Penance Read online

  Penance

  Penance

  By Rick R. Reed

  Untreed Reads Publishing

  Copyright 2011 by Rick R. Reed

  Cover Copyright 2011 by Dara England and Untreed Reads Publishing

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  Originally published in print by Dell Publishing, July 1993.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Rick R. Reed and Untreed Reads Publishing

  Crime Scene

  Obsessed

  http://www.untreedreads.com

  In memory of my mother and my father.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  PART TWO

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Jeanne Cavelos, for her editorial wisdom, and to Ron Walter, for his support and encouragement. And a special thanks to Jay Hartman and K.D. Sullivan for bringing Penance to the e-Book market.

  Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest.

  —Psalm 11, verse 6

  Holy Bible, King James version

  Prologue

  “Voices of the Streets” by Keira Lamb

  (From Real Chicago magazine, pp. 18-20 October, 1992)

  Chicago’s uptown boasts a diverse mix: hillbillies from Kentucky, renovating yuppies shoring up ailing grey-stones, poor people, the homeless.

  And the kids.

  As a kid in uptown, you learn early that the only way to survive the streets is to know them. Those that don’t absorb the lesson usually don’t make it in this small patch of crowded landscape bordered on one side by the cold, unforgiving waters of Lake Michigan and on the others by decaying buildings, clogged city streets, and other signposts of urban blight.

  Uptown’s kids fall into three categories: the invisible are the ones who go to school, come home, and do their homework. These kids rarely venture out into the street; they do not play games at the Arcade or hang out at the Butera Supermarket, panhandling for change. To survive, they know a low profile is the only profile. These kids, often the children of Asian immigrants, are the ones who will leave uptown behind and will move north to more insulated destinies.

  There are the hustlers and the runaways. These two groups often intermingle. A runaway learns fast that a quick exchange of sex for money can often mean the difference between eating and starving. Morality goes out the window in the face of real hunger. These kids do what they can to survive.

  It’s not so bad. I mean, I’m not gonna be doin’ this, like, forever, you know? I intend to rise above all this one day. And I know I will, because I have psychic powers. I can sell my body, but nobody can touch my mind, and that’s what counts.

  —Miranda, teenage prostitute

  Many of them seek refuge in drugs (crack is easily found here and its access and low price offer a tempting escape to the street’s cold realities), alcohol (fortified wines, such as Mad Dog 20/20 and Cisco, are popular), and sex.

  AIDS is not a consideration.

  That’s what the faggots get. You know, the guys down on Halstead. I make sure when I go with a date, that he’s clean. You can tell a lot by a person’s appearance: the way he dresses, what kind of car he drives. Most of my tricks are married. I don’t go with no creeps.

  —Jimmy, thirteen-year-old hustler

  Neither is the danger many of them face when they choose a life of hustling. The John Wayne Gacys, Larry Eylers, and Jeffrey Dahmers of the world exist only in legend, fairy tales on newsprint. These killers and a legion of others less infamous who would do these kids harm are unreal until the moment one of them strikes.

  The moment when it’s too late.

  The one thing these kids have in common with their other, more affluent counterparts is the perennial belief that they are invincible. That it can’t happen to them.

  I can make over a hundred dollars in one night.

  —Little T, fifteen-year-old hustler

  And along with this belief comes the other belief that if they work hard enough at it, they’ll meet a rich John who will take them away from this life spent trying to find a warm place to sleep or struggling through the day with some food in one’s belly. All the kids who hustle for a living tell you they do it for the money and that the financial rewards are just too great for them to stop.

  In reality, these kids can be had for as little as five or ten dollars, if the buyer knows how to negotiate.

  And knows how to read despair on a youthful face. And knows how to exploit that despair.

  One of my Johns, man, he treats me like his own kid. You know, I waltz right by that fuckin’ doorman in this John’s Gold Coast building just as pretty as you please. He don’t pay me no attention. That’s ’cause when I’m with Saul, I belong, man. You understand that?

  —War Zone, fifteen

  Those who exploit the streets are the shrewdest of all. Cruising uptown for “chicken” is a game learned from hard-won experience. The winners at this game know how to manipulate the child that still breathes in these foul-mouthed, streetwise vessels. Know how to zero in on that little kid and use the innocence that no drugs, no amount of prostitution, hard knocks, gang violence, or alcohol can erase.

  Take, for example, the action here on a typical Saturday night…

  The magazine, half of its pages covered with black ash and dirt, skittered along Kenmore Street in uptown Chicago. A fat boy named Avery picked it up, plucking it out of the gutter. He examined the pictures of buildings just like the ones that surrounded him and read a little of the copy.

  Then he smirked.

  And pitched the magazine back into the gutter. Snow was in the air.

