Lady Luck

  Walker had never met another woman like her, her casual affection, ready sense of humor, openness, her clashing ability to seem confident in her surroundings at the same excited by them. Day three of knowing her and there she was, no bullshit. And he realized that was what he had since the beginning from Lexie. No bullshit.

  And all day, Bag of Bones was nowhere to be seen. This was her. This was what she gave free and without expecting anything in return. All give, no take.

  That night, she’d been out within seconds of her head hitting the pillow.

  Walker didn’t get to sleep for hours.

  The next morning he learned more about Lexie and this was she could be a pain in the ass. She took forever to get ready, freaked out about leaving something in the room so she checked under the bed twelve times and opened all the drawers even though neither of them had put shit in them and making him check the safe twice even though nothing he put in there he’d fucking forget.

  And, fuck him, after they checked out and were waiting for the Charger to be brought around, he thought of it and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking it was cute.

  They got in the car and the battle instantly began. She didn’t like “fake cold”, what she called air conditioning. He didn’t like the windows down. Compromise, she got the windows down first, he got AC after the clock struck one thirty. Then she hooked up her iPod and tortured him with her music. He told her he thought it was shit. Compromise, when the windows were opened, they played her music, they listened to what he wanted to listen to when he jacked the AC up.

  They hit Moab and the bitch flipped for it, making him find a store so she could buy a camera, something he didn’t allow her to do, the buying it part. He bought one for her, an expensive digital camera and when he did, she gave him something else, something new. Her face got soft, her eyes went warm and she leaned her tits into his arm, tipping her head back and smiling at him huge, shining the full force of her light on him and, swear to Christ, he’d been blinded.

  At that, he wished he’d watched her open her diamonds.

  Then she made him drive her all over the fucking place. At her shout, he’d stopped a dozen times so she could take pictures and anytime another breathing being was close, she asked them to take a picture of him and Lexie together. She’d drag him in front of something, curl into him and smile bright into the camera like she’d hit Heaven not Utah.

  They’d checked into a hotel, went out and had dinner, came back and ordered up a movie. It was an action film and she sat sprawled at the end of the bed shouting at the screen the whole time and when the hero finally kicked the bad guy’s ass, she’d actually shouted, “Take that, sucka!”

  Sucka.

  Proof positive she was a total fucking goof.

  That night, too, lying at her side in bed, Walker had trouble finding sleep.

  Now they were in the car, two hours into day two on the road, two hours away from home. She’d done the whole freak out at not leaving anything behind but she’d also taken twice as much time getting ready. Yesterday, she’d worn her Paris Las Vegas tee, some shorts and some flip-flops. Today, her hair was done wild and sexy, she had on a pair of nice, army green short-shorts and a sexy-as-hell, loose-fitting, apricot tee that caught on her tits just right and left her back exposed, a drape at the bottom, one string tied in the middle to hold the fabric together and you could see her cream-colored bra strap. She’d added the sandals she’d been wearing the day he met her, the first time he’d seen her wear the same pair of shoes twice, as well as big, gold hoops at her ears and a bunch of thin, gold bracelets at both wrists.

  What she was tricked out for, he had no idea. He didn’t ask. He didn’t have a chance. She was busy checking under the bed and opening and closing drawers.

  He left her to it and dragged their shit down to the reception desk and out to the Charger after he checked out. She met him there, throwing sass about him being impatient and how, “We can’t just swing by if we left something. FYI, Utah is a whole different state than the one you live in, Ty.”

  He decided to concentrate on putting the car in gear rather than responding.

  She opened her window, put on her music and his torture began.

  Two minutes later she told him she was going to, “Die in five minutes if I don’t have coffee.”

  He swung into a convenience store, they went in and she bought a two-liter cup filled with joe and a pack of breakfast Ding Dongs. He bought a cup of coffee about a quarter the size of hers and a stale bear claw from the donut display. After bite three, he decided he couldn’t deal with the stale and threw it out his open window.

