by J. L. Fynn
“That makes him even more dangerous. He’s not going to stop until he proves he’s everything he thinks he is.”
“Maybe that’s so. Which is why you have to be careful. Do this job of his and come home to me. We’ll figure out the rest when it comes.”
“You need to give me more, Maggie,” I said. I cradled her chin in the crook of my thumb, fingers splayed against her neck, forcing her to look at me. “I love you, and I won’t leave without you. Not again. Promise you’ll come with me.”
Her smiled returned, along with the spark in her green eyes that lit a fire in my chest every time it appeared. “Don’t you know? You’re a chuishle ma chroi.”
I shook my head, cocking an eyebrow at her. “I’m not up on my Gaelic. What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Maggie pushed herself up on her toes and pressed her mouth to mine. “It means I’ll have our bags packed and waiting in that trailer of yours before you even reach the interstate.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“WHERE DID SHE find that dress?” I asked. Jim and I leaned on our elbows at the bar, our backs to the party happening around us. At least 300 people, all guests of the brand new Goldsmith Hotel and Suites, were crowded into the hotel restaurant to celebrate the grand opening. Plenty of witnesses, just like Michael had said.
“Honestly, I don't know. It definitely doesn't look like anything a Traveler girl would wear.” Jim turned to face the room, but I continued to watch the party through the parts of the bar mirror not obscured by liquor bottles. “I'm guessing she lifted some luggage on her way up to the room this afternoon.”
I found Marie in the mirror again. She'd managed to find a tight-fitting black dress, cut to show off one of her bony white shoulders while hiding the other under a lacy sleeve.
“She doesn't look half bad, though,” Jim continued. “I think that might be an Aidan Mattox.”
I grinned into my whisky glass as I took another swig. “You know, sometimes you're a walking stereotype.”
Jim turned back to the bar and smiled at me in the mirror. Since we'd left the Village he'd seemed in a much better mood. Lighter somehow. He hadn't even touched his drink yet, and that fact alone made me glad I'd agreed to do this job.
“What? You have to be gay to appreciate a good designer?”
“I think that is one of the rules, yeah.”
“You could stand to have a little more fashion sense. You know, pants come in fabrics other than denim.”
“Fuck off,” I said, glancing down at my dark jeans. “I put on a dinner jacket, didn't I?”
“Only because they wouldn't let you in otherwise.” He laughed. “I guess I should be grateful your shirt and jeans are clean.”
“Forgive me, Mr. GQ. This isn't my natural habitat. I don't own a lot of fancy clothes, and I sure as hell don't drink cocktails.”
“It's all about attitude. You act like you belong, no one will question it. Besides, it's not like we're crashing the party. We have as much right to be here as anyone else staying in the hotel.”
“Yeah, well, I think management might see things a little differently if they knew why we made our reservations.”
Jim groaned. “Are you still on this? I thought you won that wrestling match with your conscience back in the Village and were ready to get to work.”
I thought about what I’d won back in the Village. I imagined Maggie strapping Jimmy into his seat in the cab of my truck, about her contented smile as we pulled out of the Village and onto the road that would take us far away from it. “I’m ready,” I said.
“Either of you boys wanna buy a girl a drink?”
I turned to find Marie’s wicked grin flash through cherry red lips. “Sorry,” I said, turning my attention back to the whisky. “I don’t buy drinks for minors. Especially when they’re supposed to be my kid sister.”
“You’re no fun. How about you Wiley Jim? I bet you know how to show a girl a good time.”
Immediately I regretted the sip I’d just taken. I sputtered, spraying some of the liquid over the bar. The bartender quirked a dark eyebrow at me, but continued to mix the next round of martinis for the group of suits at the other end of the bar.
“You all right there, Tommy?” Jim asked, clapping me on the back much harder than necessary. “Maybe take a smaller sip next time, yeah?”
I covered my mouth, waving Jim off with my free hand. “I’m good, I’m good. Thanks.”
