Page 20 of Bronx

She isn’t wearing a bra.

I look for something else in the room to focus my attention on.

“Like I mentioned before, I haven’t heard from Lev in almost two months. I need you to find him for me, and I’m hoping you can do it in five days.”

“I can’t guarantee something like that,” I say, playing around with the lighter from my pocket. “You’re asking for the impossible.”

“Why do you have a lighter in your hand?”

“Because I smoke.”

“You can’t smoke in here.”

Uptight much?

“Wasn’t going to.”

She cocks her head to the side. “So, you’re telling me that you can’t find someone in five days?”

“I don’t know what your brother told you, but I’m not a private detective.”

I try clearing my throat, but it’s only a temporary fix to a problem I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life. Even after several corrective esophagus surgeries, I still live in chronic pain from the knife injury to my throat. I’m supposed to take prescription meds for the pain, but I rather smoke and drink whiskey instead. In fact, I’m headed straight for the first bar I see after I finish up here.

“But that’s all the time I have.”

“Until what?”

I try reading her face for answers.

“Until I have to move out of here. Me staying here is just a temporary situation.”

That probably explains why the two of us need to be finished with this conversation before someone named Kim comes home.

“You running from something?”

“No, I–”

“But that black eye is telling me something a little different. Are you running from whoever did that?”

“Ignore my eye,” she says abruptly, looking away from me and out the living room window.

I really want to fucking ignore her eye, but there’s a part of me my Mama raised that won’t allow it. How inconvenient is it that a part of my conscience I thought was long dead is coming forward at the most inopportune time?

“I need to know who hit you if I do this.”

“What?” She shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “Why? I told you to just ignore it. This has nothing to do with finding Lev.”

“I have to know all the variables I’m dealing with if I do this thing for you.”

“Just so I’m clear, what is it that you do exactly?”

“I’m a bounty hunter.”

“So you’re used to finding people.”

“This is very different from my norm. I’m usually given a case file which gives me tons of leads on where I might be able to find who I’m looking for. You haven’t given me diddly shit.”

“If I had a lot of leads, I wouldn’t need your help. If you need money, I have some saved, and if you need more than what I have, I’m sure that he will pay you the rest once you locate him.”