“Don’t move,” he ordered. Voice a rattling rasp, lips wet beneath his mask. He called out to Eli, who had already frozen fast, hands in the air. “You. Get the fuck over here.”
Eli ambled over, inexplicably rolling his eyes. “You got brass, son. Pulling a gun right here, in front –”
“Shut up!” the gunman ordered. “Give me the money, now.”
“What’s Charlie offering you? Ten percent? Five? Please tell me he didn’t just spot you a fifty.”
The gunman hesitated, beady eyes shining like freshly minted dimes.
Jessica’s throat tightened, as Eli began to taunt their attacker. “Yeah, you think I was going to walk out of here with all that scratch? You’re wasting your time, I got nothing on me.”
“Fuck you, hand it over.”
“I don’t have it.”
The gunman drew close, tucking his gun between Eli’s ribs. “Where is it?”
“Girl walks, I talk. Otherwise, you don’t get shit.”
The gunman pistol-whipped Eli across his temple, sent him to the ground. Trained the gun on Jessica, no more whispering. “That’s right. Now you get me my money, or I will shoot this bitch right where she stands.”
Eli propped himself up on his elbows, groaning. Blood trickling down his face. “It’s in my shoe. Fuck, take it, just let her go.”
The man motioned for Eli to take his shoe off.
As Eli moved to untie his laces, the sound of footfalls came echoing from the shadows. For one bizarre moment, Jessica and the gunman shared a confused look. He turned towards the source with far too much curiosity and not enough reflex.
All Jessica caught was a glimmering arc connecting squarely with the masked man’s skull. His gun went flying, cushioned by the grass bordering the walkway. A half second cracking apart, hemorrhaging cause and effect.
When the pieces came together, her attacker was flat on his face.
Eli was struggling to his feet.
And there was Malik, hovering over the gunman, chest heaving.
She checked the grass, just to make sure she’d gotten it wrong. That perhaps Malik had miraculously scooped the gun from the ground, and there was no chance her ex was standing there with his very own piece.
Eli groaned, stumbling against Jessica for support. “We have to go.”
Malik keeled down, flipped over his catch and tore the ski mask away. The eyes of their mystery guest were rolled back, two eggshells set against a face molded from watery clay.
“Wake up,” Malik snarled, spit flying from his lips. He pressed the barrel against the gunman’s cheek. “Point a gun at my girl, bitch? That’s what it looked like to me.”
“Malik!” Jessica hissed, wrapping an arm around Eli’s waist. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“We have to go,” Eli repeated, knees wobbling.
“Uh-uh.” Malik moved the gun up to his prisoner’s right eye. “Not just yet.”
Eli began to drag Jessica away. “We get nailed, we’re all fucked, now let’s move!”
Jessica began to shuffle backwards. She saw Malik lower his mouth to the gunman’s ear. Then, raising his arm above his head, Malik brought the gun down to clock him one last time.
With a farewell kick to the ribs, Malik tucked the gun into the back of his jeans. “Yeah, he’s out.”
“What the fuck?” Jessica was now half carrying Eli towards the gate. “What are you doing with a gun?”
“Saving your ass.”
“Are you following me? Have you been following me?”
“Someone’s got to be looking after you. Who’s going to do it? This fucking guy? He almost got you shot.”
“Children!” Eli stumbled against the ten-foot gate, swung it open. “You realize how this looks?”
“Yeah, not good,” Jessica agreed, peering down Main. Bimbos and cantankerous drunks cackling beneath the bright barroom lights. “Eli, think you can walk on your own?”
“Yeah.”
“My car’s right across the street,” Malik said.
“No!” Jessica spun around, moonwalking her way to safety. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Malik was rooted to the spot, trembling from a dirty cocktail of adrenaline and disgrace. “What?”
“You really have lost your goddamn mind!”
“Oh, so that’s it? After all I’ve done for you?”
“Go home, Malik!”
