Think Before You Speak (10 page)

Not to mention keeping residents within that
same perimeter awake. The decibels increased throughout each heat
until the roof threatened to tear right off like a direct hit from
an EF-2 tornado. When one of the final two contestants drunkenly
stumbled out of his lane to fall headlong into a thirty-two triple
D, I suspect we may’ve even registered somewhere on the Richter
scale.

By closing time, I was ready to make an
appointment to see an otolaryngologist. See, there’s a reason why
they go by the more simple term of ear, nose, and throat doctor. At
this rate, I’d need hearing aids well before my thirtieth
birthday.

Since Rochelle was now familiar with the
rigors associated with tending bar, I welcomed her assistance with
clean-up and had her heading home within the closing hour. A final
alcohol tally, and I carted the till to the boss.

Grady didn’t even glance away from the bank
of security monitors until I chucked the cash drawer on his desk
with a clatter.

“Did good tonight,” I said. “But we’ve got an
emergency on our hands.”

“Late for a date with the pretty boy?” Grady
asked.

“No.”

“Out of clean panties?”

“Grady!”

“Then what kind of emergency?” he asked,
rewinding a post-closing view of patrons congregating in the
parking lot.

I handed over the bottle count tally. “The
tap is just about tapped out and spitting foam. If we don’t get a
few more friends like Jack Daniels and Jim Beam in here pronto,
there’ll be a lot of crying going on tomorrow night.”

“Can I assume the cryin’ will be led by yours
truly?”

“Are you kidding? I didn’t have time to drink
tonight.”

That got me a full-fledged stare as Grady
stopped what he was doing and turned the chair toward me with a
squeak. I wanted to smack the mustache tilt right off his face –
and I didn’t mean with my mouth either, folks. I think. Maybe.

“Sit down, Vic.”

Have you ever had a boss tell you to take a
seat? From what I’ve heard, it rarely portended anything good. It
put you on the defensive quicker than a possession change thirty
seconds before halftime.

“Don’t you dare fire me, Grady,” came
spurting from my diseased mouth before I could think straight.
“I’ll…I’ll…sic my mother on you.”

That sent the boss into a rumbling belly
laugh. “Why on earth would I fire ya?”

“Well, for one because you’re afraid I’ll
spill the beans on your
other
job.”

That shut him up right quick – for a second
or two. “If you can avoid sharin’ my secret when you’re drunk, ya
sure as hell can hold onto it when you’re sober.”

“Unless I wanted to blackmail you,” I
quipped, thinking again of Reggie’s need for secrecy with his
past.

Grady shook his head. “Ya ain’t the
type.”

Unless it pertained to the sperm donor, but I
wasn’t about to open that bottle and pass it around the barrel.
Besides, I kept those pictures safely tucked away less for a
blackmail opportunity and more for insurance purposes.

“So then why’ve you been acting all weird
around me these last few weeks?” I ventured.

The squeaky chair released a full-on screech
like an opening door in a horror movie when Grady slowly leaned
back. “I’m not the one who’s been actin’ weird, Vic.”

“Then what do you call all the tiptoeing
around you’ve been doing lately? Avoiding flirting all the time or
coming behind the bar with me? You’ve been staying cooped up in
here so much too, and it’s not just me who’s noticed.”

“Again, I’m not the one who’s been tiptoein’
or avoidin’,” Grady declared. “And what I’ve been cooped up in here
doing so much has to do with that
other
job, which is why I
asked you to sit so I could pick your brain and get some
insight.”

The rebuttal ready to spew from my lips
dissipated like the crowd after a missed last-minute two-point
conversion. Suppose he wasn’t totally wrong. After all, I’d had the
boss pegged as the culprit until our former co-worker revealed his
hand.

Don’t you dare tell him.

“You’re on a case involving the bar?” I
asked.

“I’m always on a case. This one may or may
not involve this guy.”

Grady had stopped the surveillance frame on a
grainy image of a couple of guys talking in the parking lot. I
leaned in closer to get a better look at the group.

“Do ya recognize anyone?” Grady asked.

“I’m not sure, but that one there looks
like…is it?” I focused on the thinning top of the head and the
stiff bearing lodged in a suit. “I think it might be Banker
Boy.”

