“What!?” Jo all but screamed. This was all news to her, she hadn’t even known Archer had gotten on the laptop.
“It’s a pretty regular thing. Kidnap a rivals girlfriend or wife or sister, and you can get him to do just about anything you want,” Santana nodded his head while he spoke.
“You sound like you speak from personal experience,” Jo snapped and both men glared at her.
“Be quiet,” Archer hissed. “So yeah, Mal was gonna have Krakow take Jo, probably to get me to leave Malibu and the drug scene.”
“And if he couldn’t accomplish that, then he’d have a sweet job with Nguyen and home over in West Covina,” Santana added.
“Not for long,” Archer snorted. “I found all these emails between Krakow and someone going by R. R for Rodriguez. Malcolm Rodriguez. They had a scam going, they were cutting Nguyen’s coke with a shit ton of baking soda and selling it at full price.”
“Sounds like he was trying to screw everyone over.”
“Especially me. I mean, I knew he didn’t like me, but I didn’t realize he wanted me gone.”
“And what about me? I’d never even met him,” Jo pointed out. Archer frowned.
“Because he knew how much you mean to me. It’s like my dad said – if Krakow had gotten you, I would’ve done anything they asked me to do.”
“Oh my god,” she groaned, bending in half. “I’m being chased by some drug gang because I made the epic mistake of having a crush on my brother’s best friend from high school.”
“It’s a little more than a crush at this point, Jojo.”
She sat upright and started punching him. While he struggled to grab hold of her wrists, his dad groaned and stood up.
“You deal with this,” he said, gesturing to Jo. “I’ll go have a discussion with Malcolm. We need to nip this in the bud right fucking now.”
Jo and Archer both held still and watched as the intimidating man walked out of the room. Santana didn’t say another word, just slammed the door shut behind him. Jo almost felt bad for Malcolm.
Santana seems like a man I never, ever, ever want to have a “discussion” with.
12:35 p.m.
Day Two
As soon as she couldn’t hear Santana’s footsteps in the hallway anymore, Jo started hitting Archer again, slapping him hard across the side of his head.
“What the shit, Jo? Stop it!” he yelled, grabbing at her arms again. She yanked free and leapt out of her seat.
“Don’t touch me! You don’t get to fucking touch me! Drug dealer!?” she shouted, backing away from him as he stood up.
“I know, I know! I lied to you. I lied so much to you,” he groaned, following her as she tried to move around the large desk.
“No shit! Jesus, who are you, Archer?” she demanded, shoving a leather and wood office chair at him before scrambling to the other side of the room.
“I’m still the same guy,” he insisted. “You’ve known me forever. I like carrot cake, and I drink too much, and I’m completely stupid for my sexy neighbor.”
“Too bad she doesn’t feel the same way.”
“I think she feels exactly the same way.”
“Stop it!” she shrieked. “Stop being cute! Who the fuck are you!? How could you not tell me any of this?”
“Because I know you, Jo. You’re a good person. Way too good for someone like me. That’s why I never asked you out, why I never tried anything with you,” he explained, following her as she kept moving around the room,.
“But I’m not so good that you couldn’t just leave me the fuck alone? Years, Archer! We’ve lived down the hall from each other for years, I see you almost every day. How could you not mention any of this? How have you been hiding all this?” she asked, getting trapped between a ficus tree and a bookshelf as he walked towards her.
“Construction seemed like a good cover,” he told her. “Something that would keep me busy, sometimes has weird hours, would take me far away from home.”
“I can’t believe this. Everything has been a lie,” she moaned, closing her eyes and thinking back over the years. Two years ago, for his birthday, she’d gone all out and bought him a really expensive, nice tool belt.
I wonder if he uses it to carry coke around Beverly Hills.
