by Paula Cox
“I like it well enough,” I say, careful.
“What do you do?”
There’s the problem question. But what can I do now? If I avoid it, Maya will think the worst. But why avoid it? What have I done that she hasn’t seen before?
I take a deep breath. “I hurt people.”
Her eyes go a little wider but most of her remains steady. “Who?”
“Bad people. People who deserve it.”
She nods. Her hand finds mine, and we lace fingers. The next question is hardly more than a whisper.
“Have you killed anyone?”
“Yes.”
Her fingers tighten. “More than one person?”
“Yes.”
“Who was the first?”
I recognize how fast her heart is beating now. The same speed when I was on top of her. Making her mine. The speed it was going when she realized we were tied together, becoming one person. I grip her hand harder, reminding her that no matter what else might happen, I won’t let her go.
“My father.”
Chapter 15
We return to our old hotel room the next morning. Maya drops her brown wig onto the bed and announces she’s going to take a shower. I know there’s an invitation in there too, and grin.
“We’ll see.”
“Once the tough guy, always the tough guy.” She leans in and kisses my chin. I drink in her smell of hotel soap, which smells so much better on her for some reason. “Mmm, stubble.” She kisses me again on the cheek, then on the corner of my lips. “My rock. My moss-prickly rock.”
“I’ll shave once you’re out.”
“No—keep it. I like it. And the mustache.”
She wraps her arms around the back of my neck and lassos me into her kiss. I know she wants me to turn her around and put her up against the wall. I’ve already got my hand sliding up, cupping her butt underneath her skirt and rubbing her skin in that hard, pinching way she likes when I hear the buzz of my phone.
“Leave it,” she says.
“What if it’s your father?”
“All the more reason to leave it.”
“Can’t,” I break off although it almost kills me. “I’ve got a job to do.”
“You’ve got a job you’re ignoring. And a hundred to one odds your cell phone can’t beat you off like I can.”
“Take your shower.” I kiss her on the nose. “I’ll be in soon as I’m finished.”
She frowns but she knows that’s the best she’s going to get for now and leaves without arguing. I’m glad. Maya strikes me as the kind of girl who spits fire when she gets angry. After seeing how violent her fun, playful side can be, I’ve got absolutely no desire to see how violent her vicious side is.
I answer the phone a second before it goes to voicemail. “Quinn here.”
“I know Quinn’s here. Why the hell would I have called this number if I didn’t want to talk to my bro?”
“Palmer?” I settle into the bed. “Good to hear from you.”
“Likewise. It’s only taken twenty goddam missed calls. You’d better thank whatever lucky stars you’ve got I’m a patient guy.”
“I told you I’ve got a gig.”
I hear the spurt of hot water, and Maya’s voice through the door humming “Moon River.”
“You may have your gig, big man, but your boys have got a problem.”
“A serious problem?’
“You think I’d have called you twenty fucking times if the problem wasn’t serious?”
“It was at least that many times when you stalled your Camaro.”
“That was serious. I was two hours late picking up my baby sister from ballet. Those other kids were flat out cruel to her man.”
I lie down on the sectional with my phone still in hand and take the Item from the back of my jeans and set it next to me.
“You serious about this being serious?” I ask. “Like—emergency situation stuff?”
“Wouldn’t phrase it that way.” Palmer pauses to click on his lighter. That’s the second time I’ve heard the noise this phone call. From the sounds of things he’s chain-smoking for all his lungs are worth, which tells me he’s nervous.
“But follow what I’m about to tell you, right? We’ve got this fan: big industrial fucker you use for like rock concerts and stuff, you with me? And right next to this fan, picture a mountain—a motherfucking mountain of dinosaur shit. And that mountain is set out on a little platform, and that platform leads right into that industrial-size fan. You got me?”
“Palmer.” I take my legs off the sectional. “What’s happened?”
Maya’s moved on from “Moon River” to “I Feel Pretty.” My heart’s starting to sink from everything Palmer’s saying. And not just what he’s saying, but all the stuff he’s leaving out. “Is it the Eastern Europeans?”
“Eastern Europeans. Russians. Motherfucking Kazakhstani. It’s big guys with guns, Quinn. You remember I told you about Miles and the boys trying to settle their tab, yeah?”
“They got into a fight in Easttown. You told me a few weeks ago.”
“Fight?” Palmer laughs. “That was playground Cops and Robbers compared to this new shit, man. That was nothing. They’ve just put a goddamn target on our boy’s back, Quinn. Miles is in the hospital—I’ll tell you the whole thing later. But it’s the stuff in addition to that: I’m talking shots in the street and grenades cars. Give these guys a couple weeks man, and they’re gonna be making hits. Who the fuck makes hits in our city aside from the mob and us, huh?”
