There’s silence for a few moments, the man probably checking his cell too.
“Wrong number?” I ask.
“You’re not Sandy, are you?”
“No, I’m Beau.”
There’s a brief silence before he speaks again. “Sorry, I was after my personal shopper.”
Personal shopper? “Well, I decorate. Sorry to disappoint.”
He hums, it’s thoughtful, and I find my shoulders rolling back slowly. Weirdly. “Sorry to bother you.”
“No bother,” I say, seeing Reg pull into the road up ahead. “Must go, my knight in shining armor has arrived.” I hang up, wondering where that light, jokey reply came from, and jump out of Dolly, giving Reg a wave, like he might not see the lingering ball of smoke floating above me.
He pulls up alongside me and leans out of the window, his customary cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth. “The smoke’s new.” He hands a latte down to me. “Jumper cables aren’t gonna fix that, beauty.”
I look back at Dolly, a little solemn. “But you can fix her, can’t you?” I couldn’t bear to say goodbye to her.
“Let’s get her on the truck and back to my repair shop. If she can be fixed, I’ll fix her.”
“Thanks, Reg.”
He sets about hooking Dolly up while I collect my bags and paint off the back seat. I load it all into Reg’s truck, and as I climb into the cab, my cell rings again. I glance down at the screen as I settle in my seat, faltering pulling on my belt as I answer.
“Hi, it’s me.”
“Hi, me,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“I have a few things I need.”
I raise my eyebrows. I mean, who is this guy? “Your wish is my command.”
“Sorry?”
“Anything you so desire.”
There’s silence, and I purse my lips.
“Pen and paper at the ready,” I go on. “What would sir like? A diamond for his girlfriend? A case of champagne? A few whips for the upcoming orgy?” Reg climbs into the truck and gives me a curious look. I shrug and take a sip of my latte. “Or female company?” I add. What do rich people with personal shoppers and fuck-all problems want these days?
More silence. So much in fact, I have to check he’s still on the line. He is. I bring my cell back to my ear, just catching his inhale. And I wait. “I’ll take all except the diamond,” he says, and it sounds rough. Dark.
My eyebrows slowly rise. No diamond. No girlfriend or wife? “How would sir like to pay?”
“With sex.”
I stare at the windscreen, and he hums again. It’s low. Raspy. I discreetly force myself out of my tense body, hearing him drawing breath to speak.
“But you already have a knight in shining armor,” he says.
I look across to Reg, who has a freshly lit cigarette in between his lips. His beard has a few remnants of food nestled in it, his bulbus nose is an angry shade of red, and his baseball cap probably hasn’t been washed since 1980. Reg obviously feels me inspecting him and turns toward me. He grins, revealing a total of five teeth. I shake my head and smile back. “I do,” I reply. “I’m being rescued at this very moment.”
Reg hitches an eyebrow as we rumble off down the road, and I silently contemplate that notion. Of being rescued. Of really being rescued.
“Then I’ll stop calling you,” he says flatly.
“Enjoy your sex party.”
“I will.”
And then he’s gone.
3
JAMES
I place the phone on my desk slowly, like distance between us would be wise. It would. I look across to the pad on my desk where her number appeared next to my new contact, courtesy of Goldie. Calling her once? A stupid mistake. Twice? Silly. A third time? That would be suicide.
I reach for the pad, turning it a fraction. The two numbers noted down—Beau Hayley’s and the contact—suddenly align to the correct names. I take a pen and scribble across Beau Hayley’s, eradicating any chance of me fucking up again. Then I face the screens that blanket one wall and turn them all on. Each one blinks to life, showing me mug shots of all the men on my list. I don’t need the screens. Each and every one of these men are etched on my sick brain. Along with the gory details of their deaths. Or impending deaths.
Kicking up my feet on my desk, I relax back with my keyboard on my lap and tap out some words across a face.
DECEASED
My eyes drift across to my next target, my lip curling. The Fox. Polish. A man with a fondness for selling young girls. Another contact of The Bear, and further proof of his reach. Of the control he has over the criminals in this city.