“Banker Boy?”

I shrugged. “Some of the regulars earn pet
names.”

Grady smirked. “I’d hate to think what pet
name you’ve cooked up for me.”

“You’re not a customer.”

“I’m your boss.”

“Exactly. You have a title.”

“Which is?”

“What else? The Boss.”

“Catchy.”

“I try.”

That earned me a smirk before Grady got down
to business again – ATF business, it seems. “What can you tell me
about this Banker Boy guy?”

“Not much,” I admitted.

“Impressions?”

“Of the Three Musketeers, he’s the least
likeable, though that may have more to do with the fact he’s stingy
with tips.”

“What about his two friends?”

“They’re good guys. The dark-headed one is a
lawyer, and the other…”

“Yeah, we all know what you think of
Radioman,” Grady acknowledged with a grin.

I punched his arm and got another laugh for
my trouble. “Don’t know why I keep working for you.”

“Hey, just a minute ago you were worried
about gettin’ fired.”

“Well, we both know now that won’t happen
anytime soon,” I muttered, taking another hard look at the stilled
screen image of Banker Boy.

The three guys surrounding him looked rough.
Not the usual suspects he came in with. Trust me, if Radioman had
been within a hundred yards of the bar, my nether regions would’ve
set off like a cell phone on vibrate.

I asked the question building in my brain.
“Is this footage from tonight?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t remember seeing him here.”

“Me neither,” Grady said. “Which is why this
parkin’ lot interaction caught my eye.”

“It was rather busy, so it’s possible we just
missed him.”

“Hmm,” he murmured, sliding the till into the
safe before resetting the cameras, then grabbing his Stetson and
escorting me out of the office to set the alarms.

As we walked across the empty lot to our
vehicles, Grady offered up a pat on the back just above my
haunches. “You did good tonight, Vic.”

“Are you talking with the clients or
surveillance?” I asked, enjoying a little too much the warmth of
his hand on my hip.

“Uh-huh.”

Guess that was all the information he was
willing to offer. For once in my life, I didn’t push the issue. We
stopped off at my Vette, and Grady leaned on the hood while I
fumbled for the keys.

“When Banker Boy comes in next,” I started,
“do you want me to do a little fishing?”

“No fishin’, Vic. Just keep your ears open.
This might be a situation where a couple of low-lifes were
harassin’ an innocent bystander.”

I stopped fumbling in my purse for a
half-second and offered up my best evil-eyed stare. “You don’t
really expect me to believe that, do you?”

“We’re only blocks from the edge of gang
territory, so anything’s possible.”

No mustache tilt. No slow, easy smile. The
milk chocolate gaze hardened into obsidian disks. My boss had let
down the good-ol’-boy routine and revealed his undercover persona.
It was a little frightening – and hot.

“Let me help, boss,” I pleaded. “With a
little alcohol, I can get any man to talk. A lot of alcohol, and I
can tell you what his momma called him before he got out of
diapers.”

“I realize you’re no wilting flower, and
you’ve got good instincts. That’s why I asked for your impression
of this guy. But leave this alone and let the professionals handle
the bad guys, sweetheart.”

With that, he pushed away from the Vette and
climbed into his black Dodge Ram, shining the bright lights atop
the roll bar until I climbed into my car with first degree burns.
At least that’s the way it felt – and not just on my skin.

First Jimmy had rained on my parade by
telling me to avoid a gang leader who had to be about as old as
dirt by now. Then Grady dressed me down for offering to get
information from a patron who frequented the bar. Pretty crappy of
him, if you asked me. Wasn’t like the boss hadn’t asked for my
impressions
or anything.

I peeled out of the parking lot with the
truck not far behind and made to head toward home. After offering
up a southern salute out my driver’s side window, I turned onto the
next street while Grady’s Ram thundered through the light with a
honk of acknowledgement. I waited for a couple of beats at the
following stoplight before shooting a U.

When told to stay out of other people’s
business – or away from a crime and gang ridden area – most smart
and intelligent individuals would do just that. Perhaps I was
buoyed by a sense of invincibility after escaping only slightly
scathed the last time I’d helped out a friend. Maybe it was an
unrequited death wish I carried.