His end of the phone goes quiet. I don’t say anything. I just let Palmer’s last sentence fill the room, mixing with the sound of Maya’s shower and the air conditioner and the faraway hum of cars on the freeway.
“You mean war?” I finally say. I can’t see anything obviously, but I know from experience with the guy Palmer’s nodding.
“War’s a good enough word for it.”
“Jesus Christ. How the hell did you let this happen? Easttown’s supposed to be neutral. That’s the whole goddam reason we set up shop there in the first place.”
“Stitches haven’t done a damn thing, Quinn. You know that. Hell, we’re pacifists compared to some of these meaner guys. Even during the territory wars we never took what didn’t belong to us. Now these big cats come in from downtown or wherever the hell they’re from and beat up a couple of our guys and expect us to turn tail. No way we’re gonna do that. Laws of physics, man. We’re reacting.”
The shower goes off. I’ve got to wrap this up soon—there’s no way I want Maya listening in on this.
“Palmer, I gotta get out of here soon. I’ve still got a job to do. But give me a few hours, and I’ll make it out to the docks.”
“Quinn,” Palmer’s voice goes so neutral so fast it’s eerie. “You know what all this means, don’t you? I don’t need to make any of this clearer than I already do.”
“We’re gonna be at war soon. You’re summoning your generals. What could be clearer?’
“Good man. Stitches are looking forward to seeing you.”
I drop the call just as Maya’s coming out of the bathroom. She trails steam like a Greek goddess. The gold of her hair and the darkness of her skin, which I can see plenty of because the only thing she’s got on is one of those super-short hotel bath towels—all of that along with the water from the shower makes her look like she’s shining.
My heart sinks another floor. If all that Palmer said was true and not just drama; if the Stitches really are going to be at war soon, then I can probably count on my fingers the days I have left watching Maya Butler.
“That was lonely,” she says, scrubbing a second towel through her hair to dry it out.
“I’m sorry. I had to take it.”
“Well, as long as you’re sorry. Or even if you’re not—that way there’s punishment.”
She tosses her hair out a little more and turns my way and smiles, sticking out her top teeth and dragging them back from her bottom l
ip. Yesterday—hell—ten minutes ago, that would have been enough to make me lose my head. Just like she’s been wanting me to do this whole time. Now, I look down at the floor and don’t say anything.
“What is it?” She sits down next to me on the sectional. “That wasn’t Daddy, was it?’
“No. It was a friend of mine.”
“Oh. What did he want?”
“To come help him keep the bad guys away.”
Her body goes a little rigid. “What bad guys?”
“I don’t know yet. Guys who have already hurt some of our own. Guys that need taking down, so they don’t go making a mess out of everything. Dangerous guys.”
“And you’re going to go.” It’s not a question. Maya knows just by looking at me that things have already been decided.
“I have to,” I say. “They need me.”
“But you’re part of a club, aren’t you? There are other guys who can do what you do. You don’t have to go at all.”
I breathe out. It’s forced, heavy, and angry. I put an arm around Maya’s shoulders, and she doesn’t move it away, which is a good sign. She’s angry with me, but she’s still letting me in.
“I don’t have to go. I want to go. These guys are my brothers. We’ve been everywhere together, raised each other. We’ve lost families together. When everything else goes bad, we’re always there. And I’m not going to let these guys face it on their own.”
“So you’re just going to leave me here?” Her brown eyes go sharp as flint. “Soon as something more exciting comes along you’re just going to up and abandon me?”
“I’m not abandoning you.”
“How is this not abandoning me? How is it not abandoning me when you just trade me off for your other friends?”
“Because I’m bringing you with me.”
Chapter 16
Kingston Pier. Easttown. About ten miles following the canal. Go straight out east another fifty miles or so and you’ll hit Bar Harbor, just south of Bangor. Then Nova Scotia, and finally Greenland. Those are your bearings.
There’s a general rule of thumb for hitmen, mob men, and anyone who’s organized in highly illegal crime, that if you’re going to do anything you do it at the Pier. The thing hasn’t been used in thirty years, maybe even longer. Used to be the main docking grounds all the skippers used for their boats. The only problem was that the original architects of the place didn’t take into account the rising tides and water levels or any of the stuff you see over at the Docks on a Saturday morning.
Meaning that every Winter, when the winds went crazy, and the water tipped its banks, you have to fight your way through bitter-cold scrappy waters just to get yourself and your catch out of the ocean. And then next morning, when you’ve got to go untie your boat and do it all over again, you might discover the thing is twenty feet up a hill you don’t remember setting it down at.
