Page 8 of Spade

The address Selene gave us was in a row of defunct insurance offices, payday loans, and one sad-ass coin laundry whose glass was so fogged you’d think the dryers ran on body heat. The target building was a one-story box, windows blacked out with paint. The only sign was a faded, half-ripped vinyl banner promising “Quick Cash, No Hassle.”

The back lot was more crater than asphalt. The rear door had a camera, an infrared bulb blinking steady, pointed dead-on at the only loading zone. That ruled out the easy way.

“This is gonna be a pain in the ass,” Aces said, eyeing the camera.

“Could be worse. At least the guys inside are having a good time.”

Aces snorted. “You think they tip?”

“Cash up front, remember? That’s the whole pitch.”

“Right.” She looked at the blacked-out windows. “You think the machines have, like, settings? Speeds?”

“Probably a loyalty program. Tenth visit, you get a free upgrade.”

Aces bit down on a laugh. “Punch card.”

“Collect all ten holes.”

She pressed her fist to her mouth. “Okay. Okay. Let’s go.”

“You think any of the machines are spitters?” I asked, not done laughing.

“All swallowing is my guess.”

I scanned the perimeter. To the left, a narrow service corridor ran between our building and the next—maybe three feet across, half-blocked by a tipped dumpster and a grease trap leaking old fryer oil into the gutter. I jerked my chin at Aces and went first.

The smell in that alley was sour and complex, like sweat and cheap bleach and something deeper, maybe blood. Halfway down, I found a ground-level window. The rubber seal was old and pulling away from the frame, the kind of flaw that never survives more than a week in the summer but would go years untouched in a strip mall.

Aces fished a flat bar from her inside pocket, the kind meant for car doors but multipurpose in our world. She jimmied the edge, and I braced, feet planted. The glass gave with a little whine and an elastic pop, and the bottom edge peeled up enough to get fingers under.

“Nice,” I whispered.

Aces held the window just open, not enough to trip the alarm, just enough to see.

The inside was a fever-dream of white fluorescent banks in the ceiling, and linoleum that glowed blue in the chemical light. Rows of chairs, not office chairs but these custom recliners, with padded armrests and built-in head pillows. And every chair was occupied by a man, naked, exposed, legs spread and feet propped in molded plastic stirrups.

The men were all ages and all body types. Some stared straight ahead at wall-mounted screens, flickering porn loops in hi-def, their faces slack as coma patients. Others had their eyes closed, hands gripping the armrests so tight you could see the white of their knuckles from our vantage. There were machines mounted next to every recliner—tubing, vacuum hoses, a black box like a homebrew CPAP with a digital timer running upward. Each man had his cock fitted into a clear plastic chamber, and the machines pulsed, slow and insistent, milking them with a low pneumatic hum. It sounded, I thought, like a dozen hospital ventilators running at different speeds.

None of the men were restrained. None of them looked scared. Just hollowed out, emptied.

Two women in blue scrubs moved between the rows. One was young, maybe twenty, tattoos of stars across her knuckles. The other was older, with arms like a welder’s and close-cropped hair. They made a loop every ten minutes: swap out the collection tubes at the base of the milking pumps, cap them, and log something on a clipboard. Every few rounds, the older one checked a screen at the end of the aisle, tapped at it, and went back to work.

Aces let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-growl. “Fucking hell.”

“Nothing like efficiency,” I said.

We watched. For nearly an hour, there was no change. The men filled their tubes, were unhooked, given a towel, and left through the front hall, but not before handing over a wad of cash. More came in. All the workers did was swap parts and log the take.

“No credit cards or checks,” Aces whispered, smiling.

But then, near the window, the scrubs stopped and started talking. I signaled Aces to hold position.

The young one was shifting from foot to foot, agitated. “He’s only at thirty percent,” she said, voice pitched up. “It’s not moving. Been like that an hour.”

The older one looked, shrugged. “It’ll kick up. Last week, he went two cycles before hitting the cutoff.”

“But he’s bleeding.”