“And black satin underwear and a garter belt. And then there’s my purple teddy thing with attached garters.” I paused. “I’ll model them all and you can choose.”
I looked at Eddie out of the corner of my eye and the smile was gone.
Then I sat back.
My work was done.
Lee granted me A Smile. It was small but it was meaningful.
“You’ve always been a lucky fuck,” Eddie murmured to Lee.
The waiter came and took our orders. I got my usual, a Café Fantasia, hot chocolate at the bottom, espresso at the top separated by a slice of orange and topped with whipped cream that had teeny sugared-orange sprinkles. Lush.
I ordered a bowl of water for Chowleena.
“You have anything for me?” Lee asked Eddie when the waiter walked away.
“Yep, word is Rick was done by someone from out of town,” Eddie answered.
Lee sat back and his mouth got tight again. “New York?”
“Yeah, but not in the family, an independent contractor. Coxy’s havin’ to hire his guns these days. Gary couldn’t put a bullet in someone’s brain if he had the barrel restin’ against his forehead.”
I thought this was good news. Goon Gary seemed less of a threat if this was true. I was taking my good news as it came these days, no matter how freakishly scary it was.
“There’s talk that there’s two names on his list, Rick was only one of them,” Eddie went on.
“Teddy?” Lee asked.
“Nope, Coxy wrote Teddy off, or at least he did until Teddy hit the street an hour ago.”
“Who’s the name?”
“Coltrane.”
Oh no, Rosie.
All the breath went out of my body and I stared at Lee. I was wearing shades too, mine were huge, shiny, rock ‘n’ roll black, kind of a hybrid between Jackie O and Bono. I thought the lenses would melt with the heat from my stare.
The waiter brought our coffees, Chowleena’s water, and left.
“We have to find him,” I told Lee.
“We’ll find him,” Lee replied.
I wasn’t entirely sure how we’d find him, considering we were sitting in the sun enjoying coffees.
As far as I could tell, there wasn’t much to this PI stuff. In fact, it was more dangerous facing down the Rosie Riot than doing Lee’s job.
Lee seemed completely calm about this news. This news did not make me calm, there was a hired hit man after Rosie. I was pretty angry at Rosie but I still liked him enough to want his brains to remain in his skull for the foreseeable future.
“You should know bookies are takin’ bets, you against Coxy, who’ll win Indy,” Eddie told Lee then looked at me.
Oh… my… God.
“Really?” I asked.
“Who’s got the odds?” Lee asked.
My mouth dropped open and I stared at Lee. Was he nuts? Who cared? People were betting on us!
Eddie turned back to Lee. “You.”
“You’re joking right?” I put in.
Eddie shook his head.
I turned my attention toward my drink, which was the only sane thing I could do.
If in doubt, coffee.
I loved whipped cream but I wasn’t a big fan of whipped cream melting into coffee. Café Fantasias were stacked in a plastic, ice cream parfait glass. I picked up the plastic glass and opened my mouth over the cream and sucked it all in one slurp. Then I grabbed my spoon to mush down the orange and mix the cocoa with coffee. I felt a tingling at the back of my neck and looked up at Lee and Eddie, both of whom had shades trained on me.
Eddie turned to Lee and muttered, “You lucky fuck.”
Lee’s phone rang. He snapped it open, said, “Yeah.” Pause. “Un-hunh.” Pause. “Be there in ten.”
He flipped the phone closed, then said, “We’ve got Rosie.”
* * * * *
We went in Eddie’s cop car, Lee in the passenger seat, Chowleena and me in the back. Lee had his gunbelt up front and mine was on the floor next to Chowleena.
We stopped in a ‘hood where there were one-story row houses, the front steps and a small porch close to the sidewalks, one window denoting the living room. It wasn’t a good neighborhood, it wasn’t a bad neighborhood, it was just forlorn, ill-kept and quiet.
Eddied barely come to a stop when the backdoor opposite me opened and Darius Tucker slid in.
Lee and Eddie had moved naturally from good-looking boys that caused girls to have sweetheart crushes to handsome men that caused women’s vaginas to quiver at the sight of them.
