The Lonesome Young

by Lucy Connors

  Finally, Friday morning when I was getting ready for school, my phone rang. It was Ethan.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Seemed like a good time for me to get out of town, little brother. Why? Do you miss me?”

  “Yeah, right. I only want to talk to you long enough to offer you a deal. You leave the Whitfields alone, and Victoria and I won’t tell anybody that it was you who shot their foreman.”

  Silence, and then mocking laughter.

  “Why, Mickey Rhodale, are you recording this phone call? Trying to trap me into confessing something I did not do?”

  “Of course not,” I said, surprised. “This is a legitimate offer. If you want to meet in person, we can do that, too.”

  His voice turned low and deadly. “Shut up. The only offer between us is the one I’m getting ready to make to you. Meet me at the old Henderson place in half an hour.”

  “I have school—”

  “Suit yourself, baby brother. This is a one-time-only offer.”

  He hung up. I headed for the Henderson place.

  • • •

  When old man Henderson had died, neither of his two sons had wanted to come back to Kentucky for long enough to make anything of the small farm they’d grown up on. Instead they spent a lot of time fighting over the provisions of their father’s will. Or so I’d heard. I’d also heard the place was haunted and the old man stalked around with his ghostly hunting rifle every night at midnight, looking for “varmints”—animal or human, he didn’t care which.

  Mostly, though, it was just an old, falling-down wreck of a place.

  It looked like nobody had set foot on the property in years when I drove up. Weeds had aggressively devoured the front lawn. Shingles were missing from the roof, and one of the porch support beams had collapsed, causing the porch roof to droop drunkenly over the front door. I parked the bike, ready to wait for my brother, but a darker shadow separated itself from the doorway, and Ethan stepped out on the porch.

  “You came alone?”

  I waved a hand at all the nothing surrounding me. “As you see. You weren’t afraid that the house would come crashing down on your head?”

  He threw back his head and laughed. “Like I don’t have worse things to worry about.”

  Ethan looked rougher than I’d ever seen him. He hadn’t shaved in days, and his face looked thinner. Almost haunted.

  “How is he? The man I—the man who got shot?”

  “What? Your spies aren’t keeping you in the loop?”

  Ethan stepped down off the porch and then leaned back against the railing. “They are, but I figured you get better intel. From your girlfriend.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend, and even if she had been, you would have put paid to that,” I fired back. “You need to leave her family alone.”

  “Or what?” he said tiredly. “You forgot the melodramatic ‘or else’ at the end of that sentence, bro.”

  Time to play our trump card and see what hand it captured. “Or else we’ll both tell Pa that you were the one who shot Pete.”

  He smiled sardonically. “Oh, so now it’s ‘we.’ You just got done telling me she’s not your girlfriend.”

  “She’s not, but she wants to see this feud ended as much as I do, and this is our price.”

  He studied my face for a long moment, making me glad I had more of a poker face than Victoria did. Finally, he shrugged. “If you want me to stay away from your girlfriend and her family, you can come join the family cupcake business. Otherwise, we’ll have cupcakes for all your friends.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? What cupcakes?”

  He laughed again. “You’ve always been the straight-laced one of the bunch, haven’t you?”

  “Listen, Ethan—”

  “No, you listen, shit-for-brains. Anna Mae is planning to send a message to Dick Whitfield. The only way I can put her off is if you agree to work for me. Otherwise, you can tell your pretty little girlfriend that we hope she isn’t all that fond of her horses.”

  “If you think for one minute—”

  “I don’t think,” he said bitterly. “Didn’t you hear my loving mother say just that at our place? That she was the only brains in the place? Well, here’s one that you’ll enjoy. If I don’t go along with it, she’ll use Jeb, and the last time she tried that, she nearly got him killed and I ended up in jail. How long do you think he’d survive Anna Mae’s tender loving care if she puts him in charge? Especially now that she’s climbing into bed, so to speak, with the skinheads?”

  I thought about that. Ethan, in his own peculiarly twisted way, was trying to protect Jeb. Yeah, it fit. He’d always done the same for me and Caro, and now her girls.

  I figured I’d come right out and ask him. “Were you trying to protect me when you shot Pete?”

  “He hit you. He knocked you down and then he pulled that knife, and I thought he was going to stab you,” Ethan snarled. “Nobody hurts my brother.”

  Before I could say anything, he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

  “Not that I was there to see it,” he finally said, opening his eyes and staring at me. “If that’s what happened, then somebody would have been right to shoot, wouldn’t he?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that. I didn’t know how to even try.

  “We can’t keep going like this, with the feud and the drugs and the guns,” I finally said. “Somebody is going to die, and I’m afraid that would only be the beginning of all hell breaking loose.”

  “It’s too late,” he said. “Pick a side, baby brother. And choose it now, before one gets chosen for you.”

  We stood there, just staring at each other. I knew that Ethan and Anna Mae had to be stopped. I just wished I knew someone with the power and the balls to do it. Since Pa never would step up, and nobody else was volunteering, I guessed it was up to me.

  “You win. I’ll come work for you. If you stay away from Victoria and her family.”

