North and Shaw Out of Office - Gregory Ashe Page 0,4

to eat.”

So they each had a burger with the works at O’Connell’s, although Shaw peeled off the bun and put it in the paper basket with the fries and shoved them away.

“Paleo,” he said in response to the scowl on North’s face. “Our ancestors weren’t eating processed food like—”

North grabbed the basket and dumped the fries in with his own. He scooped up ketchup. He ate it. Loudly.

“Yeah,” Shaw said. “Please, go ahead. Help yourself.”

North grunted something and kept eating.

“I think Paleo would be great if you’d just give it a try. It’s really helped me with my food addiction, and I think you—”

This time, North made a noise that was definitely a growl and worked on the Bud Lite that sat in front of him. “Not tonight,” he said, setting down the beer. “No hipster bullshit tonight.”

“Paleo isn’t really a hipster thing. But thank you for expressing your feelings.”

North had to fight really, really hard not to dump the fries on Shaw’s man bun.

Their driver after dinner was Clarisse, who was spilling out of her seat and who laughed at everything they said. As she drove them toward Gravois and the Radio Girls, Clarisse asked about work, which North took as an opening to ask about her work.

“Sweetie,” she said, glancing into the rearview mirror to make eye contact with North, “I’ve got a baby, and I’ve got a husband in college. This job puts food on the table and covers the tuition. Why would I do something stupid like tell you where I took a fare?”

“We’ll pay you a hundred dollars,” North said.

Her round, shining face closed up, and she set herself forward a little more in the seat.

“Two hund—” North got that far before Shaw elbowed him.

“You know Radio Girls?” Shaw asked.

“I know it. I don’t go there if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve got a husband and a little girl.”

“I just want to know if you know it.”

“Yeah.”

“The guys you drove around last night, the ones you picked up, that’s not the usual clientele, right?”

“Everybody’s got their thing, sweetie. Everybody.”

“You know why they were there?”

Clarisse braked hard at the next light; on the corner, an abandoned Shell station had its sign for unleaded still fixed at $0.699, and Christ, North wondered when gas had ever been that cheap.

“Sweetie, I just drive them. I’ll drive anyone.”

“They go there to ruin the night for those women. They go there to make them feel bad about themselves. They go there to scare them. Did you ever know anybody like that, Clarisse?”

Clarisse shivered, and the ripple of movement through her large frame looked like quicksilver. “I went to school out in the county. Bussed out there to one of the Parkway schools; I won’t say which one because I don’t want you getting any ideas. But there was a boy like that. Richard Baker. He liked to take girls back to the big house his parents had. Especially city girls like me.”

The light ahead flicked green.

“He wanted to wow us. But it was more than that. He liked to ask about our houses. Just wanted to know what it was like. His eyes would get all soft and bright like he might cry. But you knew what he was doing. I knew. Even if I couldn’t put it into words.”

Behind them, a horn honked. North said, “Light’s green.”

“What happened to Richard Baker?” Shaw asked.

“He owns two sporting goods stores,” Clarisse said. “He used to go back to school and tell stories about us, about the stupid city girls. He made it sound like we’d never seen a commode indoors or hot water.”

“There are a lot of Richard Bakers out there,” Shaw said.

The horn blared again. North rolled down his window, stuck out his head, and shouted, “Go the fuck around or I’ll rip the steering wheel out of your fucking hands.”

A powder-blue VW Bug skated around them, the ancient driver clutching the wheel as though North might really carry out his threat.

“I guess I owe Richard Baker something,” Clarisse said, and she swung into a U-turn.

She drove them to Clayton, to a high-rise of mirrored glass and steel. At the end of the October day, lit up at the corners, it looked like an edifice out of some dark future, something Ridley Scott might have imagined.

“His name was Stefan,” Clarisse told them as she let them out. “That’s all they give us.”

“That’s great,” Shaw said as he squirmed out of the car.

“Thanks,” North said.

It was a nice high-rise. It had