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Chapter Nine

 9.

 I think I kind of scared Kelli running up to her and the babies the way I did. I hadn’t seen them for a week and I was totally jonesing—nuts about my kids. Yes, I have kids. Two little tow heads--sorry about the shock. I just thought it would be better to bring ‘em on and let them blend into the story naturally. There’s so much to tell that it’s hard to know when to do what.

Anyway, I grabbed Taylor first—the girl is Taylor and the boy is Tyler—and she let out this little squeal as I raised her way up in the air. And when she pointed a chubby little finger at me, I “bit” it to make her giggle.

Daddy’s girl,” Kelli said. She’s not the mother, she’s an au pair who helps their grandmother, Bonnie, care for them. They’re twins, born ‘way premature nine months ago. CPS gave them to Bonnie because I was too young, they thought. And of course, I do have a pretty unorthodox lifestyle. Though they give kids to some pretty unsavory people sometimes—the “young” thing was the deciding factor in the end, though. I was 17 when they were born. And they’d already decided their mother shouldn’t be allowed to keep them or go anywhere near them, actually. I never knew they could do that. Take kids away from their natural mothers. But it was good they did. And that Bonnie stepped up. I’ll always love her for that.

“She knows a good man when she sees one,” I teased back. And I put Taylor back in the stroller and went for my little man. I love to snuggle in the crook of his neck because he kicks his legs all crazy when you tickle him.

“You’re a loon, you know that?” I told him. And he gave me that gummy grin that always cracks me up.

“So when’s her spa thing over with?” I asked Kelli. I meant Bonnie.  

“I set up a facial and this ridiculous massage they do that takes, like…hours.”

“You think she suspected anything weird was goin’ on?”

“After two weeks with these two coughing and wheezing all over the place, she’d never tell me even if she did. How did school go?”

“That’s a long story for sure. But the Cliff Notes version’s pretty simple. It sucked.”

“CPS will be watching, though. And the court, too—this is really risky, what you’re doing today.”

“Oh, for sure. I know.”

“Do you think that stupid judge will try to stop you from getting them?”

“We’re checkin’ into all that. The legalities’n’ all,” I told her.

I tried to make it sound really easy or like we had it all covered, but we were still on thin ice. Stuff could go down behind the scenes that we didn’t know anything about—it’s frightening being in “The System.” Even for me. Shit just happens. I watched it, when we were in court a few times. You agree to one thing and something comes along and unravels the whole deal. Or you get information from one clerk, and then another person asks you, “Who told you that?” and you find out nothing you were told was right. A lot depends on luck. A lot depends on being really relentless and not just taking anything you hear at face value—your average person who gets into some kind of trouble isn’t used to questioning authority. They’re scared, they’re usually poor, and they don’t have the skills, social or otherwise, to dig through the big piles of shit the truth is hiding in. So even with all the resources I had, we were forever having to regroup.

But she bought my act, and said, “They don’t know who they’re dealing with, do they?”

“Oh, I think they do.”

I gave Tyler a kiss and he decided to examine my lips with his little fingers. So I bit his finger, too. And he did that kicking thing again—what a goofus he is!

“Well, she really does deserve a break,” I said. “I mean, she’s pushing 60 now, right?”

I wanna look like that when I’m 60,” Kelli said. She’s a pretty girl—I think she looks like a sort of sexy kindergarten teacher. She went to some school in Europe hoping to snag a job with some rich royal family or something. No joke, she’d thought it all out when she was just starting high school. Wanted to live vicariously ‘til some hot prince fell for her and swooped her off to his big castle somewhere.

Girls.

But then she decided that me and the girls were going to be a lot more fun than that. And we meet a lot of the people she wanted to hang with anyway. Also, she thinks I’m gorgeous. But ‘way too dangerous to fall for. Flirts sometimes, but…just playfully. She knows I’d never touch her—I don’t mess with any of the staff. If you start messing around like that, I think they lose respect for you. In fact, I’m learning that being The Boss means keeping a kind of distance. Not, like…being standoffish or anything. It’s just that for some reason, people who work for you want you to be different from them. A little bit…above them—I know how fucked up that sounds, but it’s true.