Jim rolled his eyes and picked up his own drink for the first time since it was set in front of him. He passed it to Marie. “There’s a little liquid courage. Now get the hell away from us before your mark—whoever the unlucky bastard might be—gets the wrong idea.”
Marie, now wearing a cherry red pout, yanked the drink from his hand and stormed off in a huff.
“Too harsh?” Jim asked with very little in his expression to suggest he actually cared.
“Maybe a little,” I said, my tone conveying the same level of concern.
“If I had to hear one more thing about fucking Party of Five, I swear…”
“Right? The whole damn way through Arkansas. How much can one person yap about a television show?” I chuckled again, remembering her inane chatter during the long drive to Chicago. But my humor died quickly and my stomach knotted, thinking of how young she really was, and what we’d have to do later that evening, once this more festive part of the job was done. I felt my brow crumple into a frown. “She’s just a kid, Jim.”
“Don’t go all Saint Thomas on me now, brother. I need you to stay strong if we’re gonna get through this.”
“I know, and, like I said, I’m ready. But maybe you—” I stopped myself. “Maybe we should’ve been a little nicer to her. She’s really the one doing the hard work.”
“She looks like she’s hanging in there,” Jim said, jutting his chin at the mirror. I squinted at it, looking for Marie. She was standing with a blond kid, probably not more than 20 or 21, who was giving her the goofy smile of a man in lust. She was quite talented; I had to admit. The way she leaned into him when she talked and threw her head back in laughter at whatever he’d said. The mark was eating it up. No wonder she’d been able to attract a country boy or two. She hooked her fingers under the lapel of his jacket, and ran her hand up and down his chest a few times.
When he bent his head so she could whisper in his ear, she caught my eye in the mirror and winked. Heat spread across my cheeks. I felt like I was fifteen and had just been caught outside a girl’s bedroom window. I dropped my eyes from the mirror.
“She’s got him on the hook. I say give ‘em a few minutes to get back to the room, and then we’ll be on our way.”
I nodded and downed the last of my whiskey, then rapped my knuckles on the mahogany bar. “Another,” I said to the bartender and pointed at my empty glass. “Something tells me I’m going to need it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
WE FINISHED OUR drinks and snaked our way through the crowded restaurant. When we'd made it to the lobby, I passed the grand staircase and headed toward the elevator.
“Back stairs,” Jim said, walking in the opposite direction toward a nondescript door on the other side of the carpeted staircase. “Less chance of being spotted.”
“Who cares if someone sees us?” I asked, but followed after him.
“It's probably better if we say we were still at the party when it all went down. We'll need to be back down here before she makes her big entrance.”
My stomach churned as we climbed the stairs. Despite my earlier claims, I wasn't ready. Not for this. But I'd made promises to Jim, and to Maggie. It was time to put on my big boy pants and do what needed to be done, so we could get the hell out of here and I could start my life with her. That thought was the only thing that kept my legs moving up the stairs.
But it also brought on some uneasy feelings of its own. I watched Jim's back as he led the way up to our room. He had no idea what Maggie and I were planning, or at least I was prett
y sure he didn't, and even if he'd never wanted to marry her in the first place, Maggie was still his wife. I'd betrayed him once before, and I was about to do it again. Only this time I'd be taking his child as well.
“Listen, Jim,” I said, clearing two steps at once so I was walking next to him instead of behind him. “There's something I need to talk to you about.”
Jim stopped at the next landing and pushed on the door that led to one of the plush guest room corridors. “Can it wait? We should probably keep the noise to a minimum while we're walking past these rooms.”
I nodded and followed him through the door. The thick carpet muffled our steps as we headed toward our suite, a double with two separate entrances along this hall. The rooms had already been paid for when we'd checked in earlier in the day, and I hadn't wanted to know just how much Michael had already invested in this scheme. It had to be thousands, and a front that big just increased the pressure to succeed.
