by Paula Cox
“Not that.” Kirill has one hand over his jaw again. “We want to know how much longer this babysitting gig is gonna last. Because when we go to war—and we’re pretty sure that’s what this is coming to—we’ve got to know who we’re with.”
This is a challenge, that’s for damn sure. I don’t say anything, but my fingers are thrumming against my knees.
“Should we count on another three months before we make any moves? Or maybe I should write to Theo Butler myself and ask him if maybe he has any ideas.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Take a guess.”
Kirill’s just sitting there, stroking his chin. I’ve got the overwhelming urge to walk over there and just break it for him to see if he would still be stroking it after I was finished. Somehow I reel myself in.
“Quinn,” Palmer speaks up.
“The hell do you want?”
“It’s okay, man. We’re not the ones you want to fight.”
“You absolutely sure about that? Maybe he’s the one you wanna ask instead?”
Kirill turns his eyes up, and the corners of his mouth follow, like little invisible threads have attached these parts of his face together. It’s not a smile, though. Just something small and weasely. My hands are trembling again.
“Why don’t you go easy, Kirill,” Palmer says. “You’re being a goddamn prick, you know?”
Kirill’s face doesn’t change, and he doesn’t say anything either. If it’d been any other guy who said that to him other than Palmer, he’d probably have rammed his fist into the other guy’s face by now. That was the thing about Palmer, though. He got away with saying what nobody else could say.
“Kirill has a point, though,” Crash says. “I mean—its been months since we’ve seen the Q. What the hell are we supposed to think? I don’t know what you’re doing with the girl for five g’s a day, and I don’t give a damn. It’s just to me, from the sounds of things, Butler’s got you hooked up all nicely with his family and doesn’t want you to leave.”
“You think I can’t be a Stitch and take other jobs?”
“Five g’s a day,” Crash says again. “Five g’s, Q. I don’t know why you’d even want to still be a Stitch with that kind of dough.”
I wait for someone else to speak but the room’s gone numb and quiet. Kirill’s stroking his chin, Palmer is chain-smoking to keep from having to say anything, and Nail is just sitting there like a giant Buddha.
“Right.” I stand up and make for the door.
Palmer rushes over. “C’mon, Q. No harm meant by any of it, right guys? We’re just all on our toes—we’re just trying to get all this settled. Just—just come sit back down. We’ll square this all out, eh Q?”
“Square what out?”
“This—this whole thing, right? I mean—just come sit back down, and we’ll finish talking, alright?”
“Talking about what? You’ve already said it all. It’s between my gig with mob boss or my brothers. Kirill has gone out of his way to make sure that’s nice and clear to everyone.”
“Jesus, man. You make it sound like we’re gonna crucify you or something. We just need to hear from you more, you know? We’re not asking you to make any, like, permanents sacrifices or anything like that, you know?”
“You’ll hear from me plenty.” I push the door open. “There’s no way in hell I’m abandoning the only family I’ve ever had. Not even for five g’s.”
You can just feel the strain leave the room, like helium out of an old party balloon.
“Kirill—” Kirill looks up. “Sorry if that was heated,” I say. “Real glad no one’s got a broken jaw. And by no one, I mean me.”
“No worries, Q.”
Palmer’s cigarette is dangling from the corner of his mouth like a rat’s tail. He has a strange, loopy smile on his face. “You son of a bitch, Q. Looping us around your finger like that—don’t know what you’re thinking or what you’re planning. Damn, it’s gonna be good to have you back.”
“Get used to it. I’m a Stitch again until we put those sons of bitches underground for what they did to Miles.”
The voices trail behind me as I close the door and head back downstairs. I hadn’t been thinking about Maya when I was talking to the guys, but I start to now. I’ve got no idea what I’m going to say to her, but I’m just hoping to find something by the time I reach the first floor.
Chapter 18
Not a single word while we drive back. Not one goddam word.
I tell her the whole business with the Stitches—what we met up about and what we determined to do. Miles. The Russians. Territory wars. Revenge. Her ears twitch a little, but that’s about all I can get out of her in terms of a response. It’s obvious enough that she thinks I’ve betrayed her, but I don’t know how. And I don’t know how to go about even asking her.
“Just a few days,” I say, “just until we can get this whole situation cleaned up. Goddammit, Maya, you know I wouldn’t leave you like this unless it was important. You know that.”
But even I don’t know if the last part is question or hope.
I’ve already decided that I’m going to leave her at Theo’s, but it isn’t like there’s even a choice. If I left her alone in the hotel and Theo found out, even if nothing happened that’s more or less a guaranteed bullet in the head. Even if Theo isn’t going to be exactly pleased that I’m dropping his daughter back home before the whole business with Kit is cleaned up, it’s better than taking risks. Hell, anything is better than taking risks with people or property that don’t belong to you.
