul as he struggles against both himself and an unseen enemy, all the while trying to maintain the good within him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. A. Rupprecht
• Release date: Mar 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301831241

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Zero wanted to run when he saw them.  It was nothing he could put into words, nothing he could explain, just a feeling deep in his gut.  The three that stood across the street made him feel something he rarely felt and never admitted.  Fear.  This fear went beyond how people often reacted to him.  It was an animal fear, instinctive and self-preserving.

They stood in an eerie streetlight glow on the corner of Sixth and Brazos, just outside Buffalo Billiards.  Zero pretended to study the drink specials, painted in white on the windows, as he watched them.  They stood where the Sixth Street pushers usually hung out, though he didn’t see any there now.  They didn’t look like ordinary addicts.  They looked more desperate.  A sort of darkness surrounded them even under the fluorescent light, as if they transcended this plane of existence.

He watched the bar crowds mill around them, avoiding the space where they stood like a river flowing around rocks.  They seemed not three people but one single entity.  A voice in his head screamed for him to run, but it was a voice he wouldn’t accept.

Zero was hardcore.  For him, fear wasn’t a valid emotion.

He shook off the feeling, pushing it out of his mind.  He didn’t feel fear.  Ever.

He thought about a past injustice committed by his father when he was twelve, something he often thought about before getting into fights, and the heat of his rage spread through him and provided temporary courage.  His body tensed and his fear dissolved, and that gnawing discomfort dissipated.

They’d been staring at him for some time.  For how long, he didn’t know.  He hadn’t seen them walking down the street to where they now stood.  They seemed to have appeared from nowhere.

There was something terribly wrong about them, as if they did not belong on this street and in this city and perhaps even in this world.  Maybe they were ghosts that might vanish if he looked away, leaving only a shiver of discomfort when he looked back.  He looked away for a second, yet when he looked back they seemed closer, their attention focused even more intensely on him.  They stood in a row on the edge of the curb like three evil lemmings leaning into the traffic.

A solid orange hand glowed above them on the walk sign.  A bus passed.  Then came a sports car.  More vehicles passed in front of those three, the one-way traffic alternately obscuring and revealing them.

Zero felt no fear now.  He felt only the confidence brought on by anger, and it no longer mattered what his father had done so many years ago.  He was no coward; he showed his father that long ago.  Zero was a hardcore motherfucker, and no one, not even the Devil himself, could make him turn tail and run.  Zero faced fear head on.  He grabbed fear by the balls and made it scream for mercy.  He watched as they stared his way, and his lips crept into a shadow of a smile as he nodded his head in recognition.  They turned to each other, whispering.  He saw something in their eyes as well.

Zero thought it might be fear of him.

He’d come to Sixth Street tonight for one reason only: to ask for spare change from the drunks, to spange as he and other young travelers called it.  He’d stood in front of the Irish pub for luck and done well, making almost thirty bucks in half an hour, far more than the five dollars for a cheap fifth he’d expected.  Normally he would have hit the liquor store by now, but his success had emboldened him.  So he opted to stay and see how much he could score.

He had most of a fifth of vodka in his pocket anyway, which he’d been nipping on all evening.  Spanging wasn’t usually this good, but it was Saturday night, and Saturdays on Sixth Street in Austin, Texas brought out the crowds and the crowds when drunk didn’t mind kicking down.

Zero had stopped asking for money when he first noticed those three.  He studied them as they studied him.  They were dirty, dusty from the rails most probably, looking forlorn and all too tired with their bedrolls tied haphazardly to worn backpacks, a sign that they had left wherever they‘d been in a hurry.  They were travelers, definitely, and train riders most probably.  They obviously had no vehicle, and no one sane or sober would pick up that scary looking bunch even if they’d attempted to hitchhike.

They were riding the rails.  Zero looked them over one at a time.

The first was a scrawny pale-skinned girl with tangled dark hair that was beginning to dread.  Her head lolled back and forth as she looked up and down Brazos.  Her dark wide eyes darted back and forth; her eyes veered away from Zero’s then suddenly met his gaze directly before looking away again.

The second was a lanky man in a thick black leather jacket, his back slightly bent under his gear.  He stared at him through half-shut eyes.  He glanced back and forth down Sixth, though he mainly met Zero’s gaze head on.

The third was a big guy, wearing a black t-shirt that bulged from the breadth of his biceps, a pot and a pan tied haphazardly to his pack, his jaw set in a look that seemed like perpetual rage.  He simply stared straight ahead, looking through Zero rather than at him.

