“So tell Uncle Bill.”
Uncle Bill is Smokey. That’s what my cousins call him.
“I don’t know what to tell Smoke,” I say. “What if the guy’s just some minister or something and he’s being nice.”
Keith nods real slow. He finally gets it.
“If you cut school, Uncle Bill will kill you.”
“Not if he don’t find out,” I say.
Keith tosses my bag into the garbage and makes that shot too. The bell rings and we stand up.
“If you cut,” he says, “I’m cutting with you.”
“You don’t got to,” I say.
“She’s my sister,” he says. “And she’ll kill me if she sees me going through her stuff.”
“Is that what you’re gonna do?” I ask.
“You think I’m gonna ask her?” He grins at me. “She keeps a diary. In code. And I know how to read it.”
***
The next day, after we get inside the school and Lacey runs off to the girls room, Keith takes my arm and steers us toward the lockers.
“He takes her to the Starlight Café for lunch, every day for the last week now.”
The Starlight’s just around the corner. It’s the restaurant part of an old hotel that’s mostly used for drug sales and one-hour rentals. Mostly old people eat in the restaurant, like they probably did when it was a fancy place.
I frown. “That’s all her diary says? Lunch.”
“Says he thinks she’s pretty. Says he’s an agent or something and thinks she can be a model.”
I let out a small breath. I’d heard that before, lots of times. Mom used to yell at girls who cried in her living room, girls who were always saying they thought they were supposed to be modeling.
“What’re you gonna do?” Keith asks.
“I’m gonna tell him the truth. She’s too young to be a model.”
“Okay,” Keith says. “You wanna go to the café and wait?”
I bite my lower lip. I’m not gonna be able to get rid of him. It’s his sister after all. But I don’t really have much of a plan. I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on.
“No,” I say. “Let’s see if he comes today first.”
We skip class. We hide out near the janitor’s closet before it’s time for math, and then we go outside. I make sure we stay as far from that arch as we can and still see it. And I tell Keith to just stay quiet.
He thinks it’s all a game, and Keith is really good at games. So he’s so quiet next to me that if I didn’t see the white from his breath, I wouldn’t know he was there.
Sure enough, about the time math starts, Lacey comes outside and stands under the arch. She’s wearing another short top tied so tight around her tummy that I can see the red mark it’s making from where I’m standing. Today she’s wearing a skirt so short that if she bends over, she’s not hiding nothing, and a pair of white go-go boots she had to have borrowed from somebody.
She lights a cigarette and Keith makes a growly sound.
We all wait, and finally the guy in the coat shows up.
I can see him closer than I did yesterday. He’s old, maybe as old as Smoke. His hair’s slicked back and he’s got them weird sideburns that go most of the way to his jaw. He smiles at Lace, but I don’t like it. His eyes aren’t smiling at all.
He puts out his elbow and she takes it. Me and Keith follow.
Smoke taught me how to tail somebody. I don’t think he meant to, but sometimes he gets tails on his cases, and he has me watch for them, and he always tells me if they’re good tails or bad ones. I told Keith how to do this, how once we get to the sidewalk, it’s important to look like we belong and like we ain’t watching nothing, but I’m afraid he’ll screw me up.
That’s why I go first and when I got to the sidewalk, I start walking with attitude, like I’m a Stone. I can hear Keith’s boots crunching on the snowy walk behind me. Ahead, the Starlight Diner looks just as cheesy as I remember, with its dirty windows and the black steam rising out of the grates on the ceiling, turning that side of the eight-story hotel gray.
I don’t see Lace or the guy, but I figure they’re inside. It took me and Keith about ten minutes to get there, which I figure gave Lace and the guy time enough to get settled and not worry about the windows or the door.
Just as I make it to the store next to the Starlight, the door opens, and Lace comes out. She’s smiling. The guy still has her elbow. He’s taking her across the driveway and to the front door of the hotel.
My stomach cramps so hard I think I’m gonna puke. But I swallow it down.
I run forward—I’m gonna stop them—but Keith grabs me and makes me near to falling over.
“What’re you doing?” I whisper.
“You said not to—”
“They’re going to the hotel.”
He looks confused. I shake him off. By the time I get inside the hotel, they’re on the stairs. The place is old and smells of cigars and sweat and beer. The smell makes my eyes water — not because it’s so bad, but because I know that smell. I grew up with it.
I’m shaking real bad. That morning, I thought of taking Smoke’s gun out of the glove box in the car, but he told me if I ever did that, even for a good reason, he’d whup me—and that’s the only time he’s ever threatened to whup me for anything, so I only thought about the gun, I didn’t take it.
