by Layla Wolfe
Slushy said, “Right, because those are your express wishes as set down in your living trust. How-so-ever, it would attest to your upstanding character in the community were you to allow your brother a slice of the pie. Give him, say, an interest in your tuxedo rental business. Guys gotta go to prom, right?”
Ford shook his head. “I don’t know, Slushy. I start handing him tuxedo rental, he’s going to want part of the gas station.”
Turk turned to his best friend. “You have a gas station? Listen, my main worry is that he barged on in here and straightaway started demanding the dispensary.”
I decided to butt on in, since no one had acknowledged me, taking a chair next to my sister. “To his credit, Lytton only said run the dispensary, not own it. I don’t think he has any interest in owning anything of yours, Ford.”
Ford glared sideways at me. “Says the bleeding heart who took off with my brother. Before we even knew he was my brother.”
“Now, now,” said Slushy, spreading out calming hands. “Those of the half-blood have the same rights as those of the whole blood. Theoretically he could come after you for a slice of your empire, ill-gotten as it may be. I think it would behoove you to play things close to the vest, make a show of goodwill, as it were. Now, you must be June Shellmound. I see Ford’s taste in women is the same as his taste in lawyers. Excellent, with a tendency to be sneaky.”
I shook the lawyer’s hand over his desk. “I’m not normally sneaky like that. I have to apologize, Ford. I don’t know what came over me. Actually, I do know. Malaria. Lytton wound up taking me to the hospital—the same one you used to work at, Maddy—and getting me antimalarial drugs.”
Ford just smoldered angrily, and it was Turk who said, “Yeah, but you blatantly took off with him, June. Right on front of the entire club, you just climbed on his pussy pad and peeled out.”
Slushy rolled his eyes. “Pussy pad, begorra. God, do I miss the nineties.”
I had to face the music. I couldn’t blame fever for having leaped so eagerly onto Lytton’s bike. Leaving my rental car in the Citadel’s lot and riding up the mountain with a relative stranger, even if he did look a lot like Ford, was inexcusable. “I’m sorry, you guys. I got carried away. I’ve had a lot on my mind what with our mother’s illness and all. I guess I just needed to cut loose.”
Maddy spoke up. Luckily she was smiling. “And what better way to do it than with a Ford lookalike? I completely feel you, sister. I wouldn’t have been able to resist, either.” She quickly glanced at Ford. “I mean, if I wasn’t married to Ford, of course.”
Slushy said, “Listen, I agree he’s a completely loose cannon, an unknown quantity. We have no idea if he’s going to lawyer up and sue you for half of the trucking biz, for instance.”
Madison cried, “Don’t even say it, Slushy! Ford worked his ass off for over a decade to form that company, when he wasn’t busy shooting terrorists in Afghanistan. Some asshole can’t just waltz in and take half his hard-earned spoils.”
Slushy continued. “You need to show him some goodwill. Invite him to prospect for the club.”
Ford said, “He’d be at the same ranking as Kneecap and August. Farther below, actually, because those guys were hang-arounds for a long time before they started prospecting.”
Turk surprised me by saying, “If you want him to oversee the dispensary, fine. But that’s my baby. I don’t want anyone telling me I’m sloppy, that my Munchy Mondays are a stupid promotional stunt. I’ve had that place in hand forever. If you want to put his name on a masthead to shut him up, fine. He can come in twice a week and move stuff around. Then I can move it back when he leaves.”
Slushy tilted his head at Ford. “Does that sound like a plan, hot stuff? I can throw the tuxedo biz in there gratis. You can mull over the gas station.”
I said eagerly, “I seriously doubt he wants any damned tuxedo biz or gas station, though.”
Turk asked, “And what about A Joint Effort? June, you just saw his operation up there on Mormon Mountain. Do you think he’d have any interest in taking part of the dispensary?”
I had to be honest. I could easily see Lytton being a little bored with his pot empire on Mormon Mountain, wanting to interact with other people more, for example. “You know what? He’s still in town. He just dropped me off. He had some shopping to do. Why don’t you call him?” I took out my cell and waved it around. I had Lytton’s number in there because he’d called me from the hospital pharmacy in Flagstaff while I waited, burning up, in his cage.