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Lawrence Avenue was alive with rain-slicked excitement. Here, in Chicago’s uptown, royal blue, yellow, and green neon reflected off the pavement’s darkness. Cold night air. Steam rushing up through manhole covers. Christmas lights in neighborhood bar windows beckoned passersby with watery promises of “Christmas cheer.”

  Jimmy Fels occupied his street corner. At thirtee
n, he already knew the poses. There was a casual defiance in the way he leaned against the storefront doorway, pelvis thrust out just enough to attract the interest of the cars cruising by more slowly than the others. He wore a faded jean jacket, Metallica T-shirt, pegged jeans, and Reebok Pumps. His ripped T-shirt deliberately exposed a nipple and a flash of smooth white stomach. The top of the T-shirt was cut away to reveal a gold rope chain, glinting in the glow of the streetlight above him.

  Green eyes, wizened beyond their years, stared out of a pale face. He brought a cigarette to his full lips, lips almost too feminine and full for a boy, too ripe for anything clean. His hair, freshly washed, was still damp, looking darker than blond.

  He tried not to appear too interested in the cars passing by, some slowing down to take a look at him. He knew it was bad to look too hungry. Make them think you’re doing them a favor…always keep the upper hand. Street knowledge passed on. Remember Gacy. Remember Larry Eyler and what he did to Danny Bridges, the boy who ended up chopped into pieces and thrown into a Dumpster. Get it over with as quickly as possible and keep moving. But he looked anyway, his eyes moving slowly, catching glances out of the corners, and saw the shadows of men leaning forward, their faces ghostly through car windows.

  *

  Dwight Morris looked at himself in his bathroom mirror. Forty-two years old, he thought, forty-two years old and you can’t even tell. The Cubs baseball cap was positioned just so, with the bill facing backward. His acid-washed Levi’s jacket hung loosely on him, with the cuffs of the sleeves turned up. Under the jacket, he wore an old grey-hooded sweatshirt unzipped just enough to show the New Kids T-shirt underneath. The mirror didn’t reveal the pegged black jeans and the BK high tops.

  Dwight smiled at himself, exposing the boyish gap in his teeth. The hint of rouge on his cheeks made him look flushed; a young boy.

  I must look at least twenty-five years younger.

  *

  Jimmy imagined their yearning.

  He was cold, but didn’t want to warm himself. That would destroy the pose. The tough guy. So his arms remained at his sides, the cigarette an orange glow in one hand, held between thumb and forefinger. Too many suburban guys tucked at home with wife and kiddies, Indiana Jones on the VCR, lust for his little thirteen-year-old ass on their minds.

  “Isn’t it a little cold out here for you, little boy?”

  Jimmy jumped at the sound of a girl’s voice. He turned to his left and there she was. Miranda. Tonight she was wearing a black derby, a big black sweatshirt, urban camouflage pants, black leg warmers, army boots. Christ.

  An amused grin played about her lips. “Shouldn’t you be home in bed, little boy? I think your mama has some cocoa and Oreos waiting.”

  “Real funny, ’Ran. C’mon, gimme a fuckin’ break. I’m workin’.”

  Miranda rolled her eyes. “Slow night?” She took off the black derby she wore and ran her hand through her close-cropped red hair, making it stand on end.

  “It is with you standin’ there blockin’ the fuckin’ view.”

  Miranda shook her head. “I can see we’re in a mood tonight.” She started away from him, hips sashaying, swinging her bag.

  “Hey.” Jimmy took a last drag off his cigarette, flicked it into the gutter.

  Miranda stopped and turned, cocked her head. “Thought you didn’t want to be bothered.”

  Jimmy raised his hands to her. “See ya later?”

  Miranda shrugged. “Depends on how it goes.”

  “Right. That’s cool.”

  Jimmy watched her walking away. Who would she find tonight? Would she make enough to buy herself a bottle of Cisco?

  “How you doin’, son?”

  The man’s voice made Jimmy take his eyes away from Miranda. He pulled a cigarette out of his jacket pocket and lit it, cupping his hand to shield the flame, before he looked up.

  It was the creep. At least that’s what Jimmy called him. Some fucking preacher who lived around here. Tall, thin, pasty white with these little old-fashioned wire-rim glasses.

  “Beat it. I ain’t interested.” Jimmy sucked in on the cigarette, blew the smoke toward the man.

  The preacher made a gesture like a shrug, bringing his hands up, like I’m innocent.

  Right. “Look, man, I’m okay. All right? See you later?”

  Jimmy smirked as the preacher walked away, his hands dug deep in his pockets, head hunched down against the Chicago wind whistling down Lawrence, off the lake.

  A Toyota pickup pulled over to the curb. Black with neon detailing. The truck had these squiggles of hot pink and turquoise. Jimmy pretended not to notice at first, then glanced in the direction of the truck. There was some young guy inside, wearing a baseball cap backward, leaning over and rolling down the window. Jimmy leaned over to get a better look at the face.

