The pale carnation pressed against his heart like a promise.
The carnation had been left on the bar. A message, maybe. A taunt. Someone knew he’d been there. Someone wanted him to remember that even the flowers in that place were bred for one purpose: to look beautiful while they rotted.
He crushed the cigarette under his heel and tucked the carnation back into his pocket. The stray dog had moved on, disappearing into the mouth of a storm drain. Jeff wondered if it had found a place to curl up, or if it was still running, still looking for something it couldn’t name. Pale Carnations -Ch.4 Up.5- -Mutt Jeff-
He turned his collar up and walked toward the river. Somewhere down there, a woman he’d once loved was probably dead. Somewhere down there, the man who’d made her that way was still breathing. And Jeff—Mutt Jeff, the dog with no master and no leash—was going to find him.
Chapter 4, Up.5, ends.
The rain had stopped sometime before dawn, but the streets of the Bottoms still glistened like something slick and unwholesome had been washed to the surface. Jeff stood outside the chain-link fence of the old rail yard, watching a stray dog worry a piece of discarded leather. The animal’s ribs showed through its patchy coat, but its eyes were bright—feral and undefeated.
“That’s you,” Jeff muttered to himself. “Mutt Jeff.” The pale carnation pressed against his heart like a promise
“Yeah,” he said to the empty street. “Same.”