Present Danger

by Susan Andersen

  “Ooh.” Aunie regarded her friend with interested eyes. “I’ll wear somethin’ short and tight. And my highest heels.”

  “That’s the ticket.” Mary grasped Aunie by the arm. “Well, I’m sure you’ll excuse us, fellas,” she said to the two men. Otis was still smiling, but she observed that James was regarding her with eyes that had become abruptly unfriendly. She gave them both her sweetest smile. “I’m afraid your paint job will just have to get along without Aunie’s help. We’ve got studying to do.” She dragged Aunie down the hall.

  “Thanks for showin’ me how,” Aunie called back over her shoulder as she trotted to keep up with her taller friend. She laughed at something Mary murmured to her and then a moment later her apartment door banged closed behind them.

  The men resumed painting. It was silent for several moments before Otis said with thoughtful slowness, “I imagine that little gal will look mighty fine in somethin’ short and tight, wearin’ her highest heels.” He turned guileless ebony eyes on James. “Don’t you?”

  James slapped his pad into the tray with unnecessary force, splashing white paint over the rim. He swore softly, staring blindly at the mess. Then he turned green eyes on his friend. They were wiped free of all expression. “Yeah,” he replied emotionlessly. “I’m sure she’ll look just fine.”

  “Real fine,” Otis ruthlessly amended. He wasn’t above twisting the screw a bit. Jimmy was usually self-aware to a fault. Lately, however, he’d been downright obtuse.

  “Sure,” James agreed flatly. “Real fine.”

  * * *

  Aunie and Mary jostled for space in front of the mirror in Aunie’s tiny bathroom. Being the smallest, Aunie stood in front. She pulled down her lower eyelid and carefully applied liner. Satisfied with the results, she picked up the mascara wand but paused, meeting Mary’s eyes in the mirror.

  “I don’t know quite how to say this without sounding rude,” she said, “but I was really pleased that it was only you and me going out tonight.” She stroked a coat of brown-black onto her lashes. “It’s not that I’m not appreciative of the way you’ve introduced me to everyone or that I don’t like them, you understand. It’s just that most of them seem so … young.”

  “They are young,” Mary replied around the lipstick she was carefully applying.

  “And untried and innocent.”

  Mary laughed. “And you aren’t?” She blotted her lips on a tissue and used the side of her little finger to remove a minuscule smear that had strayed outside the natural lines.

  “In some ways, perhaps. But in others …” Aunie hesitated. Then, lowering the hand she had raised to apply her own lipstick, she met Mary’s eyes in the mirror and told her about her marriage. She intuitively felt she could trust Mary with her private life, and if she couldn’t … well, she’d find out soon enough.

  She liked Mary’s response. She didn’t exclaim or commiserate. Instead, she listened quietly, and when Aunie was finished speaking, she reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “I’ve been married, too,” she confided in return. “My story isn’t as dramatic as yours; in fact it’s pretty common. But it was still painful to me.” Her voice trailed off.

  “What happened?” Aunie inquired.

  Mary gave her a tiny, wry smile and then reached past her to pick up her earring off the shelf. She hooked it through the hole in her ear. “You’ve probably heard it a million times. We got married too young and then grew in different directions. I wasn’t even eighteen yet, and Billy was nineteen.”

  When she didn’t say anything further, Aunie pulled a brush through her hair for several silent strokes, then ventured to say in a soft voice “Things just didn’t work out?”

  “No, things didn’t work out.” Mary looked pensive then made an effort to shake off the gloomy mood that had settled over them. She fluffed her curly hair. “Well, this is getting pretty grim. Hell of a way to start a celebration, don’t you think?”

  A horn honked out on the street and Aunie gave Mary the hip. “That’s probably our cab. Let’s go paint the town.”

  They were laughing as they tripped through the front entrance of the apartment house and they didn’t see James coming up the walk until they’d barrelled into him. Aunie bounced off the worn, soft surface of his leather jacket and might have fallen if he hadn’t grabbed her shoulders to steady her.