I park at the hotel and unbuckle my seatbelt to go in, but Maya tells me she’s already got all her stuff packed up and will just be a second. Before I can get a word in she disappears through the rotating glass doors.
Something’s gnawing, crashing and rubbing uncomfortably at my insides, which I know is guilt without knowing exactly what kind, or whom I’m feeling guilty for. When I took this gig, I made it clear to Theo that any emergencies with the Stitches came first, and having one of my brothers thrown into a quarry by a couple of Russian bastards as a declaration of war is as sure as hell an emergency. Then there’s the part that agrees with Maya and that wants to just take her away to her place down at Sunset Apartments where there are no mobsters to worry about or crews to defend or anyone else’s business to get involved in. Where you can just sit on the deck and cast your line into the salt gray of the cinderblock ocean for as long as you please and that’s just it, just everything. Maya probably thinks I’m just stowing her back away again. And in a way I am.
Then I get the idea that’s it’s probably not smart to just show up on big man’s porch with his daughter and explain there and then, especially when he’s been having problems the way I’ve heard. So I give him a call, and decide to just come out with it straight and easy.
“Mr. Tolliver,” his crusty, powerful voice slips through the receiver. “It’s late. What can I do for you?”
“Mr. Butler—” I bite my tongue, wondering how I’m going to phrase this delicately, and then just decide to say it however I can. “I’ve had a situation with the Stitches. I’m bringing Maya home to you for a few days.”
“A situation, Mr. Tolliver? Are you in any trouble?”
“Not personally.”
“No legal trouble? Is your life in danger? Are you with Maya now? Answer me truthfully, Mr. Tolliver.”
“Everything’s fine. We’ve had an attack on another brother, and we need to make sure our territory is clear. It won’t take much time.” I pause. “I can’t bring your daughter into this, of course. I’m going to drop her off at the mansion.”
“On what grounds are you making your assumptions?”
Christ, the old man was asking a lot of questions. He’s making me feel nervous, and I hate feeling nervous when I have no reason to be.
“We’ve dealt with these guys before. There’s no real trouble. Just a bunch of upstarts.” I work the lie out easy and smooth. One o
f the more valuable things I’ve picked up.
Theo’s silent for a long moment. There are crunching noises in the background, like feet stepping on gravel. Someone asks for a damp cloth. Someone else asks if the pliers were still in the kitchen. I don’t even want to think about what that might imply, but my thoughts run automatically to Kit.
“Is my daughter there with you right now?” Theo finally asks.
“She’s in the bathroom—in the hotel. I’ll put you on when she comes out.” I pause and look at the hotel entrance. “Just don’t know how long that’ll be.”
“Call me back when my daughter’s with you.” Theo sighs. “I’m afraid you know you’ve chosen an extremely uncomfortable time for your problems. We’re very tied up here. The whole business is unsavory. Nothing can help it of course. I just want you to know.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Tell Maya to call.” The line goes dead.
Maya’s back a minute later, of course. “Your father wants you to call,” I say like a scolding mother. She looks at me like I’m some kind of idiot, and doesn’t make a move to get her phone. I don’t say anything else. It’ll only be twenty minutes, anyway. Twenty of the most damned uncomfortable minutes I’ve ever driven. The last thing Maya wants, or I want, is to be even more on her case.
There’s snow everywhere. Damp, fat, gray, ugly snow. It’s on the side of the highway in sluggish piles, and drips out of the clouds and falls like bird shit, and we go on in silence until we’re three minutes from Theo’s mansion when Maya says what I’ve been expecting her to say the whole night.
“I’m not abandoning you.”
“Kirill’t try that with me, Quinn. Please, just don’t even try that. You sound so damn condescending when you talk like that. And don’t tell me that this is for my protection, either. That’s what Daddy says, and it’s such bullshit, so just don’t.”
“Okay.”
“When are you going to come back?”
“When the job’s done.”
“Jesus Christ you sound just like him. You’re not going off to whack anyone, are you? Should I be expecting to read about some guy found eaten by fishes over at the pier?”
“No. Nothing like that.” The lie isn’t as easy this time.
“Where are you going?”
“Around. To keep the bad guys away from the good guys and to keep the good guys from living in fear.”
“When are you gonna be back?”
“Give me a week,” I say. “One week should be plenty. But I can’t write you, and I can’t tell you what’s going on. If the bad guys get hold of my phone, I don’t want them knowing anything about you. I don’t want them to know you exist. You okay with that?”
“No.” She stares hard at the ugly static of snow. “But you’re going to do it anyway, so I don’t have a choice, do I?”
I don’t answer that one. Swinging the Mercedes around, I pull up to the mansion, behind the short, black car in the visitor’s lot. “I hope you know how shitty this makes me feel. To have sex with me and then to go hang out with your boys and then to dump me back off at my daddy’s house. I just really hope you know how much of an asshole you are.”