I noted that Darius hadn’t fared as well. He’d always been tall and lean but now the lean had turned a shade skinny. He had more worry lines, his once-close-cropped Afro was now sticking out in funky twists which were admittedly cool but instead of the soulful dark eyes I remembered, he looked angry and even mean.
“What the fuck is she doin’ here and what’s with the dog?” he asked.
Well, hello to you too.
Luckily, I thought it but didn’t say it.
Lee and Eddie had both turned to look at Darius.
“Do we have time to explain?” Lee asked.
“Don’t know, had business take me away for a minute and couldn’t watch the house,” Darius replied. “I know I don’t have all day to waste on this shit.”
“Where is he?” Eddie asked.
“Third door up,” Darius answered.
Lee was focused on something beyond me, out the back window.
“We gotta move, someone got here before us.” His voice had changed, sounding clipped and urgent. His eyes cut to me. “Stay down, out of sight. Jesus Christ, how’d I let you talk me into this shit?”
“I was cuffed to the bed,” I reminded him, speaking automatically and not really processing what was going on, just realizing that the vibes had turned bad.
“Lucky fuck,” Eddie muttered, opened his door and then he was gone. I swear to God, he disappeared into thin air. One second, he was exiting the car, the next second he was nowhere in sight.
“Your Dad teach you how to handle a gun?” Darius was talking to me and I looked at him. His eyes were cold and it was so wrong in his face, a face I’d once known so well, that I felt it in my gut.
I nodded to him.
Lee was leaning forward, reaching under the driver’s side seat. He came up with a gun and handed it to me.
“Show me,” Lee demanded, his voice sharp.
Shit.
Under pressure.
It was a Glock, Dad had a Glock.
“Safety lever in the trigger,” I murmured then dumped the magazine, I pulled the slide back and a bullet flew out of the top. I snatched the bullet up, clipped it back into the into the magazine and shoved the magazine back into the gun.
I looked back at them, I didn’t know what else to do.
They didn’t say a word, they both opened their doors and were gone.
Poof.
Vanished.
Just like Eddie.
I pushed Chowleena down on the seat. She didn’t seem real concerned about the drama, she thought it was time for a nap. I could have kissed her.
I took one look at door number three, Rosie’s door, before scooting down in my seat.
Then I shot back up and stared into door number three’s window.
Ally was in there with Rosie.
I’d only seen a flash of her but I knew she was there.
Holy, shit, shit, shit.
What was she doing there?
Did Lee know?
I couldn’t exactly call him.
Shit!
Then I saw him, walking down the street, looking like he didn’t belong there. Mainly because he looked like nothing, nobody, everyman. Made to fit in with the scenery. He was Tom Hanks. Problem was, Tom Hanks didn’t live in this neighborhood.
I felt a chill up my spine.
I grabbed my gunbelt, pulled out the pepper spray and rammed it in my front pocket. Then I pulled out the taser and rammed it in the w
aistband of my shorts. Then I shoved the Glock in the back of my shorts, pulled my Xanadu t-shirt over the gun butts and, before my mind could think of excuses, I got out of the car.
I had no idea what I was doing or why I was doing it. All I knew was, three guys with guns were out there as smoke as well as a potential bad guy and Ally was between all of them and Rosie.
I hurried across the street and down the sidewalk.
He was nearly to door number three when he heard my flip flops.
He turned.
Casually I lifted my chin and smiled, as if I was a passerby saying hello and kept walking toward him.
His eyes dropped to the waistband of my shorts.
Unfortunately my t-shirt was fitted, not loose around the waist so the taser butt showed in obvious relief.
He moved and I moved, yanking the taser out and bringing my shirt up and out with it, giving him a flash of my lacy, lemon-yellow bra. The shirt snapped back as I lifted my arm and pulled the trigger. The prongs went sailing forward, snagged him as he yanked the gun out of his shoulder holster, momentarily taken aback by my accidental flash of bra. I didn’t care, he was down before he got his arm straight and I didn’t have any holes in me seeping life-blood.
