BABY WITH THE BEAST

by Naomi West

“Sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

  You never do, I think but don’t say. It isn’t fair.

  “But that doesn’t matter,” I reply. “All that matters is that you’re okay. Are you?”

  “I don’t know. I’m keeping my head down. I work as many shifts as they’ll give me. I’ve saved up one thousand five hundred dollars because the rent at the Rainbow House is so cheap.”

  “I half expected you to come out with dreadlocks.”

  She touches her hair. “No, I don’t do much with my hair anymore. Maybe I will soon. I’m waiting for the dye to fade.”

  We make small talk like this for an hour or so, getting through two and a half glasses of wine each. We order another bottle and then Cecilia, a little tipsy now, leans forward. “Can I be a terrible sister and live vicariously through you? I haven’t been on a date because I don’t want to go on a date. It’s too soon, and I think it’ll be too soon for a long time. But I can hear about your dating life. So, how’s it been? Who’ve you been seeing?”

  I roll my eyes. “Do we have to talk about this?”

  “Just give me a number!” she exclaims wildly, pouring wine into her glass until it’s almost overflowing. “How many dates? Five, four, three, two . . . fewer? One? Fewer?”

  “Zero,” I say. “Not that it matters. I don’t have to date. I don’t see that it’s an obligation.”

  “No, I guess not. It’s just . . . listen to me, Mona. Your big sister is going to give you some advice now.”

  She takes my hand, which comes close to breaking my heart. I can’t remember the last time she took my hand. She’s only older than me by minutes, but right now she does feel like my big sister. “Love is the rarest thing there is. It’s so rare that people get it and don’t even realize they have it and then throw it away and then, only years later, they stop and think to themselves, maybe I was in love there. You know?”

  “You’re tipsy.” I smile.

  “No, yes, maybe I am. That’s not the point. Listen. If you haven’t been on a date, don’t you think there’s a reason for that?”

  “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

  She raises her eyebrows at me. She’s looked at me like that before, in high school when I had a crush but wouldn’t admit it. She’s seeing right through me. “You know exactly what I’m getting at. Do you really think I don’t remember that night? It’s all I’ve thought about for months. You were in that booth for nearly an hour. And at the funeral, your little talk near the bikes . . .”

  “Okay, change of subject now!” I take my hand away and begin pouring myself a glass of wine.

  She’s hit far too close to home. While I haven’t seen or spoken to Rocco over these past months, she’s absolutely right when it comes to dating. Mom and Dad are always trying to set me up with their friends’ sons. Rich people from rich families, well-to-do attitudes, good jobs, all that jazz, all the good stuff a lady from a good family should jump at. But when I think about meeting with these men, my mind invariably turns to Rocco. I can’t help it. It’s like there was more passion contained within that locked booth than the rest of my life can offer.

  “I told a bit of a lie earlier,” Cecilia says.

  “A lie?”

  She sips her wine, and then nods. “The only way I was able to save any money is because Rocco sends me some every month, a transfer right into my bank. He’s been doing it ever since I moved up here.”

  “What? Why?” For a moment dread creeps over me. Is my sister with Rocco?

  She reads my expression. “No, you dirty-minded weirdo! I was Shotgun’s lady. That’s how it works. At least, that’s how it works with Rocco.”

  “So you talk to him?” I can’t keep the aggression out of my voice. “You have chats together? Do you Skype—what?”

  “No.” She touches my hand again. “Calm down. For a woman who doesn’t care about him you sure are getting angry. No, we don’t talk. Actually, that’s what I wanted to ask you. I need you to contact him when you get back to Vegas and find out what’s going on with Shotgun’s killer. Please.”

  “Cecilia . . .”

  “Please. Please. Please. I’ve said it four times now. Do you want a fifth, a sixth? Please, please!” She lets go of my hand and looks at me shrewdly. “Unless you’d prefer if I contacted him?”

  Her smile is wicked. She knows she has me.

  “No,” I say. “I know the two of you wouldn’t do anything, but . . .”

  “You just don’t like the idea of it,” Cecilia finishes. “Me speaking to him and you not.”

  “Stop reading my mind, you witch.”

  We both giggle, and drink, and giggle some more. By the end of the night, crashing on the floor in the Rainbow House, I’ve promised half a dozen times that I’ll make contact with Rocco when I get back to Vegas.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Rocco

  It still feels strange sitting in Shotgun’s office. I haven’t changed anything. There’s still the photo of us hanging above the desk. But sometimes I get all turned around when Beast or Poker Face or Jerry come in here giving a report, start wondering why I’m sitting in the big chair on this side of the desk. Then it hits me and I want to roar, want to break something. Shotgun’s dead and I’m president. We’re at war. Everything has changed.