If I have all this right, thirty years ago the city of Portsmouth hosted some big-shot young beautiful actress who’d just done a movie with… Lawrence Olivier… or some legend. They took her out on a boat to show her a good time. Then out of nowhere these fifty-mile hour winds come up and start swinging the boat so violently the whole thing ends up capsizing just outside the docks and everyone ends up in freezing waters for the next ten minutes or so until the Coast Guard sends out their boats, with blankets and thermoses of hot coffee. No one died, but the outcry was loud enough the government ended up shelling out money for the new Docks. Fishermen were awfully happy about this. They’d been trying to find a way to get new docks for years, and the solution had just dropped into the water right in front of them. According to the guys who were around then, just a year after the Docks were finished and everyone jumped ship, the Pier looked like it’d been abandoned half a century ago. Which is why it’s opened up for business to the kinds of guys who don’t want anybody else knowing about their business.
“Is this really where we’re going?” Maya asks me in this ultra-high hope-it’s-not-what-I-think-it-is voice. She’s definitely got a point. Easttown, especially in early winter, has a teen slasher film look to it. Rickety houses set up outside the canal are painted the color of vomit. Chimneys still throw up soot. Snow the color of boots and broken noses. All the lights busted out long ago, and the city is too cheap to buy new lamps.
“We’re not the hotel type. Here we’ve got privacy.”
“And all of this—” Her tone includes the sewage canal and run-down houses “—is what you’re waging your territory wars over?”
“It’s the idea, not the place.”
“The idea of absolute garbage? Seems like the best thing that could happen to this place is if somebody set it on fire.”
I slam on the brakes—there’s nobody else on the road with us anyway. Maya is thrown forward in her seat. I dig my fingers into her skin, but I make sure that when I speak I sound calm.
“We grew up here. You understand? Guys lost their Moms, Dads, and baby sisters in places like this. Easttown’s not the center, but it’s our home. You got that?”
She gives me a look like she wants to slap me, but she doesn’t. She turns away and yanks her arm away from my fingers and starts to rub it.
“Sure,” she murmurs. “Can you just get us out of here?”
The Clubhouse is on the northern side of the Pier. That’s the name the guys have come up with for the giant warehouse they reconstructed into a functioning office space for people to drop in if they need to not be seen, or for others to swing by and see the guys they do want to see. Basic rules go that if you’re on the street, you’re with another Stitch. I’m the exception because I’ve been living in high rises and going through shopping malls. Add to that the fact that my much bigger shadow is Portsmouth’s premier mob boss, and that makes me sort of a hands-off.
It pretty much goes without saying that my rules don’t apply to the majority of the other guys. We learn when we’re young that if you’re on the street, assume you’re a target. And in the majority of the cases, that’s true.
Clubhouse—safe house. We’ve even got the docks behind us, and these big searchlights Crash lifted from I couldn’t even guess where to spot any nighttime attacks. The place was built as a fortress, but for the last ten years or so it’s gotten to be a mix of business and home more than anything else. You come to the Clubhouse when you pick up your contracts. You come to the Clubhouse to get briefed on your contracts, so there’s no error of judgment. You pick up your tail or tails—other guys to spot you—when you come to the Clubhouse. You get paid in the Clubhouse. You pay out in the Clubhouse. You hide from guys out for your blood in the Clubhouse. Hide out from cops in the Clubhouse. This is our nucleus.
I park in the shed and open Maya’s door for her. She steps out like someone with four glasses of beer in them about to take a sobriety test.
“Are you alright?” I try taking her arm, but she shakes me away.
“I’m fine—no, thank you.” She rights her purse over her shoulder and pushes me away.
I shrug. “Suit yourself. But there’s broken glass everywhere.”
She looks down and sees that I’m right. I can feel her reluctance when she takes my arm. I know what this is all about. She’s trying to be strong, and I just made her admit defeat.
“It’s like you guys live in a frat house,” she says.
“These aren’t our beer glasses. We keep the place clean.”
Maya doesn’t say anything else, but I can feel her trembling through the thin sweater she has on. It might be cold, and it might be nerves, and it’s probably both.
I lean in to whisper, “Once we’re out of this, I’m going to pick you up and take you to the back seat and fuck you until your eyes pop.”
She stays quiet, but I see her smile. Her hand comes over mine and commences rubbing.
The entranceway looks like a barn except that the front door is a giant steel contraption like on a safe, with turning wheel and combination, plus a bearded guy in cargo pants stan
ding in front shouldering a Kalashnikov like a kid with a baseball bat. He looks like a Navy Seal and not long ago.
“Quinn Tolliver. And I was just betting with Crash that you wouldn’t be coming back at all. Dropped a grand on you, boy.”
“Nice to see you too, Bolt.”
I take Bolt’ arm and pull him in for a hug. He points the Kalashnikov in the air, which makes me a little more comfortable.
“This your girl?” He pulls away from me. Maya looks from him to me, then back to him.