Wild Aces

by Marni Mann

  “Be careful out there, Cody.”

  “I always am, baby.”

  My phone rang from inside my purse, which was somewhere in Trapper’s living room. I bolted off the stool and quickly looked for it. I didn’t recognize the number on the screen when I finally held it in my hand.

  “This is Brea,” I said as I answered.

  “Ma’am, my name’s Ryan. I’m the super over at Brushwood Places.”

  It took me a second to figure out which building he was talking about. “Hi, Ryan. How can I help you?”

  “Mr. Dawson told me to call him if there were any noise complaints tonight. Said he’d handle it personally. But you see, he ain’t answering, and I’m afraid one of the residents is gonna go ahead and call the police. So, I found some note that said Jordan somethin’ manages this building. I gave Miss Jordan a call, and now, I’m talking to you.”

  The office line rang to whoever was on call. Tonight, it was me…which I’d completely forgotten about.

  “I’m more than happy to call the police for you, Ryan,” I told him. “We usually let them handle all noise complaints, especially if they happen late at night.”

  All of my property managers followed that practice; it was best not to get involved with tenant disputes.

  “Mr. Dawson don’t like it when the police are called. That’s why he usually deals with the noise himself.”

  “Okay then. Is it something you can handle, or would you like me to come over?”

  “Broke both legs last week while I was sprinkling salt out front. Mr. Dawson wants me to stay in bed, so I don’t hurt nothin’ else…if you know what I mean.”

  Max Dawson was our largest leasing account. If he was tied up and unable to respond to the complaint and Ryan was bedbound, then that left me. With Trapper gone, I wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight anyway.

  “I’ll head over there now.”

  “Hit two-three-four-five on the keypad, ma’am. That’ll buzz you in.”

  That was original.

  “Got it. What’s the apartment number?”

  “One fourteen.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I hung up and dropped my phone back in my purse. Then I hurried around the kitchen and up the stairs, picking up all the clothes that Trapper had stripped off me and dropped on our way to his bedroom.

  After I quickly dressed, I zipped up my jacket and wrapped my scarf around my neck. Frankie’s townhouse wasn’t far from Trapper’s, so I knew the right intersection to pick up a cab.

  Once I settled into the backseat of the taxi, I tied my hair into a messy bun and swiped some gloss over my lips. I doubted if Frankie would still be awake, but I typed her a text anyway. At least, she’d have a surprise to wake up to.

  Me: It haaaaappeeeeened.

  I clicked Send and pulled up my favorite celebrity gossip site. I didn’t even have a chance to read the first headline before Frankie’s reply popped up on the screen.

  Frankie: You go, girl! Was it the perfect cock you hoped for?

  Me: Oh, YESSSSS.

  Frankie: I knew it. He’s a keeper.

  Me: Why are you awake?

  Frankie: I’m trying to get caught up with my e-mails. Still have over 4000 to go. :-( Why aren’t you doing the dirty again right now?

  Me: Uh, well…I’m in a taxi on my way to settle a noise complaint.

  Frankie: That’s not policy. I hope you brought Trapper with you?

  Me: No. He left, too. But not with me.

  My phone started ringing, and the screen filled with a picture of Frankie and me at a winery in Maine.

  “Let me guess,” I said, laughing. “Your nails are too long, and it’s making it too hard for you to text?”

  “They’re like claws, I swear. Let’s go for manicures tomorrow?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “Why did Trapper leave? And why aren’t you letting the police handle the noise complaint?”

  I leaned against the window, feeling the chill through the glass. “Trapper had some work stuff to handle, I guess.”

  “He left after you guys had sex?”

  “Yep.”

  She sighed at the same time I did. “Forgive me for saying this, but that reminds me of something Cody would do.”

  She knew me too well.

  “Yeah…I know. And I hate it.”

  “I’m assuming you’d rather go out on the noise complaint than be stuck at his place alone?”

