Everybody’s eyebrows shot up.
I sniffed, rolled my neck, and took the phone.
Game on, bitch.
“Listen up, Summerfield—“
“No, you listen up, Malone. You got something of mine.”
“Yeah, well—” Two lines in and the conversation was already running away from my fantasized narrative. That was supposed to me my line. Well, one of them, anyway.
“Well, nothing. I’m not mucking about with you and yours anymore.”
“Wait…what?”
“You got something I want back. I got something of yours that you might want back.”
Shit. That was also supposed to be my line.
Waitaminnit... That sounded like a threat. He wasn’t supposed to be threatening me.
The breath caught inside my chest. The line was silent.
“You still there, mate?”
“I’m still here,” I said through a clenched jaw.
Junior saw my expression. He held his hands out. “What?” he whispered.
I shook my head.
“Good,” Summerfield said. “I want you to listen very carefully to me.” Then the sound of deep puffing came over the earpiece. “You hear that? That’s the sound of me puffing a cigar that’s more valuable than your whole bloody life.” A couple more puffs.
A deep sickness cramped my gut.
“There,” he said, “got that cherry nice and hot.”
I could hear a woman crying softly.
Then the ripping of cloth.
And a screaming muffled cry.
And the world exploded red.
“Can’t help but notice the silence, Mr. Malone. You still there?”
“Yeah,” I croaked.
“That was a preview. I didn’t even burn this little bitch. But I came close. Oh. So. Close. Next time, I’m going to grind out this fabulous cigar right on her nipple. Then I’m going to light another one and burn off her other nipple.”
The plastic of the phone case creaked in my grip.
Summerfield went on. “Bring me what’s mine in the hour, and we can prevent what’s yours from getting her lovely tits blemished. Because when I’m done with them, I move my lovely cigar to her eyes. Then the two of you can take a romantic stroll to the ASPCA to pick out a dog to lead her around for the short time I allow you both to continue breathing.”
I tried to speak, but couldn’t. How did he know? Guess he did his due diligence on me as well.
The rage…
The rage had me tight.
What was left of my sensible brain pleaded with me to not immediately charge into Raja and tear the skin from Summerfield’s corpse-to-be.
He had me right where he wanted me.
Because he had Kelly.
And he was going to hurt her.
To hurt me.
“Hullloooo? Am I talking to myself?”
“No,” I said.
“Be here in an hour. Are we clear, mate?”
“We’re clear,” I said, the words choking me.
“Excellent. See you soon, mate.” Then he hung up.
I placed the bar phone on the bar gently, with a hand shaking like I was stroking out. I could feel every heartbeat pulsing through me.
“Boo?” Junior said. “What the hell did he say?”
I couldn’t talk.
It was happening again.
I’d cut Kelly loose because bad things happened to the women I loved.
They died.
They died badly.
I couldn’t handle the same happening to her. Couldn’t disconnect from the mythology of my history.
I’d cut her loose so she would be safe.
It didn’t matter.
She was going to get killed.
Because of me.
It was happening again.
My knees went weak, and I crumpled halfway to the floor, catching one arm on the bar, Junior grabbing the other as I fell. “Boo! What the fuck is happening?”
“He’s got Kelly,” I said, feeling the vomit rising with the air I needed to even say the words.
“Oh, oh goddamn,” Junior said.
I stumbled to the door, bursting out into the blinding storm. I dropped to my hands and knees and puked into the pristine snow until nothing but yellow bile poured out of me.
Through the howling snow, a diminutive figure walked toward me. Even inside the whiteout storm, I could see The Boy clearly as he approached. The flecks of ice danced through him, swirling inside his tiny scarred form.
He dropped to his knees and faced me.
I stared into his eyes.
My eyes.
His mouth moved, but no words came out.
I knew what he was saying.
Save her.
I could.
Could I?
I had to.
Freezing tears rolled down the cheeks filled with wind-whispering snowflakes as he reached a ghostly hand to touch my face.
Save her.
“Then let’s stop with the fucking puking and get to it,” Junior said from behind me, his voice an enraged grumble.
I turned and saw Junior, Twitch, and Ollie in the doorway.
I hadn’t realized I’d said the words out loud.
My brothers stood there.
The Boy was gone.
My brothers.
My family.
Avengers assemble, motherfuckers.
Chapter Seventeen
Ollie was staying at the bar and opening that goddamn phone. It was all we had to potentially tie Byron to Summerfield. I hoped to hell there was something that would at least take the heat off me and Junior for his death. If reasonable doubt was all we could get, then reasonable doubt was what we’d have to settle for.
I walked Twitch up to the office and poured us both a couple of fingers of Jim Beam.
Twitch didn’t drink, but he was game enough to take a timid sip, wincing as he did so. “You’ve never poured me a drink before.”
I threw mine back, letting the physical burn match the anger churning inside me. Everything was fire, everything burning under my fingertips. I wanted to rage. I wanted to tear the world down. But I knew that letting my natural instinct to Hulk the fuck out would not only get me killed, but Kelly too.
Maybe I was growing up.
Still felt like we were all going to get killed anyway.