  To this she snapped, “Ohmigod, Ty! What the fuck?”

  “It was stale,” he told the windshield, trying not to smile because he’d learned from her tone which he’d heard before that this was going to be good.

  “So! You just littered.”

  “It’s food so it isn’t litter.”

  “You’re telling me food is omitted from the official definition of litter?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All Knowing Ty Walker, also known by his superhero alter-ego, Mr. Humongo has memorized the definition of litter?”

  Yep, he was right, this was good. Even pissed, the bitch was funny.

  “They make you do that kinda shit in prison.”

  “They do not.”

  “Babe, five years in one building, they gotta do something to keep us occupied.”

  “You’re full of shit,” she mumbled, he looked to her and saw her shove an entire Ding Dong in her mouth.

  Ding Dongs.

  Christ.

  Total goof.

  They hit the highway, she jacked up the music and he experienced the unusual desire to beg someone to drive ice picks in his ears so he wouldn’t have to listen to it.

  Then she started singing while sipping her coffee, just like the day before, at the top of her lungs with occasional car dancing.

  And again. Total goof.

  The country-rock song finally died and she snatched up the iPod to consider his next agony.

  “Baby?” he called and he felt her eyes on him.

  “Yeah?” she replied, her sweet voice soft, another tone he was getting used to and this was because the last couple of days it had started to come at him often.

  “Do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “In a second, I’m gonna pull over, get out my gun and give it to you. When I do, shoot me with it.”

  “What?” she whispered.

  “I’m facin’ another hour and a half of your music. I’d rather be dead.”

  Silence then, “Shut up.”

  “No, seriously.”

  A smile in her voice then a repeated, “Shut up.”

  He bit back his own smile.

  Then he heard her say, “Actually, a pit stop wouldn’t be amiss at this juncture.”

  He glanced at her then back at the road. “What?”

  “I need to use the restroom.”

  He sighed.

  Two liter cup of coffee.

  Jesus.

  “We been on the road two hours,” he pointed out.

  “You are correct but that doesn’t change my need to use the facilities.”

  “Next time, you get a coffee the size of mine.”

  “I have a small bladder.”

  She didn’t have a small anything, thank Christ.

  “You drank a two liter of coffee.”

  “It was hardly two liters, Ty.”

  “A liter and a half.”

  “Are you trying to be a pain in my ass?”

  “No,” he straight out lied.

  “I’m rethinking my ‘I do’,” she muttered and he grinned at the windshield not knowing his wife had her head bent to her iPod selecting his next torment and missed it and also not knowing she would have given him fifty K in order to see it.

  Then straight on hillbilly music filled the car and some had-to-be white man started singing abo
ut a man called Amos Moses.

  “Jesus,” he groaned and when he did, he heard his wife giggle.

  Since he was listening to hillbilly music, he wasted no time finding a restroom for her but as he hit the exit off the highway and Lexie bent to strap on the sandals she’d taken off, he looked in the rearview mirror, saw the SUV follow and his mouth got tight.

  Bag of Bones had disappeared at the Utah/Colorado border and the SUV had taken his place. Fuller’s California connection was off-duty, the local boys had been sent in.

  They either expected him to make trouble, they wanted to make trouble for him or they wanted to make a point. No matter what the fucking reason, he didn’t like it.

  He hit a gas station and decided to fill up so as not to totally waste this waste of time so he guided the Charter to a pump. He was angling out his side as Lexie folded out of hers when his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, looked at his display, flipped it open and put it to his ear.

  “Tate, can you hang on a second?” he said into it, eyes on Lexie strutting to the building.

  “Yeah,” Tate replied.

  Then he took the phone from his ear, whistled, Lexie stopped and turned to him.

  “Money,” he called across the fifteen feet that separated them.

  “I got it,” she called back.

  “Money,” he repeated.

  “Ty, I got it,” she repeated.

  “Woman,” he growled and knew by the slight upward shift of her chin she’d rolled her eyes to the heavens behind her shades then she strutted to him.