  “Right again. It’s for Max Dawson, and his super said that Max doesn’t like it when the police are called. For him and only for him, it’s the least I can do.”

  “You know, your boss should really give you a raise for this,” she teased.

  I laughed so hard, I snorted. “Will you tell my boss that, please? She’s this hard-ass bitch who’s so stingy with money, and I make her sooooo much of it.”

  She laughed. “Rumor is your boss’s husband returns tomorrow night. Ask her then. I guarantee she’ll be in a much better mood.”

  “Noted.” I giggled. “I’ll call you in the morning. Love you, bossy bitch.”

  “Love you more.”

  Trapper

  I walked to the end of the hallway, reaching the apartment number Adrianna had texted me. It was so quiet. I put my ear against the door, trying to hear if anyone was talking inside. There was nothing but silence, so I knocked to make sure I had the right address. My heart was pounding hard enough to feel it in my throat.

  “Who’s there?” asked a guy from the other side of the door.

  “Trapper Montgomery.”

  The door opened, and I stepped inside. I was immediately hit with a rancid smell that brought me back to my childhood—meat that had been left out of the fridge for weeks. I covered my nose and saw Adrianna and her assistant standing against the back wall. Their arms were looped together, their shoulders touching, as if they were trying to protect themselves from something.

  “Are you all right?” I asked them, walking toward their side of the room. “What’s going on here?”

  Adrianna used her head to point to the right. I turned and saw a guy standing in the kitchen. He was holding a gun, aimed directly at me.

  “I’m what the fuck is going on here,” he said.

  I glanced back at Adrianna. Her face told me I really needed to be careful. This wasn’t an angry seller. This was a guy who was fucking crazy.

  “Why don’t you put the gun down and let the girls go?” I said. “Then we can talk about what you want.”

  He used the butt of it to scratch his chin. “Hell no. That pretty little blonde there is the reason I got this gun. I ain’t giving her up.”

  “What’s he talking about?” I asked.

  “I stuck a knife at her throat and told that big motherfucker that if he didn’t give me his gun, I would stab her.” He was talking about Kevin, the guy I’d hired to protect them, who I didn’t see anywhere in here. He waved me closer, so I could look around the corner of the kitchen. “That motherfucker right there.”

  Kevin was tied to a chair with a pair of panties stuffed in his mouth to keep him quiet.

  The gun in this guy’s hand made him think he was in control of what was happening here. But it wasn’t the first gun that had been pointed at me, and it wasn’t the first time I would have to talk my way out of a shitty situation.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him.

  “You come into my house and want to buy something from me, and you don’t know my fucking name?” He stumbled forward a few steps.

  “Just tell me your—”

  “Put your hands up!” he shouted.

  I lifted them into the air.

  “You must be the boss I keep asking for?”

  “That’s me, yeah.” I glanced at Adrianna.

  Her purse was still hanging over her shoulder. I knew she had a gun in the inside pocket, and mine was still in the waist of my jeans. We just had to find the right moment to take them out. Adrianna’s eyes told me she agreed with
that idea.

  “Let’s talk this out,” I said. I took a step to the side, trying to get all his attention on me. “You asked for me, and now, I’m here. What is it that you want?”

  “Whore!” he screamed. With the gun still pointed at me, he looked over his shoulder, as if he was searching for someone. When a response didn’t come, he yelled again, “Whore!”

  “Cooooomiiiiing,” a woman slurred. She held on to the wall as she walked into the room. There were scabs all over her face. She was picking at one of them and making it bleed. The blood ran down her neck and onto her shirt, joining the other stains already there. “Can’t be no whore if your dick’s the only one I suck, Whitey.”

  “Shut up, and tell ’em what you want.”

  She shrugged, her fingers moving down her arm. There were scabs there, too, but those were larger, some open and oozing.

  “Tell ’em!” He hit the back of her head with the gun. “And speak up. No one but me can hear you.”

  “I want a baby.”

  “She wants a baby,” he repeated.

  “But you have a baby,” I said.