It’s like how poor people vote Republican even though Republicans treat them like shit. They admire their politicians for being rich and able to do whatever the hell they want—including make laws that make poor people’s lives miserable. I don’t know if they’re dreaming that they might be just like them someday or if they think people like that are just born better than they are. If I could figure out the psychology behind that the liberals would pay me a gazillion dollars, probably.

But I know that if I get even a little bit too friendly with staff, there’s this weird ripple effect. They pick on my “pet,” and start looking at me sideways, like my halo’s slipping. And I don’t have time for that kinda crap. I have an empire to run, as Big Man always says, though to be honest, it pretty much runs itself.

That’s why I get to do stuff like play with my kids and all. They were going to be with me for the holidays pretty soon, but that was a week away. We were working on my taking them full time, but the gun thing set us back aways. Kills me that junkies and prostitutes and all kinds of strange characters get to have their kids but I had to walk on eggshells.

Anyway, I put Tyler man back in the stroller, too. And said, “You get a break, too, soon.”

And Kelli shrugged and said, “I won’t know what to do with myself.”

“Go hang out with that Paul guy—that’s his name, right? The one you met at that thing?”

She smirked and said, “I don’t see that going anywhere.”

“Doesn’t have to be The Man,” I said. “’Dinner and’ is good sometimes. I mean, you really need to get out and boogie a little, girlfriend.”

You don’t.”

“I eat in,” I teased her. I even did the Groucho Marx eyebrows to crack her up.

And it did. She laughed and said, “God. I can’t believe you said that!”

“I know, right? What a crass bastard!”

My watch said, “You have a visitor…” in Big Man’s voice.

“Does it just do that all the time?” Kelli asked. “It would drive me crazy!”

“Just for Big Man and the girls. And you have to set it to two-way,” I told her. And then I grabbed the stroller and said, “Go have a look! Find the girls! Have some fried Coke.”

Her eyes got all big.

“They have fried—“

“Coke! So wrong. But it tastes soooo good.”

She went, “Eeeeuuuuw…” and shuddered.

And then she said, “You’d better get on it before she backs out. Or Yuri freaks out on her. That guy gives me the creeps, I swear.

I heaved a deep sigh and said, “Yeah, well, wish me luck.”

She’s lucky, that’s for sure. I won’t stay long okay?”

“Just hit the signal when you’re ready. I’m in no hurry.”

She finally headed on over to the carnival and I and pushed off.

And as soon as the stroller started moving, Taylor turned around to look at me. So I stuck out my tongue at her and she smiled and turned back around again. I liked that they were beginning to really interact with people—they were messed up at first. Physically. We weren’t entirely sure about the mental issues that they could still have, but I wasn’t seeing any. Plenty quick, the both of them, so far—Tyler caught on to some things slower, but I think guys are dumber than girls in the learning department early on anyway. No, it’s true—I’m not just being a wise ass. We lag behind a little. I read that somewhere.

I took them into the building where we actually live via a side entrance—did the print recognition and all that. And then we went up in one of the crazy freight elevators—they open horizontally, right? So we’ve painted faces on them that look like the mouths are opening. Or, horizons with suns sitting right in the middle so it looks like the sun’s rising when they open—that kind of thing. We’re goofy like that sometimes.

This one was a moon rise, actually. Almost a realistic dark desert landscape. We’d seen the print of it somewhere and asked the artist to do it. The whole building is full of art now—the people who do our interiors decided we should support local artists we like. Where we live there’s art all over the walls in the cafes and things—sometimes, they put it up on the ugly fences and whatnot that they put up when they’re doing road construction and stuff like that. So you have these little art shows you can look at while you walk. That’s the kind of neighborhood it is. All musicians and artists and writers and hippies and street kids and crazy people who don’t fit in any particular category except their own.

