“And get rid of that gay color.” Goof, coming down off his marker buzz.
“It’s not gay. It’s, like, a show color. You know, it looks good on TV.”
“Whatever. You’ve got to de-faggotize the hog, dude.”
“De-faggotize!” That got Rochelle laughing. Goof had been working her all night, trying to pop that “friend” bubble around her, but no go. He had at least wanted a hook-up after she’d drank a little more, but everything came crashing down after the biker showed up. No play. Motherfucker.
Lana said, “How are you going to explain this to your dad?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like he should care. I only paid four hundred for the wagon.”
Goof slapped at imaginary bug bites on his legs. He wore khaki shorts even though the air was frosty. He said, “How about when it starts snowing? What’ll you do then?”
“I told you I don’t know. God. I mean, look at this. Fix it up a little, I can sell it for a lot of money and buy a new car.”
Wesley grabbed the handlebars. “But right now, we need to take it for a ride!”
Ben grabbed the bars, shoved Wesley aside. Wesley tried to mount the chopper from the other side. Goof enjoyed this, watching Ben and Wesley fight about it. He had something else going in the back of his mind, though. This biker, willing to trade a fucking sweet bike for an old Cutlass station-wagon, didn’t seem right. And he was hurting bad from that gash on his leg. They all had to know he was in trouble and in a hurry. Guy like that, what would he be worth?
Goof turned to Rochelle. “Let me use your phone.”
She was about to hand it over when she pulled back, left him hanging. “You’re not calling the cops, are you? We promised Fawn we wouldn’t turn him in.”
“Aw, come on. I’m not.”
“Swear?”
“I’m not going to turn him in, bitch. Let me use the phone.”
She crossed her arms. “Uh uh. No one talks like that to me.”
Goof reared back on her. She flinched, stuck her hands out to shield her face. Goof plucked the phone from her loose fingers.
“Thanks.” He ran about twenty feet away and managed to dial his uncle before Rochelle got to him and started beating his back. “Yo, Uncle Perry. Hey! No, forget the noise. If you want to make some big money, meet me at the burger shack. No, I’m not shitting you. I promise.”
*
Uncle Perry pulled up in less than five minutes in his souped-up Mustang, one of those boxy ones from the 80’s. Fucker was loud. Goof had made a half-assed peace with Rochelle by then, even though she was pissed and he’d probably ended whatever chance he thought he had with her. Tough tits. With the money he and his Uncle would split off the biker, he’d be moving up. Maybe even that junior chick who’d moved there from India. She was smoking.
Goof ran over to the Mustang, knowing the others would figure out what was up. Heard one behind him say, “Shit. The Huffer Boys are going to fuck everything to hell.”
“Goddamn Goof.”
He didn’t care. That’s what they always said about him. And then he’d do a pitch perfect Saturday Night Live routine come Monday morning and have them all in his corner again. The class spaz had more pull than you’d think.
Hopped into the front seat. Uncle Perry had spun the volume down on the new Ozzy CD. The inside of the ‘Stang was skeletal. A fine CD player and controls for the nitrous, a police scanner, hard-assed seats. Uncle Perry always looked like he’d just woken up. Red-rimmed eyes, three or four days of beard stubble. Goof had never known him to have a full-on beard or be clean shaven, always in the middle. He smelled like old sweat, cat piss, and paint. The paint made sense. He huffed the stuff, and that was where Goof had learned to do the markers. He leaned over a little to look out Goof’s window. As usual, his permanent gold-stained upper lip and nose reflected the light like a mirror.
“Guy left that bike with Ben, you said?”
“Honest to God. He’s in bad shape, went off with Fawn.”
Perry grunted. He knew Fawn better than he wanted to. Had to let her keep a bunch of his shit after they broke up because she had threatened to spill on all his under-the-table dealing if he didn’t let her. Cunt thought she was hotter stuff than she was. But Perry couldn’t argue. She sucked cock like she’d gotten a degree in it.
“That’s a good bike,” Perry said. “I heard it on the scanner, they’re looking for a guy on an aqua blue bike who was involved in a big wreck east of here. The FBI’s looking for him, too.”
