Bottom Feeder (38 page)

“
Dammit, I love that
girl,” Beraz proclaims, grabbing a carton of organic milk from the
refrigerator.

I cram another cinnamon roll in my
mouth.

Maddy

“
You like this
place?”

Agent Mace sits across from me in the
back room of a family-operated bakery in Jamaica, Queens that I
will leave unnamed for now. My lawyer’s parents own the place. I
come here often.

“
I like the obscurity,” I
reply. “Cordell would never expect me to come here
alone.”

“
Hell,
I
wouldn’t come here
alone.”

“
I thought you were a
tough FBI agent, Suit.”

“
Smartass.”

I nod. “Usually.”

“
I’m incognito,” he says
to my raised brow at his choice of outfit. Of the several times
I’ve met with him, Alexander Mace is all serious, all suit, all
business, all the time. Which is why I usually refer to him only
as
Suit.
He hates
it. Today, though, he appears younger than his forty-two years in a
Rolling Stones tee, dark-washed jeans and Nikes.

I slide CC’s letter across the
intricately-tiled table. Agent Mace places the letter in his lap
and reads beneath the table. He folds the paper neatly and places
it back in the envelope. Seconds later, a familiar elderly woman in
a three-piece charcoal pantsuit and sensible black pumps approaches
the table. She gives me a wink before sliding the envelope into her
jacket.

“
I’ve seen her
bef—”

“
I can’t tell you
everything,” Agent Mace murmurs, his voice barely audible. “We
tracked Cordell’s movements throughout Korea and China. He crossed
into Mongolia and went south to Tajikistan. We lost him once he
headed south into Kashmir. Probably took hold of a new identity
when he passed through Pakistan.”

I lower my voice to match his. “Is he
moving something? Drugs? Arms? People? Bodies?”

“
That’s all I can tell
you.”

“
Why haven’t you stopped
him?” I ask angrily.

He clears his throat and
looks down, a sure sign he is about to feed me a lie or say
something I’m not going to like. “He’s leading us to
something—some
one—
bigger.”

I sit back and stare at the agent’s
demeanor: the defeated look written across his face, the constant
furrow of his brow, the tightening of his mouth.

“
Even if you find him,
someone is going to cut him a deal for information.” It’s not a
question, but I wait for his reply.

His silence declares more than words
ever will.

“
A mugging, you said?”
Agent Mace stares at me with intent, taking in the sickly yellow
bruises on my face. I don’t bother to cover them. Makeup only makes
me look jaundiced at this point.

I drop my gaze to the clenched hands
in my lap. I hate that he is looking at me with pity. I hate that
he knows I am lying.

“
We lost track of Duvall
weeks ago.” My fingernails dig into my palms. “Until he turned up
in Georgia last week to check on Cordell’s businesses. The funny
thing is, he travelled to the States with an alias.”

I shrug. What does he want me to say?
That I knew Larry was back? To confess he is the one who did this
to me?

“
The alias happened to be
the name of your real father.”

My head snaps to attention at the
mention of someone I never knew existed. Someone who could have
possibly loved me if given the chance. Now that I know he existed,
I dream of him often. Although he is nameless and faceless, the
warmth from his body envelopes me when he wraps his arms around my
shoulders and speaks in whispers that sound like the wind. I feel
his breath on my cheek and, though the words are never heard, I
know they are good. I know he was good.

“
You refused protection
from us before, so I’m guessing you will refuse it now,” he frowns.
“I am giving you this information because you have to be alert,
even after you step on that bus to leave for basic training.” I
mimic his frown. “Listen, Maddy, I . . . I shouldn’t say this, but
there was no evidence on those disks that your father was
killed.”

I release a breath that comes out like
a sob. Weak. Why am I so weak?

If there is hope my real father is
still alive, he should stay as far away from me as
possible.

“
Violet is
safe?”

Agent Mace’s cheeks immediately flush
pink. He rubs the back of his neck. “Yes, she’s, uh, she’s safe. My
best probie is watching her now, and she’s uh, yeah.
Safe.”

I laugh, thankful for the change of
subject. “Does she know you like her?”

He shakes his head. “She thinks the
flowers I buy every other day are for my girlfriend.”

I laugh again.

“
Don’t change the subject,
Maddy.” All serious, all business, all the time.

“
Well, Suit,” I address
him formally, “you will have to do something about that too-serious
personality if you ever want Violet Monroe’s attention. She likes
Janet Evanovich novels and picnics with peanut butter cups and
sweet tea instead of cheese and wine.”

His expression doesn’t change, but the
tiny nod lets me know he is taking mental notes.

“
Have you heard anything
on the accident?” According to Violet, Chris is going through
painful physical therapy in order to play football next season. He
doesn’t answer my calls, texts, or emails. It hurts that I may have
lost a friend, but I can’t say that I blame him for ignoring
me.

