He reached into his pocket for his wallet and pulled out the little school picture Gunner had brought him.
“What you got there, Mav?” Horace, one of the old men, asked.
“Picture of my little girl.” He held it out so Horace could see. It was the first time he’d ever shared that photo, the first time he’d ever introduced her as his own. “Kelsey. Kelsey Marie. She’s gonna be four soon.”
“Well, lookit that little miss. What a beauty. She looks smart, Mav. You must be proud.”
“I am.”
Horace handed the photo to Fred, who cooed over it as well. All the old men took their turn and made some comment or another that made Maverick’s chest swell with pride and ache with loss. When it came back to him, he stared down at that sweet face, his own eyes shining impishly from it. He brushed his thumb over the matte surface, a gesture he made often, like he thought he could touch her that way. He’d done it so much that the gilt had rubbed off the small printing, showing the name of her school and the year the photo had been taken. He could barely make out the words: Alphabet Acres Children’s Center, 1996.
The name of her school. It was the end of July, though—she probably wasn’t in school now. But she was only in preschool, and Jenny ran The Wayside. She’d need child care. Did preschool run year-round? Did this preschool run year round? Was Kelsey still in this school?
Maverick had no answers, but he knew where to start to get some. He went into the station, around the desk, and pulled out the Yellow Pages. Still holding the photo between his fingers, he opened the book on the counter, flipping it to the As and sweeping pages by until he was on the right one. Using the photo as a guide, he found the listing, with a number and an address. There was a note pad stuck to the side of the register; he ripped a sheet off and wrote the information down.
“What’re you doin’, Mav?” Gunner asked. He’d come in from the pumps.
Maverick didn’t answer. He shoved the paper in his pocket, put Kelsey back in his wallet, and slammed the Yellow Pages closed.
“I think that’s a bad fuckin’ idea, brother. This is the wrong time to piss her off.”
That was rich—Gunner Wesson giving him advice. It’d be a cold day in hell. “I gotta go. Meeting with the probation officer.”
“I’ll ride with you. It’s a light day on the pumps. Apollo can handle it on his own.”
“I don’t need an escort, Gun. I’m good.”
Gunner stared at the Yellow Pages on the counter. Maverick picked up the tome and put it away.
“I said I’m good.” He headed to the clubhouse to change out of his uniform.
~oOo~
The meeting with his probation officer was no big deal. He laid out the terms of Maverick’s supervision and gave him a bunch of papers to fill out. It was a lot of bureaucratic bullshit, but in his case, Maverick would be clear of all this shit after a year, and out here in the wide, free outside, a year didn’t seem bad at all. The officer—his name was Franklin—was impressed that he already had a home and work address. Slightly less impressed when he realized that it was the Brazen Bulls clubhouse and Delaney’s Sinclair, but the guy was civil enough.
Back at his bike after that was done, he fished the notepaper from his pocket. He’d grown up in Tulsa and knew every street and alley of the place, so he knew exactly where Alphabet Acres Children’s Center was.
Gunner was right; if Jenny found out he’d been lurking around Kelsey’s school, she’d lose her shit. He could destroy any chance of getting his family back the way he wanted.
It didn’t matter. He had—he had—to see his girl. Right now. He couldn’t wait for Jenny to decide he was worthy. Kelsey was almost four years old, and he’d waited long enough. He needed to see more than her image in fading, tattered photographs. He needed to see her running and laughing and playing. He needed to see her living.
~oOo~
Alphabet Acres was a single-story brick building on a corner at the entrance to a subdivision. It looked nice enough, and well kept. Big elm and sycamore trees shaded a playground enclosed by a chain-link fence. The chain-link was higher-end, with green vinyl coating the wire.
There were kids playing all over the yard. Maverick pulled up at the curb across the street and killed his engine, and the sound of their laughter filled the air.
Was Kelsey one of those happy kids?
For a minute or two, he stayed astride his bike and tried to make her out from there, but he was too far, and the trees obscured part of his sightline, and there were too many playground apparatuses for a good view. He dismounted and walked around to the long side of the fence, trying to be inconspicuous. He didn’t want to be perceived as some perv, and he knew that somebody might see his lurking around a preschool playground as decidedly wrong.