The truth? I have a bit of a stubborn streak.
Well, and Grady had pissed me off.

Then there’s also the fact the low-life’s of
Dallas tended to congregate not too far from my home and work near
the Historic West End. In the eighties, the area was reclaimed and
revitalized into a hopping hangout for the yuppie crowd. Over time
though, the pond scum gradually crept in unnoticed until a turf war
broke out and drove more than a few businesses away. It’s funny now
how on one side of the street you’re safe as a daisy in the sun,
whereas if you cross to the blocks on the other side, you’re kinda
on your own when it comes to lawful, nighttime activities.

I only hoped I stayed close enough on this
edge of the dark side as I slowly drove down the one-way street.
Streetlamps on this side of the road flickered yellow with a mere
heartbeat of life. This late at night – or early in the morning,
take your pick – I prayed the area was like the majority of Dallas.
After the bars closed and the drunks made their way home, things
tended to quiet down pretty quick. People had to sleep
sometime.

Which kinda stopped me short – what did I
hope to accomplish by cruising through a known gang hangout in the
middle of the night? If I expected everyone to be asleep, then
what, if any, information did I hope to discover about this Switch
guy and if he knew about Reggie’s current predicament?

Yeah, I’d obviously not had enough shots at
work. Or maybe that stubbornness had gotten in the way of rational
thought. It wasn’t the first time – and if history bore out, it
wouldn’t be the last. The old gray matter grew a little fuzzy on
the reasons behind my reckoning.

Chain link fences surrounded most of the
brick and stone structures, providing little protection with all of
the yawning gashes big enough to drive a Smart car through. Just as
I was about to discard this doomed idea and turn around, a rumpled
and dilapidated kid, no older than six and barely out of diapers,
ran through my high beams and snuck through one of the fence
openings. I quickly parked along the street opposite a ramshackle
automotive garage to catch my breath and killed the headlights.

What the hell was I worried about, sneaking
alongside gang territory, when a little kid ran full-bore
into
it? On
my
smart side, I throttled down the car
and exited with my flashlight while locking down the Vette nice and
tight. I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid.

Oh, shut up.

The clatter of a broken bottle sent shards of
fear trembling along my spine and threatened a piddle in my
panties. What if someone chased after the kid? I listened for the
scuff and scuttle of racing feet – and heard nothing.

I stepped to the alley and peeked around the
chain link fence separating the buildings. A shine of the
flashlight revealed the glimmer of glass, oily puddles, and
scattered cigarette butts. No movement. No nearby sounds. The kid
must have found a hiding place or was long gone. I sighed in relief
and turned around to my car.

The flashlight beam highlighted the posse
surrounding the Vette and glinted off their weapons.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear those
were switchblades.

The ragtag group inched forward like a pack
of wolves on the prowl as I took a hesitant step backward into an
oil-sheened puddle. Well, there went a nice pair of sandals down
the crapper.

Young pups glared from ravaged faces. I
doubted any would know the original leader of their pack, but that
didn’t stop me from asking the dumb question of the day. “Is Switch
around?”

Like a carefully choreographed scene from a
bad horror flick, blades clicked open with a flash of metal.

Before I could squeak out a yelp, the growl
of engines and peel of tires echoed from the garage. Headlights
blinded the gang as trucks barreled to the scene of my crime of
stupidity. I wanted to drop to the pavement, curl into a ball, and
kiss my ass goodbye when I realized I was about to be the line of
delineation separating the sides in a turf skirmish between rival
gangs.

I was about to become someone’s bitch – or
worse.

I believed in God so firmly in those seconds,
I was willing to walk on coals, kneel and cross myself, dance in
the aisles holding snakes, chatter in an indistinguishable tongue –
do pretty much anything but drink poison to cover all
denominational bases in order to secure my rapidly approaching
eternal reward. Hell – I mean heck – I’d even confess to everyone
within hearing range to the time I blamed Lorraine Padget for
putting liquid laundry soap in the old church baptistery,
effectively shutting down any and all baptismal activities for a
month.