They were freight train riders.  Definitely.  Right off the rails.  A scary looking bunch.

No one he would normally mess with.

Zero looked away, focusing on his side of the street.  Two skimpily clad college girls stood in front of Logan’s, just a few feet from him on the corner.  They bared their belly buttons under short, tight shirts, cajoling young half-drunk men to patronize a newly opened club just off Sixth Street.  He wasn’t thinking about the girls, though; he was thinking about what those three might want from him, for the look they threw his way meant they wanted something.  And since they were looking at him, he was the one they thought could provide it.

His mind began to form the rudimentary elements of a con.

Zero had rules about whom and how he scammed, though these were really just guidelines, with suitable loopholes and provisos.  One of these rules was that he didn’t rip off fellow travelers, and certainly not train riders, as he was one himself.  But for Zero there were always exceptions.  His main rule was that he never came over on anyone by too much, and never took everything someone had.  And he never took enough for anyone to kill him, though he didn’t think by the look of those three it would take much.  It was a game, the art of the scam, and he would find myriad ways to separate people from their money or, for that matter, anything else they had that he wanted.

The white man flashed over the crosswalk, but they didn’t cross.  Instead, they looked at each other as if conversing, though Zero didn’t see their lips move.  The flashing orange man came on, and he wondered if maybe they’d decided to leave him be.  If that were the case, he might as well mosey on down to Congress and catch the midnight bus back to camp.

As he mulled over his options, he took a few steps toward the corner where the girls with bare tummies stood, thinking that he would just forget about those three.  But he couldn’t put them out of his mind.  He watched out of the corner of his eye, pretending that the girls’ bare tummies distracted him.  The orange man stopped blinking and burned a solid orange, so Zero thought they’d just wait.

The white man blinked at the traffic light on Brazos and, as he was about to cross, he glanced across the street to check them out one final time.  They crossed through traffic, cars zipping by them without honking.  He paused, watching in amazement as they came closer, ever closer.  They were not really walking but drifting like mist, though with a quickness that seemed illusory.

He shook his head and looked away, staring again at the girls’ bare stomachs.  They smiled at him.  One turned her back and swiveled her ass in delicious invitation.  He licked his lips and whispered under his breath what he’d do to her if they met under different circumstances.

Zero heard an Armadillo bus blast down Sixth Street, and looked back into the intersection.  The bus crossed his field of vision.  For a second, he thought those three train riders had never existed, that maybe he’d been hallucinating, but after the bus passed the three train riders stood beside him, huddled together like a three-headed hydra.

Zero turned, surprised, and immediately forgot about the girls.

How did they cross so quickly?

His heart pounded, and Zero felt a deep unease as their eyes met his.  Still, he wasn’t about to show any weakness.  He smiled a wide friendly smile that he reserved for fools.

Their eyes were black pools, and something darker than their pupils stared back at him.  He tensed then relaxed, breathing courage into his lungs, thinking again of what his father had done and said so many years ago, though now the anger was muted as it mixed with dread.  A voice whispered in his head, telling him to be careful, imploring him to brush these three off.  He would be extra cautious, because of that feeling.  But that feeling, that sense of inexplicable fear, emboldened him as well, and steeled Zero’s resolve.

How dare anyone make him feel afraid!

Their eyes bored through him, scouring him as if trying to read his intentions.  He already had an inkling about what they wanted. 

Hola, amigo! the girl said in a ragged voice that sounded like the hiss of an angry rattlesnake.

The other two hung behind, silently watching.  Zero could smell her body odor as she came close.  He wrinkled his nose involuntarily.  That wasn’t just the smell of the road.  That acrid odor wasn’t just the smell of an unwashed body.  It was something else.

The girl spread her lips in an approximation of a smile.

Co-mo estah? she asked in poorly pronounced Spanish.

Her greeting immediately decided how he would respond.  She thought he was Hispanic, probably Mexican.  He looked Hispanic, sure, and had Mexican blood, but he wasn’t really connected to that country or its people.  He was, genetically, through his mother’s side.  And his father was a Texan of Spanish descent, and Zero certainly looked Mexican, even could claim to be descended from Mexicans, but Zero didn’t speak more than a smattering of Spanish and wasn’t fluent in the language.  Still, he could throw in the few words he knew and fake the accent well enough to fool most people.

Hola, amiga! he replied, his speech slow and languid.  "I speak inglais."

This seemed to relieve her.  Obviously she didn’t speak much Spanish.