  He shoved his hand in his back pocket and slapped some bills in the opened palm she’d stretched over the car door.

  Her fingers curled around it and her hand moved away as she asked, “Do you want anything?”

  “No, and you don’t either.”

  Her head tipped to the side just as her hip hitched the opposite direction.

  “I don’t?”

  He knew that tone too. It was the danger tone.

  “Lex, I’d like to get to Carnal before Christmas.”

  When he started speaking, her head jerked for some reason and she waited a second before she responded.

  “We’ll be there before Christmas.”

  “Not if you drink another two liter of coffee.”

  “It wasn’t two liters, Ty!” she snapped loudly.

  “Just pay for the gas,” he ordered.

  “We need snacks,” she informed him.

  “We don’t need snacks.”

  “Okay, let me rephrase, I need snacks. We’re on a road trip. It’s a moral imperative to have snacks, the worse for you, the better,” she explained.

  “Christ,” he muttered.

  “Do you want anything?” she asked.

  Had his wife been in another dimension the last thirty seconds?

  “You seriously askin’ that shit?” he asked back.

  She stared at him through her shades. Then she decided out loud, “I’ll stock up, just in case.”

  Then, before he could say a word, she strutted away.

  He put the phone to his ear to hear Tate flat out laughing.

  He waited for him to stop and then he waited for him to talk.

  And when he talked he said, “I fuckin’ love this.”

  Walker remained silent.

  Tate didn’t. “You two take that show on the road?”

  “There a reason you’re callin’?” Walker returned.

  “Yeah, but first, with what I heard, I’m guessin’ you’re on your way to Carnal.”

  “You’d guess right.”

  “How far out are you?”

  “Depending on what snacks Lexie hauls back to the Charger, we could be there in a coupla hours, we could be there next week.”

  “Good news,” Tate muttered through a distracted chuckle.

  “The reason you’re callin’,” Walker prompted, moving to the gas cap.

  “Right, how much time we got before she comes back?”

  “We’re in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere but still, she’s in a building where there’s shit to buy so probably a lot,” Walker answered as he jerked the nozzle out of the gas pump and fed it into the car.

  “Didn’t know you’d be home so soon so this could wait but while I got you, might as well give you what I got.”

  Walker pressed the buttons on the pump, got the zeroes on the display then pulled up the handle and set the lever. Then he turned his back to the car and leaned into it, scanning the area, finding the SUV, clocking the driver, clocking that he knew the driver and controlling his blood pressure when he saw who it was while saying, “Talk to me.”

  “Last coupla days, got a lot of info on Alexa Berry.”

  “Walker,” he corrected automatically.

  Silence then through an obvious smile, “Walker.” Then, quietly, “Congratulations, man.”

  “You sayin’ that means the shit you got isn’t shit that’s gonna suck,” Walker noted.

  “Opposite in regards to Lexie.”

  Walker bent his neck, studied the toes of his boots and listened.

  Jackson spoke. “She’s got a juvie file. Considering her history, not surprising. Nothin’ big. Vandalism. Disturbing the peace. A couple of times picked up for shoplifting. Started when she was around twelve, ended abruptly when she was fourteen.”

  Around the time Ella Rodriguez entered Lexie’s life and gave his wife her first taste of having a motherly-type woman who gave a shit.

  “Right,” he muttered.

  Tate went on, “Found out what happened after the Granddad died, home for girls then foster care.”

  Walker knew that so he didn’t respond.

  He heard Jackson take in a breath. Then he asked cautiously, “You remember that ballplayer Ronnie Rodriguez?”

  “I know about Rodriguez,” Walker told him as he heard the lever disengage, he yanked out the nozzle and shoved it back into the pump.

  More caution with, “Lexie forthcoming about his chosen profession?”

  “Pimp. Drug dealer. Occupational status changed when he took seven, two to the face.”

  “She was forthcoming,” Tate muttered. “The news I got for you, and it surprised the fuck outta me, I got a call from a vice cop, Dallas PD. Don’t know this guy, didn’t ask for the call. He heard I was snoopin’ and he called me wonderin’ why.”

