by Meg Jackson
40
“Can we talk about this now?” Kim said, sitting on the bed in Ricky and Cristov’s room. Ricky turned away from the window, where she’d been peering out, anxious for her man to return.
“Now? Our boys are out there, probably doing something very fucking stupid, and you want to talk about why I didn’t tell you the minute I found out I was preggo?”
“I don’t care that you didn’t tell me the minute you found out,” Kim said. “I do care that you’re not married, you’ve only been dating Cristov for like…ten months, and you’re…you’re…”
“I’m what?” Ricky asked, putting her hands on her hips. “A drunk? Because I haven’t touched a drop in seven months, and you know that.”
“No,” Kim said, brow furrowed, shaking her head. “You’re…”
“Irresponsible? Sloppy? Immature? God, you sound like Mom,” Ricky said, turning back to the window. Kim watched her sister, her slender body not yet showing the baby inside it.
“It’s none of those things either…well, I mean, you are kind of messy…and you do eat potato chips for dinner most of the time…”
“I wouldn’t feed my kid potato chips for dinner,” Ricky sneered, looking over her shoulder. “I’d make them a nice, wholesome meal and save the chips for myself. And, by the way, you knew Kennick for how many months before you married him? Five? Six? And since when do you need a paper from the government to say that you’re in love? That’s pretty damn traditional thinking for someone who’s supposed to be a progressive mayor.”
“How are you going to pay for all the baby things, who’s going to take care of it, are you going to quit your job? You could be editor next year, but not if you’re going to be on maternity leave!”
“Do you think I haven’t thought of all that? Cristov makes his own schedule at the tattoo parlor, he can be a stay-at-home dad while I’m at work. And we make plenty, combined. And I really don’t think any kid in the kumpania is allowed to go around in dirty diapers, anyway. You know there’s like a million old people there who love bouncing babies on their knees.”
Kim was silent for a long moment.
“I know,” she finally said, and Ricky realized from the wet sound in Kim’s voice that she was on the verge of tears. “It’s just…you’re my baby sister, Ricky! My baby sister is having a baby!”
Ricky melted, looking at her sister. She walked from the window, sat beside Kim on the bed, took her hand.
“I know,” she said, and smiled. “Isn’t it wonderful? You’re going to be an aunt, Kimmy.”
Kim shook her head, but a smile slowly spread across her face. She wiped at her wet cheeks with the back of her hand.
“Aunt Kimmy,” she said, as though trying it on for size. The smile grew, and a light came into Kim’s eyes, as though realizing for the first time what Cristov had revealed in the hospital room. “Ricky, you’re having a baby!”
Ricky laughed, pulled her sister in and squeezed her tight.
“Mom’s gonna kill you, though,” Kim said, now joining in Ricky’s infectious laughter.
“Are you kidding me?” Ricky said with a smile. “I’m not telling her until the kid goes to college.”
Kim pulled away, still laughing and wiping at her cheeks.
“You really think a kid raised by you and Cristov is going to college?” she teased. “That baby is going to end up touring the world with a rock band, or living in Bogota raising alpacas.”
“As long as it’s happy,” Ricky said, smiling down at her still-flat stomach.
“You’re gonna be a good mom, Ricky,” Kim said, looking at her kid sister with new appreciation.
Ricky kept smiling, but a seed of worry still budded in her heart.
I hope I’m a good mom, she thought, and then looked back up at the window. And I hope you get to meet your dad…
There was a knock on the door. Kim sat straight up; the men had keys. Ricky glanced at her sister, then went to the door, peering through the peephole. She sighed in relief, opened the door to let Mina in.
“How did it go?” Ricky asked as Mina entered. “Did they find James Whitley?”
“They did,” Mina answered, seating herself at a chair beside the wooden table.
“Where are they?” Ricky asked, stepping out into the too-bright day and looking both ways up the block of rooms. “Did they go to the hospital?”
“No,” Mina said, straightening herself up. “You better sit down, Ricky.”
Ricky turned to look at Kim; her sister was pale as the sheets she sat on. She looked at Mina, the girl’s face stoic but dour.