“I had to, Jo. I don’t know what happened, but … okay, look. When I was twenty, I was working at my step-dad’s garage, remember? And I basically hated life. Your brother was in college and hardly ever had time for me. All our friends had gone off to school. Home was shit, and you were way out in Van Nuys, and we weren’t really that close back then. I felt like I was gonna be doing that forever, working some shit job I didn’t even like, and going home to my mom and a step-dad I couldn’t fucking stand.
“Then one day I’m working on this Chevy, and it’s right before closing, and this guy walks in. Asks if I can work on his Aston Martin, which c’mon – who in that area has an Aston Martin, and even if they did, why would they come to some shit hole garage for it? So I climb out from under the Chevy and this guy … he looks really familiar. We’re talking about cars and I’m telling him we’re not the right garage for his Aston, and I can’t shake this feeling that I must know this guy.”
“What a touching story of a father-son reunion. Did he ask you to sell coke right then, or later?” Jo snapped in a snide voice, finally opening her eyes again. He didn’t look mad, though. He looked … hurt.
“Later. It was amazing, Jo. Here I am, struggling to make a dime, and you know what my home life was like. And in walks my real dad, like a rich as fuck fairy godmother, offering to change everything. I never asked how he made his money, I was just excited to be around him. Then I found out I have a half-brother, and that just made everything even more awesome. I went and stayed with them for Easter, for like two weeks. It was incredible. A mansion near the beach, half naked women everywhere, more money than I’d ever seen in my life.”
“Is this supposed to endear me to you?”
“And then one night, my brother decided to take me for a little drive. Said he had to deliver a package downtown. I was so stupid, I really thought that’s all we were doing – at fucking one o’clock in the morning. We go to this club, these big bouncers lead us into the back, and I shit you not, something like three Grammy winners from that year were hanging out in a VIP room. I was so star struck, I didn’t even realize Malcolm was spreading out a shit ton of coke on a table until people started cutting it up,” he said. Jo stared at him for a second.
“So while we’ve been slumming it out in Van Nuys,” she spoke in a careful voice. “You’ve been going back and forth between there and Malibu, selling drugs to celebrities?”
“Yeah. Look, Jo, just think about it. Suddenly, there’s this man in front of me, offering me attention and hugs and love and respect, and hey, all I have to do is sell some drugs to rich people? Rich people who, by the way, are already doing drugs anyway. I couldn’t sign up fast enough. The deal was I would start out in the ‘burbs, out there in Burbank and those neighborhoods, learn the ropes and prove my worth. Then after the summer, I’d be moved out to Malibu, to work directly underneath him.”
“But after that summer, you moved to Van Nuys,” she was confused.
“Because I came out to visit you that summer, and … shit, Jo, you were just the best time. I’d always had a small crush on you, and then with your brother out of the picture, it was just the two of us. I thought I’d end the summer with a bang, partying it up with you. Maybe get laid.”
She hit him in the chest.
“Dick bag.”
“Hey, I’m a guy, you have an amazing rack. But the more we hung out, the more fun we had, the more I didn’t want to leave. I wanted … I wanted to be with you. A little crush turned into a big fucking deal. But like I said, you’re a good girl. Strip clubs and body shots and crazy parties aside, you really are, Jo. You’re probably the best person I know. Every time I thought about telling you what I was doing, about my dad and his ‘b
usiness’, I got scared that you’d stop being my friend. It was already hard enough not being closer to you. I couldn’t handle losing you all together.”
Suddenly, Jo’s schoolgirl crush on Archer seemed small in comparison to whatever he must have felt for her. She was a little blown away. He’d hidden so much from her. It was kind of sweet, but also a little alarming.
“So basically, you’ve been selling coke since you were twenty,” she said. He nodded.
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
“But you’re always broke.”
“Umm …”
“Okay, so you pretend to be broke so no one will figure out you’re selling coke.”
“Pretty much.”
“And you’ve had a serious thing for me since you were twenty.”
“Pretty much.”
“But you couldn’t tell me because you thought I wouldn’t be understanding of the fact that you’re a drug dealer.”
