Bait: A Novel Read online

  “Where . . . ?”

  The shock of his surroundings, the confusion, it was almost too much. He felt light-headed, the muscles in his face going soft, a bubble of watery vomit catching in his throat. Hands clasped behind his head, fingers pulling hair, Nash hissed with pain as he fought to stay focused.

  “What . . . what are we doing here?”

  Nash threw his head back and breathed deep to try to offset the panic pushing inside his chest. The sun was hot and high in the sky, suggesting noon. The figure began to rock on its haunches, drawing Nash’s attention. Its movements were compulsive, unhinged, suggestive of a mental patient or victim in shock. Nash feared both.

  “Who are you?” he asked, taking a step back.

  The figure snorted and spat. It flew like a bullet, making a dent in the sand. Nash took it as a warning shot, but cared little. He challenged with his own gob, planting it between them.

  “You got a name?”

  He considered tagging bitch onto his question, but decided against it. Puffing chests felt premature, and judging by the situation so far, he thought it unwise to make enemies. It was becoming clear that the squatting figure was a woman, albeit an ugly one. The high voice implied a chick, but the fearlessness in the tone made Nash unsure. He looked closer and saw the curve of breast under her dirty Harley-Davidson T-shirt. She examined a clump of tangled hair hanging in her face and didn’t reply. Nash raised his voice.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you.”

  Phlegm rattled in the woman’s throat and she spat with more menace, this time in Nash’s direction, the gob missing him by a foot.

  “Name’s Nunya,” the woman said.

  “Nunya?”

  Nash knew he’d stepped in it as soon as the word left his lips. He rolled his eyes before she replied. He’d used this one himself countless times.

  “Yeah, Nunya fucking business.”

  Nash laughed. He didn’t know why. The woman turned and regarded him with a scowl. Nash stopped laughing at the sight of her. Calling her ugly was a mistake. She might have been a looker if she bothered to clean herself up. Disheveled, reddish-brown hair hung in near dreadlocks alongside her dirty face. She looked battle scarred, war weary; ripe for early retirement. Nash’s tongue perused a few gaps in his teeth, reminding him that he was no spring chicken either.

  “Well, pleased to meet you, Nunya,” he said with a smirk. “I’m Nash.”

  She let out a haughty breath at the introduction and turned away. She was in no mood for pleasantries, evidenced by her third spit in as many minutes.

  “Ah, Christ, man,” she said. “I’m not having you call me that for the rest of whatever. My name’s Ginger. Don’t forget it. I ain’t telling you again.”

  Nash was sure he could remember. “Ginger. Okay, got it. Is that a nickname or something?”

  Ginger leaned back and stretched out on the sand, already tired of his questions. Behind her, Nash noticed a set of footprints trailing off into the brush. There was at least one more person around.

  What have we gotten ourselves into? he thought.

  He looked back at the three unconscious bodies. They all looked like inner-city trash: worn clothes and bad complexions. Nothing respectable about any of them and no question they were all from the same bracket of society. The one found around the rim of Miami’s asshole.

  I wonder who the worst of this bunch is. . . .

  The worst what, Nash wasn’t even sure. Ginger scratched her arm savagely. The action cued Nash to do the same. The itching was just beginning.

  “Don’t suppose you got a clue about any of this?” Nash asked.

  Ginger sat back up, flinging dreadlocks out of her face, thin frame rigid with attitude. She simply stared at him. Nash’s annoyance grew at her lack of an answer.

  “What the fuck is happening here?”

  Ginger shrugged nonchalantly. The smile she gave was surprisingly sweet and might have fooled others, but Nash caught wind of the bullshit behind it. He recognized her type, little liar playing mind games. Nash had banged broads like her throughout his music career: aspiring actresses and singers with habits to feed, wading into the party scene, hoping to suck or fuck for a foot in the door before fading away or burning out.

  “Maybe we’re sweepstakes winners,” she said finally.

  Nash sighed. “You got no idea, do you?”

