Backstreet Hero

by Justine Davis

  But she wasn’t. And that alone was enough for her to quash those thoughts and get on with her day. At least here, in Redstone Headquarters, she was allowed to be alone and focus on her work.

  So focus, she ordered herself silently.

  Still, it took her a while before she could completely free her mind of Tony’s presence. But after she caught herself wondering what he was doing right now, she summoned up the will to shut that part of her mind off. She had a job to do, too, and she was as dedicated to doing it as her charming shadow was.

  She called up the computer file she’d been reading when the phone had rung and went back to searching for hints of any more damage to the place that had become as much her home and family as her blood one.

  The raucous catcalls and whistles followed him down the grim, graffiti-laden street. He plastered a cocky grin on his face, held up his arms to show off the expensive leather coat he’d purposefully chosen for this expedition, and spun slowly as he walked, giving a slight bow when he was done.

  The grins and shouts he got in response told him the show had been effective; they were treating him like one of their own made good. He knew they were likely assuming he’d made good in ways the cops would like to know about, probably thinking he was dealing in drugs or women, and that could only help his cause.

  It felt strange to be here. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been back before; he had. He’d been careful to see that no one here knew the real reason behind his disappearance all those years ago. For all they knew, he’d been in prison somewhere else, and he let them keep thinking it. There had been no one left behind to tell the truth, anyway; his little sister was long dead, and thanks to Josh he’d moved his parents out of this hell within weeks after his foolish yet fortunate attempt to mug the young then-millionaire.

  Before, when he’d come back, he’d simply thought how lucky he was to be out. This time, his feelings were more tangled, and he wasn’t sure why.

  He kept going. This had been his neighborhood, once. And more than once he’d used that, because people on the street had a way of knowing things you’d never expect them to know. Including whether there was anyone recently out of jail or prison who had come out with a job to do. True, the possibility was tenuous—a new gardener who happened to be Hispanic wasn’t much of a connection—but thanks to his misstep with Huntington, it was all he had.

  He hadn’t really planned on doing this today. He’d thought he would keep digging into Lilith’s ex’s past, see what he could find. As far as Tony was concerned, the man was still the prime suspect, although he was honest enough to realize he’d like nothing better than to add time to the charming, urbane, sophisticated and rotten-inside Daniel Huntington’s sentence.

  But after Draven had informed him what he’d be doing this evening, he’d changed his plans. And about then his self-honesty had fallen short; on some level he knew he’d come there intentionally, to pound home the differences between them by revisiting his past in a literal sense, but he wasn’t admitting that up front.

  Not yet, anyway.

  But here he was, after dressing with care in the kind of clothes that he knew would scream success to the people he’d be encountering. And as he’d put on the clothes he’d also put on the attitude, the arrogant swagger he’d grown up emulating, wanting to have for real, because it was the only way out that he could see.

  And he’d wanted out. Long before the day his little sister had died from a stray bullet fired by a drive-by shooter, and he’d seen his mother become a faint shadow of her former, vibrant self and his father, always a reserved man, shut down completely, he’d wanted out. Wanted them out.

  He hadn’t missed the irony that the only way out seemed to be using the very things that made him want to get out. Getting out took money, and the gangs and their hierarchy seemed the only option; if he rose high enough, and his cut of their illegal activities got big enough, then he could afford it.

  Of course, if you got that high, you could never leave. They’d kill you first.

  But he could get his parents out. And then, if he had to leave everything, including his family, to get out himself, he would.

  He shook himself out of the swamp of memories; not paying attention on these streets could get you killed. He kept walking, noticing there weren’t any familiar faces among those he passed. Some eyed him with suspicion, some with disgust, some with envy. The flashy coat, he thought wryly, was working. It was warm enough on this late spring day to make it clear he was wearing it either to show off or to hide something beneath it—a weapon, he was sure, most of them thought—and either reason contributed to the effect he wanted.

  As he kept going, he wondered if the East Side 13s had all been killed off and he’d somehow missed it. Then he laughed inwardly at himself; the ones he’d run with were his age now, and a whole new batch had likely taken over, probably guys who were just toddlers when he’d been here.

  Once he saw a woman he thought he recognized, but she darted away from him too quickly to be sure. He kept going, certain that whatever else had changed, the grapevine on the streets hadn’t, and that whoever was running the ES 13s these days would know about this intruder sooner rather than later.

  He was proven right about three blocks from the heart of their turf.

  “¡Orale, vato!”

  The “Hey, dude,” hail from behind turned him on his heel. He was a little startled to finally see a familiar face. “Rico. ¿Que pasa?”

  More than the casual what’s-up inquiry, he wondered what Rico Morales was doing here. And even more than that, he wondered when his onetime friend had gotten out of jail.

  “¿Tienes un cigarro, mijo?”

  “Sorry,” Tony said to the request, switching to English, “I quit smoking.”

  “You quit a lot of things, bro.” Rico made the switch as easily as he did.

  “Some,” Tony said, “I never started.” Thanks to Josh, I never had to.