Eli took hold of Jessica’s arm, got her to round a corner. “That’s enough. Car. Now.”
“You’re a lot of fun to be around, you know that?” Jessica tore off Eli’s tie and began to wipe the blood from his face. “Think there might be some stitches in your future.”
“Poker don’t come with a health plan. Let’s just get home.”
“What makes you think I still want you there?”
“Because I have four grand, and you don’t.”
Jessica stuffed his tie into her bag. “Point goes to Eli.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Waiting to hear Malik’s car roar to life, listening for the scream of rubber banshees. Gunshots. The pull of a trigger Malik was clearly so desperate to squeeze off.
Jessica never stopped waiting for it, even as they gunned the engine, Eli’s tires making some noise of their own.
Chapter 45: Glory Box.
Eli removed the baggie from his swollen forehead.
Cracked the Ziploc and transferred two cubes of ice to his glass of Jack Daniel’s.
“You’re missing the point,” Jessica said, laying the first aid kit out on the coffee table. “Now sit back and let me operate.”
Eli took a hit of his drink and gingerly stretched out on the couch. He had stripped down to his undershirt, Rorschach blots of sweat seeping through the white cotton. Black pants covered with red brick dust.
Jessica smacked his hip, made him scoot over. She sat down alongside him. Reached for the hand towel floating in a bowl of warm water, and set about wiping the remaining blood from his face.
Eli closed his eyes.
The CD player hopped to the next track, trip hop melodies from one of Dinah’s personal mixes.
Jessica dabbed, wiped. She rinsed the towel, kept at it. Moved down to his neck, waiting for one of them to say something. Putting a finger alongside his chin, she gently moved his face towards the cushions. She cleaned along his nape, collar bone.
“Guess I made a real mess of things,” Eli murmured.
“It’s funny, when you think about it. Malik saved the day, and I’m still so… Angry at him.”
“Let it go. He’s just trying to be a man.”
“A man who’s stalking me. A man with a gun.”
Eli opened his eyes. “You holding out for a perfect one?”
“A perfect what?” Jessica set the towel back into the water. She opened the hydrogen peroxide, and soaked the end of a Q-tip. “You think I’m some cold fish, don’t you?”
“I never said you were.”
“Yeah, you were thinking it…” Jessica leaned over, brushed Eli’s hair away from his forehead. She planted her left elbow alongside his face, looking to steady her hand as she dabbed his cut. “You’re thinking here’s an eighteen-year-old in her prime, and where are the boys?”
“I already know the answer to that.”
“Which is?”
“You’ve replaced them all with men…”
“Why did you invite me to the game tonight? What were you looking to prove?”
“I wanted to show you what a liar really looks like.”
Jessica blew softly on Eli’s cuts. “I didn’t learn a damn thing from watching you.”
“A real liar doesn’t look like anything. So take comfort. Long as you keep wondering what’s in my head, then the man you’re looking at can’t be much of a liar. But there are no absolutes, sweetheart. You will never know all there is to know. About anyone. You will never, never know everything I’m thinking…” His nose twitched. “Your
hair is tickling me.”
“Got my hands full, here. Move it aside.”
Eli slid his arm from beneath them. Reached up, fingers pulling back on Jessica’s dark curls. Held them tight against the back of her head. A fresh dose of antiseptic began to bubble along his wound. He drew in a breath through clenched teeth, green eyes flashing.
“Don’t be such a baby,” Jessica murmured, kissing him softly.
“Stop treating me like one,” Eli whispered.
“Mm.” She kissed him again, felt his lips burning with traces of liquor. Tasting autumn on the tip of his tongue. “It’s been too long since I’ve had any of that.”
“You’re talking bourbon, aren’t –”
There was no telling which one of them swallowed those remaining words as their mouths pressed together, opened wider. Jessica grabbed a handful of his shirt, pulling herself onto of him. She felt his hands on her neck, soft fingertips against an overloaded pulse. Her foot kicked against the table as she struggled to stay on the couch. She swung her left leg over his hips, drew him close. Giving up. Giving in, tired of wrestling what little control she could from the people and events conspiring to dominate her life.
