Better When He's Bad

by Jay Crownover

  More silence. There was a fifty-fifty shot I was going to get an honest answer. I hoped my reputation still held enough weight to put the fear of God into people. If not, I would just have to go knock some heads together and earn it back.

  “No. I tried to hit him up a few times after you got locked up. I thought he would get me into all those college parties and I could split the take with him. He stopped answering my calls.”

  Good for Race.

  “He still at the school?”

  “No one knows. I know Novak kept eyes on him after everything went to shit, but then he was just a ghost.”

  “I need to find him.” I made sure the seriousness of the situation was hard in my voice.

  There was some muttering on the other end of the phone, and the sound of rustling like he was getting out of bed. Even drug dealers need a good night’s sleep, I guess.

  “Look, last I heard he was staying with some chick in the Point. A redhead. Benny sent a crew to drag him back to Novak, and he was gone when they got there.”

  The Point was where I grew up. It was the opposite of the Hill, where Race grew up. I didn’t like the sound of that at all.

  “A working girl?”

  “No. Just some girl. Not a fancy college girl or a skank. Just a girl. Benny’s guys scared the crap out of her and that’s why Race went postal on Novak. You taught that preppy little shit how to talk tough, and everybody wonders if you taught him how to follow through on it.”

  I didn’t need to teach him. Race was smart. Brains beat brawn any day of the week, plus he actually had stuff to lose. That made a man dangerous. It was a man who had nothing that wouldn’t put up a fight.

  “How do I find the girl?”

  “I dunno, Bax. Google that shit.”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and frowned at it. It looked like knocking heads might have to happen after all.

  “You better have an address or I suggest you put on some pants. I’ll be over there in ten to drag your happy ass on a tour of the city if I can’t find the spot on my own.”

  There was some swearing and some more rustling and I heard a lighter flare up.

  “Check the Skylark, that crappy apartment building downtown. I think that’s where I heard.”

  “I’m supposed to just go knock on every door in the middle of the night?” I was getting frustrated and pissed off, and I think he could tell. He really didn’t want me to pay him a visit in the middle of the night in the mood I was in.

  “There’s a diner across the street. Stick your head in there and ask. The chick is a carrot top. Like orange and young. Benny’s guys picked her out of a crowd no problem, and you know he doesn’t hire the best and brightest.”

  I snorted in agreement and fired up my baby. God, how I missed that sexy growl.

  “I also heard you jacked his face all up.”

  “He started it.”

  “Benny’s not the type to let something like that go.”

  “Fuck Benny.”

  There was a dry laugh on the other end of the phone. “Still think you’re the baddest dude on the block? A lot has changed in five years, Bax.”

  I didn’t think the obvious needed an answer, so I hung up and tossed the phone on the seat next to me. I was already in the Point. Roxie lived right downtown, so it only took a couple minutes to find the Skylark and locate the diner. I pulled the Runner into a spot in the parking lot under a light and pulled a beanie on over my shaved head. I got out of the car and looked at a group of kids that had no reason to be out this late in this part of town, other than they were looking for trouble. I gave them all a hard stare, waited until each and every single one of them looked away, and went inside.

  I was tired. I had just walked out of the barbed-wire gates of a prison a few hours ago, but it already felt like months. I was just as tired of my life and of myself, but that didn’t stop me from having things I needed to take care of. I waited to catch the eye of a harried-looking waitress, and when I did, she gave me a slow once-over and indicated that she would be with me in just a second. Waiting tables sucked. Waiting tables at a greasy spoon in the crap part of town in a place that was open twenty-four hours sucked even worse. I felt bad for her.

  “What can I do for you, hon?”

  I saw her eyes flick over the bruise that was flowering on the side of my face from Benny’s sucker punch and over the blood his uppercut had left on my bottom lip. I’m sure I wasn’t a pretty sight at the moment, but she was pleasant all the same.

  “I’m looking for a friend.”

  “A table for two?”