  He looked down at her, noting the red lipstick. It accentuated that damned little mole over her upper lip. “That’s right,” he said. “It’s your big night out, isn’t it?” His eyes ran slowly down the rest of her. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense, Magnolia. Unbutton your coat; let’s see how you look.”

  His voice was perfectly level, but Aunie picked up an intimation of something uncivilized beneath the surface. She peered up at him with a trace of suspicion, but she was unable to decide if it was justified. His eyes were noncommittal; his tone was not snide, so maybe it was only in her imagination that he’d managed to make a straightforward request assume the connotation of stripping down to the skin. But just in case it wasn’t…

  Chin rising fractionally, she unfastened her coat and spread it open. She struck a deliberately sexy pose. “Whataya think?”

  Ho-ly shhh … James’s Adam’s apple rode the column of his throat as he swallowed dryly. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d said she was going to wear something short and tight. “You look like you’re ready for that red-hot affair, Aunie,” he said through a tight throat. His eyes rose slowly from their intense contemplation of her body to spear into hers. “Have fun.”

  Abruptly, he turned and strode away. The front door clicked softly closed behind him.

  Mary looked at Aunie quizzically as they climbed into the taxi. “What is it with you and that guy?”

  “What?” Aunie asked vaguely. All those feelings she’d managed to suppress from that night in her apartment had suddenly resurfaced with a vengeance.

  Mary jerked her thumb at the rear window of the cab in the direction of the receding apartment house. “What was that all about?”

  Her unapologetic curiosity was like pulling the plug in Aunie’s dammed-up emotions, and words tumbled from her lips in a near incoherent rush. “Oh, gawd, Mary, I’ve been so stupid. Like an idiot I told him I’d like to have a red-hot affair. I don’t know what possessed me—it’s just a fantasy I have; I’d never have the nerve to actually instigate any such thing, and why I should brag to James, of all people …” She shrugged. “Well, anyway, he said not to expect to have it with him, and Lola said he was a hot kisser but I poo-pooed the idea, so then he kissed me. Before I knew it, I was plastered up against the door with my legs wrapped around his waist and his hands gripping my rear end, being kissed to within an inch of my life; and Mary, I’ve never felt anything like that in my life, and I wanna have an affair, only I want to have it with him, but that’s never gonna happen ‘cuz he told me so, so now I’m even worse off than I was before I opened my big mouth …” Her words choked in her throat as she ran out of breath.

  Mary’s eyes were round with amazement. “Jeez,” she said admiringly, “you sure do lead an interesting life.”

  Aunie’s bark of laughter was tinged with hysteria.

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about not getting your affair with him either,” Mary advised. “Did you see his face when you opened your coat? He looked at you like you were the reincarnation of his hottest wet dream.”

  “He didn’t!”

  “Yeah, yeah, he did. This is the second time I’ve seen the two of you together, and both times there’s been this atmosphere around you like some big electrical storm brewing. He might say he doesn’t want an affair with you, but I’d lay odds that right about now he’s chafing something fierce over the thought of you having one with someone else.”

  “Oh, I doubt that,” Aunie replied with total honesty, but acknowledged to herself that the thought was immensely cheering. “In any case, let’s forget about him and just have a good time.”

  And they di
d. The bar Mary had picked was dim and atmospheric, the drinks strong, the band good if loud, and the men flatteringly attentive. Her feet were sore from dancing, her throat hoarse from shouting to be heard over the music, and she freely admitted she was a tiny bit inebriated by the time the taxi dropped Mary at her car and then pulled up in front of Aunie’s apartment house. She paid the driver and climbed out of the cab.

  Humming off-tune, she executed an intricate dance step up the walk. Suddenly she tripped over an unseen object and in her quest to keep her balance dropped her purse. It fell to the walk, scattering its contents.