  Whitey walked into the kitchen and disappeared around the corner where Kevin was tied up. When he returned, he was dragging a small kid by the collar of his dirty shirt. “You mean, this baby?”

  He let go of the shirt, lifted his foot, and kicked the kid in the middle of his back. The kid tumbled several feet and landed on his face.

  My jaw clenched, and I stepped forward to wrap my fingers around Whitey’s goddamn neck. But I glanced at Adrianna first, her eyes warning me that I needed to keep my anger under control if I was going to get us out of here. My hands dropped back to my sides, my fingers releasing from their tightened fists.

  “Ouchie,” the kid sobbed. “Daddy, that hurted.”

  This was why I didn’t go on pickups. I couldn’t see things like this—the way the imports were living, how they were treated, hearing their tiny voices begging for help. It brought me back to those years when I was the one being dragged by the shirt and kicked until I fell on my face. I couldn’t handle the memories, and I couldn’t handle being reminded of them.

  “I’m not your fucking daddy!” Whitey shouted back. He looked at me and pointed at the kid, who was still crying on his knees. “She wants a baby. She just don’t want this one.”

  The woman scratched her arm and said nothing. She hadn’t looked up once since Whitey dragged the kid into the room. Her slurred words and swinging jaw told me she was high as hell. The sores and scars told me she’d been an addict for a while.

  It made me sick to even suggest this, but it was a solution. “If she wants a baby, why don’t you get her pregnant again?” I said to Whitey. “Seems like that would solve all the problems here.”

  “Don’t you think I already thought of that?” He pointed the gun at his own head. “I ain’t no dummy.” He laughed, and the woman groaned. “She lost her ovary or some shit during her last OD. Doc said no more babies will be coming out of that cunt again.” He pointed the gun toward the kid. “This one ain’t mine. He looks like his daddy and, I can’t fucking stand his daddy. So, we want a new one.”

  “I want a baby,” the woman grunted.

  “Yeah,” he said, “we want a baby, and if you came in here to buy that kid, then you must be able to get us a baby. So, give us a fucking baby, and no one will get hurt.”

  I looked at Adrianna. There was no way I was giving this guy anything, other than the bottom of my boot in his face.

  “You deaf?” he yelled. “’Cause I know I’m making myself real clear.”

  “I’m not deaf. I heard you just fine.”

  “Then why you standing there, doing nothing about it? I told you what I want, and I’m running out of patience.”

  “I’ll—” I was cut off by a knock at the door.

  Whoever was on the other side didn’t wait to be asked in. And when it swung open, my worse fucking nightmare came true.

  “Another rich bitch,” Whitey said, now pointing the gun at Brea. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I-I’m the property ma-manager,” Brea said. Her mouth fell open when she saw me.

  I just shook my head.

  “Why you here?” he asked her.

  “The su-super called me and said there was a noise complaint, s-so I came here to deal with it.”

  Damn it. This couldn’t have been any worse.

  Now, Brea was involved, there was a gun pointed at her, and I was right in the middle of it, which meant she knew I’d lied about this being a work thing. I needed to get us all out of danger and get us the hell out of here.

  “Trapper, I’m confu—”

  “Don’t talk to him,” Whitey interrupted.

  “But I don’t understand what’s going on,” she said to me. “Why are you here?”

  “Put your fucking hands in the air, and go over there and join the others.”

  She looked at me as she walked by to join Adrianna and her assistant against the wall.

  “Now,” he said, “we was talking about you getting us a baby…”

  Brea

  Just because I wasn’t screaming didn’t mean I was keeping it together. Really, I was freaking the hell out as I held my hands in the air and walked toward the other two women. I knew if I didn’t hurry, I would become part of the trash that I kept stepping on, and my body would probably just add to the rotten flesh smell that permeated the place. Then there was the slimy, toothless prick who was pointing a gun at me. And to make it all worse, I didn’t understand why the hell Trapper was here.