  “No. He might’ve been in here a few times. Big guy. About my height, but skinny. Blond hair, green eyes, looks kinda like he should be modeling for Abercrombie and Fitch. He might’ve been hanging around with a redhead who lives close by.”

  She tilted her head to the side and hollered at some drunks who were throwing napkins at each other in a back booth.

  “No hot blondes have been in on my watch, but I know a redhead. Dovie Pryce. She’s in every morning. We usually grab coffee as I’m getting off my shift. She lives across the way.”

  “You sure you’ve never seen my buddy? Word is he might’ve had a thing with her.”

  “With Dovie? No way. That girl lives like a nun. Goes to night school, works a full-time job, and a part-time one on the weekends. She doesn’t have time for a guy.” She slid her gaze back across me. “No matter how cute.”

  I smiled at her and rubbed a thumb along the line of my jaw. I was going to have a nasty bruise there.

  “Are you always so forthcoming with your friends’ information?” If so, no wonder Benny’s guys had found the redhead so easily.

  “No. In fact the last guy who came looking for her found out the hard way. No one wearing a suit around these parts has any kind of good intentions. Our cook is an ex-Marine. I had him handle the last guy.”

  “You think I have an honest face?” There was no humor in my tone and she got my drift right away.

  She just shook her head at me and clicked her tongue. “No, hon, you look like you had a bad day.”

  I barked out a laugh with zero humor in it. “Believe it or not, today is the best day I’ve had in a long time.”

  “Hmm . . .” She ran her eyes over my battered face one last time. “Good luck finding your friend, hon, but leave Dovie alone. She’s a good girl who doesn’t need your kind of trouble.”

  “How do you know what kind of trouble I am?”

  She waved a hand dismissively in front of me. “I’ve been around a long time, sweetheart. Any boy with that many secrets in eyes that dark is the worst kind of trouble. The kind you can’t ever get out of.”

  I couldn’t argue with her and I had the info I needed for now. I tipped my chin at her and let the grimy glass door swing shut behind me as I walked back to the parking lot. I glanced at the Runner to make sure the kids hadn’t touched her and then back at the building that held my prey.

  “Hey, man, you got a smoke?”

  The biggest of the kids grew some balls and approached me. He was probably all of thirteen years old. Too bad I saw so much of a younger me in him.

  “You’re too young to smoke.”

  “Are you shitting me?”

  I lifted an eyebrow and he took a step back.

  “No, I’m not.” I pointed at the Skylark. “You know a redhead that lives there?”

  His eyes narrowed at me suspiciously.

  “Why?”

  “ ’Cause I’m asking is why.” Little punk. I wondered if I was that annoying when I was running the streets off the leash.

  “Will you give me a smoke if I do?”

  I fought an eye roll. “Sure, kid.”

  He grunted and shuffled his worn-out tennis shoes on the asphalt. “Dovie. She lives on the same floor as me. She’s wicked nice. She cooks dinner for me and Paulie sometimes.” He hooked his thumb at another kid, this one had to be ten or eleven. What the fuck was wrong with the w
orld we lived in that these kids were out hustling me and not in bed waiting for school to start the next morning?

  “What floor?”

  “Why?”

  I frowned at him. “We gonna do this all night?”

  He shifted nervously and his gaze slid to my car. “That’s a sweet ride.”

  I gritted my back teeth. “It is.”

  “You steal it?” I wondered if he had any idea who I was. I used to be a legend. Now I was just a cautionary tale.

  “No. That’s about the only thing I didn’t steal.”

  “Can I go for a ride in it?” This kid. I had to give him credit. He had what it was going to take to make it in this part of town.

  “Maybe. If I can find the girl and she can help me find my friend.”

  We stared at each other in silence for a long moment. His little crew of hooligans was getting restless, though. I clearly wasn’t a mark; they didn’t want to tangle with me, but they didn’t really want to help me out either.

  “You promise?”