My email dings, and I bring up my inbox on the largest screen in the center of the wall. I open the attachment. And suddenly, lost amid the surrounding faces of criminals, is Beau Hayley.
I stare at the photograph of a young woman on the pavement of a Miami street. She’s the image of her mother, the woman who relentlessly tried to hunt me down. Jaz Hayley lost her life as a consequence. And now her daughter is about to lose hers too.
“Let it go, Beau,” I whisper, stroking over my Cupid’s bow slowly, my stare fixed on her. In this shot, her mask is off, and her grief is embedded on every inch of her fair skin. Her eyes, eyes bordering on black, are infinite pits of sadness. She’s beautiful. But eerily so.
Beau Hayley projects darkness.
And I am responsible for that darkness.
I tear my eyes away and make a call to the right person. “Hi, it’s me,” I say when the call connects.
“Who?”
I can’t help laughing at myself. Sandy is a bloke. I didn’t question the name. I didn’t question the fact that my new contact appeared to be a woman.
“I asked a question.” His accent is thick. Russian.
“That’s irrelevant. I need some stock.”
“I only do business with men I know.”
“Don’t take it personally. No one knows me, and since you’re new to the area and business, I would have thought you’d take every buyer you can get.”
“Name.”
“You can call me The Enigma.”
He inhales, and I smile. “Your real name.”
“Don’t tell me you were christened Sandy.”
“Moot point,” he drawls.
“Do you want my money or not?” I ask. “And as an added bonus, I’ll kill The Bear. Or I could just kill you, take your guns, and leave The Bear filling The Brit’s boots.”
“I’m listening.”
Of course he’s listening.
4
BEAU
Trying to make it to the front door is like fighting my way through a rainforest. Masses of hydrangeas line the pathway, creeping into the middle, narrowing the path. With my arms full, I resort to turning and backing my way through to avoid being smacked in the face by branches and beautiful pompoms of white and pink. I make it to the front door unscathed, and with a lack of a free hand to retrieve my key, I swing a pot of paint so it hits the wood. I hear her, singing her way to let me in. Aunt Zinnea. The woman is the epitome of sunshine and smiles. Someone around here needs to be.
“My darling,” she says as she flings the door open. “I was getting worried, you said you’d be back hours ago.” She opens the way, relieving me of the paint, and I pass her, stopping briefly so she can kiss my cheek.
“Dolly had a hissy fit.” I drop my things at the bottom of the stairs and stretch life back into my aching body. “Reg dropped me off at the end of the street.” His big truck doesn’t fit down our narrow road. He tried once and got wedged between two Escalades.
Zinnea sighs as she sets the paint down and flounces past me, heading for the kitchen at the back of the house, her kimono wafting behind her. “I don’t know why you didn’t accept your birthday gift from your father. You could still keep Dolly. How many times has she broken down now?”
Accept my father’s gift? That wasn’t a gift. That was a guilt crusher. I wasn’t about to feed his nee
d for absolution. Besides, Mom bought me Dolly. She’s a classic. Busted, but still a classic.
I follow Zinnea into the kitchen and find Dexter at the table, engrossed in the screen of his laptop. He’s still in his blues. He looks up and gives me his usual kind smile. “Good day, Beau?” he asks. Always does.
“I met Nath for a coffee,” I say, and the inevitable looks are thrown between Zinnea and Dexter. I ignore them. They know why I met Nath. “And Dolly’s broken again.” I head straight for the fridge, pulling out a bottle of wine. “You?”
“Dead man by the ocean. Always fun.” He goes back to his computer. “The Feds have moved in,” he mutters, as I pull down a glass. I don’t offer wine to anyone. Zinnea is almost ready for her performance this evening, and Dexter will be there admiring his love as she woos the crowd.
I pour a drink and join Dexter at the table. He smiles, not taking his attention from his screen. “No work today?” he asks.
“No.”
“Is it drying up?”
“A little,” I admit. More looks are thrown between them. It’s long past being tiresome. “Don’t say it,” I warn.