“Yeah,” said Ford. “I’d rather confront him here, in a safe zone. He just seems a little…off, to me. I mean, all Native Americans have that same sort of off-center insanity. But him more so than others.”
Slushy agreed. “He obviously has a mighty huge chip on his shoulder to go running into the Citadel in front of a dozen biker thugs and demand a piece of the spoils. Demented Apache? I’m going to go out on a limb here and say they’ve been known to exist. You’re not the most stable horse in the corral either, hot stuff. And you both have the same father.”
“Don’t mention him. I don’t want to hear the name.” Ford wiped his face with his palm. He looked like he’d been through hell and back that day. Finally, sighing deeply, he nodded at me. “Go ahead. Tell him to come here. But I ain’t got all day. Tell him to come ASAP.”
I did so, walking into the front store portion of the Hip Quiver so no one could hear the affection in my tone. “Lytton, it’s June,” I said stupidly into my cell.
“Little one.” Was it my imagination or was that also affection in his tone? I could hear people milling around him talking, as though he were at a coffee shop. “Already miss me?”
“Actually, I do miss you.” It was true. Why not admit it? “I have to thank you for taking such good care of me. You didn’t have to. You barely know me.”
“Well, you’re family now, I suppose.” That was sort of creepy, and I was chagrined that he had to mention it. He couldn’t have just said he was horny and I was cute? Was me being vaguely related to him by marriage the only reason he’d taken such good care of me? “I guess you’ve gotten the DNA results by now.”
“Yes, and they’re what you expected. We’re down at Ford’s lawyer behind the archery range on Bargain Boulevard. Ford wants you to come down. Can you make it?”
Lytton paused. I was surprised. I expected him to jump on it. I watched as Kneecap, the Prospect proprietor behind the counter, limped around on his long hand-hewn cane. How did a cripple get to be a Prospect? How did he even ride his Harley with one seemingly dead leg? Maybe he was just temporarily injured.
“All right. I know the archery range. It’s right across from The Bum Steer, right? I’ll be right down.”
I was tense as I meandered about the shop. My whole future with Lytton would probably be determined within the next ten minutes. Slushy walked through the store, going out for a Krispy Kreme, and I told him to hurry back. I wanted to be the first to see Lytton, to gauge his feelings. I knew that if things didn’t go well with Ford, I’d never see Lytton again. And suddenly seeing Lytton again was the most important thing in the world to me.
He came in a couple of minutes after Slushy left. Such a rush of love swept through me at the sight of his loose, long-limbed beauty. Having rolled in a feverish sweat for three days in his bed, I felt that I knew him. I was imbued with his scent. I was so wrapped up with my need to attract him. I wanted to reinvent myself. I didn’t want to be the hippie dippy returned Peace Corps volunteer, but an alluring, sensual woman capable of handling his extreme dominance.
He barely glanced at me, too wrapped up in his cell conversation. He paused near a display of fletchings and nocks. “Listen, I’d be an idiot not to bring it up. You don’t think it’s important? It’s probably the number one most important aspect of this whole entire deal.” He paused to angrily listen to someone I surmised was his partner Tobiah. Tobiah seemed to be trying to talk Lytton out of making a rash decision. “I will not ke
ep this supposition to myself, you fuckwad—it’s far too important to sweep under the fucking rug. It’s not just some random douche saying it, either—Helium Head, Crybaby, and Bill Smith all confirmed the story. Apparently I was the last guy on the planet to know about it. Yeah? Well if we all sat around on our hands jacking off like you seem to prefer to do, nothing would ever get done.”
With no further ado, he shoved the phone at me, maybe trying to distract me while he stormed into Slushy’s back office.
I didn’t know what to do. “Tobiah?” I said tremulously.
“June!” yelled Tobiah Weingarten, general manager of the Leaves of Grass ranch. “Will you tell him he’s making a giant fucking mistake? He pisses off those Bare Bones gangsters he might as well be bringing the wrath of the entire syndicate down around our heads. Do you know who they have in their back pocket? The Ochoas, the Presencións, the Marins, the fucking Joneses!” Tobiah’s voice became higher in register with each cartel family name he ticked off. He sounded like Mickey Mouse by the time he cried, “We don’t need to be fucking looking for trouble!”