  I’m sitting at my computer watching CCTV footage from a fight in a bar two nights ago, Beast getting ambushed by two bastards who came off the worse for wear. I don’t need to watch it, since I got the footage before the police could get involved. But it’s good to know that we’re making some headway in the fighting. Sometimes it feels like we’re just losing. Adams died a few weeks ago—dropped dead mid-cigarette—and three boys have fallen to the Demons. We’ve taken four of theirs, but it doesn’t feel like it. It just keeps on and on. I watch as Beast flips the two men over like ragdolls, and then delete the file.

  I’m about to go into the bar when my cell rings. It’s a number I don’t recognize. I ready myself to speak with some Demon bastard. They’ve called up twice to spit shit down the phone at me. Even when I change my number, they somehow get hold of it.

  But when I answer I don’t hear the growling voice of a Demon. It’s Simone. At first I think I’m going crazy. Amidst all the fighting, the bloodshed, Simone has been on my mind. As the president, I’ve had club girls throwing themselves at me but I haven’t had sex since that night in the booth. That’s damn strange for me.

  “Rocco?” she says. “Are you there?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I’m here.”

  I imagine her perched on her couch, wearing pajama shorts showing off her perfect legs. It’s late, almost nine. “I’m calling to . . .” She trails off. “Cecilia asked me to call.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “I went to visit her. She finally let me. I guess you wouldn’t know, but she told me to stay away for a while.”

  “I’ve been sending her money,” I say, wanting to get that out in the open right away.

  “I know.”

  A silence.

  She hesitates, and then lets out a long breath. “I don’t know . . . I don’t know what to say.”

  “Let me take you to dinner!” I proclaim. “It’ll be easier to talk in person.”

  Over the past few months, I’ve told myself I’m over Simone. I tell myself, time and time again, that I don’t need her, that I never really wanted her. She was hot and that was all. All that connection shit was in my imagination. I’ll never let that happen again. But when she pauses before answering my question, I know I’ve been lying to myself. I’m not over her, not even close.

  “I suppose we could,” she says. “Just a meal.”

  “Just a meal,” I say. “Sure.”

  “It’d be easier to talk.” She seems to be speaking more to herself than to me.

  “That’s my thinking. Shall I pick you up?”

  “Give me half an hour,” she says. “And then yeah, you can pick me up.�
�

  When she hangs up, I go into the wardrobe on the other side of the room. Adams dead, the club at war, Shotgun a phantom watching me lead the club . . . All of this can weigh heavy on a man. I just want to forget for a little while. I’ll play the gentleman with Simone, I decide. I have a suit stored in here from when we went to Adams’ funeral. Taking it out, I lock my office door and then get changed. A few minutes later I’m no longer Rocco the president. I’m Rocco the gentleman. At least, that’s what I hope I look like.

  I leave my office, nodding to the men in the bar. Beast is near the door. “I might be gone all night. You’re in charge.”

  “Boss.” He nods. If any of them think it’s strange that I’m wearing a suit, they keep it to themselves.

  I climb onto my bike and kick it into gear, making for Simone’s house. I feel excitement swelling inside of me like I haven’t felt in a long time, probably ever since that night in the booth. These past few months have been murder, blood, red water swirling down the plughole. Now I have a chance at something else, even if it is only for a night. I have to try and make her forget why she pushed me away. I think back to how she pretended not to know about our sex in the booth. I hope she isn’t in that mood anymore.

  I stop outside her apartment building, parking my bike in an alleyway. Then I call a cab. I reckon gentleman don’t take their ladies on dates on motorbikes. The street is quiet except for a few people walking up and down, one old lady struggling with a bag of groceries heading for the apartment building next to Simone’s. She gives me a look, and then makes to look away. I feel a stab of guilt and go and help her. She’s calling me a sweet young man and trying to give me a dollar when Simone comes outside.

  She looks gorgeous with her long hair hanging down around her butt, shiny and freshly washed. Her face is artfully sculpted by her makeup, her eyes dark and piercing, her lips red. She wears a blue dress the same shade as her eyes, with blue heels giving her an extra two and a half inches. For a second, I just look at her.

  She raises her eyebrows at me as I reluctantly take the dollar from the old woman. “Please don’t tell me you arranged this,” she says.

  “No,” I reply, waving the dollar like that proves anything. “I just . . . she was giving me puppy dog eyes, Simone.”

  “Relax, I was joking.” She offers me the tiniest flicker of a smile, and it means the world to me. Months of not talking to women, of not touching them . . . I feel my old self waking up, the man I was before Shotgun was gutted with a bullet.

  I sweep over to her, bowing slightly. “It’s good to see you, Simone.” On an impulse—and not letting myself think about if she’ll reject me—I take her hand and kiss it.

  She looks up at me, the tiny smile growing larger. “Wow,” she says. “You really know how to make a lady feel special.” She softly takes her hand away.