  Did I promise? Did this kid think I looked like the kind of guy who kept promises? I shrugged.

  “Sure, kid. I promise.”

  “She’s on the second floor. Apartment twelve. The last guy that asked told me he would spot me a hundred. He lied.”

  Jesus. Benny had bribed the kids to get her info as well. Out here it was every man for himself, and that bastard knew it. I sighed and fished out a hundred-dollar bill. I had a stash of cash left from before the bust that was going to have to last me until I figured out my next move, and handing any of it over to a punk kid didn’t thrill me. I passed it to the kid and turned to go across the street to the dingy apartment complex.

  “Smoking is bad for you. Go buy some groceries, or some new shoes or something.”

  “What about the ride?”

  “We’ll see, kid. We’ll see.”

  I jogged across the deserted street, and stepped over the sleeping bum on the front walk. I pulled open the rusty security door and took the stairs, which smelled like stale beer and something I didn’t want to think too much about, to the second story of the building. The hallway was empty, but I still pulled the hood of my sweatshirt up over my beanie and tried to make as little noise as possible. No one with any kind of common sense was going to open their door to someone who looked like me after the sun went down. Luckily I never met a closed door I couldn’t open, save for the one that kept me separate from my freedom for the last five years.

  This apartment was crap, which meant the door was crap. I could have jimmied it open with a credit card, but it also gave under a little pressure from a well-placed shoulder and a hard shove. There was a loud pop and a soft creak but no one stuck their head out of their apartment to see what was going on. Most people who lived in places like this didn’t have anything worth stealing in the first place, and most single girls forced to live like this invested in better locks. I pushed the door open and went to slink inside in the darkness. I knew I was going to scare the shit out of the girl, but surprise was key, and nothing was going to stop me from finding Race.

  I had awesome night vision. It came from running around after dark, living my life on the wrong side of the law, and keeping my ass safe in prison. I saw the heavy object flying toward my head before it had a chance to make contact. I heard a soft voice swear and heard a dull thud as whatever it was hit the ground. I dodged around a swinging fist and moved just a fraction fast enough to avoid the static charge of a Taser that was shoved toward my side. I swore, got a hand around a delicate wrist, and twisted the weapon away. I saw her open her mouth to scream and clamped a heavy hand over it. She fought me all the way as I hauled her farther into the apartment.

  “You call the cops already?” She nodded vigorously in my hold, which told me she hadn’t. If she had, she would’ve been stalling, buying time for them to get there, because it took forever for the police to show up in the Point.

  “I just want to know where Race is. I know you know.”

  She went still and stopped clawing at the back of my hand with blunt fingernails. She really did have coppery-red hair, a whole lot of it that was all up in my face as she tried to tilt her head back to look at my face.

  “I’m not with the guy in the suit. Race and I go way back. If he’s in trouble, I want to help him, okay?”

  I waited for what felt like an hour until she gave a stiff nod.

  “If I let you loose, are you going to make me regret it?” She vehemently shook her head in the negative and I felt her hands fall to her sides. She was kind of tall for a girl. When I set her away from me and she spun around to glare at me in the dark, I noticed she just had to tilt her chin a fraction to look me in the eye.

  “I’m getting real sick and tired of people thinking they can just bust in here and demand answers from me. Next time, I’m shooting them.”

  She was pale, her milky skin a bright shadow in the darkened room. Her hair was a mess of red and gold curls and she had freckles. She looked like a kid. No older than sixteen or seventeen. She also looked like she should be on a farm somewhere in the Midwest. All kinds of earnest wholesomeness poured off of her, and there was no way her baggy jeans and frumpy plaid shirt belonged on someone used to making and taking in this part of the city.

  “Get a better lock.”

  She glared at me and pushed a handful of that wild hair out of her face.

  “Good locks cost money and I still don’t know anyone named Race. So you and your buddy in the suit can still go fuck yourselves.”