She doesn’t wait for the butler to open her door. I can’t say why but I’m even kind of expecting her to stay an extra few seconds and say something like, “See you in a week” or “I’ll write you,” but no. She slams the door behind her and glides up the stairs into the house, and disappears. Not one look back.
Suddenly, there are a ton of things I want to say to her last words. That she doesn’t know what she’s talking about or what I’m involved in, or what loyalty means to me. That one week isn’t anything to ask at all, especially if I’m trying to keep her safe. I run through all the different things I could have said and practice trying to say them.
None of them fit. None of them get past the truth that I feel in what she’d said. That I was selfish. That I was abandoning her. And that after a week, I might discover that I didn’t need a spoiled princess like Maya Butler hanging around my neck anymore, as good as the money was. Two months ago and that’d have absolutely been true. But not now. Not now when I knew that she wasn’t a spoiled little princess, but someone just trying to escape the prison-like life her father enforces on her. She hated her father, but she hated me more. Because I was the one with the keys. I was the one who’d opened the doors for her, and now I was the one shutting her back inside.
Chapter 19
It’s a long drive back to the Clubhouse. The snow comes mushier and thicker like TV static, and the wind comes colder and more biting like there are needles resting inside it waiting to worm down under my skin.
Over the next few days, the needles only pile up more and more to the point that I don’t know if the needling sensation I feel is on account of the cold or if maybe I’m getting nervous too. Nervous waiting and planning with Kirill, Crash, Nail, and Palmer about what we’re going to do with the lousy sons-of-bitches who attacked our boy. Nervous sitting on the streets or in the car, watching the place and keeping our eyes out for any big guys who wanna come around and mess with us. It all makes you feel like a fisherman, except instead of trout and marlin or whatever the hell it is you’re after, it’s a couple dangerous mean motherfuckers stacked like bodybuilders.
So on and so on for four, five, six days. Then the first week passes. I call Theo and explain the situation. Nothing yet but we need more time. The guy sounds cool on the phone and tells me to take as much time as I need, but I don’t like the way he says it one bit for the same reason I wouldn’t like Palmer acting calm and collected right before a fight.
I don’t ask about Maya. I couldn’t stand it, anyway.
Another week crawls by, then another. The weeks start to get harder and harder to bear. It’s on everyone’s mind in the clubhouse that this pressure is going to get released sooner or later—we’re ready to pop. And as the third week slips into the fourth and mid-December creeps up, the snow falls thick and fast. It’s so damn cold that you’re a popsicle if you spend any more than thirty minutes out on the street. Palmer and I are sitting in the front seat of his Chevy near the docks, where one of our guys reported seeing ‘two really fucking big foreign-looking motherfuckers’ not too long before, warming our hands over the McDonald’s coffee I shelled out for. Palmer points through the frosted-up windshield and nudges me in the side.
“What do you think?” he whispers.
“Call Kirill. He’s over in Westside.”
“We’ll have lost them by the time Kirill gets here.”
“We’re not going to wait for Kirill.”
Palmer looks at me like I’m crazy. Maybe I am. Trapped in the car with the snow coming down like that waiting to get attacked, and still not a word from Maya, and going crazy doesn’t sound all that farfetched.
I’ve seen the way the two guys are walking. They’re shuffling unnaturally, their right arms clasped rigidly to their side like half tin soldiers, while the left side lopes along a little behind the rest. Add to that the big coats, and you can more than bet they’ve got some pretty mean Items underneath it all. My breathing comes out heavy and labored. The only thing I’ve got on me is my glock. Palmer ought to have something bigger in the trunk, but I don’t know if he’ll wanna risk trying to reach it and escape the eyes of these two big bastards lumbering nearer and nearer.
“Q, you’re not saying what I think you’re saying. Look at the size of those cats. They’ll eat us alive.”
“Not if we put the jump on them first.”
“You mean put the tag on them?”
“I mean doing the whole Chinese fire drill. Out and attack, forty seconds max. Bring the left one down and engage the right after. If it’s a shotgun he’s got beneath his coat, he’ll need a few seconds to take it out. We can bring one of them down before either has the chance. We might even be able to bring them both.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then the usual. Run like hell.”
The guys are getting closer. They’re wearing face masks because of the cold, so it’s impossible to get a good look at who they are. We’ve formed our judgments pretty much solely on their walk. But sometimes that’s enough. You don’t have to know a guys’ whole history before you make a move on him. Personally, I like it that way. Makes the whole thing that much easier.
Palmer’s got time for a sigh but that’s all. I tuck the collar of my undershirt up and over my nose, and then start loading the glock.
“You got the shotgun in the back?”
Palmer nods. “Think you need more than ten seconds?”
“I can get it in seven.”
“Alright.”
“Quinn—we never even saw the guys who tore up Miles. How do you know these are the ones we’re looking for?”