No sooner had he hit pavement then strong hands snagged me around the waist and I was slammed against a parked car, a hand pressed against my stomach holding me there.
“Where do you think we are, the fucking OK Corral?” Eddie snapped, his face close to mine and he was pissed. He yanked the taser out of my hand and then he started talking in rapid-fire Spanish, none of which I could understand but that might have been a good thing.
Lee materialized next to us. Lee wasn’t pissed, he was furious, it rolled off him in waves.
“Ally’s in there. I saw her through the window,” I told Lee.
Both Lee and Eddie turned toward door number three. I felt the fury waves recede. They knew I’d put myself in front of a bus, a train or an assassin to save Ally.
The door opened and Ally stood in its frame behind a rickety screen.
“What’s going on?” she asked, looking down at the stunned hit man and then up at us, brows raised and cool as a cucumber.
Gotta love Ally.
There were some muttered oaths. Eddie’s hand came away from my stomach and he moved to the hit man, cuffs out. Lee moved to Ally and I ran back to the car and got Chowleena. By the time Chowleena and I made it in the open front door, Eddie was rolling the cuffed hit man over on his back. When I walked in, I saw Rosie on his stomach on the floor, grunting and moaning, Lee beside him in a half crouch, one foot on the floor, knee bent, the other knee in Rosie’s back. Lee was cuffing him.
Lee hauled Rosie up to his feet while Eddie dragged the hit man into the living room and propped his still stunned body on the couch.
Darius walked in on cat’s feet from somewhere in the back of the house. He looked around at everyone.
“I forgot to bring the dip,” he remarked.
I nearly laughed, that was more like the Darius I knew.
“Darius,” Ally said, finally showing some reaction, she was staring at Darius and her face was wearing a tentative welcoming smile.
“I see you and Indy haven’t changed much,” Darius told Ally.
Everyone looked at everyone else. No comments were made because it was more or less true.
“That was anti-climactic,” Eddie said after several beats.
I walked up to Rosie and slapped him upside the head.
“Ow!” Rosie shouted at the same time Chowleena barked.
I stared at him then slapped him upside the head again and Chowleena barked again. She thought we were playing and wanted to be in on the fun.
“You idiot!” I yelled and then smacked him another one.
“Ow! Quit it! She’s hitting me.” He looked at Lee. “Do something, you’re the police!”
Lee simply watched.
“He isn’t the police,” I told Rosie and hit him again.
“Ow!” Rosie looked with desperate eyes to Darius.
“You?”
“Me? Police?” Darius actually started laughing. It took years off his face and made him handsome again. If I wasn’t in such a tizzy, I might have stopped to appreciate it.
I smacked Rosie upside the head again, Chowleena barked again.
Rosie looked wildly around and yelled, “You all have handcuffs and guns. How do you have handcuffs and guns unless someone’s the flipping police?”
Instead of hitting Rosie upside the head, I shoved his shoulder.
Eddie slowly raised his hand.“Indy, guess I’m gonna have to ask you to quit doin’ that.”
I got up close to Rosie and stared down on him. “If I wasn’t so happy you’re alive, I’d kill you.”
Rosie seemed to deflate.
“Indy, I’m sorry.” he said, looking miserable and smelling worse.
“Sorry? A week ago you had three friends. Now Tim’s dead, The Kevster’s behind bars for trying to save your pot plants and I don’t have all afternoon to tell you all that’s happened to me. Newest nightmare, bookies are taking bets on if I’ll go off with icky, creepy Wilcox.”
Rosie blanched and said, “Euw. He looks like Grandpa Munster.”
“That’s what I’m sayin’!” I shouted at him.
“I wish I had all day to watch this show but I got things to do,” Darius put in. “You gonna call this in?” he asked Eddie.
“Yeah.” Eddie’s eyes moved to Lee. Eddie had taken off his shades and slid an arm in the collar of his tee so they were hanging at his throat. “We gotta talk. Do you think Betty and Veronica here can keep an eye on these two?”
“I get to be Veronica,” Ally said instantly.