Jim slipped the plastic card into the door lock and waited for the green light. It flickered, and the mechanism clicked quietly. Jim looked left then right and, satisfied there was no one watching, slipped into the room and held the door for me.
“Marie and her new friend should already be in there,” Jim whispered. He crossed to the door between the adjoining rooms and pressed his ear to it. I held my breath. “Yep, sounds like she got this one on the hook good. Come listen.” He waved me over.
“I'll take your word for it, thanks.” I pulled a chair out from the desk and sat down. “So, what I was trying to say in the stairwell—” I said.
Jim sliced a hand across his throat to stop me. “We can talk later. I don't want the gull to hear us and get spooked.”
I crossed my arms and slumped back in the chair. There was little chance the guy in the next room would hear us, and even if he did, he sounded a little too busy to care anyway. Marie giggled at something, and muffled conversation made its way to our side of the door, but nothing we could make out. I stood and paced from the desk to the bed and back. I went to the window, but found it hard to appreciate the sweeping view of the canal while my nerves jumped and my stomach squirmed. I turned and retraced my path back to the desk, sat, and popped back to my feet again. I crossed my arms over my chest, then let them drop again a second later. I shoved a hand through my hair, wishing I'd taken Maggie up on her offer to trim it before we left. The curls brushing against my collar only made me jumpier.
“You need to get your shit together, Tommy. You're starting to make me nervous. Why don't you have another drink?”
I glanced at the wooden cabinet beside the desk. “Are you buying? Because I'm not paying Michael back for the minibar charges.”
Jim smiled and went to his duffle bag on the second bed. “Lucky for you I brought provisions.” He uncapped the bottle and took a long drink, chugging down at least a quarter of it in one go. So much for his sobriety.
He walked to me, bottle held out at arm’s length, and I grabbed it from him before he could circle around the bed. I gulped down another quarter of the bottle, but regretted it almost immediately. The noise from the next room had gone quiet, and it was pretty easy to guess why their conversation had stopped.
I put the bottle down on the desk and pressed a hand to my rebelling stomach. “Jim, I don't know if I can go through with this.”
Jim cleared the distance between us before I could even lift my head to look at him. He grabbed my borrowed sport coat in both fists and yanked me closer. “That's enough. I mean it,” he said through gritted teeth. “We're doing this, and I don't want to hear any more pissing and moaning about it, clear? You know how bad I need this, and you need it pretty bad yourself.”
“I was doing just fine before you decided to make that phone call,” I said.
“Bullshit. You were, what? Working some construction job? Maybe keeping yourself warm at night with a little townie pussy now and then? But I would bet a million dollars that not a single day went by that you didn't think about Maggie and your son back home in the Village.”
I blinked at him, my jaw refusing to do the work of staying shut anymore. It was the first time he'd ever really acknowledged that Jimmy was my son, and hearing the words out loud had stunned me into silence.
“That's what I thought,” Jim said. He let me go with a slight shove backward and turned his back on me.
“So what if that's true?” I said when I'd finally found my voice again. “How is any of that going to change even if we pull this off?”
Jim's shoulders quaked, and for a second I thought he might be crying. When he turned again, there were tears in his eyes, but he wasn't sobbing. He was laughing. “Do you really think I'm that stupid? You think I didn't know that calling you back to the Village meant losing Maggie and Jimmy when you rolled on out again? She's wanted to go every day since you left, and who could blame her? I'm a shitty husband and a shitty father, no matter what I do. I can't be you, Tommy. Believe me, I've tried.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, hopeful and terrified all at once. “What are you trying to say, Jim?”
“I'm saying, we do this job, and you and Maggie get out.” The laughter was gone. His dark eyes met mine without a hint of humor or anger, just cold calculation.
“You’re okay with me disappearing with your pregnant wife and the kid you've been raising for three years?”
Jim nodded. “You'll do them a hell of a lot more good than I ever would, brother. And you love her like I never will.”
“And you're not worried what people will say?”
