She’d raised two daughters. In 1991, Beth and Samantha had been ten and twelve, respectively. Samantha was now a veterinarian and lived in Atlanta with her husband and son. Beth was an accountant; she and her husband owned a house just outside the city with their two children (actually just the one now) and a golden Lab. Despite Ellie’s encouragement, neither daughter had developed much in terms of their own eccentricities.
If anything, they just gave Ellie more: Beth showed her French fries and a Wendy’s Frosty were a delicious combination; Samantha got her hooked on fedoras; both thought replacing the lawn with prairie grass and wildflowers would be wonderful; and most impactful of all, her girls introduced her to the magnificence of Prince. Ellie loved that androgynous musical genius. She and Prince were spiritual twins. She even renamed her dog, a miniature Xolo that had grown accustomed to responding to “Chandler” for eight years, to “Billy Jack” after the fifteenth track, “Billy Jack Bitch,” on Prince’s 1995 album, The Gold Experience. Ellie and her girls had even driven down to Minneapolis five times to see Prince perform.
When Prince died on April 20, 2016, from an accidental overdose of fentanyl, Ellie sat herself down in her garden and listened to his albums the entire afternoon. It’d been a Wednesday, a sunny but chilly day in Duluth, and by the time she went inside, her face was numb from the cold lake air and the crying. She and Beth had driven to Paisley Park, Prince’s estate in Chanhassen, the following weekend to pay their respects. (Samantha was living in Atlanta by then, so she couldn’t attend.) When they returned, Ellie cut her hair—buzzed it right off—in mourning. And she never let it grow out again.
Until now. She was going to let it grow again. This time it’d be to honor her granddaughter who’d just passed. Sarah, Beth’s daughter, had been nineteen. She was getting her bachelor’s at Lake Superior College. A vivacious, happy girl. Then she didn’t wake up one morning. Ellie was still in a daze.
At present, Ellie stood expressionless, staring at Billy Jack as he sniffed for a spot to take a pee. She and the dog had been wandering the shoreline for a couple of hours. Ellie was oblivious to the looks Billy Jack was getting. As a Xolo, he tended to attract a fair amount of curious glances anyway, but today he caught everyone’s attention, and Billy Jack snarled at them all.
Ellie knew he wasn’t happy. She’d dyed him a deep purple for Prince Fest, but the dye wasn’t coming off now. Apparently hair dye on a hairless dog was a risky proposition. His skin had soaked it up like an egg on Easter. It’d given him a magnificent glow for the festival, but it’d proven difficult to remove afterwards. It was possible it would’ve faded some with a few more baths, but when the news about Sarah came, Ellie didn’t care so much about the dye.
Ellie had seen her granddaughter at Prince Fest. Sarah had even stopped by the following morning to drop off Ellie’s meds (along with some sweets from the bakery where she worked). She hadn’t so much as a cough.
Sarah was healthy and smiling.
A chubby child in oversized basketball shorts pointed at Billy Jack.
“Is it okay if Erik pets your dog?” the boy’s mother asked, a gentle hand on his shoulder.
Ellie was slow to register the request. Sarah was just nineteen. How does that happen?
The boy wiggled from his mother and tottered toward the dog.
Billy Jack flipped out, yapping and snapping, hopping and bopping.
The boy’s jaw dropped. His eyes widened. Turning on his heels, he hightailed it out of there, pumping his legs as fast as he could.
“He won’t hurt you,” Ellie mumbled, still mostly lost in thought.
The boy shot past his mother and launched himself up onto a nearby tire swing, scurrying to the top as it swayed and spun.
Billy Jack wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere near the boy if Ellie had gripped the leash half as much as the boy was clutching the swing, but her reflexes were slow that day, and the leash slipped right through her fingers. Billy Jack, the hairless purple monster, jumped and snapped under the tire at the petrified boy.
“He won’t hurt you,” Ellie repeated. It came out sounding more like a sigh than anything reassuring.
