This was not the part of town where you opened a fixer firm.
Except, it was.
I knew the building before we were even close to it, when it just came into view. Because amid a sea of half-crumbling buildings with people loitering about, there was one building that looked completely and utterly out of place with its beautiful red brick fronts, not a single chip to be found, with fresh mortar in between, and what seemed like a brand new set of stairs leading up to the fancy black and glass front doors. The windows all gleamed. There were cameras everywhere. And everyone walking around seemed to, oddly, cross the street to avoid walking in front of it.
Quinton pulled the car down a narrow space between his building and the abandoned one next door, the space so small that I felt my shoulders hunching as he barreled through it, seriously wondering if he was seconds away from knocking off his mirrors.
But then the alley opened to a back lot with an excessive amount of security lights, and a single door that led into the building.
“Come on. Let’s get the clean-up part over with,” he said, hitting my buckle, then getting out to open my door, reaching in to pull Mackey out as well.
With that, and not a thing else, he led me across the newly paved parking lot that I was sure was blackening the bottoms of my feet, but at least it wasn’t scraping at the skin there. The back door had a punch code that seemed about fifteen digits before it clicked open, and I was ushered inside.
I wish I could say this room had the same ‘wow-factor’ as the outside had. But that would be an outright lie. This room was, well, surrounded by black-out glass, and only had one door to the side, and plain tile floor. That was it. I wondered a bit fleetingly if that was because people like me – all covered in evidence – came in this door instead of the front.
That thought was affirmed a moment later after Quinton plugged another set of numbers into a panel, and opened a door that led right into a bathroom. But not a normal bathroom. It was one giant stainless steel room with a toilet, sink, shower head, and a drain in the floor. There was no actual tub or shower enclosure; the whole room was the shower. And every last inch of it was made out of stainless steel, which, I guess was easy to clean. No grout. No places for tiny particles to escape into.
“Alright,” Quinton said, nodding. He moved over to attach Mackey’s collar to a bar that was likely meant to hold a towel, then reached for his cell. “Jules, I need a nail kit, a set of women’s clothes. I don’t know… medium?” he said, eyes moving over me much the same way Finn’s had, assessing, penetrating. “Yeah, no. I’ll be fine. Just the bag. Oh, and some dog shampoo.”
With that, he hung up the phone, and we waited in tense silence until there was a light slam outside the door, prompting Quinton to walk over, open it, then pull a simple shipping box inside. Then I watched as he reached inside for a small box and an even smaller bag. “Take a seat,” he said, jerking his head over toward the toilet. “This won’t feel too great,” he informed me, but his voice was lacking regret, like he knew how necessary it was, so there was no reason to feel bad about a little discomfort.
I sat.
He kneeled in front of me, taking one hand at a time, scraping under the nails, hard and deep, painful enough to make my hand jerk automatically as he did each nail. The scrapings dropped into the bag, then he went for the clippers, cutting each of my nails short enough to expose a tiny bit of the nail bed beneath, making me sure that there was going to be a soreness in my fingertips for a day or two until they got used to it.
“Alright,” he said, getting up to go back to the box, taking out a paper shopping bag, and dropping in the scrapings and clippings. He came out with the dog shampoo, looking over at Mackey as he turned on the water, and reached for his leash to drag him over. “Yeah, I know,” he said as Mackey whined. “Trust me, I am not going to enjoy this either.”
He attached the leash to the spout in the wall, and set to work, grumbling as much as Mackey was whining and growling. But even with the dog’s teeth showing threateningly, he just kept doing what he was doing, scrubbing every last inch of the dog in case there was any evidence to be found there.