Falling back into her old self again.
Eli lifted himself up, bringing them both upright. Gripped her hips and pulled her in close.
Jessica reached down to undo his belt, laughed savagely into his mouth. “Tell me again I’ll never know everything you’re thinking, I dare you.”
Eli drew in a breath. “Wait, stop…” He pulled away, kept her at arm’s length. “We can’t do this.”
Jessica made some kind of noise ending in a question mark.
“We need to stop…” His chest was heaving. Face flushed, desperate. “We need to stop.”
“Oh, shit…” Jessica gasped, horrified to find she couldn’t agree less. “You’re right. You’re so right.”
“It’s OK.”
“No, it’s not…” Jessica dismounted, slid to a seat on the floor. “Should’ve been me, being you, what you said –”
“Don’t.” Eli readjusted himself. “You know you were just seconds from stopping –”
“I don’t know what I know.”
“If it makes you feel any better, my reasons are far less noble than yours.”
Jessica was still trying to catch her breath, send blood back to her brain. “Huh?”
“No lie. First thing made me stop was that I’m, like, a million times older than you.”
“You’re algebra is about as shady as my loyalty.”
“Jessica.”
“Pulling out that age bullshit.”
“It ain’t bullshit when I am older.”
“You mean I’m younger.”
“If it makes you feel any better.”
“Feeling better is not what needs to happen right now…” Jessica picked up a Band-Aid and his glass of sour mash, held them out for him. “Here, take these.”
“Thanks.” He drained the glass clean, grimacing.
“Think you can give me a ride to the Prescott tomorrow?”
“Yeah, sure. I mean, of course.”
“OK…” Jessica stood up. She glanced down, found her blouse magically unbuttoned all the way down to her waist. “I’m going to bed.”
“See you tomorrow.”
With a spastic wave, she shuffled to her room and slammed the door. Reached up through the darkness to touch her lips. Slow steps nudging her across the floor. Her stomach throbbed with a full, reprehensible ache.
Before her eyes could adjust to the dark, she dove into the futon. Didn’t even remove her socks, more naked than she cared to be. Pillows and the tangled comforter sharing a joke, unwilling to let the unworthy rest.
Through the walls, she could hear Eli getting ready for bed.
Jessica closed her eyes. Chased after her dreams, unsuccessfully trying to force her thoughts into a corner.
Grinding her teeth against the secret hope that he would come knocking on her door.
Chapter 46: Another One Bites The Dust.
It was two-thirty in the afternoon when Eli showed up at the Prescott.
Jessica’s section had been the first to be cut, already done with her paperwork. Bucking for home, a bed, some blessed sleep. All set for the dreaded walk home, when she found him at the bar, chewing on a celery stick. The cut on his forehead a crusty, superfluous third eyebrow.
Despite their awkward fallout, the sight of him brought nothing but relief.
Jessica tossed her book bag on the seat beside him. “I don’t know why you’re here, but long as you are, how about a ride home?”
“Yeah, happy to.” Eli dropped the celery into his bloody Mary. “Just got to finish my drink, here.”
“Something wrong?”
“I’m not sure. Yet.”
“Hey.” Jessica lowered her voice. “If this is about last night –”
“Someone shot Charlie Savage.”
At first, Jessica didn’t know who he was talking about. Went through a rolodex of faces before fingering the card player. Big red. The one who had set them up. “Is he dead?”
Eli nodded.
“When’d it happen?”
“I just heard about it myself… News says the police found him at around four in the morning. In an alley, around the corner from his place.”
“They know who did it?” Jessica asked.
“Angry Jonny.”
“Don’t play.”
“If not him then another one of his goddamn clones.” Eli gulped down half the Bloody Mary and began to fish around for the rest of his celery. “Cops say they found the tag written in blood. Angry Jonny. Whoever it was used Charlie’s own hand to spell it out on a cardboard box.”