The girl wasn’t bad looking.  She might have looked hot if she weren’t so dirty. And she had to do something about that body odor before Zero would even think about slipping his pocket snake into her.  A thick, greasy sheen covered her face, obscuring whatever beauty lurked underneath.  She had dark marks under her eyes where makeup might once have been.  Her dark hair was unkempt, the strands clumping into dreads and looking as if it hadn’t been washed or combed in weeks.  Zits pocked her face.  She looked to be in her late teens or early twenties, but that was only after close observation; with her haggard face she could pass for thirty, thirty-five easy.  Her body was waiflike, slender and lean, though a little too skinny for Zero’s tastes.  He liked a bit of body on the women he laid.  Still, he wouldn’t kick her out of bed, as long as she washed up first.  Her clothes were ragged, stained with the dust of someone who traveled the rails, torn and frayed in places, showing pale skin at the rips.

He looked into her eyes and what he saw scared him, though he couldn’t say precisely why.  Her eyes were black, the pupils abnormally large, blocking out the color of her irises.  But it was something else, something behind those eyes that chilled him, and it had nothing to do with their blackness.  A presence lurked there, something that wasn’t quite her.

Hey, you from ‘round here? she asked in a friendly tone.

Zero nodded, lying.

She wanted him to be from around here, so he would tell her what she wanted.  She obviously wasn’t.  There was a twang in her voice he didn’t recognize, a southern drawl that wasn’t Texan.  She came from somewhere in the Deep South, though, from one of the states east of Texas.

He glanced at the other two.  They looked even creepier, and Zero figured that was why she was doing the talking.  They hung back as if they knew this and didn’t want to frighten him.  Anyone else would have made an excuse to blow them off and get away.  It took all the balls Zero could muster not to do just that, such was his incomprehensible repulsion.  The two men might have been as old as forty.  The skin on their faces looked like dried up autumn leaves.  They all looked tired and haggard, as if they needed sleep.

The thin, tall man had more piercings than he’d seen on any traveler he’d ever met.  Half a dozen earrings hung from each ear.  Then he had three over his left eye, two in his nose, and two in his bottom lip.  The one that really caught his attention was on his left ear, a grinning silver skull with red eyes that seemed to stare straight at Zero.  The thin man’s eyes were the same as the girl’s, jet-black pools from behind which something not quite human watched.

The big guy freaked him out more than the other two, partly because of his size.  He had a look he’d seen on other people, a look that said he would resort to violence without warning, a look that said he’d killed before and wouldn’t hesitate to kill again.  Zero found his silence disconcerting.  He did not speak at all while in Zero’s company.  He just stared at him, unsmiling, his black eyes boring through him.  His head was shaved down to the skull and he wore a black sleeveless t-shirt, ripped through with holes and covered in dirt.  Zero noted the pronounced veins along his thick arms and the greasy sheen of sweat and dirt that made his skin glimmer darkly in the streetlight.  On his right arm, a tattoo of the Grim Reaper revealed itself through the grime, carved into one bicep, the sickle down and plowing through dark wraithlike figures, their mouths open in terror as if it were Death in the midst of reaping souls.

They wanted drugs.  He knew it before they asked.  Everybody seemed to think that Mexicans knew where the drugs were.  Maybe it was true here, deep in the heart of Texas, but the reality was that Zero didn’t know where to score anything harder than hundred-proof liquor.  This might have been a deterrent to someone less hardcore than he, but Zero sure as hell would act as if he could score whatever they needed.

You know heroin?  You know where we can get? the guy with the skull earring asked impatiently

He scowled, coming up beside the girl, his neck muscles tensing and making purple veins stand out.

Chyu mean chiva, amigo? Zero asked quietly, looking around nervously.

He smiled broadly.

We been awake for two weeks straight, the girl interrupted.  Need sumthin’ so’s we kin sleep.

Zero shook his head.  How could anybody stay awake for two weeks straight?  It wasn’t possible.  They must be bullshitting.

Chiva no keep awake, Zero said, pretending to muddle what she said.  Chiva make good dreams.  Yeah.  You wan’ coca?  That keep chyu up to party.  You no cops?

He looked at them as if truly worried.  He knew for certain they weren’t cops.  No cop would get so dirty, even an undercover.

"No!  We’re not fuckin’ cops, the skinny man hissed.  An’ we don’ need nuthin’ ta keep us up.  We need sumthin’ make us sleep, Mister Juan fuckin’ Valdez.  H.  Chiva.  Heroin.  Junk.  Whatever the hell ya call it here… we need some.  Do ya know where we kin get?"