  Walker felt that barbed sensation at the back of his neck and his eyes went back to his boots but he didn’t see them. He was focused on Tate.

  “What’d you tell him?” he asked.

  “The truth,” Jackson answered. “That she married a good friend of mine, that friend had been jacked in the past and I was taking his back.”

  “You give this cop a name?”

  “No, considering his interest in your new wife.”

  The barbs pressed in.

  “What’s this fucker’s name?”

  “Detective Peña. Angel Peña.”

  Fuck.

  “You get a bad feeling about this guy?” Walker asked.

  “No, but she’s not my wife. She was then fuck yeah.”

  Fuck.

  Walker looked from his boots to the horizon still not seeing anything and he shared quietly, “She hasn’t mentioned him.”

  “Reckon she wouldn’t. Don’t think he’s on her radar. But she sure as fuck’s on his. He’s taken an interest in Alexa Berry now Walker. The good news is, this was a natural progression seeing as he had an interest in Rodriguez before he caught sight of your wife.”

  “Explain,” Walker rumbled.

  “He had a lot to say about Rodriguez. Gotta tell you man, heard about her association with him, wasn’t pleased to hear those two were paired and you were in Vegas marrying her. That was until Peña called and gave me the full brief on Lexie, who, by the way, he’s surprised as fuck to find out is in Vegas gettin’ hitched.”

  Walker didn’t like that. Not at all. Some vice cop who knows Lexie enough to be surprised. Some vice cop
who hears someone asking around and gives a shit enough to pick up the phone.

  He didn’t fucking like it at all.

  Tate continued, “He liked Rodriguez. Had a lot to say about him and a lot of what he said was good.”

  At this news, news that took him off guard, Walker pulled in a deep breath but didn’t speak.

  Jackson went on, “Said he didn’t get why Rodriguez was in the game, never understood it. Talked to him often. At first it was because he sensed Rodriguez would flip, wanted to groom him to become a CI then he did it because he sensed Rodriguez might straighten his shit out. They struck up a relationship. Rodriguez gave him time but not info and during these times Rodriguez shared he had a variety of pressure from his family and his woman to leave that life. Peña took an interest in him, sought out Lexie and tried to work with her to work Rodriguez.”

  “He explain to you the interest?” Walker asked.

  “Yep. Called him an ace pimp, you believe that shit though the way Peña said it, even after all this time, sounded like he couldn’t believe that shit either. Peña said the man treated his girls like gold. From the start, a john jacked them up, that john got a visit. Another pimp tried to lean on them, that pimp got a visit. He protected their turf, gave them a high percentage of their take, they got roughed up or knocked up, he took care of their medical bills and he never took freebies. Girls all over Dallas leavin’ their men to join his stable, he took all comers and beat back the pimps who came lookin’ for them. When he died, far’s Peña knew, he had fifty-seven girls in his stable.”

  Jesus. That was a lot of women.

  And Walker was not feeling good hearing that Lexie’s claims were true about Rodriguez. He’d convinced her different. And apparently he’d been wrong.

  Jackson kept talking. “Rodriguez and Lexie told Peña that he steered clear of Lexie and when I say that I mean they didn’t live together, never got engaged, she didn’t take any of his earnings, most of the time they met it was on her turf so he rarely brought her around his business. Not only didn’t she take money from him, neither did his family. It was separation of family and business, strict. This caused Rodriguez to be conflicted seein’ as he was doin’ that shit to provide for Lexie and his family. So his main motivation for doin’ it wasn’t a motivation. This is what confused Peña, seein’ as he kept doin’ it and, from what both Rodriguez and Lexie told Peña, the pressure he was gettin’ to stop was far from light. By his report, Lexie threatened to end it with Rodriguez about once a week. How he talked her around, Peña didn’t know but he did. And Peña was even more confused that he went down and he went down not because of the girls but because of dope.”