“At first, yeah. Then the longer I did it, the more I realized how dangerous it can be – there’s rival gangs, dirty cops, and a lot of people don’t want to pay. It can get ugly. I had a coked out sitcom star put a gun to my head once. I didn’t want you to be anywhere near any of that,” he told her.
“A gun to your head? What did you do?” she asked.
“He got distracted and I beat the shit out of him with his own gun.”
Her heart started to race. This was all so foreign to her. Archer was the goofy, sweet guy from down the hall. From her youth. He went with her whenever she visited her grandmother, always made the old woman laugh and blush. It was hard to imagine him pedaling coke and carrying guns and beating people. For the first time ever, Jo was afraid of Archer, and it broke her heart a little.
It also made her sharper. Made her think about things more clearly.
“Archer,” she breathed, licking her lips and glancing around the room. “There’s something I still don’t understand.”
“I’m sure there’s lots. I know I lied to you, Jojo, but only so I could be with you. I never lied about how I felt, and I never lied about -”
“How did Bernard Krakow end up in my trunk?” she blurted out.
Archer went completely still, and Jo’s heart sank.
No no no. I can forgive a lot of things, but I don’t know if I can forgive this …
“He was following you, Jo. He was going to hurt you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“He got shot and he -”
“Stop lying to me!” she suddenly screamed, covering her face with her hands.
“Calm down,” he said in a soft voice, and she felt his hands on her wrists. She hadn’t realized it, but she was starting to hyperventilate.
“How the fuck did he end up in my trunk, Archer?” she demanded as he pulled her hands away from her face.
“Malcolm has always hated me, he -”
She tried to yank free from his grasp.
“Malcolm hired Krakow to follow me,” she growled, stumbling around and bumping into the shelf as she tried to break his hold. “You said that. So what the fuck does Malcolm have to do with Krakow getting shot? Are you trying to say Mal killed him? Why would he shoot the guy he’d hired to kidnap your girlfriend?”
There was a long silence. She rammed into the shelf again, sending a couple books flying to the ground. Then she stepped the other way, knocking over the ficus. The whole time, Archer stared down at her.
“I can’t stand the thought of you being scared of me,” he whispered, reading her mind. Her fear must have been written all over her face.
“Well, it’s a little too late for that! How the fuck did a dead body get in my car, Archer!?” she yelled.
“He was going to hurt you,” he sighed. “I can’t … the thought of someone hurting you, Jo. Remember when that guy on New Year’s shoved you?”
She did – some drunk idiot had almost knocked her down. Archer, who had been even drunker, had turned and shoved the dude hard enough to send him to the ground. The whole place had erupted after that, and they’d barely escaped without getting arrested.
“Yes.”
“Well, this was like that, only actually dangerous, and I was mostly sober. I followed him as he practically carried you outside, then I made up some story to get the bouncer inside. Then I confronted Krakow. He dropped you and tried to pull a gun. I don’t know how to explain it. I just instantly saw red. You were laying on the ground, not moving, and I’m thinking this guy is gonna shoot you. I tackled him, he hit me, I hit him back. Then we rolled around, fighting for the gun. I got it and he lunged and … I shot him. Jesus, Jo, I shot him. Three fucking times, right in the chest.”
She was going to be sick. She was going to vomit all over Santana Rodriguez’s expensive Persian carpet and antique wood floors. She wasn’t sure what part of Archer’s story was more upsetting – the fact that she’d almost been date raped and kidnapped, or that he’d almost been shot, or that he’d actually shot somebody.
“How …” she ran out of air and had to clear her throat. “How did nobody see you?”
“It was after one in the morning at a shitty club in a shitty neighborhood, and we were between a huge truck and your car. I shot him and he went down. Happens all the time.”
“Not to me, it doesn’t.”
“It does to coke dealers.”
“Oh my god,” she breathed, and went back to yanking at his grasp. “How many people have you killed!?”
“Christ, Jo, no one! I’m not some murderer!” he shouted at her.