“Fucking cool!” Goof was all fidgety. “He’s in Ben’s old wagon.”
Perry sucked his bottom lip a moment. “You said he’s injured, right? Alone with Fawn and injured?”
“Well, duh. You can take him anyway. Don’t you still have that gun?”
Some guy had tried to pay back a loan from Perry with an H&K semi-auto, but he didn’t want it. Reminded him too much of what sort of lifestyle he was trying to avoid—the kind that got you dead quick. But, hey, it was the gun or nothing. Perry fired the thing off in the woods until the clip was empty and then tried to pawn it. Six pawn shops wouldn’t touch it. So the damn thing was laying under his seat, unloaded and good for nothing except a threat.
“C’mon, Uncle Perry. Shit. I want in on this. Give me a break, man. I get half.”
The kid had been a shit from the moment he could bite. His older sister’s kid, only eight years difference between Goof and Perry. If there really was any money in tracking down the biker asshole, he’d toss a few bucks at his nephew, but half? What was the kid going to do? Annoy the guy into submission?
“Fine, ride along. But don’t fuck it up. You fuck it up, deal’s off.”
“Says you.”
“Yeah, says me.” Perry reached under the seat and brought out the useless H&K, then turned his steel gray eyes to Goof. “You’re sure it’s only him and Fawn? No surprises, right?”
THIRTEEN
McKeown had this way about him, could sense a shift in the air or something. Couldn’t call it paranoia since he was right so often. This time he sensed Rome had figured him out. Confirmed when he tried raising Ginny Lafitte on her cell phone and got nothing but the answering machine five times in two hours. All it meant was that he had to get Rome moving faster, put him and Billy Lafitte in the same room together, take plenty of photos of whatever ungodly beating happened, and then pull the men apart right before one of them killed the other. McKeown was certain Rome would want it up close and personal, and that he’d rather give Lafitte a chance as a man rather than take potshots while he was tied up. Franklin Rome had something to prove and was using FBI resources to help do it.
Joshua McKeown was happy to let him run with it, documenting every piece, until it added up to enough to help get himself promoted in spite of past incidents. Had to go and waste time with that fucking cougar. Hard not to remember how she made him feel, though, the hate and the ecstasy stirred into one drink. As bitter as the iced coffee he now sipped while sitting on a front window stool at a coffee shop in Memphis, the street lights flickering on and the strip lighting up bulb by bulb. His third iced coffee. Couldn’t raise Ginny, didn’t want to raise Rome yet. He was most likely the only one on the team who knew about the wreck in Minnesota, the fire that had killed Nate, Mr. Jr. Agent himself. Shit. He’d warned the guy, hadn’t he? Was there any way to have expressed “Leave him alone” more strongly?
Three iced coffees. A leg that wouldn’t stop bouncing. At least the good thing about doing his job from Memphis the last two months was that he could dress down in jeans and a pullover polo, some Reebok hiking sneakers. He could sit here at this window and make his calls and run next door for good tamales, down the block for BBQ, and anywhere on the strip for blues or good alt-country. He’d met a bass player from a tight bar band a couple of weeks ago, guy named Alexander, and they’d hit it off pretty good despite McKeown lying about his job. Told Alex he was an entertainment lawyer in town to help with paperwork setting up a ne
w indie record label. Not the best choice, he thought, since Alex of course wanted to follow that lead, see if McKeown had an in there, a nudge towards the band’s set, at least. Should’ve told him something boring, like “systems analyst.”
It had been a fast two weeks. What he didn’t expect, although maybe he’d kind of suspected a few times in the past without acting on it, was what he was feeling for Alex. McKeown had fucked some cougars, thrown himself into a few college orgies and law school MMF threesomes, things getting hazy those nights, waking up naked with God knew how many hands on him, men and women. So, yeah, he had “experimented” and such. But to be truly bi? Just out and out desperately wanting to suck Alex’s cock after only a few late nights out drinking, seeing bands, hitting Waffle House at three a.m. and trading stories, although McKeown’s were all made up?