Beside one of the sycamores, he crouched down and scanned the yard through the fence. Still he didn’t see her, and he began to think that she wasn’t out there. Maybe her little class wasn’t having playtime or recess or whatever they called it now. Or maybe she was home with her mom.
Then a path cleared, and there she was, sitting on the soft playground surface, drawing on the rubber with chalk. He’d expected her to have pigtails, like in her picture, but her hair was loose over her shoulders, caught back from her face with a pink clip. That butterscotch silk lay on her back and over her shoulder, fluffing gently in the light breeze.
She sat alone. Not laughing or running. Just drawing, concentrating, sitting with her little legs tucked under her bottom.
Maverick felt a tickle on his cheek and swiped the wet away.
As he watched, his daughter looked up and right at him, as if she’d known he was there, and their eyes locked. His chest hurt, like things inside him were breaking apart, but he didn’t look away.
Kelsey stood and came toward him. Maverick stopped breathing.
When she got to the fence, she hooked chubby little fingers over the chain-link and smiled. “Hi. Do you want to play?”
Her little voice, sweet and high, was music. But he didn’t like how she’d come right up to somebody she didn’t know. “You shouldn’t talk to strangers, honey. Didn’t your mama tell you that?”
“Uh huh. It’s Stra-nger Da-nger. Mommy says don’t talk to strangers and hold her hand when we cross the street and say please and thank you and lots of stuff. Miss Betsy and Miss Connie say it, too. Are you a stranger?”
No. No, he most certainly was not. But to her, he was, and he didn’t like that she’d just come up to him like this. Yet he couldn’t make the word yes come out.
As he tried, she said, “Your eyes look sad. Are you sad?” and Maverick thought he’d die.
Then a woman’s voice called out “Hey! No!” and a heavy young woman wearing a smock over her jeans ran up and took his daughter’s hand, drawing her back from the fence.
“It’s time to line up to go in, Kelsey. Will you please start the line for me?”
Kelsey nodded and turned back to him. “I have to go now. I’m sorry you’re sad.” She spun, her hair flying around her, and he watched her run away from him.
“I don’t know what the hell you want, and I don’t want to know,” the woman snarled at him. “But we called the police.” She stalked back toward the building.
Maverick knew he needed to get his ass in gear before law got there, but he couldn’t move. He could still see her, standing near the door, while other kids lined up behind her.
God, she was even more perfect than he’d imagined.
When the line was long enough that he couldn’t see her anymore, he was able to get up and get back to his bike.
Gunner was parked behind him, sitting sideways on his saddle, his arms crossed.
Had the tables turned so far that Gunner was watching out for him now?
“What’re you doin’ here, man?”
Gunner laughed and cocked up his mouth in its crazy grin. “That, my brother, is the question I should be asking you. This is straight-up insane beha
vior right here. Skulking around a preschool? Kelsey’s preschool? Jenny will have your dick for supper and save your nuts for leftovers.”
“I know. They called the cops. We gotta roll.” He mounted his bike.
“Fucking fuck, Mav.” Gunner mounted up, too. “Follow me.”
He wanted to tell him to fuck off, but Gunner would just dog him all over town until he gave in anyway, so he nodded, and they pulled away.
They passed a Tulsa PD cruiser two blocks from the school.
~oOo~
He followed Gunner to a drive-up taco joint. He hadn’t eaten since downing one of Mo’s pastries with his coffee that morning, so he wasn’t entirely opposed to getting some greasy food. All food on the outside tasted like fucking Thanksgiving now.
They sat at a round plastic picnic table, under a round umbrella. Gunner was alone among his brothers in that he’d already fully assimilated the fact that Maverick was now mostly deaf in his left ear, and he always stayed to his right.
For a few minutes, they just ate. Maverick felt raw and desolate. It had been a mistake to go to Kelsey’s school, and not just because he’d probably fucked everything up even more.
