Bloodshot - Cherie Priest [64]
Or at least that’s what I thought it said. The mister’s handwriting was bad, and rushed. I scanned it again, concluded that I’d been right the first time, and wondered exactly which “Peachtree” street “Peachtree Circuit” might be. If you’ve never been to Atlanta, then let me save you a bit of grief. If someone tells you something’s on “Peachtree,” you must demand that they get more specific. There are probably a dozen incarnations of Peachtree, going in at least that many directions through every part of town.
In short, even though I’m fairly familiar with the city, I’d need to find a phone book or an Internet connection before I could draw any conclusions about where this place was located.
All the way back to my condo I wondered what the address was, and what it signified. Sister Rose. I could’ve gathered by the deJesus home décor that they were Catholic, but were we talking a convent? Did they even have convents in downtown Atlanta? Upon reflection, I was forced to admit that I didn’t see why not, but that didn’t make it feel any less weird to me.
And if Sister Rose was a contact for Adrian deJesus, I’d have to do my best to look her up. Thank God (or whoever) that lore about the crucifixes isn’t true.
I made a mental note that I shouldn’t assume Adrian shared his family’s last name. For whatever reason, he obviously wasn’t considered part of the family anymore, so he might’ve renamed himself.
Back at the homestead, I ran a search through Google Maps and was a bit surprised (and aggravated) to learn that the address was less than five miles from the deJesus home. In fact, the longer I stared back and forth between the helpful little map and the squished piece of paper, the more I suspected that I’d drawn some incorrect conclusions about Sister Rose and the nature of the location. Another quick Internet search confirmed my new suspicions.
This was the address of a drag bar called “the Poppycock Review.”
Sister Rose indeed. No wonder the mister didn’t want to talk about what junior was up to in his spare time. Or, erm, her (?) spare time. I’ve never been very clear about how the pronouns were supposed to work in such circumstances as these. I decided to err on the side of caution and assume that, just in case … Sister Rose might be a woman who knew Adrian deJesus. And I’d sort out the particulars later.
I would’ve gone out that same night, except that I didn’t want to drive all the way back out to the heart of the gayborhood when I’d practically been right there not an hour before. Atlanta traffic is not the sort of stuff that inspires a body to commute, even in the evenings.
Especially in the evenings, in that part of the city. It’s a popular destination.
Instead, I settled in with a long hot bath and the television remote, or that was the plan until I figured out I hadn’t paid my cable bill in a couple of years. Therefore, confronted with the wasteland of network television—until I realized that my TV wasn’t even compatible with the “digital revolution”—I closed up all my windows, locked everything lockable, and called it a day.
When the sun set and I woke up the next evening, it was far too early to approach any self-respecting drag bar. Instead, I made a point to pick up a new stash of disposable cell phones—buying one each from three different drugstores. I memorized the numbers and stuck the phones in a drawer, just like I kept them in Seattle. And after I’d done a ritual Checking of the Living Space, I concluded that no one was listening and no one was watching, because if I didn’t, I couldn’t make the necessary phone calls with any peace of mind.
I didn’t call the Bad Hatter. I didn’t have anything new or important things to say to him, and it would only piss him off if he thought I was wasting his time just to tell him I was alive. I couldn’t call the stray kids because—if they’d followed directions—they didn’t have a phone anymore. So I sealed one of the new phones into a padded envelope and express-mailed it to a post