  “That’s because you are special.”

  Looking around the street, she comments, “I don’t see your bike.”

  “I ordered us a—”

  Behind me, the cab beeps its horn.

  “I can see that,” she says, walking by me.

  “Where to, pal?” the driver asks.

  I give him the name of an Italian restaurant. We sit in near silence all the way there, as we pass casinos and hotels, stopping just short of the Strip. I pay the driver and then climb from the car, help Simone out after me, and then lead her toward the restaurant. It’s a fancy type of place, with a suited doorman out front and a line of fancy-looking people waiting to get in. I see Simone anxiously watching the line.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask her.

  She hesitates, and then her face hardens. She stands up straighter. “I was worried about my parents seeing me,” she says. “But screw them. That’s my attitude tonight. Screw them!”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m better than all right. Let’s get inside.”

  There’s a line of people, but I’m the president of the Seven Sinners, and the owner of this particular fancy-pants restaurant owes the Sinners a favor. I explain this to the doorman, who doesn’t give me any shit because he has to look up at me when he talks and he seems aware of that fact, and then the doorman talks into his walkie-talkie to verify the truth. The owner snaps back, “Let him in, right this second!”

  The waiter guides us to a table against the wall with a view of the Strip, the lights twinkling against the glass.

  “Any drinks?” he asks.

  “Just beer,” I say.

  “Water for me,” Simone says.

  “Water?” I smile at her. “Since when do you just drink water?”

  “Since now,” she says. “I don’t want to be drunk, or even tipsy, tonight.”

  “Okay.” I turn to the waiter. “Two waters, please.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Simone says. “You can have beer if you want.”

  “I’m not having one of us sober and one of us drunk—or even tipsy. So water it is.”

  The waiter brings our waters and then takes out food orders. We get a pizza to share and some sides, and then we’re alone again.

  “This is a nice place,” Simone says, looking around.

  “Yeah,” I agree, “it is.”

  “So,” she says. “What’ve you been up to?”

  “Apart from sitting at a rainy window and daydreaming about you, you mean?”

  I look intently at her.

  Her cheeks turn red. She meets my eye, and then looks down at the table, and then meets my eye again. “There hasn’t been much rain.”

  “I had a window installed in my office,” I tell her. “It’s always raining.”

  She pauses, watching me, and then the sound I’ve been dreaming about since we last spoke rises in the air. She giggles. She giggles shortly, and then giggles for almost half a minute. She sips her water, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Have I ruined my makeup?” she asks, dabbing under her eyes with the napkin.

  “Not even slightly,” I say.

  “It’s just the image of you sitting at a rainy window and it’s not even a real window and . . .”

  “What’s so funny about that? I’m a sensitive sort of guy.”

  “It’s odd. I know you mean that as a joke. But something tells me you really are more sensitive than you look.”

  “Is that your way of saying I don’t look very sensitive?”

  “You, look sensitive? No, Rocco, just no.”

  Our food arrives, a giant pizza which almost fills our table, with our sides scattered around. Simone giggles again. “Where do we start?”

  “Anywhere we want.” I grab a slice and munch on it, only after remembering I’m meant to be a gentleman tonight. Do gentlemen eat pizza with their hands? But it’s too late now and the pizza tastes too damn good. I keep munching.

  Simone picks up a slice and then looks at me. “I did remember, obviously,” she says.

  “What?” I ask between mouthfuls.

  “Back at the funeral, when you asked me about the booth and our . . . and the time we spent together. I remembered.”

  “Then why did you lie?” I finish the slice.

  “Why did I lie . . . I’ve asked myself that quite a few times, Rocco. I’ve also asked myself why I’m attracted to you—”

  “Wait a second.” I hold my hand up. “Wait a goddamn second.” I push my chair back and stand up. I walk away from the table with my hand on my forehead, and then return to the table. A few people watch me in confusion. “Wait a second, Simone. You’re attracted to me?”

  She giggles so hard she almost spits her pizza out. When she’s recovered, she says, “That was cruel and mean and cruel. But yes, I’m attracted to you. All right? Why do you think I’m talking to your tie right now?”

  It’s true. She’s staring at my collar. “To be fair, I can’t really blame you for anything you did that day. It was a fucked-up time.”

  “It was,” she agrees. “And now what?”

  “What do yo
u mean—now what?”

  “What’s happening?”

  I quickly fill her in about the war, talking quietly. “We haven’t found Shotgun’s killer yet. I don’t know if we’ll ever find the specific man. The person who really killed Shotgun is this Gerald fella, the leader of the Demons. He’s the one who ordered the Demons there that night.”

  “Okay, so have you found Gerald?”

  “No, he sends his pups to do his work for him.”

  Simone chews her lip. “It sounds dangerous,” she says.