Yeah, he knew Alex was gay. He was only a friend, right? But then it seemed things were getting…uncomfortably close. Maybe Alex leaned in for a good night bro-hug and lingered too long. Maybe when McKeown clapped his hand over Alex’s leg and left it there a bit too long to see what would happen. Shit, with women it was easy. With an orgy it was easier—you didn’t ask, you just did. With Alex, though, this was moving towards, well, McKeown had no idea. He was feeling bad because he’d lied about who he really was to protect himself from that psycho Rome.
There was a man who knew how to use leverage. Already had McKeown wrapped around his little finger, so he thought, with this judge’s wife thing. But if Rome knew McKeown was bi? He’d threaten to swing open the closet door and flick on the light, expose him to his colleagues, friends, family, past lovers. So McKeown proceeded carefully, but it was getting to them both—Alex getting impatient, trying to set up those moments where a kiss comes naturally and then, you know, things from there go pretty fast. Thinking about it made his balls hurt. McKeown peeked around the coffee shop, adjusted his jeans as best he could. His throat got thick. This wasn’t lust. If all he felt was lust then he could easily pick up the hippie coffee girl with the dreads. Looked like she’d take it up the ass. Or that art gallery curator he’d flirted with, another older woman. Or any number of college coeds at the bars past midnight, or even venturing into the gay dance clubs, inviting a slab of beef into the restroom.
Lust was easy. Always had been. But what he felt for Alex, this was full-on desire. Jesus. He’d never been in, like, a “real” dating situation with a man before.
He cleared his throat and thought about calling Ginny Lafitte one more time. No, wait. Let’s go around her, go back to her mother.
She picked up on the third ring.
“Mrs. Hoeck, it’s Agent McKeown again. Sorry to bother you.”
“Oh, it’s no fuss.” She didn’t mean it. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“Well, I’ve been trying to reach your daughter for a while now, and she’s not answering. I was hoping you might have an idea.”
“I assumed all of you people kept in touch. She called Agent Rome, I believe. Is he your superior?”
McKeown rubbed his hand on the leg that wouldn’t stop bouncing. “I’m working with him on this matter. It’s urgent I get in touch, though. Do you know of another way besides her cell phone?”
“She has it with her, I know. She called not long ago.”
“Did she tell you where she was?”
A hum at Mrs. Hoeck’s end. “Is that fair for me to say? I mean, aren’t you supposed to respect her privacy?”
“When it comes to her safety and the safety of her children, I believe she won’t mind if we have to put that aside, don’t you agree?”
“But she told Agent Rome—”
“And I’ll call him as soon as we’re done. But, please.”
A sigh. “She took her daughter to the aquarium in New Orleans. Just overnight, a little getaway after all the stress she’s been under.” Then, shaky. “Has something happened with Billy? Is Ginny in trouble again?”
McKeown thought, Rome has her. “I’m sure she’s fine. It’s better if the team is on the same page, that’s all. Agent Rome must’ve gotten busy. Again, sorry to bother you.”
He gave her a few more soothing lines before hanging up and staring out into the street, brighter under the streetlights than it had been fifteen minutes ago in the fading sun.
Said under his breath, “What has he done?”
Flipped open the phone, dialed, waited.
Rome answered, “What?”
“Listen, something’s come up in Minnesota, but I can’t find Ginny Lafitte. Do you have any idea?”
“You called her cell?”
Of course I called her fucking cell. “No answer. It’s urgent.”
“What happened in Minnesota?”
“Where’s Ginny?”
Quiet. McKeown glanced over to see Alex pushing through the front doors, coming over. McKeown stood, held up a hand. Mouthed, Sorry. Work.
Alex nodded, stepped past McKeown, running his hand up his arm as he did. The way he smelled, man. Spicy, almost. McKeown liked it, took in a deep breath. “Do you even know where she is?”
*
Rome smiled. He kept his voice curt. “I think you should have a little more faith in me, Agent McKeown. Of course I know where she is. She told me. And she’s being protected. That’s all you need to know at this time. Understood?”
“That doesn’t make much sense, sir.”
“Yeah, well, it’s natural to feel that way when you’re not in the loop. Everyone has his or her own place in this operation, and yours is what it is.”
