Through A Glass, Darkly (The Assassins of Youth MC #1)(8)
“I want you to stay embedded up there and wait for the guns to come to you.”
My jaw hung low. I had to make Papa Ewey repeat it because I was sure I’d heard wrong.
“I want you to wait for the iron to make its way to you. Should take two, three weeks. Our man Bagrat in San Diego said there was a slight glitch with the shipping manifest and they have to try again.”
I paced like a caged maniac in front of the hotel’s dumpster. I couldn’t protest too much after what I’d been caught doing in flagrante. I mean, we’d had most of our clothes on, but Chelsea’s unhooked bra was sort of twisted up around her neck, and, well, things hadn’t looked good for yours truly. “You’re f*cking kidding. You’re sticking me here doing nothing for three weeks with the likes of Tim Breakiron?”
Predictably, Papa Ewey said, “Look, Fortunati. Beggars can’t be choosers. You’re lucky we didn’t burn off your backpack for what you f*cking did. You’re going to need to earn your way back into this club.”
I was gulping from a pint of Jim Beam—one of the few thriving businesses in Avalanche was the liquor store, naturally—so maybe I was mouthier than normal. “What about Breakiron? What did he do, anyway, to get stuck on such a shit detail?”
“That’s none of your concern,” spat Papa. “Listen, I want you to suck it up to that whacked polyg.”
“Chiles?”
“Chiles. He’s a few sheep short of an orgy. Fucking guy had to break away from another fundamentalist sect twenty years ago because even those fundies didn’t agree with some of his shit.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?” I don’t know why I expected Papa Ewey to answer me. He hadn’t answered anything else. But he did.
“Like literally kidnapping women to make them his wives. Look at the math, man. Men and women are pretty much evenly distributed across the population, right? It’s simple demographics.”
“Demographics,” I echoed. All I could think of was “kidnapping.” Had Mahalia been kidnapped? Dragged kicking and screaming across the dust like a fiery Indian maiden? Beaten into submission like a conquered field hand? I barely heard Papa’s recounting of population densities.
“…so they had to resort to kidnapping women from outside the sect to make their f*cking whacked quota. A man needs three wives to make it into heaven.”
Picturing Mahalia dragged to that flipped out polyg compound gave me the incentive to stay in the ghost town. Like I could do anything about it? Again. Savior complex. I had a vision of saving Chelsea from the degradation of Papa Ewey, and now I had some vague fantasy of riding off with Mahalia on the back of my f*cking horse. “So why are we sucking up to him? Shouldn’t this deal be a one-off, and we leave it in our rearview?”
“Might not be a one-off if you play your cards right. Listen, Fortunati. I don’t like you personally and I don’t want you hanging around Chelsea or any other of our lambs for that matter. You ruin women, man. That last lamb you knocked up wound up slitting her wrists because you didn’t even take her to get an abortion.”
I shrugged and chugged. “All lambs should be on the Pill, man. Our lives shouldn’t be tossed ass end up because someone caught the baby flu.”
“Whatever. Fortunati, you’re just one bad seed. You make the women f*cking cry. Maybe you should consider getting your own tubes tied because you’re just rotten to the core.”
I was pissed. Because I hadn’t had any long-term fender fluff and generally just used and tossed away the lambs—who didn’t?—he was telling me I was demon seed? What the f*ck? “Hey, what the f*ck, Papa? I genuinely care for Chelsea. If it wasn’t for you, I’d of made her my old lady. So don’t go running around classifying me as some head-twisting vomit-spewing possessed son of the Prince of Dark—”
“Listen,” snarled my Prez, “leave Chelsea out of this. I don’t want you saying her name ever again. That’s over. You should be glad I’m putting you in charge of this fundie pipeline, and not that rapist Breakiron.”
I knew better than to question who Breakiron had raped. “It’s all good,” I lied.
“I want you to strengthen our union because we’re gonna keep the iron flowing his way. This will be the first of many shipments. He’s a bottomless f*cking pit of cash thanks to squeezing every employee and business he owns for like a quarter of their income. These whacked fundies are a gold mine, Fortunati. Literally, because I think he owns a gold mine nearby.”
So that was how we left it. I’d be stuck there for at least another three weeks, although the way Ewey made it sound, he had some longer-term goals in mind.
That’s how I came to be pacing, chugging, and looking at the red velvet cake of the eastern mesas when Allred Chiles called me on his burner. I was pissed, but actually things were looking up. Already, I was finagling in my brain to find a way to see Mahalia again. She’d done something to me—stuck deep in my craw and wouldn’t let go.
“Mr. Fortunati. I liked the way you stood up for yourself to that bruiser associate of yours.” I bristled. Was he calling Tim Breakiron more buffed and fit than me? I f*cking worked out. Most days. Breakiron was just wider than me, like a f*cking barn door. “I’ve been informed you might be available for the next few weeks for a specific job I have in mind. You mentioned you run a rock quarry.”