Zero shrugged.

I know peeples…

He left it at that, letting them dig the information out a little bit at a time.  If he seemed too eager, they’d be ready for a scam.

It wasn’t the money.  He had thirty bucks in his pocket and didn’t need more.  It was because of the fear he’d felt.  He needed to prove he could get over on them, even if only to himself.  They looked at each other and grinned.  The skinny dark-haired girl sidled up close to him, rubbing her body against his as she whispered in his ear.

I’ll do fer ya whatever you wan’ if’n you kin help us.

Her hand brushed lightly against his crotch, pleasantly tickling him.  He felt a tension in his groin as her light touch turned him on involuntarily.

Zero stepped away, repulsed as much by his reaction as by her putrid odor.

No, Zero shook his head.  No can take to mi primo.  No all chyu.  He no like strangers.  He big.  Mexican mafia.

He’d leave it at that.  He knew he could get away from one of them; he wasn’t sure about all three.  Zero wanted to make the odds as even as possible. The big guy was close to him now, off to his right, the skinny man on Zero’s left.  The girl stood right in front of him, grinding her teeth like a cow chewing its cud.  He was surrounded on three sides.

Zero’s heart beat rapidly as he fought the urge to run.  He swallowed his fear and shrugged, smiling at each in turn, looking into the blackness of each of their eyes and trying his best not to feel afraid.  He fought the irrational fear and concentrated on incidentals.  He saw bruises and scabs on the big guy’s thick arms.  He knew the others would have the same marks under their clothes.  They were the telltale marks of a junkie.  He’d seen them on others here on the street.  They were desperate for a fix.  That would make them easy to play.

The skinny man with the skull earring spat out words like an angry dog.

Cut the bullshit, spic.  Either ya can help us or ya can’t.  If’n ya can’t then shut the fuck up an’ walk.

Zero shrugged and shook his head, looking down.

This was his chance.  Skeleton Earring was giving him a chance to back out.  Zero wouldn’t take it.  They’d sealed their fate when he mouthed off.

I take one o’ chyu.  No more.  Mi primo no like strangers.  He Mafia like I say.  Big time dealer.  No fool wit’ him or I dead.  Even though familia.  He do this.

Zero looked up and brought a finger across his throat.  The girl looked to the skinny man.

We gotta do this.  We gotta get some shuteye.  Wizard gonna be on our ass ‘fore too long.  We don’ stan’ a chance if’n we get no sleep.

She sounded desperate.

They nodded then turned back to Zero.

You fuck wit’ us you gonna have hell to pay, Skull Earring said softly, his crooked yellow-toothed smile looking more like the leer of a skull.  "There’s no escape if’n you try’n screw us.  We fuckin’ come back fer ya.  Believe it, Juan.  We repay.  Com-pren-day?"

Zero smiled.  The game was on.

CHAPTER 2

Zero reluctantly agreed to their demands.  One of them would come score and no money would be fronted.  The girl would go.  They’d probably decided she might be able to talk the price down or get more for their money.

Zero had no intention of scoring heroin for them.  He knew people died or got really fucked up on the black tar that came up from Mexico.  People had offered him a chance to smoke the dragon before, though he’d always declined.  It wasn’t his scene.  Junkies didn’t care about themselves or anything else.  They just cared about getting high.  He would do them a favor by not helping them ruin their lives.

As they walked through the crowds, they discussed in low voices what they expected of him and what he could expect from them.  He allowed their stipulations, allowed their conditions, allowed them to call as many shots as they wanted; he already knew how to get around the rules they made to keep their money safe.

Zero was relieved one of the other two weren’t going.  He didn’t like the girl, but he liked the looks of the other two even less.  The two men had a hunted look about them, as if they had nothing to lose.  The girl was civil at least, though Zero sensed she was just as cutthroat as the others.

They crossed Congress and Zero gazed north towards the lighted dome of the state capital.  That was another world, a world that knew nothing of his life, a world that could do nothing to protect him if he fucked this up.  Zero, the girl, and Skull Earring sat down on a bench and waited for the bus.  The big man stood silently in the background, watching like a sentinel.  There were others there, but one by one each moved away.

The girl and Skull Earring continued to quietly haggle.

How much kin ya get? the girl asked.

And fer how much? Skull earring pressed him.

Zero shrugged.

Whatcha wan’?  I getchu eight balls, ounces… more if chyu can wait.

Skull Earring frowned and shook his head.

You get the best fuckin’ deal you kin get us now an’ we cutcha in a quarter.