I just slipped the phone into my front shirt pocket—the shirt that still smelled of Lytton’s own scent. I was so eager to get back into Slushy’s office I shoved aside Slushy himself, smashing his jelly donut into his shirtfront.
“Hey, hey!” Slushy was miffed. “Don’t mess the threads!”
Inside the office, Lytton had already launched into his harangue. He was an upfront, direct sort of guy, I’d discovered. He didn’t mince words. I had to give him credit for giving voice to his feelings. I’d probably lose my religion too, if I had just heard what Lytton had heard.
“I want a simple yes or no, Ford.” Lytton pointed at the ground with fury. “Did you kill my fucking father?”
Ford was standing with both palms facing Lytton. “Whoa. Back off, buddy. In the first fucking place, it’s our father. Okay?”
“Semantics!” shouted Lytton.
“Digression!” yelled Slushy, holding his donut on high, trying to shove through between me and Lytton. “We are here to discuss your place in this family, Mr. Driving Hawk, not to toss about baseless accusations.”
“Lytton,” I tried to say quietly around the back of Slushy’s head. “Maybe you could discuss that later? Ford is here to acknowledge your place as his bro—”
“Just a simple yes or no,” bellowed Lytton. “It’s that fucking simple. I have a right to know if my own brother took his fucking pistol and blew out my father’s brains.”
True, newspaper accounts had said Cropper was found with a bullet to the brain, a dead Minion a few dozen yards away with a similar wound. There was ostensibly a second Minion who had been injured who had gotten away, so the urban legend went. Whoever that was had no doubt started the entire rumor mill going.
“Don’t answer that!” Slushy barked, shaping his hand into a gun and pointing it at Ford. “You have reasonable cause to apprehend danger from a direct answer!”
To my surprise, Ford wasn’t denying anything. He even had that helpless, guilty look. His hands flapped around pointlessly, and not many actual words were coming out of his mouth.
Slushy must’ve picked up on this, too, for he got between Lytton and Ford. Taking Ford by the forearms, he rattled him. “This can’t be answered without injurious disclosure. You have no obligation to respond, Ford!”
Lytton’s voice was low and dangerous. “There’s my answer. Yup. There’s my fucking answer. You. Turk Blackburn.” It was Turk’s turn to jump as Lytton levelled his ire at him. “Yes, you, Bong Breath. You were there in the desert near Nogales when this colossal asswad decided to play God and snuffed out my father’s life.”
Turk put a hand on his chest. “Me? Who said I was there?”
Lytton sliced the air with his hand. “About thirty separate rumors, which all add up to one colossal truth.”
Slushy turned his efforts against Lytton now. “Mr. Driving Hawk. I have to ask you to desist from this sort of innuendo. It’s neither constructive nor productive, and it’s bordering on slanderous. You’re ensnaring my client with ambiguous circumstances.”
Lytton narrowed his eyes at the thin-haired lawyer. “Oh, there’s nothing ambiguous about this.”
Ford popped out from behind Slushy, moving him aside. “It’s all right, Slushy. The guy has a legitimate accusation and I should address it.”
Slushy persisted. “Over my dead body. You have the right to remain silent, Ford!”
“I have my answer already, Mr. McGill,” Lytton said, almost wearily. “I’d just like to hear it from the fucking horse’s mouth.”
Even Slushy finally stopped talking. He looked as though he just wanted to sink into the wall because he could not shut his client up now. I knew there was no turning back from this shit. I even shrank back against the wall, linking Madison’s arm in mine. At least two of the men in the room were armed.
Ford lowered his voice now, but he looked Lytton straight in the eye. “I shot Cropper Illuminati, yes, in the desert outside Nogales. He was a dirty fucking lowdown son of a bitch—just ask anyone in the club. As for the rest, that’s club business. You just have to trust me and believe me when I tell you, Cropper needed to die. I needed to end him.” He spoke like a pastor giving a reassuring sermon to his flock.
It seemed for a second that Lytton might be reassured by Ford, too. He seemed to be taking this all in stride. He nodded in assent to what he already knew to be true. I could feel Madison stop breathing. And everyone probably wished Ford would shut the hell up.