“Except you are, Archer! You murdered some guy, then you hid him in my trunk, then you let me believe you didn’t know anything about it! For two days! You even let me believe there was a chance I might have killed him! What the fuck is wrong with you!?”
She surprised him by changing tactics and shoving him in the chest. He stumbled backwards, and she used the distraction to break free. She ran for the door, but he caught her before she could make it and lifted her off the ground.
“You knew who he was!” she yelled. “You knew who he was and you knew how he died – how was this weekend supposed to go, Archer!?”
“I thought we either wouldn’t figure anything out and I would convince you to dump your car, or I could distract you while I did some of my own investigating. I knew it couldn’t have been random, that specific guy sniffing around you – he had to have known me, had to have been sent by someone. I knew running around and asking about him, I’d figure it all out. Hopefully before you would.”
“It never occurred to you that all your secrets would come out?”
“Honestly … I don’t know, maybe I was kind of hoping they would? I don’t like lying to you.”
“You could’ve fooled me.”
“I may have done it for years, but I never once enjoyed it.”
“Archer Calhoun, a drug dealer with a goddamn heart of gold.”
“Thank you, Jo. Your confidence has always been, and continues to be, truly inspiring.”
His grip had loosened a little, so Jo swung her leg back as hard as she could. Her foot made painful contact with his shin and he grunted, dropping her. She took one step forward, but then felt his hand gripping the back of her jacket. He yanked hard and she swung around in a circle, ramming into the desk with a grunt. She hesitated only a second before scrambling over the piece of furniture. She’d hit it so hard, she’d knocked a couple drawers open, and one clipped her left foot, causing her to fall to the floor.
“Are you gonna shoot me, too!?” she shouted while glaring at the drawer. Then she saw what was inside it.
“What? Don’t be stupid, Jo, I -”
She grabbed a pistol out of the drawer and leapt to her feet, pointing it straight out in front of her.
“Stop. Talking,” she was gasping for air.
“Ooookay,” Archer spoke slowly as he raised his hands so they were up by his head.
“I am going to leave now,” she informed him, moving so she was
kneeling on the desk. She’d assumed that as the gun got closer to him, he’d back up, but he didn’t budge an inch. He just shook his head and stood his ground.
“It’s too dangerous, I can’t let you -”
“This thing is loaded, Archer, and I know how to use a gun,” she warned him. One of his eyebrows quirked up.
“You’re just full of surprises, Jojo.”
“Not as much as you.”
“Look,” he sighed. “I know this has been a long weekend, and you just learned a lot of really fucked up shit. But I think if you’d just calm down, we could talk -”
She cocked the hammer.
“Did you seriously just tell me to calm down?” she snapped. “An angry woman with a loaded gun pointed at your chest, and your reaction is to say ‘calm down’? You are the stupidest man I have ever met.”
“You know, you’re not the first person to say that to me.”
“Keep dicking around, and I’ll be the last.”
“You can’t shoot me, Jojo.”
“Don’t call me that!” she yelled. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re a fucking sociopath! You lied to me! This whole time! Who the fuck are you?”
“Stop saying that,” he yelled back. “I’m the same guy! I lived down the street from you, we practically grew up together.”
“That guy never would have lied to me. That guy is long gone. Now you’re just some piece of shit drug dealer!”
“I didn’t lie about everything, I promise. I had to … I just couldn’t tell you certain things. Believe me, I wanted to. All the time. So many times,” he told her.
“Oh, really? What stopped you? Wait, let me guess, you got distracted while buying impulse cocaine,” she said snidely.
“Impulse may have been an exaggeration,” he chuckled.
“You think? So what’s the plan here, Archer? Am I going to wind up in my trunk by the end of the day?” she demanded. He actually laughed out loud.
“Do you really think I could ever hurt you? I just discovered you can put your ankles behind your head – I was thinking about proposing to you.”
Just a Little Junk Page 17