Now his daughter was more than a concept, a dream. Now she was a living, breathing little girl. He knew the sound of her voice and the rhythm of her walk. He knew the light in her eyes. He knew that she was kind and friendly, and that she liked to draw. Now he really would die if he couldn’t have his family back.
And there was absolutely no chance in hell that Jenny wasn’t going to hear about his visit. The softness he’d felt in her on Friday night, the need he’d known that she still had for him, that would be gone.
He’d made his need more acute and his chances more bleak.
Gunner watched him, chewing his taco contemplatively.
“What?”
“I want to give you some advice. I know it’s weird coming from me, but gimme a sec here. If there’s anything I know, it’s what a noisy head sounds like. Remember what I call it?”
Maverick remembered. “Like a gear that can’t catch.”
“Yeah. That’s what you’re feeling, right? I see it in you.”
“I’ve been out four days. What the fuck d’you want?”
“I just want to throw some of your words back at you. Maybe help you remember who you are.”
“I’m not him anymore. He got lost at McAlester.”
“I think if you want Jenny and Kelsey, maybe you need to find him again.”
“Don’t try to be profound, Gun. It doesn’t suit you.”
He’d hurt his friend’s feelings, but he was offended himself. He didn’t like this table-turn. Gunner was the fuckup, not him.
Gunner shook off his offense and wadded up the paper from his first taco. “I love you, Mav. You are my best fucking friend, and I’d probably be dead a dozen times over if it wasn’t for you. I’d’ve run out of lives before I had Leah if it wasn’t for you. I’m gonna start paying you back by propping you up while you figure this shit out. And I’m gonna remind you that you gotta look close for now. Don’t think about what you want and don’t have. Don’t think about what’ll make everything perfect. Think about what’ll make this day okay. And the next day. When all your days are mostly okay, think about what’ll make ‘em good. Every step toward having what you want. Remember what you told me.”
“Fuck off.”
“C’mon, brother. What do you say?” Gunner reached out and hooked his hand over Maverick’s arm. He wore a new ring now; a big grinning skull that probably did serious damage in a fight. Maverick had never worn the big rings his brothers did. He wanted to feel the full impact of a punch directly on his hands.
He sighed. “Head down, shoulder to the day.”
“That’s how you get through. Thinking about the first time you told me that got me through some hard shit, Mav. It’s good advice.”
Maverick managed a laugh that was mostly sincere. Damn, he loved this kid. He’d turned out to be a fine man.
Proud as he was, it hurt in some way as well—sharply enough that he rubbed at his chest. Gunner had needed him once. Now he was the one who needed.
He still vividly remembered meeting the tornado in a meat suit that Gunner had been back then. He hadn’t been Gunner yet. Just Max, spinning out of control.
September 1991
Jesus Christ, Sherman was going to kill that kid. “Stay down, kid, stay down,” Maverick muttered under his breath, moving around the edge of the circle, trying to get close enough so the kid would hear him. He needed somebody in his corner.
But the kid got up. He was a bloody, broken, swollen mess, but he kicked out and knocked Sherman back, and he got to his feet. He was making some weird kind of noise, like a wobbly howl—or maybe he was crying.
Then Maverick got close enough, and he understood that the kid was laughing. Blood ran from his mouth in streams, and from his forehead in a rush, his face looked like the Elephant Man already, but through all that, the kid was back on his feet, laughing and swinging wildly. It was like he wasn’t trying to hit Sherman so much as keep him pissed off—like he wanted that tank to roll over him.
Sherman was happy to oblige. He unloaded both barrels and landed a monstrous right jab straight on the kid’s chin, and that was it. He went down flopping like dying fish. He was out.
No, he wasn’t—shit, he was trying to get up again, and, seeing that, Sherman dropped down and sent a flurry of fists, rocketing back and forth into the kid’s head and shoulders. The kid was trying to get up, not protecting himself at all.
Maverick had been fighting in this underground league for a couple of years, and there were some crazy-ass motherfuckers who liked to fight bare-knuckle with few rules, but he’d never seen anybody like this kid—he’d still be trying to get up ten minutes after his heart stopped.