But I saw what Ford was doing. He was showing his newfound brother respect. He was attempting to build trust by confiding in him something that potentially could send him to prison for life. Nobody would care if Cropper was a creep who needed to be taken out. The eyes of the law would just look at facts. Ford was placing a huge trust in Lytton just telling him this shit. He could’ve easily denied it, and that would’ve been the end of it. There might not have been any trust between the two men if Ford never told Lytton, but Lytton would never know this hugely incriminating detail about last year’s explosion near the border.
Ford exhaled. “And now that you know the truth, I want to welcome you to the brotherhood, brother.” Ford made a motion as if to give Lytton the soul handshake and the hug that was a giant thump on the back.
Lytton backed away, holding his hands up as though Ford were a rattlesnake. His voice wavered with fear and loathing. “Not a chance, brother. I appreciate you coming clean with me. But I don’t give a flying fuck what sort of son of a bitch our father allegedly was. There is no excuse under any fucking code of ethics to take anyone out like that. Everyone’s redeemable.”
Ford was shaking his head resolutely. “No. No. Just ask anyone. There was no fucking redemption going on around there. No way, shape, or form of redemption.”
Madison, although still trembling like a bridal veil, even spoke up. “No. No way of redemption, Lytton.”
Turk murmured, “I can vouch for that. There was no option.”
Slushy stepped back into play. “Nothing you’ve heard today is admissible in a court of law, Mr. Driving Hawk.”
Lytton’s eyes were narrowed at his brother. Pure hatred oozed through the slits. There was darkness in that gaze, like the surface of an oil slick. “I’m not going anywhere near any court of law, Mr. McGill. Just like I’m never going anywhere near The Bare Bones ever fucking again. You guys can burn in hell for all eternity for what you’ve done.”
“Lytton!” I cried out as he turned on his heel and whisked out the door.
“Let him go!” bellowed Ford, understandably tired of his short-lived attempt at brotherly love.
Maddy gripped Ford’s arm. “I wonder who he’s going to tell now.”
I shouted, “I’ll go get him. Don’t worry. He’s not telling anyone about Cropper.”
Ford stabbed the air with his forefinger. “Or about being my fucking brother either! I held out the olive branch and he
stomped on it!”
I sped from Slushy’s office. Out on Bargain Boulevard, Lytton’s bike wasn’t where I’d seen him leave it when he’d let me off. Panic gripped me.
I jogged pointlessly up and down the street. Suddenly he was there, his mouth a thin line as he rode his Harley slowly behind a cager, wearing his World War One helmet. He saw me—of course, since I was waving my arms madly—and he made his mouth a thin line, but pulled to the curb. He did not get off, and didn’t cut his engine.
I tugged on his plaid sleeve. My heart was being wrenched to think that these two brothers who had so much in common were being torn apart by something so stupid. Well, okay, fratricide wasn’t exactly a pleasant topic one could easily dismiss like an annoying YouTube channel. But they simply had to get over this. Ford must have a completely, thoroughly excellent explanation for the whole thing.
“Lytton,” I pleaded. “You can’t just storm away. You need to give Ford a chance to explain.”
“I don’t want any explanation, June. He did what he did and there’s nothing going to whitewash that. He took away my only fucking chance at getting to know my real father.”
“But a week ago you didn’t even know Cropper was your father.” I wanted to say, it’s not like Cropper ever came breaking down your front door looking for you either, taking responsibility for being your damned father. I knew he’d never acknowledged that brother of Ford’s that had died of some rare disease in childhood. June had told me that poor handicapped child had died deaf and blind never having been in the same room as Cropper—although Cropper knew he existed. His existence was why Cropper had dumped Ford’s mother. Cropper was too afraid of having more deformed kids.
So yeah, likely there were other creepy or otherwise facets to Cropper that I’d been blissfully unaware of. I had every conviction of my opinion when I added, “Come back to the table. Hear Ford out. He’s offering you a place in the club, which is his family, Lytton. There are no more of you guys left. His mother is dead. You told me your mother might as well be. Don’t you want to get to know Maddy, Fidelia, the other club patch holders? I promise you, they’re all a bunch of really nice guys, even Turk, the asshole who labels his product all wrong. Especially Turk.”