“Those lying motherfuckers…”
41
Tricia had been staring at her phone, waiting for updates from the girls, but it was Damon’s phone that rang first. It was on vibrate, and for a moment Tricia was confused; she could hear the buzzing, but she knew it wasn’t coming from the phone in her hand.
“Hello?” Damon’s voice drew Tricia’s attention up to him. She’d been sitting on his bed, beside his feet, watching him sleep in between bouts of prolonged phone-staring. But his voice didn’t sound like a man roused from sleep.
They shouldn’t be calling him, Tricia thought, annoyed. He needs rest, recovery, not to worry about what his brothers are getting themselves into…
“Thanks,” Damon said, looking at Tricia as he spoke into his phone. A beat passed, in which Damon’s eyes flicked away and then down. “Yes, I know. Don’t.”
When he hung up, he still wasn’t looking at Tricia, and he didn’t offer her any explanation of the call.
“Um,” she said, impatient. ‘Who was that?”
Damon answered her question with one of his own.
“Weren’t you afraid?” Damon asked. “When you learned they were there? The…”
“The Steel Dragons?” Tricia said, not needing him to finish. She rose and came to stand by his side. “No. I wasn’t. Maybe, for a moment, I was. But they couldn’t hurt me. I was safe, with Kennick and Cristov and the girls. You weren’t safe. I was afraid. For you.”
Damon rose up in the bed, biting back a wince of pain. He drew his hands around her waist and pulled her in close, close enough for her hips to hit the side of the hospital bed, eyes searching hers for the truth. He found it, and nodded.
“A good woman,” he said, recalling the words he’d said to her just a few days before – which now felt like years. “Brave in all the right places and all the right times.”
Tricia blushed. She hadn’t ever sought his approval, never really thought that he might change his mind about her. But she had to admit, it felt good, knowing that what he’d seen in her, before ever knowing her, had proved true.
“I should have listened to you,” he said, his eyes turning sad. “You were right. Those first few blows I landed – I’d waited for them for so long. But even before he cut me, I realized they weren’t really going to change it. I don’t think anything ever will change it. If I could have killed him, I would have. But all that would have done…I’d just have one more man’s blood on my hands. That’s it.”
“Damon,” Tricia said, reaching out to hold one bearded cheek in her hand.
“But I still need something,” he said, shaking his head gently. “I know where he is, Tricia. I forced Mina to find out. She just called. And I’m going to him.”
She stiffened in his grasp. Her brown eyes widened, then narrowed in confusion – and hurt. All his words were contradicting themselves. What could he possibly hope to gain from seeing Curly again? He knew that Curly’s blood wouldn’t be a salve for any pain.
“You’re not going in this condition,” she said, voice firm. “You haven’t been released yet. You’re basically a rag doll, Damon. No, I won’t let you. It’s crazy. You’re crazy.”
“That’s what you said when I invited you on this trip,” he said, offering her a sad smile. “And I got you to come along anyway, didn’t I? I might be crazy, but…I’m going. And you can’t stop me. And you kno
w that.”
“Why?” she asked, surprised at the choked sound of her own voice. Her cheeks were wet. She was crying, without even realizing that she was. “Why, Damon?”
“I’ll tell you,” he said. “Because I want you to come with me. I need you to come with me. I want you there, when I let it go. When I let it end.”
She swallowed hard, dropped her hand from his cheek. But she didn’t turn away. She listened. And when she was done listening, when Damon was done talking, she nodded. She’d go. She’d be with him, because he needed her…and she needed him.
“Alright,” she said, voice thick and wet.
“Our love a difficult instrument we are learning to play. Practice, practice,” he said, speaking softly and in a rhythm that Tricia had grown accustomed to.
“More C.D. Wright?” she asked, smiling through her persistent tears. He nodded. She wiped at a cheek. “Do me a favor, Damon.”
“Anything,” he said.
“No more poetry until this is done.”