“Won’t hurt him?” the boy’s mother cried, hurrying to her child’s aid. “Shoo. Get, get, get!”
Billy Jack continued to go about with his act, ignoring the woman, until Ellie strolled over. Then he darted from Ellie’s outstretched arms.
“Come on, you little fart.” She reached for the leash, and Billy Jack raced a little farther, the leash dragging through the grass.
The boy threw himself into his mother’s arms, crying.
As Ellie crept over to where Billy Jack sat, the woman went about chastising her. Ellie’s hip was flaring up. She and Billy Jack were going home after this. “Come here,” she said, reaching down.
Billy Jack sprang to his feet and sprinted down the walking path, vanishing around a bend. Ellie stood up and flapped her hand at the dog. She didn’t have the energy. Billy Jack had run off like this in the past. Someone would find him and bring him home. He had all the necessary ID tags.
She took to the path herself but went in the opposite direction, her hip creating a slight hiccup with every other step.
“I’m going to report you,” the mother called out.
Ellie didn’t look at the woman. She only flapped her hand again and continued on her way. She needed to get home and take her meds. That was another thing she had to think about: her meds. Sarah had brought her enough for a week, but without that sweet girl, Ellie wasn’t sure what she was going to do. Her doctor had stopped prescribing the painkillers months ago—Minnesota doctors were notoriously stingy with opioids, but Sarah had kept the OxyContin coming. She’d said the painkillers came from a Canadian pharmacy that didn’t require a prescription. Unfortunately Ellie couldn’t remember the name of the pharmacy, and the bags the pills came in had no labels (due to customs, according to Sarah). She’d have to search the Internet and see what popped up.
By the time Ellie reached her car, her hip was really giving her a fit. She had half a mind to take a double dose of the Oxy when she got home. She knew she wouldn’t, though. Not until she could find that Canadian pharmacy. In fact, her fear of running out was so great that not only did she not take a double, she didn’t even take a full. She cut the pill in half, then split the rest as well. She’d be in pain taking only half a dose, but it would buy her some time to search. Sarah had a knack for that online sleuthing, not her.
~
Bump had come to know the Sureños during a six-month stay at the Southern Desert Correctional Center in Las Vegas. The prison had been built during Frank Sinatra’s Golden Nugget days, but during Bump’s time there, the Chairman had long departed and Celine Dion was the town’s headliner.
It was actually outside of Caesars Palace, where Celine was performing, that Bump got arrested. He’d gone to Vegas to find the man who’d ratted out his brother, Devon—or that was what he told himself, because if the man hadn’t been at fault, then Bump’s own careless mouth had gotten Devon sent to prison—but after a week of carefully searching the blazing desert town, Bump had lost his patience and sanity, and by random, unfortunate chance, he’d passed a couple of drunk frat bros; heard something racist about his tattoos; and went off on the men. While Bump waited for the police under the statue of Venus, he washed the blood from his knuckles in the fountain’s water.
He got six months for that.
Southern Desert’s inmate population self-segregated, and as a member of the Almighty Vice Lords, Bump fell in line with the Bloods. Unfortunately for him, the Bloods were feuding hard with the Crips that spring, and fights were breaking out at all hours of the day with little or no warning, and that meant the Bloods really had no time to watch over him. When he heard the Aryan Brotherhood wanted his head—one of the frat bros apparently had an uncle high up in the gang—Bump had to go elsewhere to keep his throat from being cut for the second time in his life.
And that was when the Sureños came in. With five gangs running Southern Desert (the Bloods, Crips, Aryans, Mexican Mafia, and Sureños), his options were limited, and since the Mexican Mafia was loosely aligned with the Aryans, Bump really only had the Sureños to go to. As luck would have it, however, the Sureños had a particularly vicious beef with the Aryans that stretched back several years, so in the longstanding spirit that an enemy of your enemy is your friend, they took Bump in.
