Rock Chick (Rock Chick #1)(96)

“Yeah, but not in the family, an independent contractor. Coxy’s havin’ to hire his guns these days. Gary couldn’t put a bullet in someone’s brain if he had the barrel restin’ against his forehead.”

I thought this was good news. Goon Gary seemed less of a threat if this was true. I was taking my good news as it came these days, no matter how freakishly scary it was.

“There’s talk that there’s two names on his list, Rick was only one of them,” Eddie went on.

“Teddy?” Lee asked.

“Nope, Coxy wrote Teddy off, or at least he did until Teddy hit the street an hour ago.”

“Who’s the name?”

“Coltrane.”

Oh no, Rosie.

All the breath went out of my body and I stared at Lee. I was wearing shades too, mine were huge, shiny, rock ‘n’ roll black, kind of a hybrid between Jackie O and Bono. I thought the lenses would melt with the heat from my stare.

The waiter brought our coffees, Chowleena’s water, and left.

“We have to find him,” I told Lee.

“We’ll find him,” Lee replied.

I wasn’t entirely sure how we’d find him, considering we were sitting in the sun enjoying coffees.

As far as I could tell, there wasn’t much to this PI stuff. In fact, it was more dangerous facing down the Rosie Riot than doing Lee’s job.

Lee seemed completely calm about this news. This news did not make me calm, there was a hired hit man after Rosie. I was pretty angry at Rosie but I still liked him enough to want his brains to remain in his skull for the foreseeable future.

“You should know bookies are takin’ bets, you against Coxy, who’ll win Indy,” Eddie told Lee then looked at me.

Oh… my… God.

“Really?” I asked.

“Who’s got the odds?” Lee asked.

My mouth dropped open and I stared at Lee. Was he nuts? Who cared? People were betting on us!

Eddie turned back to Lee. “You.”

“You’re joking right?” I put in.

Eddie shook his head.

I turned my attention toward my drink, which was the only sane thing I could do.

If in doubt, coffee.

I loved whipped cream but I wasn’t a big fan of whipped cream melting into coffee. Café Fantasias were stacked in a plastic, ice cream parfait glass. I picked up the plastic glass and opened my mouth over the cream and sucked it all in one slurp. Then I grabbed my spoon to mush down the orange and mix the cocoa with coffee. I felt a tingling at the back of my neck and looked up at Lee and Eddie, both of whom had shades trained on me.

Eddie turned to Lee and muttered, “You lucky f**k.”

Lee’s phone rang. He snapped it open, said, “Yeah.” Pause. “Un-hunh.” Pause. “Be there in ten.”

He flipped the phone closed, then said, “We’ve got Rosie.”

* * * * *

We went in Eddie’s cop car, Lee in the passenger seat, Chowleena and me in the back. Lee had his gunbelt up front and mine was on the floor next to Chowleena.

We stopped in a ‘hood where there were one-story row houses, the front steps and a small porch close to the sidewalks, one window denoting the living room. It wasn’t a good neighborhood, it wasn’t a bad neighborhood, it was just forlorn, ill-kept and quiet.

Eddied barely come to a stop when the backdoor opposite me opened and Darius Tucker slid in.

Lee and Eddie had moved naturally from good-looking boys that caused girls to have sweetheart crushes to handsome men that caused women’s vaginas to quiver at the sight of them.

I noted that Darius hadn’t fared as well. He’d always been tall and lean but now the lean had turned a shade skinny. He had more worry lines, his once-close-cropped Afro was now sticking out in funky twists which were admittedly cool but instead of the soulful dark eyes I remembered, he looked angry and even mean.

“What the f**k is she doin’ here and what’s with the dog?” he asked.

Well, hello to you too.

Luckily, I thought it but didn’t say it.

Lee and Eddie had both turned to look at Darius.

“Do we have time to explain?” Lee asked.

“Don’t know, had business take me away for a minute and couldn’t watch the house,” Darius replied. “I know I don’t have all day to waste on this shit.”

“Where is he?” Eddie asked.

“Third door up,” Darius answered.

Lee was focused on something beyond me, out the back window.

“We gotta move, someone got here before us.” His voice had changed, sounding clipped and urgent. His eyes cut to me. “Stay down, out of sight. Jesus Christ, how’d I let you talk me into this shit?”

“I was cuffed to the bed,” I reminded him, speaking automatically and not really processing what was going on, just realizing that the vibes had turned bad.

“Lucky f**k,” Eddie muttered, opened his door and then he was gone. I swear to God, he disappeared into thin air. One second, he was exiting the car, the next second he was nowhere in sight.

“Your Dad teach you how to handle a gun?” Darius was talking to me and I looked at him. His eyes were cold and it was so wrong in his face, a face I’d once known so well, that I felt it in my gut.

I nodded to him.