This was nuts. He jumped into the center of the circle. “ENOUGH!” While the crowd around them, wild with blood thirst, booed, he hooked an arm around Sherman’s neck and got under his chin until he had him in a rear naked choke. “Back off, man. Back off. You’re gonna kill the kid.” The kid who was still trying to keep going. Jesus.
Sherman grunted and fought the hold, trying to pull Maverick’s arms loose. But he’d fought Sherman and won three times—he was likely due to fight him again tonight—and he knew his tells.
Finally, Sherman backed off, and Maverick eased up just enough to let him talk. “If he wants to die, what d’I care?” he gasped.
“Cops, man. It’s a mess. You won. Kid’s too crazy to know he’s knocked out.”
That got through, and Sherman relaxed and nodded. Maverick let him go to take his victory, and he went to the kid, who was still trying to get his feet under him. When Maverick crouched before him, he took a blind swing and dealt him a glancing blow in the temple.
“Easy, idiot. I’m trying to help you.”
“No help!”
The words were almost too slurred to be understood, but he was still trying to fucking fight. Maverick grabbed the kid’s head and tried to make him see him. Inside their swollen lids, his eyes were wild and unfocused. Shit, he really was crazy.
All around them, the crowd was yelling, and Montgomery, the guy who organized these fights, stood over Maverick, shouting for him to get this loco, half-dead boy up and out of the way.
“Kid! Look at me! C’mon. It’s over. You’re not dying tonight. What’s your name?”
“Fuck you!”
“Yeah? That’s your name? Your mama sure hated you, didn’t she?”
“She’s dead, asshole!”
Maverick winced, sorry he’d made that verbal jab—but the kid had made sense reacting to it, so he was coming back. His body was settling down, too. Maverick shoved his shoulder under the kid’s arm, hooked his arm around his back, and heaved him to his feet.
“C’mon, kid. Let’s find a place to clean you up and get your head on again.”
“Where the fuck’re you goin’ Mav?” Montg
omery got in his way. “You’re taking on the top contender tonight—two more fights before that.”
“Not tonight, Monty. Tonight I’m cleaning up your mess. You should’ve stopped this one ten minutes before I did. Kid’s near dead.”
Maverick had once killed a man with a punch, but that had been in a professional ring, with rules and procedures, and he’d unfortunately hit just the right—just the wrong—spot full-force and broken the man’s jaw and neck at the same time. He’d been dead, wide-eyed, when he hit the mat.
Beautiful Ben Brodsky. Twenty years old. And never older.
Maverick had been Rumblin’ Ricky Helm back then, boxing in a regional division, trying to make his name—and starting to get noticed. He himself had been twenty-five—still young, but not for much longer, by boxing standards.
He’d picked up boxing at an after-school program in middle school, trying to put off going back to the group home for as long as he could every day. The home hadn’t been some horror house, it had been decent as far as places like that went, but it had been relentlessly chaotic, and he’d liked having something that was his.
He’d known a lot of men fighting a lot of ways for a lot of reasons—and some women, too. For all the years he’d been swinging his fists, he’d never seen anybody chase death the way this kid had tonight.
Montgomery made to block him again, and Maverick stood at his full height, still propping the kid up. “Do not fuck with me, Monty. I’ll be back another night. You can keep my buy-in for tonight. I’m getting the kid out of here.”
When Monty cleared out, Maverick dragged the kid to the edge of the circle and waited for the group—about fifty men looking to scrap on an abandoned parking lot at the farthest northern reaches of Tulsa—to part and give him passage.
~oOo~
“You ready to tell me your name?” He handed the ice bag to the kid, who took it and pressed it to his left eye, which was all kinds of fucked up.
Shawna, one of the Bulls’ sweetbutts, who didn’t live far from the fight location, tightened her silky robe and lit up a smoke. She leaned against her kitchen counter and watched Maverick trying to get through to the kid.
Slam (The Brazen Bulls MC #3) Page 8