He smiled. “Worried? Hell, you think people treat my dad good because he's a widower? Wait ‘til they hear how I was betrayed by my best friend and my wife. They'll probably commission a statue in my honor.”
“And burn Maggie and me in effigy,” I said bitterly.
Jim knocked the side of his fist into my shoulder. “I'd only let 'em do that on special occasions. I'll be the bigger man, and they can all talk about how strong I am for handling it so well.”
“That’s friendship.” I grinned, finally letting the hopefulness overtake my fear. We'd made a similar agreement before which had ended badly, but this felt different. Maggie and I would get to be together—really together—and I could be a father to my son. Sure, it would be at the cost of our reputations, and I had my suspicions that not everyone in the Village would see Jim in such a favorable light, but it finally felt like we all might have a real chance at being happy.
Except that Jim would still have to hide who he really was. “Why don’t you come too? We could all go somewhere. A big city up north where no one will be looking through your curtains or wondering where you’ve been all night.”
Jim shook his head. “I can’t say I haven’t considered it. There’s a lot to be said for anonymity.”
“But it would be more than that.” I couldn’t keep the image of him and Chris smiling at each other at the restaurant from my mind. He was so happy and I wanted to see him that way again. “Not everyone thinks the way Travelers do, Jim. You could be yourself, at least in most places, without worrying about losing your whole life.”
“But I would lose my whole life, Tommy. I can’t leave my dad, or John. And could you really imagine me giving up the game?” He gave me a mischievous grin.
It was contagious, and soon I was smiling back at him. “I guess not. But being a con doesn’t mean you have to stay in the Village. You gotta be exhausted.”
“I’m used to keeping my secrets, about this and a lot of other things. But you know how it goes. A guy gets a little success, and suddenly people develop a habit of looking the other way now and then.”
I sighed. I knew when I made the offer that Jim would turn me down, but even so, I’d hoped he’d say yes. The idea of never seeing him again wasn’t one I was quite ready to accept.
“Just promise me one thing, Tommy,” Jim said, his tone serious again.
“Anything, brother,” I said.
“Promise you'll take care of
them. All of them. I wasn't the best father to your son, but you promise me you'll be a good one to mine.”
I didn't even have to think before I answered. “I promise. I'll kill tigers for them if it comes to that. You have my word.”
“Good enough.” Jim yanked my arm, pulling me into an awkward hug.
“If you ladies are done with the love-fest.” Marie sneered at us from the doorway. “Maybe one of you would be kind enough to beat the shit out of me so we can get this show on the road.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“YOUR GENTLEMAN CALLER went away happy, I take it?” Jim asked as we followed Marie into her side of the suite.
“Give it a rest Jim,” I said. One glance at the bed told me it had seen recent activity. I looked away again and rubbed at the back of my neck. The nausea was back with a vengeance, and the mixture of Marie's flowery perfume and the spicy aftershave left behind by her mark wasn't helping.
“He wasn't as happy as he wanted to be,” Marie said, ignoring my subtle plea to be spared any details. “But I think he got a nice taste.”
“Enough.” My eyes flashed from Marie to Jim. “From both of you. Did you make sure he’d be leaving the hotel?”
“Yeah, he won’t be back,” she said.
“Great,” I said. “Then let's just get this over with.”
“Who died and made you clan leader?” Marie said. She pulled a cigarette from a pack on the nightstand and lit it, despite the plaque by the door that proclaimed the room non-smoking.
“No one, and thank God for that, but if we keep fucking around up here, the party is going to be over before you get back downstairs, and then we'll all be shit out of luck, won't we?”
“Fine.” She dropped the cigarette into a tumbler of melted ice and remnants of her drink. “But you do it. I don't trust him not to enjoy it too much.” She waved her hand at Jim who snorted his amusement.
“Be my guest, by all means,” he said, leaning back against the wall.
Marie positioned herself in front of me and rolled her head from one shoulder to the other. “Okay, make sure you don't hold back none. It has to look convincing.”