  Rico, however, had never shown any interest in getting out. His greatest aspiration had been to be a loyal ESer. And he’d gone to jail to prove it, taking the fall for the leader of the gang in a drive-by case like the one that had killed Lucinda.

  But Rico had also had a bit of a teenage crush on Lucy, and therefore had never given Tony much heat on those rare occasions when he went back to the neighborhood.

  “When did you get out?” he asked.

  Rico frowned at him. “I been out six months, vato. You ever come around anymore, you’d know that.”

  “Been busy.”

  Rico eyed the leather coat. “Yeah, you have.”

  The man didn’t ask at what, for which Tony was thankful. What he’d done since he left the streets wasn’t known here, and he wanted to keep it that way. Let them think what they thought, that he’d made it dealing drugs or pimping whores, as long as the conduit for information didn’t dry up. It was the one thing he had to offer Redstone that no one else had, and he knew it.

  Someday he would come back here and show others there was another way, passing along what Josh had done for him in his own small way, but right now he was leaving well enough alone. “Anybody else local get out lately? Like in the last month or so?”

  Rico lifted a brow at him. “Why you want to know?”

  “Looking for someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t have a name. Just heard he took on a job for a friend of mine, in Chino. Might have something else worth his while to do.”

  Rico eyed the coat again. “Hey, I can do whatever you need doing, my old friend.”

  “You find me this guy,” Tony said with a grin, “and you can have this coat.”

  Rico laughed, but the sound faded when he realized Tony was serious. “What else do you know about this guy you are looking for?”

  “Job was getting rid of my friend’s ex-wife.”

  Rico laughed. “She cheat on him while he was inside?”

  “No.”

  His answer was quick and certain
. Too quick, he realized instantly; it would have been the easiest explanation. But it had been instinctive; Lilith would never cheat. That would be more Huntington’s style.

  “Before.” He knew he’d have to get more specific, make something up that sounded real enough, and it made him edgy. “She’s some wheel at that big-time place, Redstone, Incorporated. It was somebody there. That’s why he’s inside.”

  “He had to teach her a lesson,” Rico said with a nod, accepting the story with complete understanding. In his world, it made perfect sense.

  “Know anybody who took on a job like that, when they got out? Or anybody who knows anybody?”

  “I could ask,” Rico said. “I have a lot of friends.”

  Tony got the subtext, that after doing his time Rico had moved up in the ranks and could call on other gang members to do this for him.

  “I know you do. Why I came to you,” he said, paying the requisite respect. “Anything you find, anything about a job like that, or anything connected to that Redstone place, would be worth a lot to me.”

  “I would need to thank them for their help,” Rico said pointedly.

  “I’ll make sure the pockets in the coat aren’t empty,” Tony promised.

  Rico seemed to consider this for a moment, obviously wondering if he could trust this man who’d left them in the dust years ago. Finally, Rico nodded. “I will ask.”

  Tony reached into his pocket and took out a business card. It was blank except for a single phone number. He’d had them made for just such occasions. “My pager. Use it if you turn anything up. If it’s the right thing, the right person, I’ll make sure there’s more than the coat in it for you.”

  Rico took the card, looked at it, then looked at Tony speculatively. “What is it that pays so well, mijo?”

  “Pal,” Tony echoed in English, “you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  Chapter 10

  “Stop it!”

  Lilith snapped the order to her image in the mirror as she fussed with her hair yet again. So far she’d had it down in a sleek fall, then curled into waves, then up, then down again.

  She was acting, she thought with rueful self-awareness, as if this was a date. A first date. With someone she wanted to impress.

  Disgusted with herself, she finally pulled her hair into a classic French twist, secured it quickly with the ease of long practice, tugged a few strands loose to soften the look and let it go at that.

  And she was not, she told herself firmly, going to second-guess what she was going to wear tonight. She had a limited choice for formal occasions, having long ago gotten rid of the expansive wardrobe of gowns and shoes and bags she’d required as the wife of Daniel Huntington. She’d donated them to a charity the week she’d gotten out of the hospital, wanting nothing from that time in her life, no reminders except one—she kept the photographs the police had taken of her injuries.

  At first, she’d kept them to remind herself of her near-fatal lapse in judgment. Later, she kept them to use when she spoke to groups at women’s shelters. She knew the image she presented, knew it resulted in the kind of disbelief she so often encountered, that such things could ever happen in the world she had lived in. But one look at those photos, and the women she talked to knew that what she told them was true; she had indeed walked in their shoes. And then they listened to her, knowing she understood.

  She brushed off the old memories, hating that they’d been stirred up again when she’d thought them safely and securely buried. She forced herself to focus on the task at hand, getting out the floor-length gown she’d chosen. It was one of two she owned in her favorite red. The other was more daring, lower cut and clingy enough to warrant some care about what she wore under it.

  But tonight was a fund-raiser, and some decorum was called for, so she chose the second one, still sleek and elegant, but a little tamer. A strapless sheath with a beaded lace shrug, it hinted but didn’t advertise and had the added advantage of being Redstone red.