42
The house they pulled up to looked like it had seen better days. The whole neighborhood, in fact, looked like it had seen better days. Kennick hadn’t expected much more from the thugs after the trials had decimated their numbers and their wealth. The mighty had definitely fallen. They just weren’t willing to admit it yet.
Cristov had just hung up the phone. James was staring at him, wide-eyed and shaking.
“You boys are crazy,” James said. “You’re crazy as fuck. What do you think is gonna happen when…”
“That’s none of your business,” Kennick snapped from the front seat. “Don’t you worry your fucked up little head about what happens to us. You’ve got enough to worry about with yourself.”
James shut his mouth, but still looked pale as a ghost, and trembled all over.
“You think they saw us pull up?” Cristov muttered, looking out the window. His question answered itself when the front door of the house swung open. One of the men from the fight stood in the doorway, shading his eyes with his hand.
“Get out,” Kennick said, his voice a low growl. Cristov lifted his gun and pointed to the door on James’ side. It took the man a moment to figure out what was expected of him, but eventually got the point. “And keep your hands up.”
James got out of the car, holding his hands above his head. Slowly, Kennick did the same, his gun still in his jeans. He walked to the side of the car that faced the house, motioning for James to follow. The figure in the doorway turned, shouted something into the house. There was a long moment of silence. Then the man in the doorway disappeared. Cristov lay down in the backseat, still holding his gun in both hands.
“That’s Roper,” James whispered as another figure appeared in the doorway. Kennick nodded, eyes flashing.
“What the fuck is this?” the man in the doorway yelled. Kennick kept his voice steady.
“Surrender,” he yelled back. “My people want this to be done. You killed my brother. I don’t want anyone else dying. Just wanna talk.”
The man in the doorway stood still. Then he turned and beckoned to someone behind him. Slowly, he emerged from the darkened door, walking down the cracked path towards Kennick and James.
Don’t freak out, James, Kennick thought, and you might just make it out of here alive.
“You wanted his body,” Kennick said as Roper approached. “You’ve got it. Fuckin’ hate you with every inch of my body for taking it from us, but I got to do right by mine. And I got something else for you. Two pounds of the purest gypsy powder you’ve ever seen. We just want this done.”
“Like I fucking believe you?” Roper growled, his gun in his hand, a scowl on his lips.
“See for yourself,” Kennick said, nodding to the window behind James. Roper growled low in his throat, unwilling to break his stare. The two armed men behind him apparently didn’t do much to make him feel safe around Kennick.
“The fuck is this, James?” Roper said, now turning to the junkie. “You didn’t say shit about this when you…”
“I told him what to say,” Kennick interrupted. “I knew you wouldn’t agree to meet me otherwise.”
“I asked him,” Roper snapped. “This fuckin’ true, James?”
The man’s hands were shaking in the air, his lips cracked and trembling. Don’t be an idiot, James, Kennick thought. Their whole plan depended on this miserable fuck not being a miserable fuck for once in his life.
“Yeah,” James said, finally, swallowing hard. “They made me make the call. Said you’d only trust me”
Good boy, Kennick thought, begrudgingly admiring the way James lied without lying.
“The smack’s in the glovebox. A gun, too. All yours,” Kennick said. “Body’s in the back.”
“Check him,” Roper barked to one of the men behind him. “And you check the glovebox. See if this is some dirty gypsy trick or not.”
Rough hands grabbed at Kennick’s body, patting him from the shoulders down. Kennick’s heartbeat raced as the hands neared his waist, where the gun was stored. But he’d known they would check him. They’d be stupid not to. It was part of the plan.
Behind him, the third man opened the passenger side door, fumbled the glovebox open. Roper kept his eyes on Kennick and his hands on his gun while he side-stepped James, peering into the backseat where Cristov lay – looking very much like a dead body, a body that could be mistaken for Damon’s by an untrained eye looking through the glare of a window at full daylight.
“Fuck,” the man giving him the pat-down said. “He’s holdin’.”
The man ripped the gun from Kennick’s waistband. At the same time, Roper stepped back from the window, not sure of what he’d seen. And the man in the passenger seat emerged with a gun in one hand and a heavy brick of powder in the other.