  Mouthy and brave. That was a dangerous combo when faced with a man who had nothing to lose. I didn’t have time to play games with her, so I took a threatening step forward just as she whirled around to turn on the light. I blinked for a second and saw her mouth tighten as we saw each other clearly. Her gaze locked on my face, but not on the battered and bruised part . . . on the star tattooed next to my eye.

  “Carmen called me the second you left the diner. You don’t think when a guy who looks like you comes around we don’t warn each other? Paulie and Marco took down your plate number, and if I don’t flick the lights in five minutes, the cops are getting called and you don’t want to know what’ll happen to your very pretty car.”

  I blinked like an idiot. No one ever got the drop on me. Not ever, and this girl, who looked like she should be out on a farm, sure as hell shouldn’t have been able to be the first one to do it.

  “Why am I here, then?”

  The cops didn’t scare me. Wild kids around my baby did.

  She crossed her arms over an entirely unimpressive chest and narrowed eyes that were a pretty, leafy green at me. I tilted my head to the side, because for some reason, I thought she looked vaguely familiar.

  “What kind of trouble is Race in?”

  “I thought you didn’t know anyone named Race?”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “You have four minutes.”

  “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out. I’ve been . . . indisposed up until about eight hours ago. I’m trying to put all the pieces together.”

  She bit the corner of her lip and looked even younger. I didn’t know what this chick’s deal was, but I had a really, really hard time seeing her as one of Race’s pieces. He was all about long legs and big boobs with nothing between the ears. This one had the legs but she was obviously sharp, and her figure, from what I could see, was nothing to daydream about. She was too sweet-looking. Guys like Race didn’t do sweet, neither did guys like me, but that was because I never got the chance. Sweet ran the other way when it saw me coming.

  “Can you help him?”

  “I can try.”

  She reached over and flicked the light, green eyes looking up at me.

  “You’re Bax, right?”

  I tried not to show any surprise at her question. I nodded stiffly. She bit her lip again and started to twirl a bright curl around one of her fingers.

  “He told me if anything bad happened, if
anyone came looking for him, to say we didn’t know each other. He scared me, but then the guy in the suit showed up with his thugs. I told Race and he freaked out. He told me to lay low, that he would take care of it. He told me if a guy came around, a guy with a tattoo of a star next to his eye, that I should trust him. He told me his name was Bax.”

  That was all fine and dandy, but it didn’t help me figure out what kind of mess Race was in or who this chick was and the part she played in it.

  “Who are you?”

  “Dovie.”

  I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest to mirror her pose.

  “Who are you to Race?” If she told me she was my buddy’s old lady, I was seriously going to have to question what he had been doing while I was locked up.

  She blinked at me and I could almost see the wheels turning in her head. She cocked her head to the side and furrowed eyebrows that were the color of rust.

  “I’m his sister.”

  I stared at her for a full minute before bursting into harsh laughter. It hurt my head, so I rubbed my tired eyes and shook my head at her.

  “Lady, I don’t know who you are or what’s going on with Race, but I don’t have time for this. I just spent a nickel in the pen, I need to sleep, need to get laid, and need to figure out what kind of shit Race stirred up. If you don’t want to help me the easy way, fine. I can do the hard way.” I took a step toward her, but she held up her hands in front of her.

  “No, I swear. Race is my older brother.”

  I swore. “I’ve known Race since I was a kid. He is an only child, Copper-Top.”

  She let out a shrill laugh and moved toward the kitchenette that was the size of a closet. She took something off the fridge and handed it to me. The picture was a few years old, but there was no mistaking Race’s elegant good looks or the way he was smiling at the camera with his arm around this strange girl.

  “What rich, powerful man do you know that keeps it in his pants? I’m the Hartmans’ dirty little secret, only no one kept it very well and Race came looking for me about four years ago just after I turned sixteen. Different moms, different last names, same asshole father. If you can help Race, I’ll tell you anything you want to know, and if you can’t, I’ll find him on my own. He’s the only family I have and I love him. He saved my life.”