“The force would have you back in a heartbeat,” Dexter says, ignoring my pleas. “Years at the academy, Beau. You aced the Phase One test. Top five in the country, for Christ’s sake. You’re throwing so much away.”
“I’m not working for an institution I can’t believe in,” I mutter, taking a swig of my wine. Look where it got Mom. Dead. And they’re doing fuck all about it. It’s time to change the subject before they see the rage burning my insides. “I picked up the colors for your room.”
“Ooh, let me see,” Zinnea says, distracted, as she wrestles to fasten her bra.
I jump up and head to the hallway to collect the paint, arriving back in the kitchen to find she has abandoned her bra around her waist and now has one leg in her pantyhose. I set the paint cans on the side, pulling my keys from my pocket, using one to lever off a lid. I reveal the color, and she’s across to me in a shot, holding the other leg of her pantyhose. “Oh, I love it.”
“Pink?” Dexter asks from behind, and we both turn to find his glasses have been removed, his attention now firmly pointing this way. “We agreed no pink.”
“Oh, won’t you indulge me?” Zinnea pouts.
“No. No pink, Lawrence. We agreed.”
I wince, peeking at Zinnea to gage just how pissed off she is. And not because Dexter is putting a rare foot down. “Dexter!” she barks, motioning down her half-dressed form. “What’s my damn name?” Her voice has deepened to its usual manly tone, anger fueling it.
Dexter sighs. “Well, I don’t know.” He throws his glasses on the table. “You’re standing there with your bra around your waist, one hairy leg in your pantyhose, and your balls hanging out of your satin panties. Who are you right now?”
I purse my lips, finding my wine and filling my mouth. The rules are clear, so I have no clue how Dexter fucked up so monumentally. If the wig is on, it’s Zinnea. And the wig is on, albeit wonky. I can’t remember when my uncle went from being an uncle to an uncle and an aunt all wrapped up into one. But I remember the shitstorm it created in the family. My father, the prejudice asshole, kept me and my mother away like his brother was contagious. And yet, even now, all these years later and a pile of further crimes marked against my father’s name, Zinnea never bad-mouths him. Dexter, on the other hand, shares my contempt. Good. I need someone to remind me of what an asshole he is whenever I’m feeling weak.
“And you can keep your big mouth shut,” Zinnea snaps, slapping my shoulder.
I cough over my mouthful, spraying the table. “I didn’t say a word.”
“You didn’t need to.”
Zinnea finishes getting her stocking on and her bra into place before perfecting her makeup in the mirror at the table with us. And I watch her, fascinated, as she smiles her way through her task. How easy she finds it to smile. How hard I do.
“Done,” she says, smacking her painted lips. “Now I must dress.” Standing from the table, she clasps the side of her kimono and breezes out of the room. “Oh, I nearly forgot,” she says, pausing at the door and holding the frame as she looks back. She’s still smiling, but this one has a hint of something I’m wary of. “Your father called.”
I return to my wine immediately, sensing the suddenly thick atmosphere. I say nothing, looking up when I feel Dexter’s eyes on me. I sip my wine, giving him a what? look.
“He would love to see you,” Zinnea goes on, clearly cautious. “He’s been trying to call you.”
I close my eyes and breathe out slowly. Yes, I know. I’ve been purposely ignoring him. “I can’t be around him and that child he calls a girlfriend,” I say, braving facing Zinnea again. “Nothing’s changed for me.”
“Time has changed, my darling.” She smiles mildly, desperate for me to make amends with him. “And maybe with it, your father has. He called me, for God’s sake. Your father! He even asked how I was.”
I hate the elation she’s so obviously feeling. Like me, Zinnea shouldn’t be giving him the time of day. I don’t understand her motives. Or maybe I do. Live and let live, she says. Shake out the negativity. “He must want something,” I mutter.
“Yes, your forgiveness.”
My forgiveness? He’ll never get that. He can continue trying to find redemption in charity work and being the consummate businessman, but he’ll never get freedom from my contempt. I finish my wine and drag myself up, heading past Zinnea to the front door. I stop and kiss her cheek. “I’m going to see Mom.”