I touched a pad inside to let the elevator know it was going up to the residence—you can’t get past the “public” areas without clearance. And when we got to the nursery floor, their mother, Madison, was there with Big Man. He looked sort of stern. So I knew there’d been some drama.

But it was Maddie I focused on—she looked worse than ever.

“You tweakin’ in my house, girl?” I asked her, with this really serious frown.

And she tried to look all tough, but mostly, she looked scared. She’s ‘way older than me, but she knows better than to fuck with me at all.

Even so, she sort of raised her chin and said, “I’m that stupid, yeah.”

But then she looked down at the kids and all the tough just melted away.

And she went, “Oh, my God,” and just stood there with her hand over her mouth. I’m not sure if it was because they’d grown or just the realization that they were really there.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Big Man said. His eyes said she’d pissed him off good, but he never got into stuff like that in front of the kids. He bent down and gave each one a little “pinch” on the cheek before he left. To be honest, he doesn’t like kids. But he sort of has a thing about the twins. I think because he was there when they were born and saw the horror of it all.

I took them and Maddie into the room where we put all these big, life sized stuffed animals for them to climb on. They couldn’t do that yet, but the floor was really soft carpet and there were pillows and things they could lay and roll around on. And plastic laundry baskets full of little toys they were just about old enough to handle now—and those things with the colored block things on wires so kids can slide them up and down and around. Lots of manipulatives.

They’re only nine months old, so it’s sort of hard to figure out what they like. Squeaky things, I know that. So I sat us all on the floor and got out two rubber squeaky toys and gave each one their own so they wouldn’t fight. They already do that, right? How do kids just come out of the womb fighting like that?

Taylor immediately went for Tyler’s, but I clapped my hands—that’s how I distract them. And she blinked, grinned at me, and decided the thing she had was good enough.

“She sure minds you,” Maddie said.

“She’d better.”

Maddie looked down at them with sad eyes. Mine were probably even sadder. I mean, man, she looked awful. Her hair was a greasy dishwater greyish instead of blond. And she had on, like…a plain Walmart t-shirt top and no name jeans she probably got from there, too. Just generic stuff, cheap stuff she could afford and still buy crystal. She used to be a seriously sharp dresser, that girl. Designer stuff. She made it look sort of slutty on purpose, everything a little too tight or a little too low cut. Slutty chic, I used to call it. She was a porn star, after all. And she could rock it—what a body! Almost like Cat’s, but a little less curvy. Swimsuit model type, she’d been.

She looked like a skeleton now, though. Like she’d rattle if you shook her. The pick sores I’d seen on her face before were healing, but she was still sort of yellowish. And her eyes looked all sunk back in their sockets.

And out of nowhere, suddenly, it hit me like I’d been tazered or something: I was looking at a corpse. No way around it. She was going to die. And maybe soon.

I had to pull it together right quick, but my whole soul ached. See, she’d been the star of the whole shebang once. She was the body the most successful “brand” was based on, originally. In fact, for years after she was banished from the “circle” for drug use, she lived on her rep from her porn days. Clubs advertised using her old name—she could pack a titty bar to standing room only, back when. But then the drugs started to drag her down. And that fuckin’ Russian…

She leaned down to just look at the babies for a moment. I think she was nervous that they’d be scared of her. This freaky death’s head, staring down…

“Yuri came with you, right?” I asked her. To get to the “drama” I’d sensed in Big Man’s face. And she got nervous in the eyes again.

“He didn’t come in. He dropped me off.”

I nodded and she reached out to touch Taylor’s face. And smiled.

“She’s beautiful…”

“Looks like me and you, both.”

She sat up again like that had made her ashamed or something. And she looked at me and said, “Bonnie know I’m here?”

Now, who’s being dumb? No, she doesn’t know you’re here. Nobody’d better know you’re here—Yuri’d better not get any more bright ideas.”

“I told you—“

“Don’t go there. Play with the kids, for Chrissake.”

