I smiled. Crisis averted.
“Got you.”
“Fuckin’ loco,” he muttered and hung up without saying good-bye.
* * * * *
I was getting ready to go out and wreak some havoc on bad guys when I heard a knock at my backdoor and Nick came in.
“Jules? You home?”
“Yeah,” I called from the bathroom, finished wrapping the band around my ponytail and went into the kitchen.
Boo was telling Nick about my day, snitching on me in kitty language.
Luckily, Nick didn’t speak kitty language.
I looked at Nick.
He was tall, salt and pepper hair, blue eyes, glasses, kinda stocky. He was only sixteen years older than me and I figured most of the salt in his hair was put there by me. He was dispatch for a trucking company, and, because he loved doing it, he worked as a DJ most Friday and Saturday nights. He was responsible for my love of music, but mostly my love of rock ‘n’ roll.
He took one look at my black turtleneck, black jeans and black Pumas and muttered under his breath.
“Nick –” I started.
“I don’t wanna talk about it. Talkin’ about it flips me out, so I don’t wanna talk about it. You’re old enough to make your own decisions. The fact that they aren’t the right decisions is outta my hands. I’ve been practicin’ my morgue face for when I have to go identify your body. Wanna see it?” Nick said then he arranged his face in this kind of mock, sad, shocked look and slowly shook his head like a world with vigilante social workers mystified him.
“Good?” he asked.
I couldn’t help myself, I laughed.
“You aren’t going to have to identify my body,” I told him.
“I hope not. Your timing, it’ll be during a Broncos game. That’d piss me off.”
I smiled at him.
“Okay, I’ll try not to get killed during a Broncos game.”
He gave me one of his looks, the kind he’d been giving me for four months. The kind that made my gut twist. It was fleeting and he hid it fast but I saw it and I knew he was worried.
I decided not to go there.
“Do you want me to make you dinner?” I asked.
His eyes got huge. “What? Now you tryin’ to kill me?”
It was safe to say I wasn’t the best of cooks.
Auntie Reba could cook. She was the queen of time-economy cooking. It took her about fifteen minutes to prepare a delicious, three course feast for thirty people. She was a kitchen goddess.
Unfortunately, while she was doing this, Nick and I were listening to Stevie Wonder or Elton John or The Marshall Tucker Band, depending on our mood. Therefore, I never learned to cook.
“I was thinking quesadillas,” I suggested.
Anyone could melt cheese between a couple of tortillas. How hard could that be?
“You eaten yet?” Nick asked.
“Nope,” I told him.
“Goin’ out tonight?” he went on.
“Yep.”
“I’ll make dinner,” he decided.
We both knew that was probably best.
And most nights Nick made dinner anyway.
* * * * *
I sat at a table in the back of the bar, my back to the wall, watching Darius Tucker.
He was a tall, lean, black man with twists in his hair. He was very good-looking, had a way of holding himself that made you notice him and he was also a very bad guy.
I knew as well and was surprised by the fact that he was reportedly close to both Lee Nightingale and Eddie Chavez. Nightingale worked for money and, from what I could tell, had a foot planted on both sides of the fence. But Chavez was a cop.
This relationship intrigued me.
I’d been on the tail of one of Darius’s boys, a dealer. The dealer led me to Darius and I was watching.
It was late. I was tired. I’d had a shit day, not to mention, mentally relived the whole Park nightmare. I wasn’t sure I was in the mood for mayhem so I’d decided to give the night over to reconnaissance.
Know thy enemy.
I was keeping my eye out for Crowe, or any of the Nightingale boys. I’d only ever seen Crowe, the rest of them were still shadows for me. Though, I’d heard enough about them that I could probably pick them out in a crowd.
I was sitting on my phone and it vibrated against my ass.
Not taking my eyes from the room, I pulled it out, flipped it open and put it to my ear.
“Yeah?”
“Law?” Sniff said and he didn’t sound right.
My back went straight. “Sniff?”
“Law… shit. Law, he’ll kill me if he knows I told you but… Roam…”
I was already standing, my body tense, my mind wired.
“Tell me, Sniff,” I demanded, hitching the strap of my black purse over my shoulder.
“He’s been talkin’ lately, got this idea to help you out,” Sniff told me.
Fuck!
I was worried that something like this would happen.
“You with him?” I asked, moving through the bar, keeping people between Tucker, his dealer and me.
“Watchin’ him. Law, shit… he’s gonna kill me.”
“Where are you?”
“He’s followin’ someone. I’m followin’ him. Goin’ down Speer Boulevard bike path, close to Logan.”
“Which side are you on?”
“South side.”
“What direction are you headed?”
“West, shit Law.”
He sounded scared.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes. You stick to him, Sniff, but do not get near. Do you hear me? Something happens, you don’t call me, you call the police. Got me?”
“Law, can’t call the cops.”
“You think something’s gonna go down, you get out of there and call 911. Promise me.”
“Law, I call the cops, Roam’d never talk to me again.”
“Promise me, Sniff.”
I was at the Camaro and Sniff hesitated.
Then he said, “Fuck. I promise.”
“I’ll be there in ten,” I told him. “And don’t say f**k.”
I swung myself behind Hazel’s wheel, started her up and drove like a madwoman. I parked in the Fox TV station lot, pulled my mace out and shoved it in my front pocket, shoved my gun in the back waistband of my jeans and held my stun gun in my hand. I got out, locked up and pocketed the keys.
I crossed Speer, which wasn’t easy; it was a busy, three-lane street, even late at night. Then I headed to the bike path, keeping my eyes open.
I moved swiftly and quietly.
It was nearing midnight, it was dark, the street was bright but the bike path wasn’t well-lit.