Jessica was already dialing the Observer.
Ethan Prince picked up the extension. “What do you want?”
“I need to talk to Malik.”
“Didn’t come in today.”
Jessica had feared as much. “Any idea what happened?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m real busy –”
“Tell Al that Charlie Savage was running a poker game out of his loft.”
“What?”
“See, I’m just better at this than you are.” Jessica rattled off the late Charlie’s address and hung up. Shouldered her book bag and gave Eli a smack on the shoulder. “Plan’s changed. Pay up and let’s go.”
“What the hell was that?” Eli asked. “You ratted out the game?”
“Payback’s a bitch.”
“Payback? Charlie got shot. Shot dead. You think shutting down the game’s going to bother him?”
“Charlie might have sent the text, but I’m not ruling out his boy Bob as the brains behind it.”
“So where are we going?”
“1704 Maplewood Drive.”
Eli frowned, threw some money on the bar and reached for his drink. “What’s at 1704 Maplewood Drive?”
“A boy with a gun,” she replied. “I’ll be outside.”
***
The whole ride was spent arguing about Bob and the card game. From where Eli sat, Jessica had killed the golden goose at a time when he needed the eggs more than ever.
“When we need the eggs more than ever,” he had insisted.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is we married now?”
“Money is money. Revenge don’t pay the bills.”
But Jessica was running a longer game. Someone at the Observer would have to question the police about rumors of an illegal card room. The police would start sniffing around Bob. Maybe look into Charlie’s phone records, his text messages from that evening. Cross-reference those with Bob’s phone. And who would be the missing piece of the puzzle?
“Even money says Bob would pay handsomely, hands down, for us to keep quiet about our dead gunman,” Jessica told Eli, holding onto her seat as he took them full speed around a tight corner.
“I’m a player,
not an extortionist.”
“Everybody’s got two jobs nowadays.”
But the financial angle was neither guaranteed nor Jessica’s primary concern. She wanted the police focused entirely on Bob’s side of the equation. As long as they were busying themselves there, elsewhere might go unnoticed long enough for Jessica to see what her ex had to say for himself.
A little exercise in misdirection; Angry Jonny was proving to be quite the mentor.
They pulled up to Malik’s house.
Jessica told Eli to wait by the car, and went to ring the doorbell.
She tapped her foot for a few beats. Gave the doorbell another go.
Turned to look across the street. The Castle residence stared back through shuttered windows.
Malik’s mother answered the door. Quite the homebody, sporting jeans and a Pantheon sweater. Hair pulled back with a plastic, amber headband. She narrowed the opening, blocking the gap. “Hello, Jessica.”
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Council. I came by to check up on Malik.”
“Check up on Malik?”
“He didn’t show up at the Observer. Just wanted to make sure he’s OK.”
“My son has been through a lot,” she said, stepping outside and closing the door behind her. “And he doesn’t need you sticking your face in his business. Malik’s a good boy in tough times. You just leave him be.”
“Mrs. Council – ”
“I’m not going to tell you again…” Malik’s mother looked past Jessica, eyes narrowing. “Who’s that?”
Jessica looked over her shoulder. Caught Eli turning his back to lean against the car. “That’s Eli.”
“That’s your new boyfriend?” She shook her head. “Small world.”
“What do you mean?”
“Malik mentioned you’d taken up with some white boy. Trading up, I see.”
“Don’t see how that makes it a small world.”
“I’ve seen him around.”
“When?”
“Couple of months ago…” Malik’s mother opened the door, took a nimble step back through the frame. “He was walking the neighborhood with a leash. Going door to door. Looking for his dog, he said.”
“Didn’t know he had a dog.”
“Maybe it’s him you need to be checking up on…” She smiled blandly. “I can make things very bad for you, Jessica. Don’t come around here anymore.”
The door slammed, echoed across the lawn.