Chapter 79
LIZZIE NUNEZ WAS still searching for the tall man who’d offered her a job. At the moment, she was roaming the Tenderloin, looking for him. But she was jumpy.
She’d been a lot more careful since that nightmare with the old lady and the defibrillators.
Lizzie had spoken to only two people since the incident.
One of them was at a shelter for runaways, where she’d spent the night but couldn’t fall asleep.
She kept seeing the lady’s face, and dreaming about the beeping noise the defibrillator made.
She couldn’t stop thinking about what might’ve happened if the old lady had been successful.
Lizzie wasn’t used to being spooked. She’d gotten pretty tough living here in San Francisco.
But it also made her more determined to find the tall man who’d offered her a job.
Sure, she knew it was essentially an escort job.
She wasn’t naive. She understood that she’d have to sleep with clients.
It wasn’t something she wanted to do, but at this moment she needed stability.
She needed somewhere to live. She needed some cash.
Lizzie had gone back and forth, thinking over her best strategy to find the man again.
She knew the Tenderloin was the most likely place for someone like him to show up.
What she couldn’t figure out was if it was better to stay in one place and let people pass by her or to keep moving and see as many people as possible.
Lizzie had never noticed how many tall men with dark hair lived in the city. She’d had so many false alarms over the last couple of days it wasn’t funny. She’d even walked right up to one man coming out of a Starbucks. She’d stopped short when she realized it wasn’t her man.
Walking along a somewhat crowded block of Turk Street, Lizzie caught a glimpse of someone. She stopped and looked across the street as a man slipped into a white SUV. Then she saw his face through the driver’s-side window. It was him! No doubt about it this time.
She felt some energy for the first time in days. She yelled to the man, “Hey, it’s me! Lizzie!” She realized it sounded lame when she didn’t even know his name. The man probably hadn’t even heard her from inside the car. She had to get his attention.
She tried to slip through the pedestrians on the move. No one was letting her through. Finally, Lizzie bolted into the street—just as the car pulled away.
She even tried to slap the rear of the SUV to get the man’s attention. She wasn’t even close. She watched her future disappear as he turned right a block ahead.
Maybe he was headed to another place in the Tenderloin. Maybe he was going over to the Garden Spot. That place was always hopping at night.
Lizzie started walking that way.