  He gave her his most unimpressed look, but she didn’t notice. She couldn’t have been less interested in him or his opinion of her. Instead, she turned to face the ocean, closing her eyes to the breeze that came off the water and brushed her cheeks.

  “Honestly, I don’t have a clue, cowboy . . . unless this is some messed-up reality TV show, or Candid Camera on crack.”

  The thought suddenly seemed plausible in lieu of any other explanation. Nash scanned the bushes and trees, searching for a hidden camera lens among the leaves or a boom mic among the branches.

  “Of course, I’m gonna beat the living shit out of the host when they unveil themselves,” Ginger continued. “We’ll see how much TV personality they have after I ram a whole camera crew up their ass.”

  Her volume was enough to awaken the black man. He stirred and grunted, fingers raking the sand. His skin was the color of coal, a graying goatee prominent on his tired face. Muscular arms and shoulders implied a well-kept physique, but his unbuttoned shirt revealed a bloated belly. The man awakened slowly, painfully. He rolled over and rose with his back to them, shaking sand from his salt-and-pepper dreadlocks. Nash figured the guy was well past forty.

  “Wakey, wakey,” Nash said. “Rise and shine.”

  The man spun at the sound of his voice. His posture became defensive, beady brown eyes darting between Nash and Ginger, hands balling into fists and rising to strike.

  “It’s alright, man,” Nash assured him, his own hands held out in a calming gesture. “Take it easy now. We’re just as confused as you are.”

  The man’s wary eyes stayed on them while he patted down the pockets of his cargo shorts. Nash realized that he hadn’t checked his own pockets and copied. Everything that should have been there was missing. Ginger smirked at both of them.

  “You won’t find anything,” she cawed. “I already searched the lot of you.”

  The man shot her a cold look. “So your hands found their way into my pants already, huh?”

  She waved a middle finger. “Get bent.”

  The man returned the gesture, backing up until he was satisfied with the distance. A look of worry flashed across his face, gone as quickly as it had come, but Nash took note. The man needed something, a fact, an answer, a truth he could use as a starting point, but he looked too proud, too resilient to ask anyone for a favor. Nash knew exactly how he felt. He offered to get the ball rolling.

  “Name’s Nash. What’s yours?”

  The man didn’t answer. Instead he checked around, head movements twitchy with something akin to a nervous tic as he gathered all he could from his surroundings. When he wasn’t satisfied he turned back with knitted eyebrows and head cocked in question.

  “Hell if I know, pal,” Nash replied.

  The man nodded as if he fully understood. Nash got the impression that this cat woke up in random places on a regular basis. He swung a pointed finger over to Ginger by way of introduction.

  “That’s Ginger. We just met.”

  “What about the others over there?” the man asked, thumbing to the last two unconscious bodies. “Who they?”

  “No idea. They’ve been out cold since we woke up. I’ve never seen them before in my life.”

  The man analyzed the other man lying facedown in the sand, obviously the youngest among them, just a kid, really, probably not even legal drinking age. The Hispanic woman looked a few years older.

  “Your name?” Nash asked again.

  The man le
t out a rumbling cough to clear his throat and composed himself a little. When he spoke his voice took on new depth and grit.

  “Felix is the name. Looks like we got us one more?”

  He jabbed his goatee toward the trail of footprints leading away from them. Ginger said nothing. Nash shrugged.

  “I guess so, but I haven’t seen anyone else. I woke up not long before you did.”

  Nash paused, expecting Ginger to add something to the conversation. She seemed about as interested in talking as getting off her ass. Nash shrugged again.

  “Wish I could tell you more.”

  He walked down to the water’s edge and let the small waves rush around the soles of his worn sneakers, sinking his heels back into the sand as they retreated. An awkward silence descended.

  “Are we on an island?” Felix finally asked.

  “Don’t know.”

  Nash scanned the beach and vegetation and realized they likely inhabited very little landmass. He felt stupid. He hadn’t even thought to ask important questions. Felix wasn’t impressed.

  “How’d we get here?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Well, what do you know?”