She sat back on her heels. I got the feeling she was afraid to hold them. There’d been a restraining order on her and her “man” for a while. Not from me, but I was still breaking the law—or helping her break it. The Law might bust us, but Bonnie wouldn’t do much if she found out. She’s a practical, hard working woman who doesn’t have to work anymore because her grandbabies’ dad has more money than God. So she’d be pissed, but she’d overlook it as long as it was me who set it up.

Even so, I think Maddie always felt like every visit would be her last. And she didn’t want to have to live whatever was left of her life thinking of the last time she held them.

I picked up Tyler and put him in her lap anyway. And it made her cry, but she pressed him close and nuzzled the top of his head.

And I got up and said, “I’ve got some stuff to do. I’ll be in the TV room.”

She looked up like she couldn’t believe what I’d said.

“What? Don’t you want some quality time?” I asked.

No, I just…didn’t think you’d…let me.”

“They should know their mother,” I told her. Real emphatic. I meant it.

And she cuddled Tyler again. And gave me this really earnest gaze.

“I went by. To see her.”

She meant Bonnie. Which took balls, actually. Bonnie was done with her. Completely.

“I bet that went down like a lead balloon.”

“I’m clean.

“Maddie, you’re not clean just…it’s gotta be more than an hour or two.”

No, I…I’m gonna sign up for this one thing they have—those ones I told you about.”

“Well, if you’re really—“

I couldn’t get the rest out because she started coughing like she was going to hock up a lung all of a sudden. I watched to see if there’d be blood or anything, but I didn’t see it if there was. It took her a few minutes to recover, though. Tyler and Taylor were staring at her like she’d grown two heads. Too freaked out to cry, probably.

So Maddie finally set Tyler over on one thigh and then put Taylor on the other and held them real close.

And I said, “You good? You okay?”

“Yeah. Allergies.”

Right. I smiled quietly, but I didn’t say what I was really thinking. I just said, “Come by the thing—the carnival, okay? Tomorrow when it opens. I’ll put security on the lookout for you. There’s all kinda doctors over there.”

“Oh, right! The girls’ll love that.”

“The girls’ll be relieved, actually.”

She cupped Tyler’s head to her chest again and smiled wistfully.

“Vegas, huh?” she said. “I been hearing about that.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“It’s…big news. I mean, they start out on the pole and wind up with…”

“Their own club, yeah. Dreams do come true. Miracles, more like. Sometimes, anyway.”

She went all dark and sad then.

“Not for me, you’re thinking.”

“I wasn’t thinking anything.”

“Yeah, you were. I know how it looks. I know how people talk.”

I went back over and sat down again.

“Don’t give ‘em stuff to talk about, then,” I said.

“It’s not like I want to be…how I am.”

“Then let us help you.”

She glared at me. I knew where we were going next.

“Where were you when JJ just…shut me out, then? If you care so much.”

“That’s not what happened and you know it. He had the same rules for everybody. You get into drugs or anything else illegal, you’re out.”

“I tried! More than you know, I tried. Who would deliberately shut themselves off from all that? He was like…God, JJ. And he just…let me go! After all I’d been to him—done for him!  I never thought that man could do a thing like that…”

I just sighed—she had a very selective memory. And she was talking about the man who left me my “other” money. The money that made the rest of the money. And made me richer than God times two—hold onto your seat belt, ‘cause this is some story.

His name was Jean Jacques de Villiers. I was 12 when we met. He was 68, the “old man,” everyone called him. And I used to tease him that his family must’ve invented the color red or something. That kind of bank, they had. That kind of money that is almost impossible to imagine—the kind you couldn’t spend if you lived forever, probably. So much that it’s almost pointless to try.

So he barely ever bought anything for himself because he’d grown up knowing he could have damned near anything. There’s no thrill in acquiring things when you grow up like that. It’s hard to explain, but I understood it. I could see in his eyes that there hadn’t been much “meaning” to his life for a long time. Yeah, he ran a fucking empire, but it was just a game. Something to do with his time. Little experiments. And it impressed everyone but him.

That’s why he was so generous with other people. He liked to see how they reacted to the insane things he did for them--that was his happy place.