  “I’m not sure if I can get Anna Mae to go along with that,” he said.

  “You tell her that either she agrees, or you’re going to jail for attempted murder.”

  I expected him to yell at me or hit me, but he just nodded. “Done.”

  Great. Now I just needed a plan.

  “Good timing, too,” Ethan said tersely, putting his sunglasses on and staring down the road.

  The roar of what sounded like a hundred approaching motorcycles, and the cloud of dust that accompanied them as they tore up the dirt road toward us, ate up the world.

  Ethan moved closer to me. “My new partner wants to meet you. Remember that you’re on my side, all right? These guys do not play around.”

  I stared at the massive, heavily tattooed men—not one hundred, maybe, but at least fifty of them—who were parking their Harleys, calling out to each other, and coldly assessing us.

  “I’m sure as hell not on their side,” I muttered. I moved slightly so I was side by side with my brother, two Rhodales facing maybe fifty members of what looked like the devil’s own biker gang.

  I wasn’t a fan of the odds.

  The biggest man there stepped off his bike and looked around, and then he nodded to a smaller, wiry kind of guy I hadn’t really even noticed. The smaller guy pulled a bandanna off his head to reveal the word BARON tattooed on his bald skull. He also had teardrop tats raining down his left cheekbone, down his neck, and disappearing into the black T-shirt he wore underneath his leather jacket.

  “I thought those signified people a banger has killed?” I said softly, so only Ethan could hear me.

  “It does. Now keep your mouth shut.”

  Ice dripped down my spine. I was actually afraid for my life—and for my brother’s.

  “So, now there are two pretty boys to work with us,” the man with the skull tatto
o called out. “How did we get so lucky, eh?”

  His people, lined up behind him and straddling their bikes, cheered and hooted. A few whistled at us. Wolf whistles. Seemed appropriate, considering I was feeling a lot like a sacrificial lamb at the moment.

  “You have a deal in mind, Baron, or are you going to spend all day flirting with me?” Ethan drawled, sounding for all the world like he was bored.

  I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and realized he looked bored, too. Damn, my brother was either a seriously talented actor or he really did have iced moonshine running through his veins.

  Baron slapped his leg with his bandanna and laughed heartily, but his amusement didn’t spread to his eyes, which were cold and dead. Nobody was home behind those eyes—nobody with a shred of humanity. This man would kill us as easily as I’d cleared out spider webs in the garage.

  “This must be your brother,” Baron said. “Is he in on the plan?”

  “He’s my right-hand man,” Ethan said, not giving away by so much as an eyelid twitch that he was anything but calm.

  “Right-hand man,” Baron said, walking up to us, his dead gaze fixed on me. “We use our right hands to jerk off with, my friend. Is this boy going to jerk us off?”

  “I back my brother,” I said, looking Baron in the eye. Instinctively I knew this man would pounce on any show of weakness. “How you jerk off is up to you.”

  Baron laughed again, but this time there seemed to be at least a glimmer of real amusement in it. “Feisty son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

  “Leave my mother out of this.”

  “I met your mother, punk. She’s a world-class bitch,” he said.

  Ethan shook his head. “You met my mother. Mick has a different mother.”

  Baron’s gaze shifted back and forth between the two of us. “Doesn’t seem possible that you don’t share all the same DNA. You look too much alike.”

  “The Rhodale genes,” Ethan said lightly. “They always throw true. Now, can we move on from this fascinating discussion of genetics and get to the specifics? When we met in jail, you mentioned that you’d like to team up on distribution.”

  Baron pointed to the edge of the warped and rotting front porch. “We might as well get comfortable. This chat might take a while. We’ve got the FBI on our ass, so we’re going to be operating with a little bit of heat chasing us for a while.”

  When Baron walked past me, I could finally see the back of his jacket. The words RED BARONS blazed across the top in a semicircle, and a vividly red WWI fighter plane flew across the center.

  “Von Richthofen,” I said, pulling up the memory of lazy afternoons spent in front of the History Channel with Pa when I was a kid.

  Baron swung around and looked at me with some interest. “You know your history.”

  “Top flying ace of World War I, some say of all time,” I said automatically, and then it hit me that I was discussing world history with a meth-dealing gangbanger.

  “He scored the most kills in the war,” Baron said proudly, as if describing his own accomplishments.

  “Yeah, but he was at war,” I said slowly. “Flying in air battles.”

  “We’re always at war,” Baron said. “History is written by the victors. I don’t plan to have anybody else write my history.”

  He tried to stare me down, but I’d be damned if I’d drop my eyes first.

  Ethan laughed, breaking the intensity of the moment.

  “German flying ace?” Ethan asked. “Famed adversary to Snoopy in Peanuts cartoons? I always wanted a flying doghouse when I was a kid.”

  Baron aimed one long, last icy stare at me. “It’s good to have balls, kid. Be careful nobody cuts them off for you.”

  Then he and Ethan sat down and started discussing specifics of their plan to take over all drug distribution in Kentucky, or on the planet for all I knew. I stood at attention, as if there was a damn thing I could do if fifty skinhead bikers decided to pull out their guns and start shooting. The bear of a man who was clearly Baron’s second-in-command gave me a flat stare over the top of his shades, but other than that he ignored me.