He grinned, acting friendly.

Zero knew that was a lie; he knew Skull Earring planned to scam him.  Perhaps, if he were lucky, they would give him enough to get high.  If he was lucky.  If he were a junkie that’s all he’d really want.  Knowing they were going to try to screw him justified his actions.  He had to fuck them before they fucked him.

No, I getchu an’ chyu give me nice big hit, Zero said, shrugging, an’ anythin’ more is bueno.

He nodded and smiled, giving a thumbs-up.  They nodded.  Zero knew he had them.

The girl and Skull Earring looked to Grim Reaper expectantly, as if he were the leader.  Grim Reaper nodded and stared at Zero with those too-black eyes, pointing at the tattoo of Death reaping souls.  There was no happiness in those eyes.  No emotion at all.  Zero shivered involuntarily and felt a sick feeling deep in his stomach.

The girl and Skull Earring laughed.

You gonna be straight with us, now, the girl spoke softly and sweetly in his ear, or you gonna wind up in hell.

The big guy produced two crisp hundred-dollar bills seemingly out of nowhere.  He cupped them in his hand so only he and his companions could see.  He gave the two bills to the lanky man with the skull earring who in turn handed them to the girl, the bills passing right in front of Zero.  The girl took them, folding them carefully before they slid into her front pocket.

Zero’s heart skipped a beat when he saw the green bills.  He was about to hit it big.

The midnight bus rumbled down Congress towards them.  They stood, waiting for it to stop.  Skull Earring kept the girl’s gear, saying they’d look out for it.

We’ll be at that place on Seventh, Skull Earring said matter-of-factly, Chucky’s.

The girl nodded.  Zero knew it.  It was a sleazy bar that sold cheap beer, catering to the lower echelons of society.  They even served Zero now and again.  That’s how he knew it.   One of the bartenders was Hispanic and had taken a liking to Zero.

The bus shuddered to a halt, the doors wheezing open.  Before the girl and Zero got on, Zero shrugged and smiled.

No dinero, he said, though he had thirty dollars in his pocket.

He was going to squeeze them for all he could.  The girl scowled and looked to Skull Earring, who dug in his pocket.  He brought out a crumpled five dollar bill and handed it to her.

As soon as they paid, Zero slid past the bus driver and into the bus.  They were going near the end of the line.  It would be long ride.  He waited for the girl, hearing Skull Earring warn her not to let Zero out of her sight until the deal was done and not to part with any money before she had the shit.

Skull Earring’s blank, too-black eyes met Zero’s gaze.

You ‘member what I said, were his parting words.  You rip us off an’ we findja.  You ain’t got nowhere you kin run.

Zero breathed a sigh when the bus jerked into motion, glad to be rid of the other two.  He figured the girl was the least dangerous of the lot, even though she smelled like a toxic waste dump.  The sweat oozing from her skin smelled of chemicals.  Come to think of it, they all smelled that way, though the girl’s smell seemed more acrid.  He wondered if heroin made your body smell that way, or if it were the smell of some other drug from which they were trying to come down.

He grimaced at the thought.  He didn’t do drugs.  He just drank like a fish as his father would say.  Give him a fifth of whiskey and he was happy.  Give him two and he was in heaven.  He’d take a drag off a joint from time to time but he never did real drugs.  Never the hard stuff.  A bottle of hundred proof Southern Comfort was hard enough for him.

Zero and the girl went to the back of the bus, the girl taking one corner while he sat opposite her, staying out of range of her scent.

He tried to make conversation.

Yo, amiga, where y’all from?

She stared at him, grinding her jaws.

Come up here from Nah Leans.  Ain’t goin’ back there, neither.  Not if’n we kin help…

She stopped speaking, looking at Zero.  He saw the fear in her face when she mentioned New Orleans.  He shivered, feeling another presence lurking behind her eyes.  A darkness.

Zero turned away, hoping she didn’t sense his unease.

You kin get? she asked.  You don’ lie ta me?

Zero flashed an innocent grin, nodding.

No problemo.

But Zero already had a plan.  He was taking her to a motel called the Dos Equis, the two exes in English, or the Double X as most locals who knew it called it, as two giant X’s stood in front of the establishment.  It was a place people stayed who were coming up off the streets or going down onto them.  It was also a place where prostitutes and their clients rented rooms by the hour and where junkies and crackheads came to score dope.  Any drugs you might want could be found at the Double X, though half the time you got ripped off or shorted, according to what he heard.  The rundown old motel was at the southern end of the sprawling city, a forty minute bus ride away.  He knew someone staying there right now, a man he didn’t particularly like.