Wasn’t a family trait, that generosity. His father was this arrogant aristocratic asshole who sent him away because he couldn’t stand knowing he’d sired an “abomination.” That’s how he said it, his father—his son was an abomination. He caught JJ kissing some kid who worked for the family or something and nearly had two strokes.

That was because his own father had been the son of a titled Frenchman and a ridiculously wealthy Arab woman whose family had a great deal of influence on how the boys in the family were raised because they wanted them to handle the family fortune. I think they were some kind of royalty, that family. And the men were all in positions of serious power. So between the need to keep up appearances, hold onto that power and the general hatred of “homos” in that culture, he was screwed, JJ.

But his parents got their comeuppance later on. Their precious other son and spoiled brat of a daughter both died young. The son crashed this sports car his mother had bought him for his 21st birthday—it nearly killed his mother, too. I guess he was drunk as a skunk after some chichi dinner party he’d run off from with the daughter of some politician that people who are into that would know. I never heard of him--sad story, though.

The daughter died of some weird illness that made her just sort of waste away. All that money, and they couldn’t figure that one out. She just curled up in fetal position and wasted away. JJ was never sure what it was, but of course his parents never even tried to tell him. They never spoke to him again in person, after the “exile.” Just through lawyers and people they could trust to pass a message on to him.

His mother went next. Cancer, not grief. Or maybe both. And then his father died younger than he should have—of humiliation, was JJ’s take on it. But it was just a weak heart. Weak hearts ran in the family—that’s what killed JJ in the end. Or, actually, he was HIV positive for a long time ‘til the cocktails started to be more toxic than the damned virus. And all that just  made his heart even weaker. But he lived 5 years longer than his Dad—two years ago, he died.

In my arms, in fact. I loved that man—don’t get it twisted. He wasn’t a pedophile and I have never been able to go “there.” I’ve had some guys really try to change my mind, but it doesn’t do it for me. At all.

But I swear, if I could’ve been his lover, I would’ve. It would’ve saved him a lot of drama and danger. He was drawn to beautiful bastards who beat the shit out of him. Or whined and pouted when he didn’t buy them everything they asked for. And rough trade, too—super scary dudes he picked up sometimes as if he wanted to be beat to a pulp in an alley somewhere. His parent tapes, still running in his head. Telling him what a useless piece of shit he was.

We met because I tackled this one dumb ass who’d broken a champagne bottle upside his Bentley and started threatening him with the jagged edge. He was on a shoot at the last club the girls worked in. They were using it as a set for one of his dirty little movies—his “hobby” was his porn business. He was a connoisseur of smut, that guy.

So anyway, there I was, waiting for the girls out back of the club when his car rolls up and he and that little fuck face came out, bawling JJ out about something. And when JJ laughed, that set him off. He smashed the bottle and lunged, and I leapt on him from behind and knocked him over on the broken glass on the ground. That was ugly, man. He had all this glass embedded in his chest.

But the bouncers got him. And JJ shook it off and said, “My white knight!”

And when I just sort of stared at him—he had this accent out of a movie or something—he smiled and said, “Please, may I know your name?”

And that was that. He took us all up to this huge house up in the Catalinas with a view to die for and hot and cold running servants, and every morning, after that, sent a car for me. Us. Whoever I wanted to bring with me—remember I was 12, okay? What the hell did I need with a car and driver at my beck and call? But if I didn’t use the car and the girls didn’t need the car, the car just sat ‘til evening. And came back the next day. Until he just moved us in with him so he didn’t have to worry that I wouldn’t come by anymore.

Boy, that was an educational experience, I gotta tell ya’. The guy lived large.

And he’d never had any kids, of course—when he was coming up, gays didn’t even think about adoption or surrogates or anything like that. So late in life, he discovered he loved being a “father.” I became an obsession—I loved him more honestly and unconditionally than anyone. And he fascinated me—he knew so much. Gobbled up life like candy. Wanted me to see everything. Try everything.

And when he died, he left me everything. EVERY thing. Yeah. You feelin’ me now?