“Shit,” Kennick moaned. “Of course I’m fuckin’ holding. What kind of idiot do you think I am? Who would risk coming here without any heat? Take it. It’s yours. Just let me go back to my family, alright? You got the dope, and you can take the body. You even got some pieces off the deal.”
“I don’t know if that is the body,” Roper said from the side. “Doesn’t really look like him from where I’m standing.”
“Get a closer look, then,” Kennick said. The man holding the dope slammed the door and walked over to the man who’d just given Kennick a pat-down. Now, they both held two guns a piece, and stood watching over James and Kennick, still with their hands in the air. Behind him, Kennick heard a door open. He looked at the two men.
“If you do anything stupid, like shoot me, your President will die,” he said.
“What the fuck are you…” one began to say, eyes narrowing, body tensing.
“Shit!”
Roper’s scream cut through the muggy air as his body was wrenched to one side. The two men stiffened, then moved into shooting postures, both guns pointed at Kennick’s head. Kennick used every ounce of his willpower to stay calm and keep the men trapped in his level gaze.
“Don’t. Shoot. Or. He. Dies,” he said again. James suddenly crumpled forward with a shout as Roper’s whipping legs crashed through the air and landed on the backs of his knees. The distraction made the two men jump, lose their focus on Kennick; when they looked back, Roper was standing beside him, his head trapped in Cristov’s arm, a gun at his temple, his eyes wild and furious.
“Take your guns, and your drugs, go back to the house, and tell everyone in there that this is over,” Kennick said, using his most authoritative voice. The voice of a man who could lead people who hated being told what to do. The voice of a rom baro.
“Fuck that,” one of the men spat, his words far less confident than Kennick’s. He kept glancing over to Roper, who seemed to be gasping in the tight grip of Cristov’ s elbow. “Boss, we’re gonna kill ‘em, right? I’m ready to…”
“Are…you…fucking…stupid?” Roper gasped. “Do…what…he…says…”
“Boss, are you…” the other man said, alre
ady backing away, hate in his eyes when he looked at Kennick, his hands still full of drugs and guns.
“They’ll…fucking…kill…me…” Roper said, lashing out with his legs again but unable to find any purchase against Cristov’s body. James huddled on the ground whimpering, his hands over his head.
“Shit,” the first man said, glancing at the second man as he made his slow retreat. One last snarl thrown in Kennick’s direction and he began to follow, walking backwards, pointing both guns right at Kennick, fingers itching to pull the trigger. Listen to your boss, Kennick thought. Don’t do anything stupid, listen to your boss…
Slowly but surely, the two men reached the doorway and slipped inside; just at that moment, Kennick heard the most beautiful sound in the world. Sirens. Distant, but growing closer each second.
“Wait another minute,” Kennick said, taking his eyes off the house just long enough to grab the gun that Roper had dropped when Cristov surprised him in the backseat. He held it pointed at the doorway in case anyone decided to try and rush them.
“Get in the car, James,” Kennick said. The man was still huddled and whimpering. “Now, James, or you’ll be going through detox in prison. Cristov, watch him, make sure he doesn’t fucking make off with the wheels.”
That was enough to get James moving, and he moved pretty fast, all things considered. He was smart enough to get into the backseat, too.
“Gonna…kill…you…all…of…you…gonna…die…gypsy…scum…gonna…rot…in…hell,” Roper growled, now clawing at Cristov’s forearm. The sirens grew closer. Kennick heard the rapid beat of his heart, tried to judge how far away the sirens were. He had to hope they were responding to his call, and not some other neighborhood disturbance. Five minutes. It had been five minutes, no more, since Cristov made the call. It felt like hours, but it was only five minutes…
“Now,” Kennick said, and Cristov released Roper, the man stumbling forward, coughing and gagging. But there would be no bruise on his neck when the cops arrived. Kennick pointed the gun at one of the front windows and fired. Glass shattered. Cristov did the same, pointing upwards at an angle to a spot just above the front door. Two more shots each, and then they were gone, the sirens just around the corner, their car squealing as they sped out of sight.