  “Well, shit,” she muttered. Squatting down, she began to retrieve the strewn contents. The lipstick had rolled down the walk; her brush was lying against the door. She began to giggle as she plucked stray change and bills off the ground and stuffed them back into her evening bag. “ID, ID, ID,” she whispered to herself as the Georgia driver’s license she used for identification continued to elude her. “Wherefore art thou, IDeo … ahah!” It had slipped off the walk and was resting near the trunk of the rhododendron. “Slippery little beggar,” she murmured and reached for it. Depositing it in her bag, she rose to her feet, staggering slightly as the alcohol in her system shifted her center of gravity. “Whoops.” It might be prudent, she decided tipsily, to get inside and go to bed before someone caught her making a spectacle of herself. She’d hate for either Lola or James to see her in this condition. In truth she didn’t often drink, but undoubtedly after the way she’d blown bubbles in her wine the night Wesley was acquitted, she’d have a hard time convincing them it was a fact. Not, at any rate, if they could see her now. Instead, they would probably think she was the worst sort of lush.

  She was inserting her key in the lock when the early-morning silence was broken by the sound of a car a few blocks away traveling much too fast for the narrow, residential streets. The sound grew, obviously heading at dangerously high speed in this direction. Then suddenly it was roaring up the block. Aunie had extracted her key from the lock and was opening the door, but her head whipped around just as the car screeched to a halt in the street directly in front of the apartment house. The passenger door opened and she caught just the briefest glimpse of two large men before a body was roughly shoved out of the car. Something rude was yelled; glass exploded against the curb, the door was pulled closed with a slam, and the car picked up speed again. It roared away as the person so summarily discarded rolled twice across the grass parking strip before flopping to a standstill.

  Oh, my Gawd. Aunie stared in horror at the inert form. Her first impulse was to rouse James or Otis, but bleary logic demanded she at least check the person to determine what sort of aid was needed She forced herself to move, ashamed that her first thought was not compassion for the injured’s plight but rather embarrassment for herself, knowing James was going to learn she’d drunk too much after all. She propped open the front door with her evening bag and made her way down the walk, approaching the body cautiously.

  The person moaned deep in his throat as Aunie squatted down next to him, giving her the first indication he was male. It had all happened so fast, but when the car’s interior light had blinked on she had glimpsed a flash of thick, straight blond hair, which she’d mistakenly thought feminine. Even curled facedown in the fetal position, however, she could see there was too much bulk, too much breadth of shoulder for this to be a woman. She reached out and grasped a leather-covered shoulder, rolling the man onto his back. The texture of the jacket beneath her hand registered familiarly the merest instant before she saw the man’s face, half obscured by a wing of loose blond hair.

  Oh, God. Aunie’s hand flew reflexively to her breast. It was James and he’d been badly beaten.

  CHAPTER 8

  James knew he was in the wrong frame of mind for a return to the old neighborhood even as he headed there. He harbored a passionate dislike of the Terrace in general and its dark alleys where drug deals went down twenty-four hours a day in particular; yet here he was, heading for that very destination in the wake of a frantic call from Paul.

  He cruised the streets slowly, looking for his brother. God, he’d worked so hard to get away from this place. The day he had finally saved enough money to move out, he’d sworn he’d never be back. It was a promise he’d been forced to break again and again, for his brothers didn’t seem to share his abhorrence for the project. Bobby with his loan sharks and Paul with his drug buys, his dealings in stolen merchandise, had drawn James back more times than he could count. Someone had to extricate them from whatever mess they were currently embroiled in, and if he didn’t do it, who would? Other than him, there was only Will, who unfortunately was more inclined to think with his dick than his brain. James shook his head at the thought of his younger brother being responsible for anyone. Hell, Will needed to be rescued nearly as often as the other two, although in his defense James had to admit that he at least usually managed to get into trouble in a less dangerous part of town.

  James’s resentment of his brothers’ propensity for drawing him into their never-ending predicaments had been growing steadily over the past year. They wouldn’t grow up, which effectively prevented him from outgrowing his background. And that had long been one of his fiercest ambitions.

  But he also loved them. In the back of his mind there lurked memories of a time before the advent of the Jackson family into his life, memories of a time when Bobby and Paul in particular were all that had stood between him and the dark influence of the streets. He loved them; he hated them for what they were doing to his life and their own. No matter which direction he approached it from, however, the bottom line always came down to the fact that he had to do whatever needed to be done to keep them safe. They were his family.

