by Mike McCrary
“This sucks,” I say.
“Yeah,” Skinny Drake agrees.
I let my head unwind, relax for a second, allowing my shoulders to sink back down for the first time in what seems like hours.
“I hope Big One is having fun,” I say.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
Part 2
“Life is hard. After all, it kills you.”
- Katharine Hepburn
Chapter 10
We throw Rondo into the back of the Yukon.
Hard.
He bounces like a sack of sod in the backseat. We have to stop him from landing in the floorboard by rolling him back into the seat with face planted into the leather.
I check his pulse and his breathing, just to be sure.
No telling what he’s got running through his system, so I’m worried the trauma of a bat to the head might set him off into some kind of shock or cardiac arrest.
So far, so good.
Jonathan and his merry band of assholes were kind enough to give us a small bag of goodies that included some zip ties among other things, like a small pocket knife, a needle and thread, some gum and other shit. Nice gesture, I suppose, but who the hell puts that bag together anyway? Well, they’ll need zip ties, some ibuprofen, bullets and beef jerky.
We secured Rondo’s hands before we dumped him face-first into the back of the Yukon. He’s still out cold, but he’ll be okay. Well, I hope he’ll be okay. Last time he was like this he simply screamed out random curse words, but that was drug and booze induced. Considering he was brained by a flying baseball bat, this might be different. Hope like hell I didn’t give the kid brain damage.
Great.
Now the only person who might have a clue how to find Gordo will only be able to speak in clicks and buzzes, then piss himself when a microwave turns on because I hit him with a flying baseball bat.
“Balls!” Rondo screams.
Dammit.
What the hell is wrong with this kid? Is he screwing with us?
At least there’s brain function.
Taking the “glass half-full” view.
I decide to test the kid. I nudge Rondo hard in the nuts with my bat. Nothing. Doesn’t even flinch. I give him another, with a little more humpf behind it. Still nothing. Not a move. Skinny Drake watches, then shrugs as he pops the Yukon into drive.
“Where we going?” he asks in a whisper.
“I don’t know,” I say, whispering back. “He’s kinda supposed to tell us.”
“That was until you knocked him out.”
“You not happy with my process?”
“Just saying you might have thought it through better.”
“It was a fluid situation in the heat of battle and I did what I had to do.”
“Snatch!” Rondo screams, breaking up the conversation.
There’s a hard silence, a long pause, then Skinny Drake whispers, “You got tired, that’s all that happened. That’s the fluid situation you’re bullshiting about.”
“What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
More silent pause.
“Everything’s going to be fine,” I say. “And why the hell are we whispering?”
Skinny Drake shrugs.
“I’m hungry,” I say, deciding to defuse this conversation. “You hungry?”
My brother lights up as he sighs. He hates himself for being this easy, but nods all the same. Yes, yes he is indeed hungry and easy.
Sometimes easy.
Always hungry.
“Pig fucker!” my stepbrother yells from the back seat.
Chapter 11
We hit LA, pulling off the 405 onto Santa Monica Blvd.
This place is crazy.
So much happening, and happening all at once.
Can’t see it all. Too much to take in.
I’m a small-town girl, and I’ve never really left my relatively small circle in Texas. Never gone anywhere to speak of. But ever since I met Gordo, I’ve been whisked away to New York City and all that entails, been flown to Cali, staged an attack on a mansion in Montana, and now I’m back on the West Coast about to enter the mouth of the monster they call the City of Angels.
Enough to make a girl’s head spin.
A guy at the gas station told Skinny Drake there’s a pretty good burrito joint down the street. Street is a strange way of putting it. Santa Monica Blvd would pass as a highway where I’m from. There’s more traffic here right now than my hometown would see in a year.
Skinny Drake and I sit on a beaten-to-hell plastic bench in front of Edwardo’s burrito place. I’m staring at the steaming mass of a bulging tortilla on my tray. The burrito reminds me of the nature shows I’ve seen where a giant snake in Africa eats a villager and the body has the snake all fat in the middle. This thing is as big as my face. Not as big as Big One, however.
I have to stop.
It’s over between us.
Dammit.
We left Rondo in the car with the windows cracked down about an inch, as if he were a dog. We picked a bench that’s directly in front of the parked Yukon so we can keep an eye on shit. Rondo is a sneaky little bastard. Don’t trust him at all. Can’t trust him at all.
I tear into my fake snake of a burrito. This thing is so damn good. I could eat three of them. I’ve found that when life and death is your daily activity you eat less often, but when you do you eat, you chow down like a hog.
I’m in hog mode, for the record.
Squirrel mode may be more accurate—storing nuts for the winter because I don’t know when I’ll eat again.
Could be at a standard dinnertime. Could be days from now because we’re on the run or kidnapped or perhaps even killed. Maybe that’s it. The fear of death makes you eat like each meal is your last. Love to think this is all that romantic, but I’m just damn hungry and do not give a single damn.
My phone buzzes.
It’s a New York number I don’t know, but I’ve got a good idea who it is.
“Yes,” I say, pissed but willing to give the caller a chance.
“Teddy,” Jonathan says, “tell me you’ve made some progress.”