  Wait a minute. Jimmy moved a little closer, trying to make it look like he’d just decided he wanted to cross the street or something. But he needed to get a better look.

  This guy wasn’t so young. There were lines around his eyes, across his forehead. He had so much makeup on his cheeks he looked like fuckin’ Bozo the Clown.

  It gave Jimmy the creeps. He liked the middle-aged guys. From the north shore, married, no strings. A quick blow and they’re outta here.

  The man wore a slight smile on his lips to hide the fear.

  The fear told Jimmy the guy was new to this; it would be easy for Jimmy to keep the upper hand. After a beat, Jimmy took a drag off his cigarette, stamped it out, and sauntered over to the truck. He placed his hand on its side; it was cold, but he wouldn’t let on. Jimmy took a look around the street, then leaned into the car.

  What was with this guy? Jimmy didn’t know whether to laugh or turn tail and run. As he leaned in and got a better look, he saw that the guy was trying to dress like a kid. Jeans, sweatshirt, high tops (BK’s, no less). And the New Kids T-shirt. Christ, where was this character from? The moon?

  The man sat back in the seat and licked his lips. Even though it was December, there was a line of sweat on his forehead. He played for a moment with the zipper on his sweatshirt, sliding it up and down. “How you doin’?” he asked. His voice came out high, a little shaky.

  “Could be better,” Jimmy responded, deepening his voice. A tough guy.

  “Yeah?” The man leaned closer to him. “How so?”

  “I need a little spending money,” Jimmy said. He looked away for a moment, searching the street. “My ma’s sick and I need to get somethin’ to eat.”

  “Well, maybe that could be arranged. Um…maybe you could earn it?”

  Something began to gnaw at the inside of Jimmy’s stomach when he saw the man’s sickly grin, filled with hope. “How? You mean like a chore or somethin’?” The man’s predatory smile made him pretty sure the guy was genuine, but he could still be a cop.

  “I don’t know. I could use a little company. Wanna hop in?

  “Depends.”

  “Well, just how much do you need?” the man asked, his voice still a little shaky. “I mean…to get something to eat.”

  “I don’t know. I could use thirty.”

  “That’s a lot for something to eat. Where did you want to go…Chez Paul?” The man gave this nervous laugh. He took his hat off and ran a hand through his hair. Jimmy noticed the receding hairline, the thin dark hair. When the man saw him looking, he quickly replaced the ball cap on his head.

  Jimmy decided this one wasn’t worth it. You can’t be too fuckin’ careful, not these days. That’s a lesson you learn real fast. He began to back away from the truck.

  “Hey! Where are you going?” The man craned his neck out the window.

  “Got someplace I gotta be.”

  “Wait. Come here.”

  Jimmy leaned back into the window, blowing out a sigh. “What?”

  “What’ll that thirty bucks buy?”

  Jimmy stood up straighter, taking his head out of th
e truck. The guy’s a cop, gotta be. He wants me to say it and name a price. Bam. Fuck him. “Listen: I gotta get movin’. It’s gettin’ late and my ma…”

  “Would you let me blow you for that?”

  “I…I don’t.” Jimmy looked around, then leaned back into the truck. The man unzipped his jeans and pulled out his dick. This wasn’t a cop. Still, there was something here he didn’t like.

  The man stroked it a couple times, then put it away. “I can give you forty, but you gotta make up your mind now, kid. I don’t have all night.”

  The man’s nervousness seemed to disappear all at once and Jimmy felt like things were getting out of his control. Still…forty bucks…it’s cold…who knows…maybe this might be it for tonight.

  Jimmy opened the door and hopped in. The truck smelled like stale cigarette smoke. There was a McDonald’s bag and a pink plastic hair barrette on the floor.

  B-96 was blaring on the radio, the bass thumping. The man turned the volume up to deafening and then shouted over the noise, “You like rap, man?” He bobbed his head ridiculously to the beat.

  “Yeah, sure,” Jimmy said, staring down at his hands, tightening them into fists, then relaxing, trying to stop them from shaking. What the fuck? he wondered.

  The man pulled away.

  Later, when they parked under a tree at Foster Avenue Beach, the man looked out the window and let his hand wander to Jimmy’s crotch. In the dark, the caress felt okay. Maybe if it could just end there. If just this once he didn’t have to go through with it. If just this once, the man would get the jitters, deciding not to finish this dance that had begun on the street corner. Jimmy just wanted to get it over with and get his money.

  Jimmy stared into the darkness outside the windshield.

  He felt the man begin to tug at the top of his jeans, fumbling with the buttons. Heard the breathing, coming heavier now. Fuck it. I ain’t gonna help him. Finally, he got his jeans open. Jimmy heard him suck in his breath when he saw his dick. They were always surprised when they saw a thirteen-year-old with such a big dick. Jimmy grinned in the darkness and removed the man’s hand before it had a chance to make contact with his penis.