  The color was a declaration. It had been too bold, too assertive for Daniel’s taste, and he’d ordered her not to wear it. Since the functions she would have chosen it for were for his work, she hadn’t fought him on it.

  Looking back, of course, she realized it had been a glaring sign of what was to come.

  But now she wore what she pleased when she pleased. And wearing Redstone red appealed to her on that level as well, not to mention that she was rarely alone; many in the Redstone family made a point of showing their loyalty in that subtle way.

  And that it was a color that looked exceptionally well on her was something she didn’t allow herself to dwell on when she chose it for tonight over the other options in her closet.

  She simply wanted to look her best for the cause, she told herself. It had nothing to do with the man who would accompany her.

  She glanced at the thin gold watch on her wrist; she’d dispensed with her daily, utilitarian model for a more delicate one, with a small diamond at the twelve and the six, unable to make the break completely and go without one at all.

  The watch, a pair of drop earrings in gold set with a single ruby each, and a thin gold chain around her neck completed the outfit; she’d always followed her mother’s rule of no more than three pieces of jewelry. Others in Daniel’s circle had worn much more on such occasions, some simply dripping with the diamonds that shouted their status, and had given her pitying glances for her lack of flash and sparkle.

  Daniel hadn’t pitied her. He’d been angry. He’d tried varying tactics to get her to change her style, from buying her bigger and better jewels, to asking, to outright ordering her to put on more or flashier pieces. When she’d refused, he’d accused her of trying to undermine him by making it seem among their friends that he couldn’t match their show.

  And if they truly were our friends, she’d told herself then, the thought would never occur to them.

  Looking back, she’d realized that had been another sign. At the time she’d just thought him silly—and exhausting—for making it a competition. But then, for a Huntington, everything was, even the games of tennis he played with a ferocity that made it seem close to a blood sport.

  She doubted if Tony Alvera had ever had time for such frivolous things. A long weekend spent at a country club tennis tournament didn’t seem like something he would indulge in, even if his world had included such things.

  “Now, what do you know about it?” she told herself sternly. “Nothing. Josh sent him to college, perhaps he joined the tennis team.”

  Lord, she was talking to herself. Not the inner voice she guessed most people had, putting thoughts into words to aid in the process of working something out, but out loud, question-and-answer talking to herself about ridiculous things.

  When the knock on her door came, it was a surprise. Not because she wasn’t expecting it, although it was a few minutes early, but because instead of the heavy, demanding rapping she’d half anticipated, it was a firm but polite tapping.

  And no cutesy rhythm, not for Tony Alvera.

  Because this is all business, and you’d best remember that, she ordered herself as she walked through her living room to open the door.

  When he’d been up the first time, to look at the wire across the stairs, he hadn’t come inside. They’d been in a hurry to get to Chino before the favor Redstone had called in expired. This afternoon, he’d merely seen her to the door, as if he’d sensed she was already about at her limit at his insistence on following her home.

  This time she supposed he would at least be stepping inside, so she glanced around, although she’d made certain it was tidy when she’d first gotten home.

  Because you knew this would happen? Straightening up for the bodyguard, Lil?

  She smiled in spite of herself as she realized she’d used Josh’s nickname for her. He was one of the very few who ever shortened her name, although it didn’t particularly bother her when someone did. In fact, she’d grown to like it, since it had once irrita
ted Daniel, who had also insisted on being addressed by his full name rather than the detested Dan or worse, Danny.

  It was with that smile on her face that she pulled the door open and, as she’d practiced in her head, gestured him inside.

  If she hadn’t done that mental practice, she likely would still be standing there, hand on the doorknob and her jaw hanging open in shock, she thought wryly a moment later.

  Tony Alvera made her spacious living room seem small with his edgy presence. He made even her straightforward, low-key décor seem fussy compared to his lean, pared-down style in a perfectly fitted tux with a wing-collared shirt and classic bow tie—hand tied, she noted.

  He also made the air seem a little thin, she thought as she finally remembered to breathe.

  Something about the way he was looking at her made her think there would be no more air outside than there was in here.

  “I came early to do a security check on your place,” he said, his voice sounding oddly gruff.

  So much for the niceties, Lilith thought. But in fact she was grateful for the businesslike approach. It took things out of the realm of the personal.

  She had to admit that her first sight of Tony Alvera in a tux had blasted her imagination into some very personal areas.

  And blasted the doting aunt analogy she’d been clinging to into an astronomical number of pieces.

  Okay, so he was gorgeous, in a dark, exotic way that literally took her breath away. That was a fact, and no amount of calling herself a fool would change it. Any woman with a pulse would find it picking up at the sight of him.

  And she had to walk into a crowded room with him tonight. With every woman in the place no doubt wondering what he was doing with her when he could have one of them—younger, more innocent and baggage free—with one snap of his elegant fingers.

  None of them, of course, would be wondering what she was doing with him. One look at him in that tux would make that question irrelevant.

  She fought for control, while he seemed briskly professional as he checked all the windows in the living room, looking at locks, trying to open them both locked and unlocked and peering out through them, she guessed to check possible access.