I own the color red. Or…that’s what the money’s like.

Luckily for me, he also left me enough loyal friends and staff to help me handle it. Or sell everything and just live off it—he didn’t care which. The gesture was the point.

And he died smiling, in my arms, because he’d found something his parents never had. Most people never have, really. I’d given him that real dumb little kid love—the blindest love there is. Next to a dog, nothing loves like a little kid. They’ll love you even if you smack ‘em around and lock ‘em in closets—I know this from having friends as a kid who got beat by their parents and still cried when somebody finally hauled their dumb asses away for beating their kids.

JJ loved his fucked up parents ‘til he died, too—deep down. We can’t help ourselves. But he had me. And I was no booby prize, pal—that last smile? That was how well he knew it. And I’m prouder of that smile than anything but my own kids. No lie.

Maddie knew that smile. Once. I remember when he first introduced us—she showed up at the house in the foot hills and he got all happy. And then, we could see she was still pretty messed up, and all that happy went away. But he was really sweet to her. As sweet as he could be—she got really snippy with him a few times. The drugs, talking. And Yuri, pulling the strings. Already. He’d owned a club she’d been dancing in—she was making him lots of money using her old rep.

We sort of knew he’d put her up to seeing JJ, in the hopes of getting back into movies again. But people addicted as bad as her, they can’t remember things. It wasn’t going to happen, though. She would come to the set all jacked up on stuff—stuff she took to wake up and then things she took to keep from looking all jittery and weird. The camera could tell, though. And they’d either have to postpone the shoot or get someone else. Over time, it was just easier to use other people. She was too unreliable. And it hurt JJ’s heart too much, to see her like that.

She went after me, finally, after the old man left us. Because I held the keys to the kingdom. And Big Man gave you a clue ‘way back at the beginning. I tried to believe in her. And there was one night, just one, when we connected really well. Shouldn’t have gone the way it did, and I’d say I was sorry if it wasn’t for the babies we made. They went through holy hell being born and after, going through all kinds of withdrawals and whatnot—she ran off, while she was pregnant. She could see there was no real future—I mean, I was a kid, okay? A sober moment or two told her I wasn’t going to, like…fall deeply in love and save her life or something.

And yes, for sure, given who she’d become, going bareback was a seriously stupid idea. But shit happens. And it hit us like a freight train that one time. She was hanging on for dear life and for a split second, I really thought maybe it would make a difference somehow. Like maybe if someone loved her, even just as a really good friend, she might pull herself up out of Hell for him.

You have to remember that I was a kid. I am a kid—I’ll cop to that. Even with all I’ve seen, I can be pretty friggin’ naïve when it comes to emotions and man/woman stuff. I dive into the deep end and get caught in the undertow. In her case…well…she couldn’t handle the guilt. She also knew the babies—we knew there were two early on—might be really messed up by all the poison in her system.

And man, they were a mess. I sat with them for almost a month in the hospital, with Bonnie and the girls going in and out, too. Tyler had a lot of serious complications with his lungs and his heart—turned out better than we expected in the end, but nothing in his circulatory system was really functioning at first. So they were two months premature and they had to kick her drugs, too, right? Touch and go. All wired up, tubes coming out of everywhere.

There is nothing sadder or scarier than a tiny little baby shuddering every few seconds in withdrawal, with all that shit attached to their tiny little body—they almost didn’t have enough body for them to hook things up to. And then they would go all stiff and start shivering like that--I wanted to kill her. I did.

I wouldn’t have, of course. But I thought some evil thoughts about her at the time. How I’d slap her around if she dared to come near me. Make her feel pain, for making them feel pain.

I was sleep deprived and barely eating or anything, so I think I was probably half nuts at the time. But they pinked up and woke up gradually. And the best thing was, they imprinted on me, sort of. I loved it. Their eyes followed me wherever I went. And nobody else could make them settle down, but me. It took some time to wean them off me, but as they began to feel better, they started to relax and let other people in.

