Little Mules

You're just trying to fry up some meat when your sinister past stops by.

The food truck is parked in the rowdy estuary neighborhood known as Guncotton. It’s late. Meat smoke rises from the vents. A song by The Lash plays on a transistor radio. Drunks are loitering by the truck’s service window, waiting for their orders.

The cook sticks her head out, paper plate of food in one hand, grease-slick cleaver in the other. This is Batya. She’s wearing latex gloves and a thoroughly stained t-shirt with the truck’s logo on it.

“Number twelve,” she says, and one of the sots reaches up for the plate. She’s about to disappear back into the smoke when she spies a woman emerging from the night.

Bat purses her lips, runs her thumb along the edge of the cleaver. “Next,” she murmurs.

The woman steps up to the window, studies the menu scrawled in Bat’s shitty handwriting. This is Kuniko. Sleek, scarred. Hand resting against the buttons of her tailored blazer.

“Beef cheek any good?” she asks.

Bat gives her a level gaze. Then: “Yeah beef cheek’s good, everything’s good.”

“You have a second to talk?”

“Not really.”

“Batya, please, one second.”

“One Mississippi.”

Kuniko gives her a strained smile. “OK, how about one minute.” She shows Bat her hand. It’s covered in blood. “That’s all I have left, anyway.”

---

Bat drags Kuniko into her truck, gingerly lowers her to the floor, presses kitchen towels tight against the bullet wound in her gut.

“Quick favor,” Kuniko whispers.

“Name it, stupid,” Bat says.

“Delivery. Tonight. Now.”

“Always tonight now with you. Never give a gal time to prep.”

“If I had more time, I would’ve gone to one of the good couriers.”

Bat looks at her tenderly. “Rude as hell, right to the end.”

Kuniko reaches into her coat pocket, winces, pulls out a small black item.

Bat snaps off her latex gloves and takes it. An engagement ring box, newly stained with a bloody fingerprint. “This is all so sudden,” she says. She starts to open it but Kuniko stops her.

“Don’t. You’ll wish you hadn’t. Just take it to the Hand.”

Bat’s curious expression turns sour. “No.”

“Fraid so, junior.”

“Me and him, we’re quits.”

“Grow up. No one’s quits.”

Bat sighs, pockets the box. “I’m guessing there’ll be other interested parties en route?”

“Always are.” Her laugh is ragged. “Who do you think plugged me?”

Bat gently holds Kuniko’s face in her hands. “Oh honey. What’s it feel like to be dead?”

Kuniko slumps against Bat’s shoulder. “Not as beautiful as I’d imagined.”

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This has been Chokemail by Fireland. Shipped from Chokeville.

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