Rome was driving home after stashing Ginny and Savannah in a really nice hotel down in the Quarter. He told them not to leave, took her cell phone along with him. Told her to only pick up the room phone. When they were hungry, they should put in an order with the concierge and he would pick up anything they liked, deliver it to the room. Then he flashed his ID downstairs, made the arrangements from that end. Big on two points: 1) “Don’t let her leave. That’s vital.” 2) “No one sees her except you and your staff. Absolutely no one else.”
He would let her call her mother once a day until this was over. She would never be in any real danger if things worked out according to the plans that were carved in cement inside his head. Now that he had flushed McKeown out, he would have to proceed along one of his detours, but they were built in.
Unless…
“So tell me what happened in Minnesota.”
McKeown said, “We’ve got a problem.”
Rome listened, stomach gnawing at him as McKeown described the wreck, what happened to Nate, what Colleen told the State Troopers on the scene. Topped by the mental image of a wounded Lafitte riding off on a damaged bike. Rome didn’t like it. The boy was like an animal—more dangerous when hurt, capable of anything.
“And we didn’t plan for this?”
“We didn’t know that little prick deputy had it in him.”
“Jesus, who do you think he learned it from?” Rome shook his head. He turned the corner and pulled to the curb, only five minutes from home but not wanting to carry the workload in to Desiree that night. “Any bright ideas?”
“The Highway Patrol is manning the border, trying to close a net on him. Nothing yet.”
“You think he’ll keep coming south though, right?”
“There’s no reason to think otherwise. All this did was slow him down.”
“We can pick up the trail, then.”
“That’s my conclusion.”
Rome looked at his watch. He had promised to be home fifteen minutes ago for dinner. Desiree was going to be pissed, and in a bad way. “What if the Troopers find him first?”
McKeown’s sigh rattled Rome’s speaker. “I don’t have a real in with those guys. Pretty hardcore. We’ll have to cross our fingers.”
“Not one goddamn Trooper?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Better.” Rome hung up.
Five more minutes to the house. Everything went to
hell if Lafitte got caught. Shit, shit, shit. Rome would be cut out. McKeown would appreciate the irony. Not a question any more: the guy had to go. Rome had the photos at home, could send them out first thing in the morning. It would be a surprise attack. Sink McKeown and full steam ahead.
But only if Lafitte escaped the net. He had to root for the little fucker.
Rome banged his palm hard on the steering wheel, bit the inside of his cheek to keep from shouting. The palm pulsed. Damn thing would bruise, swell. He opened and closed his fingers gingerly.
Enough stress for the evening. Lafitte had made it under the radar so far and knew how cops thought. Safe bet. Rome could go home, relax, wake up to better news.
He pulled into the driveway. Reached for his briefcase from the passenger seat, but his hand was aching. He left the case and climbed out, hoped Desiree was still in a forgiving mood. He had a great excuse, just one he couldn’t tell her. So, “lost track of time” it would have to be.
The front door was unlocked. Rome closed it and stood for a moment. No TV, no stereo, no trace of Desiree’s voice talking on the phone to her sister. Not a good sign. Maybe she’d packed up and left. Right when things were getting back on track, too. Could be Rome sent her over the edge on this one.
The lights were on, though. Plus that unlocked door. Hey, what if…? He eased his pistol out of its holster, gritting his teeth as his swollen palm touched the cold metal. He could barely lift it. Finally got it in his other hand. Not a great left-handed shooter, but at this range he wouldn’t need to be.
Rome was about to sweep through the kitchen when he heard her voice from the bedroom. “Franklin? Is that you sneaking around?”
She didn’t sound distressed, just her usual level of pissed.
“Sorry. I tried to hurry.”
“Come in here. We need to talk.”
There it was. The tension in Rome’s shoulders pulled harder. He tried to slip the gun back into its holster with the wrong hand, fumbled and nearly dropped it. Instead, he set it on the table in the foyer next to his keys. All he’d wanted was to come home, reheat a plate of whatever Chinese she had ordered for delivery, and maybe hope for another round of what had happened the night before. Strike all that now. What he wanted most right then was a massage.
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