He could’ve (and probably should’ve) just kept his head down after that, but he was young and stupid and pissed at the Aryans for even thinking about coming after him. He also wanted to show the Sureños his appreciation for their protection, so one day Bump crossed the yard, grabbed an Aryan by the back of the neck where a crude “88” was tattooed, and smashed the man’s face into the basketball pole he’d been leaning against. His face split from eyebrow to chin. Bump let go, and the man crumpled to the concrete as three other Aryans rushed in. Bump covered himself, protecting his face above all else, until the correctional officers could quell the outburst.
For that, Bump spent the rest of his time at Southern Desert—four months—in confinement. Twenty-three hours a day in his cell and one hour a day in a ten-by-ten cage under the sun. Prisoners could turn suicidal in such conditions, but Bump managed. The Sureños kept the Aryans from trying anything, so Bump just relaxed, watching Court TV every day on the TV set outside his cell. While growing up, his mom had watched talk shows twenty-four hours a day, so there was a bit of familiarity to it. In fact, Court TV even gave him a few ideas for how to track down the narc who’d sent his brother to prison.
He never did get that guy, though. Even with all that time thinking and scheming, he got nothing. Bump was released; he went back to the Strip; and the man was gone, the trail as cold as the city was hot.
It still ate at him, which was why he kept things simple now. Too much thinking and plotting left a man just standing around holding his dick. And it didn’t really take much to kill someone. No matter how much Tiff wanted to romanticize and embellish what he did, it was usually just the pull of a trigger and a slow walk back the way you’d come.
As if Tiff could somehow sense he was thinking about murder, she asked, “When’re you going to do it?”
They’d arrived in Duluth and were sitting in the car, parked on Lake Avenue by the lift bridge. “Don’t know,” Bump said. Even if he did, he wouldn’t have shared it with her. She had no business knowing.
“Can we eat together later?”
“Probably.”
She grabbed his phone. “Turn on your GPS so I can see where you’ll be.”
“Shit, woman.” Bump snatched his phone from her hands. “I’ll text you when I’m ready.”
Tiff pursed her lips and glared at him. “You’d better.”
Bump reached over and opened her door. “Get out. I have to go.”
Tiff grabbed her things, slammed the door, and disappeared into the nearest store.
“Fucking hell.”
As Bump drove away, he passed a dumpster with some graffiti on its side. A coffee cup. Emmelia’s mark. It was a play on the martini glass the AVL used in Chicago. Her Duluth offshoot had been using the symbol since about the time she’d opened her café. If he kept his eyes open, he’d see more such tags throughout the city. He’d always suggested she use two interlocking D’s instead, but the cup was okay too.
Bump’s route took him by the inn where Jacob supposedly was staying. The building was all dark stone and tiny arched windows. A hoard of creeping vines covered the southwest side. Billowing high over the street was an American flag. The place looked as if it had once been a prison, something like the old Joliet Correctional Center in Illinois but in miniature.
Bump didn’t linger. No need to. He just kept rolling down the street, heading to the Coffee Princess.
He found Emmelia in the back half of the building, struggling to dump a bucket of unroasted coffee into the hopper above the machine.
“Thought you had people who did this,” he said when she finally got it.
“Out sick.” Emmelia set the empty bucket on some burlap sacks behind her, then checked the temperature gauge on the roaster before pulling the release door and sending the coffee falling into the drum. She slammed the door back with a clang, looked at him, and smiled.
She looked better than ever. It was unfortunate the way things had turned out for them. They’d been good together. Then she’d gone and killed that woman. She’d heard the Disciples were planning to come after him, but instead of killing the guy who wanted to kill him, she’d gone after his mother. Bump admired her initiative, but killing someone’s mother? Holy shit. She’d then tried to say he’d made her do it, but that was ridiculous. Coincidentally, that was around the time he’d also started getting sick of her—she was good-looking, but she just wasn’t as pretty as he was; their numbers didn’t match—so it was for the best she did what she did and gave him the excuse to ship her off.
“So what happened in Minneapolis?” she asked.