Zero was going scam them both and then leave town.  He was bored of Austin; people here were getting wise to his tricks.  Besides, it was unlikely he’d ever run into any of these three again.  Not in this big country.  He would head somewhere new.  The West Coast maybe.  California.  He’d been meaning to go west for a long time.

But it wasn’t quite spring yet, and he’d head down to the Gulf Coast before traveling any long distance.  He’d gone to Colorado last summer, up into the mountains around Boulder.  This summer he wanted to see the ocean.  The real ocean, not the usually placid waters of the Gulf of Mexico.  He wanted to learn how to surf.

Thinking about the Gulf Coast made him think about spring break.  He’d gone to Galveston about this time last year.  It would be spring break soon.  He could lay some college girls and drink the whole time he was awake.  He’d been there without any money last spring and had a good time.  With money it would be even better.  Hanging out on the beach sounded like a good plan.  Financed with these junkies’ money, it would be a real good time.

He tried again to converse with the girl, but it was like talking to a cow.  She ground her teeth together as if chewing on a cud.  When asked questions, she would occasionally nod or shake her head, but mostly all she did was noncommittally shrug her shoulders.  She didn’t want to talk, so Zero gave up and stared through his reflection in the window, watching the city’s streetlights flash by.

The bus stormed down the road into a rundown area with mobile home parks and tired little houses sprawled on both sides, now passing a junk yard, a worn-down shop, and finally a convenience store called Saint Elmo’s, named after the street it was on and not its sacredness.  Two giant X’s loomed out of the darkness, glowing darkly crimson and lighting the inside of the bus in an eerie red fluorescent glow, the color reminiscent of blood.

Zero pushed a button.  The driver stopped the bus in front of the X’s, behind which stood a cluster of shabby buildings that looked more like horse stables than human habitations.  The motel was four long buildings with six units each, all on ground level, and with many times the number of cockroaches and rats there than people, though most rooms had more people staying in them than were reported to management.  Often you would find as many as six people sharing the same room, and often the same bed.

Zero went to the front of the bus, not looking to see if the girl followed.  He stepped down from the bus and looked around.  There was always a buzz here, with people coming and going, running little hustles and otherwise living their fucked up lives.  Zero didn’t care for places like these, and he liked the people who stayed here even less.  Most were nearly homeless but afraid to part with this last modicum of shelter.  Why pay two hundred dollars a week when you could set up a nice private camp for free?  There were still bits of wilderness in and around the city where, if one were careful and resourceful, you could live without being harassed.

He turned and saw the girl standing there, a scowl on her face.

Why dintcha let me know we’s gettin’ off heah?

He smiled and shrugged.

Sorry, amiga, I no do that again.

And he wouldn’t.  He wouldn’t see her after tonight.  Not if he could help it.

I gotta see he home, amiga, Zero said.  You wait here, hey?  I no take money.  It be okay but chyu jus’ gotta wait.

He needed to talk to Charlie first.  The man was a little strange, and Zero had to make sure he was home so he could set up the scam.  The girl stood, unmoving.  She nodded slightly, staring at him with hungry, expressionless eyes.

You come back quick, she said quietly, one hand reaching behind her back.

Zero nodded, smiling.

The girl brought her hand out with surprising speed, bringing out a blade as long as her forearm.  He jumped away reflexively, the blade glimmering blood-red in the light of the two giant X’s.  She held the knife in front of her briefly, the blade inches from his face.  She brought it slowly to her own mouth, which curved in a wicked grin.  He knew that if he’d been slower, she could have cut him good, maybe even slit his throat.  She licked the edge, her dark eyes staring into Zero’s.  She then slid the blade back into its unseen sheath at the small of her back.

I’ll be back, he said, turning quickly, the smile frozen on his face.

Zero left her in front of the two red X’s, and when he turned away the smile faded from his face.

CHAPTER 3

Charlie was a thirty-something-year-old Mexican-American with a ruddy, pockmarked face and a weight problem that came from drinking too much beer.  Charlie liked beer almost as much as he liked to brag about the whores he’d been with the night before, whores Zero thought might just be figments of his drug-and-alcohol-induced imagination.  Charlie liked whores better than other women because he didn’t have to get them drunk to fuck.

That much Zero believed.