  “Don’t worry,” one of the women whispered to me as I reached the back wall. “Trapper will get us out of here.”

  “Oh, I’m worried, all right.”

  “Trapper will figure out what to do,” she said so confidently, so knowingly, like this was something Trapper had done before. Her voice sounded very much like the woman who had called him earlier. She seemed to have a tremendous amount of faith in him.

  But my faith was gone the minute I realized he had lied to me. Bastard. Clearly, there was more to his life than just professional poker. Why couldn’t he have just been honest with me?

  “Where’s my baby?” the woman near the kitchen yelled. She was just as greasy as the guy holding the gun. Her makeup was smudged like war paint, and her hair was a rat’s nest. She picked what looked like a massive zit on her arm as she waited for someone to answer her. “You tell ’em I want my baby. And not that one there.”

  A baby?

  “Daddy,” I heard. “Here, Daddy.”

  “Oh my God!” I gasped at the sight of the little boy.

  He looked to be about two years old, pulling himself out of the trash that covered him. I slapped my hand over my mouth to stop myself from making any other noise.

  The boy tried to get his footing, but he slipped and fell back on his butt. “Help me, Daddy.” He gave up on standing and began to suck his thumb, playing with a beer can that he found on the floor.

  “Shut up,” Slimy Guy barked at the boy. Then he looked at Trapper. “I’m not going to tell you again. You need to find me a baby right now, or someone in here is going to die tonight.”

  “I can get you a baby,” Trapper said. “I just need a few days—”

  “No! She wants one now!”

  Trapper held his hands out. “Does it look like I have a baby with me? I can’t get you one without leaving, so you’re going to need to be a little more reasonable.”

  What the hell was he talking about?

  “Okay, boss,” Slimy Guy said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “You leave, and you come right back with a baby. But those bitches”—he pointed at the three of us standing by the back wall—“are staying right here.” He licked his cracked lips. “I’m gonna keep ’em real busy while you’re gone.”

  “Don’t you be gettin’ any ideas,” the greasy woman said. “There won’t be any dick-sucking while I’m up in here.”

  “Shut y
our mouth!” Slimy Guy screamed. He reached out with his free hand and slapped her across the face.

  I jumped at the sound of her head hitting the wall. She slid down until her ass was on the floor.

  “All of you, shut your fucking mouths!” he added. He walked over to Trapper, the gun shaking in his hand. “You get out of here, and don’t come back until you got us a baby.”

  Trapper looked at the woman beside me, the one who had called him earlier. Something seemed to pass between them as they stared at each other. It only lasted a second before Trapper turned his back toward us and walked to the door. Slimy Guy followed him, and I felt the arm of the woman beside me move as she reached inside her purse.

  Everything happened so fast after that.

  Trapper paused when his hand touched the knob and looked over his shoulder. “A baby, right?” he asked as the woman hurried toward them.

  “Yeah, motherfuck—” Slimy Guy was cut off when the woman pushed a gun into his neck.

  “Give me your gun, or she’ll blow your fucking head off,” Trapper said.

  “Fuck!” Slimy Guy shouted as he dropped the gun in Trapper’s hand.

  “You okay, hon?” the other woman who stood against the wall asked me.

  I said nothing.

  “Get that thing off me!” Slimy Guy yelled.

  “Now, you’re the one who needs to shut up,” Trapper said.

  “Fuck you—”

  “No!” Trapper roared through gritted teeth. He pulled back his arm and punched Slimy Guy in the nose.

  I heard something crack, and blood spattered all over Trapper’s shirt. Slimy Guy lost his balance and fell onto the trash.

  “Fuck you,” Trapper finished, standing over him with the gun pointed at his head. “Adrianna, go grab whatever you can find in the kitchen, so we can tie him up.”

  “Trapper, tell me what you need me to do,” the woman beside me said.

  While the three of them were busy tying up Slimy Guy, I couldn’t take my eyes off the little boy. He hadn’t moved; he was still holding the beer can, still sucking his tiny thumb.