“Exactly. What happened?”
“You talk to Avispón?”
“No.”
Emmelia gave him a look of indignation. “Don’t give me that. I can see it in your eyes.” She pointed a chaff-covered finger. “You talked. What’s he saying?”
“I’m sure you can guess.”
“You should let me help you.”
Bump glanced around. “You make any money off this place?” Through the glass he counted six patrons: two students studying on stools at the front window, an old couple in the corner, and a man and his daughter waiting for their drinks at the counter.
“It pays for itself. Wouldn’t matter anyway,” she said, referring to the fact that it was just a front for the drug distribution operation.
Bump continued to eye the people in the café. “Was White in this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Everything look normal?”
“Like any other day.”
“Shit,” Bump groaned. A cop had walked into the café, but more concerning, the uniformed man was holding the door for Tiff.
Stepping in as if she’d expected the gesture, her giant purse hanging from her bent elbow, her sunglasses perched on her upturned nose, and a new sunhat atop her head, she judged the café.
Bump shifted to the back of the roastery, using the burlap sacks as cover.
“You’ve got some ego.” Emmelia pulled a sample of coffee from the roaster and checked its color. “The cops here wouldn’t even know your name…unless you do something stupid like shoot Jacob as he’s walking down the street.”
Bump remained in hiding. “What’s new with White?”
“Same as before.”
“And he’s still down at that inn?”
“He likes the place.”
Bump busied himself by inspecting the markings on the burlap sacks: Colombia, Burundi, Ethiopia.
“The cop left,” Emmelia finally told him.
He waited another minute before stepping out from behind the stacks. Tiff’s heavily made-upped face was at the viewing window, sunglasses off, peering in at the roastery.
“Jesus, how long does it take your people to make a goddamn drink?” Bump hissed.
Emmelia laughed. “Oh. Thought you were hiding from the cop. Who’s this? Your chica?” Emmelia waved for Tiff to come back.
“No, don’t,” Bump hollered.
Emmelia dumped the batch of coffee into the cooling tray and went to meet Tiff. “Hi. Aubrey?”
Bump groaned. Aubrey was the girl he’d cheated on Emmelia with, and she knew damn well this wasn’t her.
Tiff jerked her head back like she’d been slapped. “Tiff,” she corrected, then turned to Bump, her eyes alight with accusation. “Who’s Aubrey, B?”
“You don’t remember?” How could she not remember? He’d cheated on Aubrey with Tiff. And also Tiff had stabbed her. Granted, Aubrey had stabbed Tiff first, but an ice scraper was no knife,
and Tiff, after taking the scratch, had delivered a bloodier bit of retribution.
Bump eyed Tiff’s bag as he tried to remember if the harpy blade was in there. He hoped she’d only brought the defective pistol he’d given her. He still wasn’t certain Tiff actually had it in her to shoot someone other than him, but he wasn’t risking it.
Emmelia helped clarify the situation. “Aubrey was the girl after me. I’m Emmelia.”
Tiff breathed through clenched teeth. “Oh. Visiting an old, old girlfriend, B?”
“Fiancée,” Emmelia corrected her.
A vein bulged across Tiff’s forehead just below the brim of the sunhat.
“It’s business,” Bump said. “I told you I was coming here for business.”
“Left out the part about it being with your ex, B.”
“What’s it matter?”
Tiff shoved a hand into her bag.
She’s going for the harpy!
But she only pulled out a punch card and flicked it at Bump. “You take that, then. I know I’m not fucking coming back here.” She turned and stormed off.
Bump and Emmelia watched Tiff grab her drink from the counter as she passed and kick open the front door. Two teenagers holding hands paused in surprise. Tiff said something to them, pointed into the café several times, waved a hand in the air, said something else, then threw her drink at the front window. The students studying on the stools jumped as the cup thumped an inch from their faces. Through the milky brown mess, Tiff could be seen stomping away. The hand-holding teenagers went into the café anyway.
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