Year of the Rat

Chapter 5

Cyrus expected JoJo Skaggs to be a gangster. A good-looking guy in a debonair Armani suit and impeccable swirling tie, surrounded by an entourage of muscled men. Who else would own a shady nightclub and ride around in a stretch limousine? Who else could the woman draped in mink at the corner possibly be waiting for?

Instead, a pair of shiny burgundy bluchers stepped out of the limo. Attached to them, brown corduroy pants that flared out at the bottom, covered slightly by an oversized chocolate mink coat that ruffled in the cold wind. Cyrus’s eyes rose to a beige turtleneck with a gold chain that reflected off the waning sunlight like ice, and round burnt umber-colored sunglasses.

Cyrus’s eyes stopped at the man’s head. JoJo Skaggs was a small man. Couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. He was built like a turtle, with a short neck and hulking shoulders even though he didn’t have much muscle. His chestnut hair—what was left of it—was styled into a neat perm, and he wore a well-trimmed Van Dyke beard. He stood tall out of the limousine and waited as the woman stretched her arms and hugged him. He took the hug like a king took a bow, hardly reciprocating. He gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

“We’re gonna be late, baby,” the woman said.

“We had a little problem,” JoJo said. His voice was cold. “It’s good now.”

The woman stepped into the limo.

“Are you coming?” she asked.

Cyrus sensed JoJo’s eyes on him. He quickly lowered his eyes and resumed spraying. Still, he felt the man’s eyes on him, like he was regarding him. JoJo was burning a hole in his back. Cyrus made his way toward the side of the building, but still the hairs on his neck raised.

Finally, JoJo’s gaze relented.

“I need to check on something,” he said.

“Nuts to that!” the woman said. “You know how Donnie gets when we’re late, baby.”

“Maybe he’ll have to get like that again.”

The woman sighed heavily.

“Leave the car running,” JoJo said in a sharper tone, probably to the limo driver. “I’ll be back in five.”

In the corner of his eye, Cyrus watched as JoJo strode across the sidewalk to the front door. The short man paused momentarily before opening the door, like he was keeping an eye on Cyrus.

Suddenly, Cyrus’s heart raced. A little voice told him to run, run, run. He was going to get himself killed. He felt that usual pang in his gut of adventure and danger and excitement. Something about this guy chilled him like no others had—not even Murgalen.

In half a second, the side of the building skirted to the right and he was back at the Wicked Cat, sitting in the booth in the corner under a mason jar light, talking to Rocco and Luna. Luna, dressed in her usual pink flannel with the first button undone, long blonde hair and creamy brown eyes, and Rocco in his leather jacket and jet-black moussed hair nursing a glass of scotch that reminded Cyrus of caramel syrup.

“We’ve been thinking about it, bud,” Rocco said, “and the way we see it, Becca is six kinds of screwed.”

Luna elbowed him. “Babe, stop!”

“Somebody’s gotta level with him,” Rocco said. “Desmond isn’t being honest with ya. It’s been bothering me for a while.”

Luna slid Rocco’s glass away. “What Mr. i***t here means to say is that we are here for you, Cy.”

Cyrus stared into his glass of strawberry soda. The ice cubes had turned into jagged chips.

“I’m not giving up,” he said. “That’s not in my blood. It’s not in Bec’s blood either.”

Luna grabbed his hands.

“Cy, I love that about you,” she said. “You shouldn’t give up. The glass is half full!”

“No, it’s not,” Rocco said. “It’s not even half empty. Dude, you don’t even have a glass.”

Luna punched him on the shoulder.

“If you were him, you’d want to know,” Rocco said under his breath.

Cyrus looked up. “Know what?”

“The reason Desmond keeps telling you there are no options is because there are no good options,” Rocco said.

good “Rocco, stop,” Luna said. “Now.”

“If you stop, I’ll throw my drink in your face,” Cyrus said.

Luna glanced nervously between the two of them. “Cy, some things are better left unknown. Mr. i***t here is about to say something really, really bad.”

The trigger on his spray wand clicked.

Crap. He was out of juice.

JoJo, still standing at the front door, finally went in and shut the door behind him.

Cyrus sighed. He checked his watch.

JoJo said he needed five minutes. That meant Cyrus had two minutes to get up to his office.

Cyrus slipped into the alley and offloaded his spray pack. He found the c***k in the exterior wall he had noted on his survey of the property.

Safely in the shadows, he focused his energy on the hole as his body shrank down into a rat. His bones reeled down upon themselves as if beckoned by an invisible pulley. His incisors elongated as if out of nowhere, and his tail sprang from his back.

His feet hit the gravelly asphalt. His whiskers caught a universe of city smells like little webs. Cigarette smoke, watery women’s perfume, the thick, masculine odor of a men’s cologne that was layered on a little too thick…

And the hole. The smell of rotting food drifted out of the fist-sized hole in the foundation between two bricks. Cyrus squeezed himself between the cracks and threw himself into darkness.