“So, Manny and Benito are hip to take this fucker down with us, John Woo-style. If you know a place where we can buy a shitload of doves, we’re good.”
“I’m going in alone,” I said.
“Fuck that,” Twitch said, shaking his head. “No. Fuck no.”
“I need you guys behind me.”
“I’m confused now.”
“This guy has me by the balls here.”
“Uh-huh,” Twitch said. “I got that.”
“Which is why this is mine, and mine only to handle.”
“I’m still not following.” His eyeball twitched in confusion.
I bit the inside of my cheek “I don’t see me walking out. If I can get Kelly out, fine. But I don’t see where this ends any way except with me in a ditch.”
“So we blaze in there. Shoot anything that doesn’t have tits. What’s the problem?”
“Are we the Avengers?”
Twitch smiled. “Fucking A.”
“Then avenge my ass if I’m not back here with Kelly.”
“But…”
“If I don’t come back, then burn it. Burn it all down. You guys are my contingency plan.”
Twitch’s eyes lit up at the prospect of unleashing the Biblical-level of violence that I knew he was capable of. “I both like and really don’t like that part of your scenario. Don’t get me wrong. I’m more than happy to follow through on my part of the plan. But that still doesn’t change the fact that your plan is hella stoopid.”
“I’m not going to argue with you on that. If I can get Kelly out, just hand the money over and walk away, I’m going
to. I have to try that first. I can’t risk her getting killed.”
“But you can risk getting yourself killed.”
“Yep. Like we do.”
“Like we do.” Twitch popped the rest of his shot, coughed, then squinted back tears.
“You okay?”
“Good as I’m going to be,” he said. “Junior is okay with this?”
“He’s gonna have to be.” But boy howdy, he wasn’t going to be.
“Manny and Benito are going to be disappointed.”
“They’ll get over it, I’m sure.”
Then, unexpectedly, Twitch threw his arms around me in a bear hug, face pressed against my chest. “Sorry.”
“No, man. Maybe we should hug more. We can still be macho and hug, right?”
“Ollie would like that.” Then he snickered.
I stared at him. Something dinged in my brain. It was no different than the thousands of cracks we’d made over the years about each other’s sexuality and masculinity.
But because of the recent events, I heard what Twitch was saying for the first time.
“What?” Twitch said, noticing the change in my face.
“Why did you say that?”
Twitch shrugged. “I dunno. Because he’s gay? And we always make gay jokes about Ollie.”
I felt my jaw drop nearly through the floor. “You knew?”
Twitch’s eyes went wide. “You didn’t?”
I had nothing. “How long have you known?”
Twitch paused, eyes narrowing as he tried to assess whether or not I was messing with him. “Uh, since I met him? Please don’t tell me that you’re just figuring this out now.”
“Did he tell you?”
“We never had a conversation about it. I think it’s pretty clear.”
Well, maybe for some of us.
Twitch scrunched his face up. “Did he have to tell you?”
“In a way.”
“So lemme get this straight. For the last twenty years, you thought that all my fucking with him for being gay was...” He stopped. “Oh, shit. So when Junior makes all those cracks...”
I finished the sentence for him. “He wasn’t meaning to be a dick.”
“You think.”
“Pretty sure. Me and Junior thought you were busting his balls. Like we do.”
“And I’m the only one who knew?” Twitch said. “You gotta be kidding me.”
“Did Ollie know you knew?”
Twitch opened his mouth to answer, then paused. “Oh shit. He just thinks we’re assholes.”
“To be fair, some of us were just being assholes.”
Twitch shook his head. “There is the probability that Junior might really be one…y’know, where this is concerned.” Twitch whistled as he stuck his index finger into his closed fist. Then he pointed at said fist. “In this instance, the hand represents a dude’s butt.”
“I get it,” I said. “I’m gonna have a talk with him about it,”
“Thought you probably weren’t coming back later.”
“Oh yeah. That.” I clapped my hands together. “Anyhoo, I’m going to get myself together and head over to Raja.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to the boys. How long you want us to wait before we storm the castle?”
I grabbed Twitch by the back of his neck and looked him dead in the eyes. “If I’m not back by the time the sun comes up, it’s the last sunrise I want that motherfucker to see.”
Twitch’s eye made with a happy little jumping jack. “Done.” Twitch walked back downstairs to break the news to his new besties.
I slid the trumpet case out from behind the Dry Sack and opened it.
Damn, that was a lot of money.
I sighed and opened the desk drawer where we kept the rolls of duct tape and what remained of the first aid kit. As I started redressing my wound before battle, I got an idea.
Maybe not the greatest idea.
But an idea.
***
I walked back down the stairs, all bundled up and ready to roll.
“Ollie. How you doing on that phone?”
Ollie didn’t look up from the screen. He was in his zone. “I’m pretty close to hacking the provider’s website, at which point I’ll at least have a list of recent calls. I have the programs uploaded. All I have to do then is run the numbers through the IOS.”
I had no idea what IOS meant, so I just said, “Rock on.”
Ollie gave me the devil horn fingers.
“Junior, soon as he opens that thing, get Underdog here and give him all of whatever we get.”