  Nash chewed his bottom lip and said nothing. Felix waited impatiently, his agitation growing. He finally turned his back and shook his head.

  “Fucking crackers,” he said. “All y’all never know shit about shit.”

  “Oh, fuck you, Sambo,” Nash spat. “I’m sure you know less than I do.”

  Felix glared at him. “Call me that again, motherfucker. I dare you.”

  Nash drew in breath as Felix’s fists clenched and readied. Ginger’s squeal of laughter ended everything before it began.

  “Oh, yeah, we’re gonna get along just fine.”

  Four

  TWO DAYS AGO.

  “Sure, we’ll get along fine.”

  Ginger Rosen realized she was talking aloud as she sat on the cold toilet and squeezed out a half pint. The speech she had been practicing over and over in her head had grown angrier and was now working her mouth as well as her brain. Curtis was dreaming if he thought she’d be up for his little suggestion. Sarcasm coated her words before she spat them out.

  “We’ll all get along like a frigging house on fire.”

  Things between her and Curtis had been going from bad to worse, and now his demand for a threesome, with that bitch Rita no less, was her cue to start forming an exit strategy. Despite Curtis’s assurances that they could all play nice, the idea of sharing a squeaky bed with one of his skank associates made Ginger’s skin crawl. God knew what STDs Rita was carrying. Ginger didn’t need any more complications in her life, and certainly none of that variety. Her past scrapes with the clap were more than enough. What Ginger needed was a distraction. The poster plastered to the inside of the stall door screamed at her in fiery orange graffiti:

  Fuel Injector Live @ The Barracuda Room 10pm show. $5 cover. Ladies free!

  There was a photo of the band below. The members looked well past their prime, posing against a brick wall under the misguided impression that they were in any way still cool or relevant. She thought about tearing the poster down and wiping her cooch with it. When she found no toilet paper in the dispenser, she did.

  “Fucking dump,” she muttered as she elbowed open the stall door. “Why do I keep coming back here?”

  Her mind was a reflex. Because it’s one of the only bridges left that you haven’t burned yet.

  Ginger went to the bathroom mirror and looked at the reflection of a woman who wasn’t allowed in very many local establishments anymore. A single long crack down the middle of the glass refracted her slim body, making her appear even thinner. Greasy streaks on the surface smeared her features. Bloodshot eyes were returning to normal, though she still felt a little high. There was a residual paranoia that she could never shake after smoking the hash she pilfered from Curtis’s stash, something she planned to bury soon under a much stronger score, if she was lucky.

  Ginger shook out her hair and undid another button on her shirt, letting her cleavage pop more. Her perfect C-cups had aided and abetted her for as long as she could remember, though judging by the space for rent inside her bra these days, her tits had shrunk to a B. Her previous kind of pull had shrunk with them. She reapplied lipstick and touched up her mascara until she was sure she’d attained that fuckable look that always seemed to bring boons from others.

  She walked out to the bar. Still early, but the Barracuda Room was starting to get busy, despite its notoriety as a dive. A stale, sour smell hung in the air. The sticky floor hadn’t been washed in weeks. An overabundance of neon beer and liquor signs on the walls served as the only decorations. Her stool at the end of the bar was still vacant. Jojo the bartender was good about keeping it free of other customers. Ginger sat and he had a vodka-cran in front of her before she even opened her mouth.

  “Thanks, handsome.”

  Jojo winked. “I know what my girl likes.”

  Ginger was nobody’s girl, but she winked back nonetheless. It was a half joke coming from him, but she knew he’d bang her in a New York minute if she ever gave the green light. Tickling his fancy just enough kept the odd free drink coming. She conceded Jojo was cute, extra points for putting up with her bad nights and occasional temper, but he was not her type. No one was her type. If she ever got too hard up, however, she knew the bartender would pay one way or another to bed her. She kept that opportunity simmering on the back burner, knowing her impending bust-up with Curtis would leave her in need of both cock and cash. Ginger batted eyelashes at Jojo as he snuck another look at her cleavage.

  “If you could see me now, Curtis . . .” she mumbled.