All I brought was some tweezers and a pen and a screwdriver, just cause I thought I might have to break into Lace’s locker or something.
Now I understand though why the Stones have those knives, and I wish I had something because that old guy’s a lot bigger than me, and Lace and Keith’re next to worthless.
Keith’s beside me, breathing hard, and looking confused. The desk clerk don’t even look at us. He’s probably used to Stones coming in and out. Nobody else is in the lobby.
I point to the payphone next to the bathrooms. “Call Smoke,” I say, handing Keith all the dimes I got. “If he’s not at home, try Laura’s. Tell her it’s an emergency and who you are and she’ll get him. If you get him, tell him I said Lace is in trouble.”
“Trouble?” Keith repeats and looks at the stairs. “What kind of trouble?”
“You stay here,” I say and run for the stairs. As I fly up those stairs. I can hear Lace asking a question far away, which means she’s not in a room yet, so I go past the first floor, then the second, and by the time I get to the third, I see a door close at the end of the hall.
I figure they’re down there. If I’m wrong, I’m in trouble, but I’ll search this whole place until I find them. I hurry down the hall, and try the door, but it’s locked.
“Go away!” some guy yells from inside. I never heard the old guy talk, so I don’t know if it’s him or not.
I don’t breathe. I want to surprise him, because otherwise he’ll hurt me.
Then I hear Lace say, “I thought there was supposed to be agency people here.”
“There will be,” the guy says. “Take off your clothes and let’s see what you got.”
“No,” Lace says.
I’m not strong enough to kick the door in, but I do know how to get a door open. I learned picking almost before I learned to walk. The easiest is just to take off the knob, and that’s what I decide to do because it looks loose already.
I take out the screwdriver. My hands are shaking so bad I almost drop it. I look down the hall, but no one’s coming, not even Keith, so I figure we’re okay.
“Listen, cunt,” the guy says, “you’ll do what I say.”
“No!” Lace says, and then there’s an awful crash.
My hands stop shaking, but I can’t swallow.
Lace screams and there’s another thud, and a bang, and it’s like I’m back in our apartment in the kitchen where I’m not supposed to leave while Thug is there showing Mom what’s what.
I concentrate and force the screwdriver onto the screw and start turning. I make myself focus on the work instead of the thuds and
whimpers inside. I’m trying to pretend it’s Mom and not Lace, who has no idea what’s happening, Lace who I promised Smoke I’d protect, Lace—
The knob falls away and I have to catch it before it hits the floor. I set it down real quiet, keep the screwdriver in my left hand, and pull the door open with my right.
First, Mom would say, you get the money. Then you worry about the guy.
That was when she knew the guy had more money than he was willing to give her, and she wanted it anyway, sometimes for weed, sometimes for rent, sometimes for food.
I ease inside. The place is dark and smells of sweat and Lace’s perfume. She’s on her back on the bed and she’s pushing on the guy who’s on top of her, and she’s kicking her feet, but it’s not doing no good because he’s between her legs with his pants down.
She don’t see me, which is just as good. I keep a grip on that screwdriver, but first, I get behind the guy and slide his wallet out of his pants just like Mom taught me. I put it in my pocket, then I grab the guy by the belt and yank up.
It shouldn’ta worked. It wouldn’ta worked in Memphis. But I’m spitting mad and it makes me strong. I pull him off. Lace lets out an awful scream and starts kicking him and I whale on the back of his head with the screwdriver.
“Jesus,” he says, covering his head with his hands. Lace keeps kicking and I keep hitting and he grabs his pants, pulling them up as he runs out of the room.
I go to the door, but he’s running down the hall, holding his pants up. Blood’s dripping off his greasy head and I think that’s not enough. If I had Smoke’s gun, he wouldn’t be moving at all. If—
“Jim?”
Lace don’t sound like Lace. She sounds like a baby, her voice shaking. The bed’s covered with blood and she’s shoved against the wall, her shirt ripped and her bra busted open and her tits hanging out. Her skirt’s up to her hips.
“We gots to get you outta here.” I take off my coat and wrap it around her.
“No,” she says, but she don’t fight me. I seen this before too.
“Come on.” I help her up. I tug down her skirt as best I can and I pull my jacket tight over her front. She’s got a bruise on the side of her face that’s gonna swell real bad, and her mascara’s run, leaving streaks down the side of her face. One of her eyelashes is falling off, and her hair is coated with some of the guy’s blood—at least, I hope it’s his.