“Nah. Twitch can do that.”
Twitch raised his hand. “I don’t think I should be the guy dealing with the cops.”
I opened my palm at Twitch. “See? You have to do it. I gotta go.” I turned and headed to the door.
“Hey, hold on a sec. Let me get my coat,” Junior said.
“I gotta do this solo.”
“Nah. That’s not gonna happen,” he said, buttoning up his pea coat.
“Don’t fight me on this, Junior. I need you guys to—”
“I’m not fighting with you. I’m just coming with.” Junior finished his plastic cup of wine in three huge gulps, then burped. “If you want to fight about it, feel free. I’m still going.”
“Dammit.” I looked at Audrey, who was still blissfully unaware of what was about to go down. Granted, the activities so far—what with my vomiting, injuries, and general air of pain and violence—were nothing unusual for The Cellar.
“Are you taking my schnoogums home with you tonight?” She scratched Burrito behind the ears. Burrito happily leaned into her fingernails and purred.
Yes, purred.
My dog is fucking weird.
“You mind another night? Or two?” I asked.
“Of course not!” she said. “You hear that, Buwwito! You’re going to stay with Grammy Audrey some more.”
Burrito yipped in Chihuahuan glee, his tiny tail whipping the air.
I decided to head out before her baby talk left me with type-2 diabetes. Because I needed that on top of everything and everyone else that was going to try to kill me in the next hour. “Time?”
“We got eleven minutes,” Junior said. “Take note that I said ‘we’ not ‘you.’”
“Noted, fuckhole.”
“Let’s go, then, cheesedick.”
“Okay, twatwaffle.”
“Twatwaffle?” Junior scrunched his face. “The hell is a twatwaffle?”
“Never mind…”
***
The storm was still in whiteout, with the gusts lashing our faces. Junior and I had to yell in order to hear each other over the screaming wind. “I can’t believe you thought I wasn’t coming along,” Junior yelled. “Were you just going to walk on me?”
“First chance I get, I’m taking him down, out if I can. The second I’m close enough, I’m ripping his fucking throat out.”
“Okay. I got no problem with that. What’s your point?”
“His boys are probably going to beat me to death once that happens. If I’m lucky, I’ll get a bullet.”
“So it’s a suicide mission. This ain’t our first one, frankly.” Junior slipped, his feet sliding willy-nilly before he caught himself on a parking meter. “Fuck! Save them the trouble if we break our necks walking over there. I’m gonna ask again, what’s your point?”
“I’d rather not have your death on my hands, but you seem determined to have it your way.”
“Meh. What else did I have planned for the day? Let’s do this, Sundance!”
I tried to explain why Butch and Sundance was a terrible fucking appropriation, but another gust of wind blew what felt like an entire snowball down my throat. Then I realized that for the first time, his usage was appropriate considering the circumstances.
It kinda sucked to realize that.
We turned onto Lansdowne and stood for a moment in front of the large double doors at the entrance to Raja. The place was locked
tight, but there was an intercom to the left of the ornate metal gate.
Junior took a knee, stretching for his toes as I reached for the buzzer.
I stopped just short of hitting the button. “The hell are you doing?”
“Loosening up my quads. Making sure my laces are tight. Shit gets real, I don’t wanna trip on a shoelace or get a cramp.”
Wasn’t a bad idea, that. I began my own slow calisthenics, glad that no passing cars would see our ridiculoys warm-up. Once my blood started flowing, that’s when the guilt hit me. Especially when the item in my pocket poked me in the ribs while I did my trunk twists. “I gotta tell you something, Junior.”
“Now? Can you tell me inside, where I’m not freezing my balls off?”
“In the event we both get shot in the head the second we walk in the door, I think it’s best that we talk now.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he said, blowing into his mittens. “What is it?”
“Miss Kitty is gone.”
Junior blinked at me. “What are you talking about?”
“I had to scrap her.” Did I just call the goddamn car “her”? “I couldn’t take the chance that the car was going to be more evidence to bury us with.” Mostly true.
Junior blinked at me again.
“I saved you this.” I fumbled in my pocket and brought out the antenna. I placed it in both his mittens like I was handing him a holy relic.
He stared at it a second. I couldn’t tell if there were tears in his eyes, since they would have frozen instantly anyway.
“I’m sorry,” I said, the guilt knotting my stomach. “Say something.”
Junior flicked his wrist, extending the antenna. Then he started viciously whipping my legs with it.
“You son of a bitch!” he yelled. “How could you do that to Miss Kitty?”
“I, ow, didn’t do it, fuck, for the fun of it!” The thrashing antenna hurt even more than it normally would, what with my shin being half frostbitten.
“I loved that car, Boo! How? How could you do that?”
“I thought it, shit, needed to, fucking ow, happen! Dammit, dude. Cut it out!”
Junior stopped flaying the skin off my legs, and I stopped the ridiculous dance I was doing as I tried to halfheartedly avoid the blows I knew I deserved. “You lousy fuck,” he said sadly.
“Noted,” I said, rubbing at the intense stinging on my legs. “Save some for the guys inside, though, will ya?”
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