Triptych by Karin Slaughter Page A

fifty-one, fifty-one?”
    The cop clicked the mic, said, “Check,” then pointed to John, talking over the information the dispatcher gave but obviously still listening. “You. Prince Charming. Make sure she gets back home safe. You,” he pointed to Ray-Ray. “Don’t make me tell you one more fucking time to get the fuck up or I will run your ass in so quick your P.O. won’t even have time to call you a cab back to the pen.” Ray-Ray jumped up and the cop clicked on the radio and said, “Roger, I’m there in ten minutes.” As an afterthought, he asked Art, “You okay with all this?”
    Art frowned, his forehead sloping into a V. “Yeah, whatever,” he finally agreed. “Shelley, take the day off. Come back with your head in the right place tomorrow.”
    “Thank you,” John said, so relieved he could have cried. “Thank you, sir. I won’t disappoint you.”
    The respect brought him some back. “You want me to get rid of this stuttering freak?” Art asked John as he jabbed his thumb at Ray-Ray.
    John thought about it for a good second, but he couldn’t spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder for this asshole. “We’re fine,” he said. “Right, Ray?”
    “Yeah, yeah,” Ray-Ray said. “We cool. We cool.”
    “Shut up,” Art said. “I don’t want to see you back here until Wednesday morning, you got that?”
    Ray-Ray nodded. Twice.
    Art gave the prostitute a scathing look, then told John, “Get her out of here before we start losing customers.”
    John didn’t think he had a choice. The whore had grabbed on to him again, her bony fingers pressing into his arm just above the elbow. He started walking alongside her because something told him if he didn’t, she’d end up face-first in the street.
    Traffic whizzed by as they walked up Piedmont Avenue. John saw about a zillion SUVs and sports cars going up and down this road every day. With Buckhead at one end and Ansley Park at the other, the only crappy cars John saw on the road belonged to the maids, landscapers, pool boys and all the other hapless souls who made their living doing the shitwork rich folks didn’t have to do.
    “Fucking asshole,” the pross muttered as they waited for the light. Her bony fingers pressed deeper into his flesh as she tried to steady herself on her ridiculously high heels. “Hold up a minute,” she finally relented, keeping her grip on him as she took off one, then the other shoe. “Fucking heels.”
    “Yeah,” John said, because she was obviously expecting an answer.
    “It’s red,” she told him, jerking him into the street as traffic stopped for the light. “Christ, my feet hurt.” She looked up at him as they reached the other side of the intersection. “I gotta loose tooth, you know? From where he kicked me.”
    “Oh,” John said, thinking she was either stupid or crazy if she thought he had the extra money to send her to the dentist. “Okay. Yeah. Sorry.”
    “No, you dumb prick. I’m saying I can use my hands but you can’t put it in my mouth.”
    John didn’t realize he was clenching his teeth until his jaw started to ache. “No,” he answered. “That’s okay.”
    “Lissen.” She stopped, dropped her hand, and started swaying like a raft in the middle of a tsunami. “You can head on back, Romeo. I can make it the rest of the way myself.”
    “No,” he repeated, this time taking her arm in his hand. With his luck, she’d fall into the street and the cop would pin a manslaughter charge on him. “Let’s go.”
    “Whoops,” she breathed, her knee buckling as she slipped on a broken section of sidewalk.
    “Steady,” he told her, thinking she was so thin he could feel the bone in her arm moving against the flesh.
    Out of the blue, she told him, “I don’t take it up the ass.”
    John couldn’t think of which was worse: the thought of her mouth or the thought of her asshole. A quick glance at the sores on her arms and legs made him taste the peanut butter and banana