“Lots,” I say, taking another big-ass bite. “Lots of progress.”
“Good to hear.”
“Yeah, we found the guy your dead wife was banging and we’re figuring shit out,” I say as matter of fact as I can. “He’s hot as hell too. Gotta run.”
I hang up, set my phone down and tear off another massive bite. I feel Skinny Drake’s eyes on me.
“What?” I ask.
“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
The tortilla rips between my teeth with a chunk of guac-covered beef dropping to the dirty pavement. Damn. Hate to waste good meat. It’s a sin where I’m from. Think for a second about picking it up, but there’s a mom and her kid looking at me as they walk into the place. Maybe I’ll wait until they get inside before I snag it off the ground.
From the corner of my eye I see something.
Something moved inside the Yukon.
I stop, my neck going ridged. Bet I look like a deer. I feel like a deer.
Skinny Drake is taking down his burrito as if there’s a couple of hundred-dollar bills wrapped up in there.
I watch the front window of the Yukon like it’s a pot about to boil. Eyes fixed. My shoulders are inching up to my ears. Breathing slowed. Waiting for something to confirm what I think I saw. There is it again. A flash of a shoe. The flail of some bound hands. We have signs of Rondo life. I think about alerting my brother, but he seems deep into burrito bliss and I think I’ll just let him finish.
Another kick of a foot.
That might have been a shoulder.
His head pops up then drops back down, then pops up again. I snicker to myself. Rondo is prairie dogging. He spins facing the back of the Yukon then flips and spins to the front. So awesome. Not sure why I’m enjoying this so much. Do I hate Ron
do? Maybe. Am I becoming mean and cruel? Perhaps I always was. An unpleasant thought rockets through me. A spike of cold in my heart.
My father is Jonathan.
Jonathan is mean and cruel.
Am I the same?
Will I become what my DNA has already predetermined for me?
“Fuck that.”
“What?” Skinny Drake says with his mouth full as hell. With cheeks stuffed, he turns to the Yukon. “Hey, look. Rondo’s up.”
Chapter 12
“This is un-damn-necessary, people,” Rondo says from the backseat.
We’re driving down Santa Monica heading toward Beverly Hills. I don’t know why. Not like we know where we’re going. Skinny Drake thought Beverly Hills sounded cool.
“Rolling to the Hills,” he said.
Dork.
Didn’t have the heart to tell him I thought The Hills meant the Hollywood Hills and not Beverly. I’ll let him have this. He’s switched the radio to hip-hop, Kendrick Lamar I believe, and he’s thrown on some cheap as hell shades he picked up at the burrito place. No idea why they sell sunglasses at a burrito joint, but what the hell do I know.
“I was more than certain I wouldn’t see you people again,” Rondo says, staring blankly out the front windshield.
From here it seems he’s letting our past encounter wash over him. His eyes are hard, then soften. He looks defeated, but pissed about it.
“What we doing now? What’s up this time?” Rondo asks. “Storming a mansion in Beverly Hills? Got another kill squad together with Marcus?”
Who?
I have to hit reset in my head and work through who he’s even talking about. Marcus? Oh yeah. He means Gordo. Well, he means Marcus, but he’s Gordo to us. The fact he called him by his correct name is interesting.
He knows him only as Marcus. As Mama McCluskey’s son. Just like Rondo is Mama McCluskey’s son. Need to tuck that nugget away.
“How do you know Marcus?” I ask.
“Long story.”
“We’ve got some time.”
“What do you want with me, man? This is some serious bullshit.”
I punch him. Don’t know why. Seemed like the thing to do.
His head pops back then forward. There’s a pause. A trickle of blood runs from his nose, then he yelps out, “Dammit, lady.” He closes his eyes tight and shakes his head hard left to right. I feel bad actually. Not sure he deserved that, but I didn’t know what to do. My arm jolted his direction before I knew what I was doing. The punch earns me some side-eyes from Skinny Drake. I think about blaming the aggressive music, but decide not to.
“One more time. How do you know Marcus? Actually, don’t call him Marcus. He’s Gordo from now on. Got it?”
“Yeah, Gordo, whatever. Stop fucking hitting me.”
“Talk,” Skinny Drake chimes in.
“I don’t have to tell you a damn thing.” Rondo leans forward toward the front seat. “Ya know what? Go ahead and hit me. Have at it, slugger. Let’s go.”
“Look,” I say, about to climb in the back and wail on this dude. “I killed your mother and I’ll do the same to your sorry ass.”
There’s a sudden shift in Rondo.
A sudden drop in energy.
He flops back into the leather.
All expression drops from his face. His shoulders slump. It’s like he’s melting from the inside out. I’m watching him come undone right in front of me. His face turns red and he starts to shake, then tears start to roll.
“My mom?” he asks, his chin quivering. “She’s dead?”
I don’t know what to do.
It slipped out of my mouth without me even thinking about it. I realize what Mama McCluskey did to me and my reasons for hating her, but I forgot that she was a person and a mother to Rondo. What has happened to me? The coldness. The hate. The carelessness with someone else’s feelings. I killed his mother and I act like I won a football game.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I should have—”
“How? Why? She never did anything to anyone.”