And then one day, it was like God flipped a switch. They got all social and started laughing all the time and wanting to know everybody. They do that thing with their hands—they reach up and open and close their fingers a few times, which with all babies means they want you. And they want everybody now—they like the experience of different people. I’m not jealous of them, either. I’m glad they made it out of the Hell they were in. That’s why they have all the stuff in their rooms. I’m like JJ. I want them to be surrounded by things that stimulate them, you know? Stuff they can explore and grow and learn from.

But I’m still their favorite toy. Even that day, with Maddie holding them, they were watching me to figure out what to think of this weird woman. As long as I looked cool with her, they were cool with her.

So I reached over and gave them each a poke on the nose. And their eyes lit up.

And their mother smiled at them. And then at me. Strange, sort of nervous smile, though.

“It’s nice of you to do that for them. The club.”

“It was their idea.”

“You always say that. The old man knew you were a smart cookie, though. A minute after ‘e met you, he told me you were giving him all these amazing ideas. The Net and all. You know how clueless he was about all that.”

I was going to sort of agree with her, but she started coughing again. She had to put the kids down, even. And afterwards, there was this weird wheezy noise in her breathing.

 “Listen, you gotta come by tomorrow,” I said. “You need to be checked out. You look like death warmed over.”

“Oh, fuck you very much!”

“C’mon! I’m concerned.”

“Since when?

Really?

“Okay, that was…I didn’t mean that,” she said. And then she said, “Yuri didn’t mean it, either. He’s been trying to get in touch with you.”

“Wow. Some segue—he put you up to that?”

“I’m worried that you’ll hold a grudge.”

“Gosh, he sics the cops on me and I get arrested and sent up in front of psycho judge. Why on earth would I hold a grudge?”

“He had no choice! They wanted something. Something…to prove he could be trusted.”

“Yeah, but Officer Friendly, though. I mean, everybody knows that cop’s in with his crazy ass Russian friends.”

“They’re not his friends.”

That’s for sure! They hate his stupid ass, actually. And if he’s not careful, they’ll go after his stupid ass.”

“How do you know?”

“You do any kinda business around here, you know. He’s an embarrassment. They don’t like to be embarrassed, those guys. And once Officer Friendly figured out Yuri didn’t really have any juice, he turned on him—those little scams he’s workin’ now, Yuri? They’re gonna get him killed. And you, too, if you don’t watch it. It’s pathetic to them, how he lost everything to the needle, Maddie. They think he’s a weak little pussy they can play with. And when they’re done playing with him, they’ll end him. I’m sorry to be so hard about it, but that’s where it’s going.”

“They might deport him. That’s the word on the street, anyway.”

“That’d be a lucky break for him--do you realize how many people think he’s ratted them out already? I’m amazed he’s still alive, I swear. And he needs to be careful about those stupid girls he’s got out there supposedly working for ‘im. They’re either gonna rat him out or one of ‘em’ll turn out to be a cop herself. They don’t know yet how totally unconnected he really is. And he’d better make sure they never do, or they’ll cut him up in little bitty pieces—that Sergei guy? He likes to drop people out of planes and watch them splatter like watermelons when the hit the ground.”

I had her attention. I saw her sort of shiver. But then she got all angry looking and said, “I don’t wanna do this—I didn’t come here to do this.”

“Yeah, you did. He told you to. Didn’t he?”

“Oh, I didn’t wanna see my kids?”

“How do I know?! It’s been, like…how long?”

“I’m not allowed to!”

“But you could try. You know me—I’ll always find a way if you really want it. I’m breaking the law, here, for you. And all you’re really concerned about is that…broke ass junkie you’re working for!”

She just glared at me. She knew she was treading on thin ice. And also she knew that if Yuri heard she’d made me mad, he’d beat the shit out of her for not helping him set up whatever crazy scheme he’d invented. He was fixated on me as a connection he needed to get back in the game. As if he’d ever been in the game—I don’t even know what the game was.

We were still in “standoff “mode when my watch buzzed. And when I got out my cell, I got a message I definitely wasn’t expecting.

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