She pulls me back when I break away, giving me a hug. “Send my love.”
“I will.”
She releases me, and I head for the door. “Beau, my darling?”
I look back, and she smiles lightly. “Let it be, I beg you. Just let it be. The upset with your father, my darling. It’s the last demon you need to be rid of.”
I say nothing, just return her smile and close the front door behind me. Zinnea and Dexter have worked so hard to stabilize me. I can’t let on that I feel far from stable. Can’t let them know of the demons that still haunt me. And my father is undisputedly one of them.
I wrestle with the dilapidated iron gate, wincing when the metal scrapes along the concrete beneath it. How it hasn’t fallen off its hinges yet, I don’t know. The pathway isn’t much better, the slabs uneven, every single one broken, weeds bursting up from between the cracks. I tread carefully, avoiding the stinging nettles. “It’s like dicing with death coming to see you, Mom,” I say to myself, making it to her relatively unscathed.
I settle on the overgrown grass and put the bunch of tulips down beside me. “Hi.” I inhale, my heart turning in my chest, as I stare at her headstone.
JASMINE (JAZ) HAYLEY
1965-2019
GONE BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN
“I’m fine,” I assure her. “But Aunt Zinnea is definitely getting soft in her old age. She sends her love, by the way.” I get to my knees and pull the stone vase free of the holder, plucking out the limp roses and emptying the old water. I take the bottle of Evian from my bag and top up the vase, arranging the tulips just so. They’re Mom’s favorite. Mine too. She always said they were a sign of brighter, sunnier, longer days. Nothing is bright and sunny anymore. And longer days are crueler days. “Perfect,” I say, placing the vase back and tweaking the stems. Then I get myself comfortable, lying on the grass beside her grave, watching the clouds roll through the sky.
Aunt Zinnea taught me how to control my thoughts. How to channel my anger. How to shake out the negativity. How to find peace amid tragedy. It’s something I never really got the hang of. A lesson I struggle to remember each day. Life is unpredictable, and death even more so. The only guarantee is that it will happen. Sometimes too soon, sometimes too late, but it will happen. “I’m thinking about buying my own place,” I say, pulling at the blades of grass beside me. “Aunt Zinnea would never say, but I’m sure she must think I’ve long outs
tayed my welcome.” I point to the sky. “Oh, look, the Eiffel Tower.” I watch as the tall, tapering cloud drifts over us, losing its shape as it goes. “I said it was for a month.” I drop my head to the side. “That was nearly two years ago.” I’m thirty. I have the money. I even have the desire. But there’s that tiny part of me that’s scared to leave Zinnea’s sanctuary. A tiny part that knows it would be stupid. And seeing my father? No. That’s a sure-fire way to send me spiraling further. I can’t come to terms with the fact he’s still living and my mom’s not. I haven’t even got my head around the fact that I am still here.
Fear. It’s one of the things Aunt Zinnea has worked so hard to push out of me. I haven’t the heart to tell her it hasn’t worked. I don’t fear death anymore, but I fear life. I fear I’ll never be rid of this bitterness. Never be rid of the pain. Never be able to keep my mind clean. Never be able to look in the mirror and like what I see. It’s such an effort, an everyday struggle. And the answer to my problems is always haunting me. Everywhere I look, I see a way out.
Zinnea is my crutch.
I can’t bring myself to leave my crutch. She was Mom’s crutch too. And the object of my father’s scorn.
I breathe out and return my eyes to the clouds, feeling around on the grass beside me when I hear my cell. I look up at the screen, rolling my eyes at the strange number that I’ve become familiar with today. “Isn’t the sex party doing it for you?”
“You mentioned you paint,” he says, seeming to completely miss my quip.
My smile is hesitant. “I did.”
“I’m looking for a painter.”
He doesn’t sound too sure about that. In fact, he sounds agitated. “What do you want painted?”
“My bedroom.”
“Is it worn out from all the sex parties?”
“How much?”
This is getting plain weird. “I’d need to take a look in order to quote.”
The Enigma: Unlawful Men Book 2 Page 4