If he were a whore, though, Charlie couldn’t pay him enough.  Charlie was ugly, uglier than anyone Zero remembered ever meeting.  He’d met Charlie on his way back to camp at Saint Elmo’s.  Saint Elmo’s was the neighborhood shop and a shrine for alcoholics and drug addicts in the area.  Zero sometimes got stuff there, though mostly through five finger discounts.

This time Zero was in line to buy, not steal, as he had a couple dollars in his pocket.  He’d also felt the clerk’s suspicious gaze.  Charlie had been ahead of him, already half-drunk.  He’d just bought two twelve packs of cheap beer and was trying to figure how he could carry both back to the motel without dropping them.

Zero felt obliged to help.  He charmed Charlie into letting him carry one of the twelve packs, sneaking two cans from the one he carried.  Once back at Charlie’s room at the Double X, they both began drinking seriously.  At first, Zero thought he’d found a new place to get a free buzz.  After thirty minutes in Charlie’s company, however, Zero decided that no amount of free alcohol was worth having to hang out with this anti-social fuck-up.

Charlie was a waste of time and space, and being around him made Zero think fleetingly of suicide, which would be a preferable to Charlie’s company.  Zero had never been discriminating about his associations, but Charlie was an exception.  He lived in the social equivalent of a black hole, drawing down all those around him.  He talked about the mundane details of his everyday existence, interspersing his speech with curse words, occasionally mixing his fantasies of sex with underage teenage girls into the conversation.  Otherwise, Charlie spoke only of how his life had gone horribly wrong, always blaming others for his misfortune.

The longer he spent in Charlie’s dark, dismal room the more Zero felt like a prisoner.  The weight of the stale air seemed to press down on him and made it difficult to leave.  Every time Zero tried to go Charlie offered him another beer.

On top of this, he complained about having a bad case of diarrhea, disappearing into the bathroom every twenty minutes or so.  Mostly Zero just sat watching the one half-clear channel on the beat up television in the corner.

Strange smells emanated from the bathroom.  Sickly sweet and chemical.  Zero knew the smell.  It was the smell of crack rocks burning.  Like heroin junkies, crackheads could not be trusted, so normally Zero avoided them.  But this time he’d got caught up in the free beer.

After one particularly long session in the bathroom, Zero asked if Charlie was smoking crack.  Charlie responded with indignation and told Zero to leave.  Zero smoothed things over so he could finish his beer, soothing Charlie by saying that he didn’t smoke the shit, but didn’t mind if Charlie did.  In the end, Charlie let Zero stay and admitted that he was indeed smoking crack cocaine.

In between his frequent bathroom visits, Charlie bragged about being a big shot in the Mexican mafia years ago and how he used to take what he wanted from the cocaine shipments he helped smuggle across the border.  This made Zero remember Charlie, and it was those tedious, soul-destroying hours that Zero had spent in his company that made Zero consider Charlie in his plotting.

There was also Charlie’s current hustle.  He scammed heroin junkies.  To be more succinct, Charlie sold them bunk dope and, with the money he swindled, bought rocks of crack cocaine.  The scam amused Zero, and it was why he returned to the Double X.

Charlie was the key part of Zero’s plan.  Without Charlie, there was no plan.

Zero smiled.  He was about to rip-off a crackhead and a heroin junkie in one bold con.

He knocked on the door, mulling over the details.  He held his breath, waiting.

Waiting.

Almost thirty seconds passed, and Zero almost gave up.  He would now have to slip away from the girl.  But then the door swung open wide.  A crazy looking, dark-haired and extraordinarily ugly man stood before him, his eyes dark wide pools in a cratered face that mimicked the moon.

He wore a bewildered expression, as if he didn’t know Zero.

Hey Charlie, what’s up?

Charlie scowled then.

Whatcha wan’?

Zero realized now that he’d mimicked Charlie when talking to those three junkies.

Came to pay ya back for the other night.

Zero reached into his pocket and pulled out the now half-full bottle of cheap vodka from which he’d been nipping.  He handed the vodka to Charlie with some regret, knowing that he needed to offer him something to make up for all the beer he drank the other night.

Seeing the booze, Charlie’s mood brightened.  He took the bottle and his frown vanished.

Chyu come back later, amigo.  Gimme half hour.

Charlie was smoking crack.  It was in his eyes.  Charlie looked down, avoiding Zero’s gaze, like a little boy ashamed at being caught doing something naughty.

Zero laughed.

C’mon, man I ain’t gonna try’n get none of your rocks.  You know I don’t smoke.  ‘Sides, I gotta girl might give ya a blowjob if you’re nice to her.

Charlie’s mood perked.

