Never Look Down by Warren C Easley

But what could I say? This was for Nando, my friend.
    â€œI’ll see what I can find out,” I told him.
    We spent the rest of the phone call discussing Claudia Borrego. I learned she had a mother and brother in Miami, where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in sociology. She moved from Miami to Portland seven years earlier to take a job as a counselor at some kind of halfway house for federal prisoners.
    When I asked how she was viewed in the Latino community, Nando replied, “Everyone loved her. She sang in the church choir, campaigned for the immigration bill, and the salsa dancing…” his voice broke…“ah, I was honored just to step on the same dance floor with her.”
    What emerged from my friend was the portrait of a beautiful, committed human being who loved life. It’s a pity life hadn’t loved her back.
    It was still light when I got off the phone, so Archie and I walked over to the scene of Claudia’s murder, which was eerily close to Fong Chong. The cops were gone, the crime tape down. I walked into the pitted parking lot and found the chalk outline that marked where the body had lain. I looked up at the unfinished graffiti. To the right I could just make out the divots in the brick that marched up the wall, five of them. If the shooter hadn’t missed, another body would have been found there. A young kid, probably. I stiffened at the thought.
    The message—THERE IS NO PLA—was obviously incomplete. I was pretty sure what the finished message would have been and filled in the missing letters in my head—THERE IS NO PLANET B.
    I was thankful K209 had apparently gotten away and wondered just how much the young tagger had seen that night. Could he identify the shooter, or his car perhaps? I stood there wondering about these questions, but what nagged at me most was the thought of this young person witnessing such a brutal act.

Chapter Nine
    Kelly
    Kelly awakened the next morning and lay staring up at the cratered, yellowed ceiling in her bedroom as she mulled over her options. She had slept fitfully and awakened feeling agitated and weighed down, as if someone had stacked a load of bricks on her chest. She could hide out in the apartment until the cops either caught the killer she’d dubbed Macho Dude or he gave up looking for her. Her sudden absence from the Old Town street scene on a Saturday would look suspicious.
    It was a no-brainer. Like Rupert had advised, she would go about her business as if nothing had happened. Of course, that was a joke. Too much had happened, and she felt like she’d never be the same now.
    She forced herself up and into the bathroom, which was free because Veronica had already left for the little diner on Sandy Boulevard. Veronica worked there as a waitress, but to hear her tell it she ran the place. But Kelly knew she only made minimum wage and the tips, well, they didn’t amount to much, either.
    Kelly stood in front of the mirror, ran a comb through her shoulder-length hair, and sighed. She hauled a dirty sheet out of the laundry basket and dragged it to the bathroom where she spread it on the floor. Then she took a pair of scissors from the bureau and began cutting her hair, the auburn strands falling onto the sheet in thick clumps. Midway through the haircut she threw down the scissors in frustration. “ Oh, this really sucks!”
    She ran to her bedroom, Googled “Riot Grrrl ” on her ancient laptop, and began scrolling through the rock bands until she found a hairstyle on some obscure bass guitarist she thought she might be able to duplicate. She carried the computer into the bathroom to use the image as a guide. Twenty minutes later she had something between a pixie and a buzz cut she could live with. To her surprise, she kind of liked the look.
    Emboldened by her new look, Kelly decided to go to Old Town. She would check out the latest rumors on the street and then look up