FSE

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~ Chapter 31 ~

Colins Avenue, where Kat and Tiffany lived, was a shaded boulevard lined with oaks and elms. Most of the shaded parking spots on the street were taken. I didn't blame the drivers, I could still feel the difference between shade and sun as I walked from tree to tree. Tall red and white bricked apartment buildings and condos faced the avenue. Their manicured front lawns were fenced in with thin wrought-iron. These fences continued to gates, both bare and with an arched trellis. Waxy, broad-leafed rhizomes and bulbs accentuated the inside edge of the fences and buildings.

It was under one of these arches with leaves tickling through its iron bars that I took in the apartment building where, somewhere, Tiffany was coming down to let me in. I popped a mint and crunched it, feeling the evaporating coolness through my teeth as I breathed in. Colins Ave. was a much quieter, much cooler street than where Aaron lived.

Tiffany walked down the manicured pathway to the gate and waved. I waved back.

"Hi, Cade. Feeling better?" She fished out a key and worked the lock on the fence.

"Yeah, much better, thanks," I weaseled into the open gate Tiffany held for me, "How about you? Haven't had much time to talk, have we?"

"It's okay," Tiffany waved off my humbleness, "We all have our lives to lead. I'm doing fine. Kat's got a headache, though."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," Tiffany stepped through the gate, "I'm going for a food run now and am going to grab something for her. She's kind of testy because of the headache, just to warn you."

"Okay, thanks," I digested her words and turned to look at the building.

"The door to the right, second floor, 208," Tiffany winked, "I'll be back in a bit." She closed the gate with a reverberating click and was gone.

208 and I knocked on the door. A muffled voice on the other side called out, "Come in!" and I went inside.

The apartment was modest, but homey. It was larger than Aaron's and had wooden flooring instead of mainly carpet and linoleum. Curtains were drawn over the windows and floor lamps glowed a dim yellow. Past the dining room, which I seemed to be stepping into, was a small living room where Kat was lounging on a gray sofa.

"Hiya, Kit," Kat looked up from the sofa, "C'mere, sit. How you doing?"

I sat down on a love seat opposite the sofa that Kat had nestled into, "Can't complain, yet. Yesterday was pretty shitty. I locked myself in my room for most of the day. Thanks for helping me out."

"Well it wasn't your fault that Ezio slipped you something." She chuckled a laugh of resignation, "I wish I had something right now."

"Tiffany said you're not feeling the greatest, have a headache?"

"God, if only. I ran out of Xanax a while ago and things have gone to shit since."

"Couldn't you just get a refill?"

She looked at me as if I had said something obviously dumb, "Do you really think a doctor would give me prescription? There's no doctor in their right mind that'd fill one for me."

_Isn't anyone normal?_I thought. "So you got them from...." I prompted Kat.

"Remy. Who else?" she spat in contempt of herself.

_Well, so much for feeling better. _"He sells you Xanax?"

Again with that look of derision, "What are you, an idiot? It's his pet project. I let him use the tunnels and he gives me the Xanax, or hydrocodone, or oxycodone, or whatever he's pushing that shipment and he stays away from Tiffany."

I flashed back to Infinitá on the night I first met Kat. I was looking for Tiffany. "He did something to her?"

Kat's voice was shaking at this point. Her teary-eyes burned. "It was him and his buddies that felt-up Tiffany that night. I banned those assholes but Remy still could come in. It's his business, after all."

Ursula's voice echoed in my memory. Things were falling into place but I didn't know whether to be excited or horrified. "And Marc was okay with it? With Remy?"

"Of course not," Kat wiped away tears from her blood-shot eyes. She took a couple of deep breaths, "Of course not. He got taken in by the previous owners. Would you tell someone who was going to buy your business that one of the requirements was for you to help traffic prescription drugs?"

"I guess not." And there it was. The day I met Kat at Infinitá, before I went to talk to Aaron, she was jumpy and pulled me into a private office. There was a beer truck there and a deliveryman taking boxes out.

Who takes boxes of beer back out to a truck?

There it was.

My stomach was back on its habitual roller coaster and I was nauseous. Everything clicked and I was horrified.

"He got fleeced." Kat moaned loudly. It was an exhale to regain her composure. "Fuck, I hope Tiffany gets back soon. Remy's not gonna be getting me any until Thursday. I don't know if I can hold out that long."

My horror turned to anger as I looked at her, strung out. "How can you deal with him? He killed Aaron's boyfriend. Don't you know that?"

She glared at me with eyes that asked if I was really just now understanding everything, "Of course we knew about Bo. He used to be a regular customer."

That was new. Aaron didn't mention that. Maybe he didn't know? "It sounded like they had a whirlwind romance."

"No," Kat shook her head recollection, eyes in a different time, "They were dating for almost a year. Bo gave Aaron an early first-anniversary present at the club. I didn't see what it was." She swallowed and became expressionless. Her eyes remained distant. "That night after they left the club, Marc let Remy and his bodyguards use the Shanghai Highway - as we called it when we found out what it was initially used for. Look," her eyes pierced me and I couldn't help but feel only inches tall, "You don't operate out of a previous speakeasy without breaking more than one law. The original owners of Infinitá were going to make money one way or another." She settled back into the distant stoicism, "We knew something went wrong when Aaron came back to the club alone and got shit-faced drunk. He blacked out and we had to bring him back here." She patted the couch she was sitting on. "We all saw the murder on the news the next morning. Aaron acted as if he didn't know what was going on. He tried to call Bo's cell phone a bunch of times but nobody picked up. Later he was interviewed by the police - hell, we all were - but he said he was so drunk that night that all he remembered was drinking at the club and then waking up at our place."

There it was. That's what was going on - everything. Now that I knew, I didn't know what to do. My brain was stuck in neutral. There didn't seem to be anything I could do. "Aaron doesn't seem to be doing well, lately. Why did he get mixed up with Ezio?"

"He tries to forget it," Kat's distant eyes turned to me, "but you can still see it in him. When we saw you trying to get Aaron's attention, we thought that you'd help him move on and forget everything for good. Instead you fucked it up and made it worse." Her words pierced me deeper than her look ever reached, "You can't blame Aaron for trying to find someone that won't constantly bug him about his past. He wants to let it go so why don't you, too?"

I sat there feeling every one of her words. A clocked ticked somewhere, maybe in the kitchen, who knew? I tried to think of something to say. I wanted to yell at her, I wanted to tell her she was wrong, I wanted - hell if I knew what I wanted anymore.

"Umm..." my voice tapered off, "I should probably go."

Kat turned on her side and faced the inside of the couch, "Yeah, get out of here."

I walked to the door and slipped on my shoes. From the living room Kat called out, "I really am sorry about your sister."