“Well, to be fair, she’s done some things,” I sputter out. “In my defense, she was trying to kill me.”
“What?” Rondo says. “She’s in an old folks’ home in Sacramento. She can’t get out of her chair. She couldn’t hurt a bug.”
I lean back.
What the hell?
Then I think for a second. Rondo was with us at the mansion we took down in Montana. Mama McCluskey’s home. He didn’t say anything about the house, or that being his mom’s house.
Come to think of it, he didn’t say a damn thing about her. We were so caught up in the thing I never even thought about it until now. We are basing everything we know about Rondo on what Gordo told us.
Big mistake.
“What’s your last name? It’s not McCluskey?” I ask.
“No,” he says through the tears. “It’s Ricker.”
“Do you know your father?”
“Of course I do. What the hell kind of question is that?” He stops. Sits straight up. “Did you kill him too? You monsters. What are you?”
“No. No, we didn’t do anything to your father.”
“Oh, you just killed my mom,” he barks, spit flying. “You’re such a fine fucking person.”
I look to Skinny Drake. He gives me a shrug. So damn helpful.
“What happened to my mom?” Rondo screams.
I try to calm him. I actually attempt to shush him and pat his head. It doesn’t work, by the way, not even a little bit. He pulls away and tries to swing his bound hands at me, then, with no better option, he spits at me.
I’ll give him that.
“Let’s start again. Okay?” I say, wiping his spit from my face, trying to hit reset on this conversation that’s gone horribly wrong. “How do you know Gordo?”
Rondo calms a bit. Looks out the window, taking in a long look at a convertible of honeys stopped next to us. At least he’s not so upset he’s dropped the lusting. Good. That’s encouraging. He looks to me then the carload of blondes and boobs. He swallows hard.
“This is about her, isn’t it?” Rondo finally says.
Chapter 13
We let Rondo call his mother at the home in Sacramento.
Skinny Drake and I agreed that would be the cool thing to do, considering. It’s the least we could do. After he calmed down and returned to being the borderline rational asshole I’ve come to know, we took him to a Jewish deli he knew. I wanted him to find a place he felt comfortable with. Got him some coffee and a bagel.
Rondo sits on one side of the booth with me and Skinny Drake on the other. No idea if he’s Jewish, not that I care one way or another, but I’m willing to give him some creature comforts if he will cut the shit and talk to us.
Not to mention, I did give him the impression for a while there that I killed his mother, and possibly his father. So manners suggest I should pick up the tab on a cup of warm bean juice and a snack.
“I was nailing Gordo’s mom,” Rondo says while tearing away at his bagel. “I mean really nailing her. Like good. Like she liked it.”
I hold up a hand letting him know I got it and didn’t need any more details on the subject.
“There,” he says, as if he was dropping some weight he’s been carrying awhile. “I said it. Questions?”
Skinny Drake and I lean back on that one. I don’t want to be a bitch about this, but none of that is really helpful information, not at all, and I don’t care about either one of their sex lives.
“I know, I know. I’m not proud of it, but she’s quite a handful,” Rondo continues. “Does an ass-load of yoga. Runs. Ya know, hot mom stuff. She’s a wild one in the sack too. Crazy shit, ya know? Dirty talk. Biting. Light punching. Hard scratching.”
I put up my hand again, letting him know that’s still enough.
“Okay. To be clear, that one I did kill,” I say.
He blinks. Chews. Sips his coffee. Blinks some more. The waiter tops off his
cup while Rondo holds my stare. I don’t want to break from him. Want him to know I’m in the not dicking around business. I let the silence wash over the table and fill in the gaps. I want his brain to pick this apart. Better yet, I want to watch his eyes as his limited mind does the picking.
“That is a shame,” he says after the waiter leaves. There’s a hint of something in his voice. Not sure what it is. Sadness. Regret. Sinus drainage. I decide to press him.
“That’s how you know Gordo?” I ask.
He nods.
“How does that introduction happen?” Skinny Drake asks.
That’s a good one from my brother. He has his moments.
“What do you mean?” Rondo chirps.
“He means how do you meet the grown son of the woman you’re giving it to?” I say. “Sounds like an odd way to make friends.”
“Oh, that.” Rondo goes back to his coffee with a slurp. “Didn’t start that way. He ran into me at a bar. This little beach joint. We partied for a few days in LA and Reno. I didn’t find out about his relationship to this thing until later.”
“Relationship to this thing?” I ask. “You mean you having sex with his mother? The one you’re biting, punching and talking your filthy shit with?”
“Yeah, that.”
It’s at that moment I realize something. It hits me like a freight train. I almost fall straight from the booth to floor. Skinny Drake looks to me, asks me if I’m okay.
I nod.
I’m thinking of something Jonathan said a few days ago on my porch. Didn’t give it much thought at the time, but now it’s landing. Landing hard as hell. Jonathan said he didn’t know how Gordo got Mama McCluskey to sign the trust papers. Had no idea what Gordo did to get that woman to sign on the dotted line.
“Do you know who she was married to?” I ask.
“What good would come from that?” Rondo says, checking the menu. “You mind if I order up some more eats? Love this place.”