Though it was obvious to Zero that Charlie liked sex (porno magazines littered his room when he’d last been there) Zero had surmised that Charlie rarely if ever got laid.  Now Charlie grinned at Zero, stepped back, and welcomed him inside, looking outside for the girl.

Come in, amigo.  Where chyu amiga?

Zero stepped in and shrugged.

I wanted to see if you were interested.  And to let ya know what buttons to push, he said, winking slyly.  I’ll go get her in a minute.

Zero nonchalantly made his way to the little beat up refrigerator in the corner of the room, stepping over an open copy of a Hustler magazine where a naked, big-bosomed blonde lay with legs splayed wide, showing off shaved genitalia.  He noted with passing amusement and some disgust the semen stains on the magazine’s slick pages.  He whistled as he opened the fridge, looking in the icebox for the second necessary part of his plan.  He checked over his shoulder and saw Charlie sitting on his bed holding the half bottle of vodka, his face red and sweating.

Charlie was jonesing.

Though Zero thought Charlie a fool, he recognized that Charlie’s hustle contained a seed of brilliance.  It was for this reason, and this reason only, that Zero was here.  He poked around the icebox, pulled out a half-filled plastic ice cube tray, examined it, reached further back, and pulled out a small bit of something wrapped in tinfoil, keeping his back to Charlie so he couldn’t see what he was doing.  The tinfoil looked like leftovers forgotten in the freezer.  He opened the tinfoil and looked at the brownish substance.  It looked like frozen bacon grease.

Everything was now in place.

Zero broke off a chunk of this brown substance with his thumb, tore off a bit of the tinfoil, and then wrapped what he’d taken before replacing the rest in the freezer.  He pushed the tinfoil into the front pocket of his jeans then patted the pocket with his other hand.  He had put enough there, he thought, to be worth at least two hundred dollars.  He didn’t know what real heroin looked like, but apparently this looked and smelled like the real stuff.  According to Charlie, it even acted the same when you broke it down in water and heated it.

Zero had casually asked him what it was made of, but Charlie had just smiled, saying the recipe was secret.  Back in his glory days, Charlie and his compadres used to cut heroin with this stuff and the junkies never knew the difference.

Where’s a cup? Zero asked, pointing to the half-filled ice tray.  You got something to mix with this vodka?

He leaned back down and again rifled through the small fridge.  He found a container with a little orange juice, which he set on top of the fridge.  Zero found a cup next to the bed, examining it to ensure it was clean.

Hey, she likes drugs, Zero said, as he poured the last of the orange juice over the ice cubes and brought it to Charlie, any kinda drugs I think.  Give her a hit off that pipe you’ve been smoking on.  Here’s five bucks.  Give her a nice hit and I’m sure you’ll get a blowjob at least.

 He pulled out a five-dollar bill, knowing now that he’d get that back and more.

Chyu no need ta gimme that, Charlie said as he pocketed the five bucks.

Charlie sat and he pulled a thin metal tube from his back pocket.  He proceeded to carefully fill the end with a minuscule amount of a yellowish-white substance, ignoring Zero, who did his best to hide his contempt.  Charlie brought the metal tube to his mouth, lit it, and inhaled deeply.  His eyes widened.

Zero shook his head and frowned.  His skin crawled.  Charlie puffed the metal tube as if it were a cigar, a sickeningly sweet scent permeating the air as white puffs came out the other end.

Hey, this is the thing, Zero said as Charlie finally turned his glazed eyes back to him.  She likes Mexicans for some reason.  Probably cuz she thinks they’re the ones with the drugs so if you wanna play up that Mexican mafia connection – don’t tell her it was in your past, though – you’d have a better chance.  And I’m just gonna slide outta here an’ letcha have her.

Charlie looked at him suspiciously.

Why chyu gonna do that fo’ me?

Zero shrugged and flashed his most innocent smile.

I thought you needed to get laid, my friend.  Besides, you got me drunk the other night.

Charlie smiled, no longer skeptical.

Chyu good amigo.

Zero started to the door.

I’m gonna get her.

Despite the cleverness and simplicity of his plan, he wanted this over.  He saw the girl squatting on her haunches in front of the two giant X’s, her head darting back and forth.  It was as if she thought someone, or something, was after her.  Zero felt apprehension again, about her and the two others.

He also remembered the knife.  His throat tightened.  He hadn’t liked the look of that blade.

Zero smiled as he approached her.

Hey, chica, c’mon in, the water fine!

She looked at him quizzically.

Zero didn’t wait for her to follow; he just turned back