  Blocking out any thoughts that didn’t directly apply to his reasons for being there had always been James’s first rule of survival when he entered the Terrace. Lack of attention could be deadly in this part of town, but tonight he found it difficult to command the necessary concentration. Was Aunie home yet? he wondered. Maybe she’d met someone with whom she could instigate that red-hot affair. Christ, he hadn’t been able to get that damned dress out of his mind, and she’d been out in public in it all night long. Guys must have been hitting on her right and left.

  He’d been restlessly prowling through the rooms of his home when Paul’s call had interrupted him. Even now, when he should be focusing every ounce of concentration on finding his brother, his mind was only partly attuned to locating him. His thoughts kept drifting back to his second-floor apartment where he’d been pacing for hours, haunting the windows overlooking the street. It grated on him to know he’d been waiting and watching for the arrival of the taxi that would bring her home.

  His headlights, as he slowly cruised the streets, swept across dark corners and illuminated the hollow-eyed denizens of the night. Prostitutes in stiletto heels, fake furs, and overblown hair styles leaned into car windows or lounged against storefront walls; pimps decked out in garish colors and rich fabrics cruised by, driving pricy cars; junkies with nervous mannerisms cut deals with their contrastingly imperturbable suppliers. So far, however, he’d hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of his brother. He wondered just what the hell kind of mess Paul had gotten himself into this time. He’d merely said he needed help, had given him a general location where he could be found, and had hung up.

  Then suddenly he was there, easing out of an alley as James pulled up to a light. He pulled open the passenger door and climbed in. “Hit it, Jimmy,” he directed, looking uneasily over his shoulder. “We gotta get out of here.”

  James was in no mood to take orders. He draped his forearm over the steering wheel and turned to face his brother. “What the hell’s goin’ on?” he demanded.

  “I’ll tell ya as soon as we’re outta here, okay? Move.”

  James had just put the Jeep in gear when a car came roaring up on his tail, headlights off. “Oh, shit,” Paul whispered as the driver’s door was wrenc
hed open and James was hauled from the seat. Another face appeared at his window. Swiftly, he punched down the lock on his side, slid over into the driver’s seat, and ground the ignition to start the car that had stalled when James’s foot was jerked from the clutch. “Bobby’s,” he yelled and roared off into the night.

  That left James facing two very large, very muscular, no-neck men, and one look was all he needed to know he was way out of his league on this one. He’d faced enforcers before, but these two had the emotionless eyes of professionals. Enforcers from Hell, he decided with dark humor. He’d never dealt with pros before and there was a difference to this situation that he intuitively recognized. Twisted humor and fast talking weren’t going to get him out of it; neither was tough language nor an intimation of violence. These two looked right at home with violence; they looked, in fact, as though they’d been weaned on it, and he had a sinking feeling that nothing short of a semiautomatic would be capable of slowing them down.

  Which he didn’t have. And, he was working blind, not having the first inkling what Paul had been up to. Son of a fuckin’ bitch. He was dead.

  He stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled at his adversaries. “Hey.”

  Okay, the cocky attitude was probably a mistake, he thought as the one with the stubbled skull hauled him off the ground where his partner’s punch had landed him. He was jerked to his feet by his ponytail, his head craned back to a painful degree. Jesus. He wasn’t exactly a lightweight himself, but these two were practically as wide as they were tall and every inch of them was solid muscle.

  “Doan speak ‘less yer spoken to and doan give us no shit, you long-haired freak,” said the one with the intricately shaven pattern in his close-cropped black hair. “Unnerstand?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’d the weasel go?”

  “I don’t know …” This time the blow doubled him over, but the knee to his jaw straightened him right back up again. He sagged in Stubble-skull’s grasp and gingerly touched his tongue to a loosened front tooth. Let them leave my hands alone, was all he could think. Oh God, they can do anything else. Just let them leave my hands alone.