  Curtis Moffat, her unfaithful partner of two years, no doubt cooking up a spoon with Rita in some motel room right about now, would find his ass dumped by the end of the week. It was a good thing. Ginger didn’t like what he was getting into nowadays. When she first hooked up with him he’d only dealt pot and prescription pills. It wasn’t long before he graduated to coke and smack, but more recently he’d been running guns. She didn’t want to know what else he might be involved in.

  Ginger sipped her drink and scanned the room for prospects. Slim pickings, hardly worth a second glance, but one person managed to catch her eye. A man, and maybe a bit of a looker, stared at her from the gloom behind the pool tables at the back. She held his gaze long enough to suggest invitation.

  Game on, she thought.

  He didn’t move, just sipped his Corona and kept staring, not even coy about it. Ginger looked away, pretending to be interested in the selection of bottles on the bar racks. When she looked back his eyes were still fixed. She felt the intensity from across the room.

  Been a while, sailor?

  And a sailor he might be. He looked the part: clean shaven, dark hair in a buzz cut, trim figure, and nice clothes. So completely out of place, Ginger could only assume he was in port for the week with some shore leave. She hoped he had some cash to burn and a sweet tooth for a fix, hard candy or better. She took an ice cube in with a gulp of cocktail and crunched it, raising an eyebrow at her new fan’s improper stare.

  “You think I’m gonna come to you, bub?” she muttered.

  The man seemed to hear that. He took another sip of beer and began making his way over, sidestepping the clubgoers between them. Ginger looked away again and counted down the seconds in her head until his arrival.

  Six, five, four, three, two—

  “Hello there, gorgeous.”

  She turned. He was a little older than she’d originally thought, but better looking up close and out of the shadows. The New York accent had its charm.

  “Hi.”

  “You look thirsty. Can I buy you a drink?”

  It was a terrible opener. Ginger almost walked. She reconsidered, eyeing his figure, taking not
e of his dimpled chin and strong hands. It wasn’t every day that such hotness offered to buy her a round. She resolved to give him a three-strike limit.

  “As soon as I finish this one you can,” she replied, taking another sip.

  He chuckled. “So, what’s a girl like you doing in a joint like this?”

  Not much better. Ginger thought it was she who should be asking him that question. She was right at home in the Barracuda Room. He looked like he had the wrong address.

  “Is there somewhere better I should be?”

  The man grinned. “Maybe.”

  Ginger played it so cool it might have come off frigid, but she took the straw out of her drink and nibbled the end to give him a preview of her mouth at work.

  “You got something in mind, sailor?”

  “That depends.”

  “And on what does it depend?”

  The man paused, checked over his shoulder, leaned closer. The overapplication of aftershave was offensive, coming off of him like fumes, enough that if Ginger had been smoking they probably both would have gone up in flames.

  “What are you into?” he asked, his tone lowering.

  Ginger smirked. “What am I into? You kinky or something?”

  The man’s cheeks reddened. “No, I mean, I’m just wondering if you like to . . . um, if you like to party.”

  “I always like to party, baby.”

  “Well, I can hook you up if you wanna follow me outta here. Anything you want, anything at all. I got it.”

  “How much?”

  “I’m sure we can work something out.”

  Ginger couldn’t believe her luck. Excitement gripped her, but alarm followed quick on its heels. Ginger was used to the unusual, but this was getting uncomfortable as well. The guy and the speed at which the conversation was going didn’t add up.

  “Anything I want, you say?” she asked.

  “Just name your poison.”

  She didn’t like that, or the grin that followed. A particular memory suddenly struck her, that of an old acquaintance named Talia Wint, a working girl who had become a cautionary tale in the neighborhood. Eight months prior, Wint went missing from her corner for a week before her headless corpse wound up in a Dumpster. The body was a mess, according to the grapevine, so bad that people avoided discussing the details. The head never reappeared. Case still unsolved. Ginger looked over at Jojo, trying to get him to notice her new suitor, but he was too busy at the opposite end of the bar dealing with a pair of loudmouthed bitches.