It takes forever for me to get her to the door, and even longer to get her down the hall. She keeps falling off her boots. I’d make her take them off, but we have to go outside.
“Jim?” she says every few feet, like she can’t believe it’s me.
I get her to the stairs, and we go down slow, and then I see Keith, who comes running up.
“What happened? Lacey? Are you okay?” and then he screams at the guy at the desk to call the cops.
“Shut up,” I say as mean as I can. “A place like this, they won’t call the cops.”
“You don’t know that,” Keith says.
“I do,” I say. “Shut up, or they’ll hurt us too.”
I don’t know if that’s true, but I want out of here fast.
“You get ahold of Smoke?”
“He was at home. He’s coming now. I told him here.” Keith’s hands are fluttering near Lace’s face but he don’t touch her like he’s afraid he’ll hurt her. I’m not even sure Lace sees him.
“Help me,” I say, and together we get her the rest of the way downstairs.
We’re almost through the lobby when the door busts open. It’s Smoke. He’s wearing his coat and it flaps around him and his eyes are wild and he’s holding his gun. He musta drove like mad to get here so fast.
He sees us and stares for a minute. Then he sticks his gun in the holster he keeps under his coat and comes toward us.
“Lacey,” he says in a real gentle voice.
“Some guy hurt her, Uncle Bill.” Keith is really mad. He’s talking loud. “We gotta call the cops. We gotta—”
“Not now,” Smoke says. He reaches for Lace, but his eyes meet mine.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “I didn’t—”
“Jim saved me, Uncle Bill.” Lace says. It’s like seeing Smoke made her strong. “He beat the guy up and sent him away. Jim saved me.”
Smoke put his arm around her and she leans against him. Her boots aren’t white no more. They’re blackish red with blood.
“Uncle Bill,” Keith says like he’s gonna whine about the police, but Smoke shushes him. Then Smoke lifts Lacey up and carries her out the door, and we follow, like ducklings, all the way to the car.
***
It’s not until we’ve been in the hospital awhile and Aunt Althea’s come and our neighbor, Marvella, who does women stuff and knows how to take care of people who been through what Lace’s been through, that Smoke sits down next to me.
“You did great,” he says.
“She still got hurt,” I say. “If I’d been faster, I could’ve stopped him.”
“You might have been killed,” he says. Then he put a hand on my shoulder. “When we’re done, I’m going back to the hotel and see if I can get the clerk to tell me this jerk’s name.”
I reach into the pocket of my pants, and with two fingers, I pull out the wallet. I hand it to Smoke.
He frowns at me for a minute, then he opens it, and lets out a small laugh. “This is the guy?”
I nod.
“You got his wallet?”
I don’t say Mom taught me how to do that. I don’t even say I planned it. I’ll let Smoke think it was an accident.
“Son of a bitch,” Smoke says, and pulls me close. “You’re one incredible kid, you know that?”
I just lean against him. I don’t feel incredible. I didn’t get there fast enough, and now Lace’ll be hurt forever, even though Smoke says she’ll get help from the family and stuff.
At least I got the wallet so Smoke can see who the guy is. Because I know what Keith don’t. No cop’ll arrest a guy like that creep. That guy’s probably paying protection. He was prepping Lace to live like my mom. He’s got connections.
Smoke don’t care about connections. Smoke’ll shut him down. Smoke’s done it before.
And even though I wasn’t able to stop that guy from hurting Lace, at least she won’t grow up to be like my mom. If we wasn’t here, Lace would’ve disappeared into that hotel and no one would’ve known what happened.
But I didn’t save her. Not really. I wish I’d gotten that guy before he hurt Lace.
I ain’t Smoke.
At least, not yet.
About the Author
Kris Nelscott is an open pen name used by award-winning bestselling writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch, which she uses for historical mysteries.
The first Smokey Dalton novel, A Dangerous Road, won the Herodotus Award for Best Historical Mystery and was short-listed for the Edgar Award for Best Novel; the second, Smoke-Filled Rooms, was a PNBA Book Award finalist; and the third, Thin Walls, was one of the Chicago Tribune’s best mysteries of the year. Kirkus chose Days of Rage as one of the top ten mysteries of the year.
Entertainment Weekly says her equals are Walter Mosley and Raymond Chandler. Booklist calls the Smokey Dalton books “a high-class crime series” and Salon says “Kris Nelscott can lay claim to the strongest series of detective novels now being written by an American author.”
If you liked “Guarding Lacey,” you might enjoy these Kris Nelscott works:
Clinic
Dangerous Road
Family Affair
Smoke-Filled Rooms
Thin Walls
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