I turned to her. “Why do you get to be Veronica?”
I didn’t want to be Betty, Betty was a doormat. Veronica had attitude.
“I’m so Veronica,” Ally said in answer.
“Unh,” the hit man groaned.
“Jesus,” Darius said.
Lee jerked Rosie around and sat him on the couch next to his would be killer.
He pointed at Rosie and said, “Sit. Stay.”
While I was watching Lee, I felt a hand at my back and my shirt was lifted up. I twisted my head to see Eddie there, then felt his hand slide into my shorts and pull out the gun.
He could have pulled it out by its butt and barely touch me. He didn’t do that. He slid the length of his index finger along the gun, the rest of his knuckles fisting around the butt, grazing the small of my back, making certain I felt his warmth against my skin nearly to the top edge of my underwear. And, I had to admit, it felt nice.
Provocatively tactile.
When I turned back to Lee, he was watching and the muscle was going in his cheek.
“Outside,” Lee said to Eddie.
Eddie handed me the gun and said, “Point this at the bad guy and don’t take your eyes off him. If he moves, shoot him. Got that?”
I nodded.
Lee, Darius and Eddie left the house.
I pointed the gun at the hit man, pulled the pepper spray out of my pocket and gave it to Ally saying, “How’d you find Rosie?”
“You know all those leads I told you about?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I tracked them down, gave out more cards, the leads led to more leads and here I am. Rosie.”
I was impressed.
“You are the shit!” I told her.
“Damn straight,” she replied on a grin.
Then we heard voices through the front screen door.
“She was on a ride-along,” Lee clipped.
“Yeah, a ride-along with a Chow,” Darius commented.
“She got in a fuckin’ quick draw with a hit man in broad daylight and she was armed with a goddamned taser!” Eddie snapped.
“It’s none of your business, Eddie, but she and I made a deal,” Lee said.
“Yeah, I heard. A deal struck while she was cuffed to y
our bed. Christ, I never thought I’d see the day when you were led around by your dick,” Eddie returned.
Uh-oh.
Them’s fightin’ words.
I chanced a glance to Ally and even she’d gone pale.
“Boys,” Darius said low.
“You know, I’m almost compelled to let you have her for a week and see if you can control her,” Lee put in.
Um… say what?
“I’d take a crack at that,” Eddie replied.
Oh… my… God.
“Er… I think there’s something I forgot to tell you,” Ally whispered at my side but I wasn’t listening.
“Yeah, I noticed that,” Lee said and his voice had gone scary. “A kiss on the neck, your hand down her fuckin’ pants. I’m warnin’ you, Eddie, it’s the three strike rule.”
“Uh… Indy?” Ally said.
“Shh!” I shushed her.
“I told you a year ago to make your move or I would. Now you have and I get to the station and I hear she’s runnin’ through a Highlands neighborhood, her hands cuffed behind her back, tear gas in her face, Coxy’s assholes shootin’ at her and some crazy ex-con takin’ a bullet for her. What the fuck is that all about?”
“Eddie,” Darius said, obviously trying to break the tension, “this is Indy we’re talking about. That sounds like a normal Saturday night.”
No one laughed.
There was silence and it was heavy.
Then Eddie said, “You fuck it up with her, I won’t hesitate, do you hear what I’m sayin’?”
Ally grabbed my arm and I jumped. The hit man was mostly conscious and staring at us.
“What the fuck?” he slurred.
“Shut up,” I said to the hit man, jiggling the gun at him threateningly and turned to Ally, jerking my head to the door. “Did you hear that?” I stage whispered.
Ally didn’t look happy.
“I heard it.”
“What was that?” I asked.
“Well.” Ally went from looking not happy to looking uncomfortable. Ally rarely looked uncomfortable and I knew I wasn’t going to like what was coming. “The thing is, see…”
“Spit it out!” I snapped.
“Okay, you know about a year ago when Eddie and Lee stopped talking to each other?”
“No, I don’t know. I was avoiding Lee remember? I told you, like, a million times.”
“Well, about a year ago, Eddie and Lee stopped talking to each other.”