  Which was fine with me. I wasn’t sure what I’d have to say to him. “Hey, killed anybody lately?” seemed a little presumptuous.

  When they finished talking details, they shook hands, and I figured it had gone okay.

  “We’ll be calling. Weekly meetings at first, and then we’ll see how it goes,” Baron said.

  Ethan nodded. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “I know you will,” Baron said. He walked over to his bike, mounted it, and then smiled at us. His teeth, oddly enough, were perfectly straight and Hollywood white. It was a weird detail to notice, but it ran so counter to my expectations that it stood out.

  “Bear here will be paying a visit to your sister—Caroline, isn’t it?—and those two cute little ones if you fuck this up. So don’t fuck this up.”

  A wave of red washed over my vision and I started for him. Ethan’s hand shot out to grab my arm in a steel vise grip.

  “Feisty,” Baron said, and then he laughed. He waved an arm and the thunder of all those bikes filled the air again, and then they were gone in a cloud of dust.

  Ethan dropped my arm and I rounded on him.

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “Mickey—”

  I punched him in the face as hard as I could. He staggered back and then came up swinging, but he stopped before his fist connected with my head even though I’d done nothing to deflect the punch. I was too busy seeing the disappointment on Victoria’s face—and maybe the fear—if she knew that I was breaking my word to her so soon.

  But I doubted any of the anger management classes in the world had a section on dealing with your brother’s meth operation in a violence-free way. I was screwed.

  “Why kill each other when we have them handy to do it for us?” His shoulders slumped, and he shook his head. “Anna Mae got us into this, and I’m trying to get us out, but we have to go along to get along for a little while.”

  “Ethan, he threatened Caroline and the girls,” I said hotly. “What the hell are you planning to do about that?”

  “I’m putting guards on them, twenty-four seven. We’ll figure this out, baby brother. We’ll figure it out, but I’m going to need your help. Two Rhodale brains are better than one, especially when one of them is yours.”

  The bleakness in his voice convinced me where no amount of bluster would have. Ethan was trapped in a situation that was out of his control, and now I was in it with him.

  “We’ll figure it out,” I said slowly, echoing him.

  A trace of relief crossed his face. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. I still might kill you when this is over.”

  Chapter 51

  Victoria

  So what do you think?”

  I looked at Denise. “Um, about what?”

  She sighed. “Have you heard anything I’ve said in the past five minutes?”

  I thought back and glanced down at her untouched tray. “You hate fish Friday at the cafeteria?”

  I was living a double life and not doing a very good job of it. Part of me had spent the week going through the motions of being a student, but most of me had been dreaming of Mickey and a life free of dangerous plots.

  “The movies, Victoria,” Denise said with exaggerated patience. “Do you want to go see a movie tonight with me and Derek?”

  I perked up. “He finally asked you out?”

  She grinned and glanced over at where he was sitting with the school paper staff by the vending machines. “Yeah. Apparently he grew a pair. So we’re going to a movie tonight. Wanna come?”

  I rolled my eyes. “The poor guy finally gets brave enough to ask you out, and you’re inviting me along? Don’t you see a problem with this?”

&nbs
p; “Not really. If I get him alone so soon, he’ll get all tongue-tied and nervous, and we’ll have a crappy time. Or he’ll get all handsy, just to prove to himself that he’s not nervous, and we’ll have a crappy time. If we ease into the situation slowly, we might have fun.”

  I was impressed. I wasn’t really sure how to handle a relationship with one guy, and Denise always seemed to be juggling two or three, and doing it with a strategic flair that would have impressed an army general.

  I made sure nobody was within hearing distance. “Is it okay if I bring Mickey?”

  “Sure, as long as we don’t let him sit near Derek, or they’ll talk to each other all night.”

  • • •

  Denise picked me up, and we met the guys at the theater in the next town over, where Mickey was parking an actual car. It looked old, and it was ugly, but I hadn’t even known he had a car.

  We made a game out of pretending we’d all met by accident and then Mickey walked away from us, but I doubt we fooled any of Ethan’s spies who might be watching. Now that I was living in Paranoid City, I expected all the other residents to be actively out to get me.

  As soon as the lights dimmed, Mickey made his way to the seat next to me and took my hand, and he didn’t let go of it for the next hour and a half. His thumb kept stroking my hand, and just the feel of his body so close to mine sent shivers through me. I sank into a lust-fueled and popcorn-scented haze that made me jittery and nervous and excited all at once. I wanted to be alone with him so I could touch his hair, so I could kiss him. I had no idea at all what drama was playing out on the screen, because I was too focused on our own.

  He apparently felt the same way. “Is this movie ever going to end?” he whispered.

  “Let’s bail,” I said, feeling daring. Plus, if we snuck out now, while the lights were still down, we were just another faceless couple stealing time to be alone, instead of a Rhodale and a Whitfield who dared to be seen in public together.

  I whispered our plans to Denise, and I noticed she was also holding Derek’s hand. She nodded, but looked worried.