“
The investigation has
stopped.”

“
Stopped?
” My voice rises. “What the
hell do you mean ‘stopped’? You know what, I don’t want to know.
Pretend I never asked about it.” I will investigate and handle it
myself.

I stand to leave. “Is there anything
you can tell me about my real father? His name?”

Agent Mace is quiet. Finally, without
looking at me, he replies, “I should never have sent you into
Cordell’s warehouse. This is the last time we will ever meet,
Maddy. I made a mistake getting you involved to this degree.
”

“
It’s too late for
what-ifs and regrets, Suit. We learn from mistakes, we change our
underwear, we move forward.”

I walk toward the door that exits into
the alley.

“
Kevin,” his voice says
quietly from behind. “Kevin Underwood.”

Jackson

The sound of five locks clicking open
barely jostled my sleep. I fully open my eyes when water begins
flowing from a faucet in the bathroom.

I kick Beraz, who is asleep on the
couch. “Maddy’s here.” I bury my head in one of the fluffy pillows
I borrowed from her bed. It smells like her. Coconut, the beach,
and something else that reminds me of home.

While Beraz is in the shower, Maddy
and I talk. The conversation is awkward at first. She talks about
school, New York City, and missing Georgia. I surprise myself when
I ask how Dixon likes Paris. The discussion never leads to what
happened in Fayetteville.

“
Jackson,” she says, “Are
we good?”

“
More than good.” The
smile I thought I’d never see again spreads across her face. To my
surprise, she jumps off the tall bistro chair and wraps her arms
around my neck.

I don’t hesitate to return the
hug.

Since this is my first trip to New
York, we do the tourist thing and take a Gray Line around the
Uptown Loop. Instead of sightseeing at all the stops, we decide to
walk around Central Park. A chilly drizzle begins to fall as we
step off the bus.

Maddy, wearing a vintage Lynryd
Skynyrd tee and jeans that fit just right, walks with her arm
interlocked with Beraz’s. He strolls along with an air of smugness
that makes me cringe.

Jealousy is an ugly thing, ladies and
gentlemen. An ugly, ugly thing.

Maybe it’s the tourist in me, but the
park seems out of place with the rest of the city. I guess the
point is to have somewhere like this to get away from the constant
hustle of the city. I cut my eyes to Maddy and wonder if she likes
because no one knows her, or if she hates it because she is forced
to be here. She catches me stealing a glance as we walk past a
sandy area with two volleyball nets. I give her a reassuring smile
and she interlocks her free arm with mine.

I’ve been so lost in taking in the
massive skyscrapers in the backdrop that I’m not sure exactly where
we are when the drizzling rain turns to chilly sheets. We duck
inside a tunnel to escape the fat drops splattering down on
us.

“
I’m hungry,” Beraz
announces.

“
Me, too.” I step out of
the small tunnel and glimpse the surrounding buildings to spot a
restaurant or a vendor or
something
that sells food. “I’m sure there’s something at
those buildings.”

“
Probably,” Maddy says,
wringing out her hair. “But I don’t know if they’d allow us to drip
water on their floor.”

“
We’ll wait out the rain,”
Beraz says, pulling Maddy closer to him. She lays her head on his
chest as he wraps his arms around her. I pretend to be interested
in my cuticles.

Beraz’s stomach growls loudly. “On
second thought, how about I find the food and bring it back? Maybe
they’ll take one dripping customer over three.”

Maddy nods as my own stomach snarls in
agony. He kisses her cheek before sprinting up the small hill and
across traffic.

“
You ever danced in the
rain, Jackson?” Maddy asks absently, holding her hand out to catch
a few raindrops.

I chuckle. “I’m not a
dance-in-the-rain kinda guy.” But then I think,
why not?
I pull off my hoodie and
hang it on a loose brick inside the dry tunnel.

“
We’ll need music.” I grab
her hand. “You should sing.”

She smiles and bites her lip. “Any
suggestions?”

“
Whatever you
want.”

The last thing I want to do is piss
Beraz off by dancing with his girlfriend in the middle of New York
City while he’s on a food run, but I dance with her anyway. I lead
us into the downpour. The heavy patter of rain seems to slow to
Maddy’s beautiful voice quietly singing a Saving Jane song. I close
my eyes and spin her around, wishing for the entire world she was
mine.

“
Tell me something,” I
say. I spin her around, out, and back to me. “Are you
scared?”

She looks up. Too many emotions to
count flicker across her face in a span of seconds. “Fear is a
useless emotion.”

“
But you’re afraid?” Our
feet never stop moving as she silently debates her answer. She
spins again and I dip her low. Our faces are close. Probably too
close.

“
Every second of every
day,” she replies.

“
Mommy, mommy!” a child
giggles from the overpass above the tunnel. “Look!”

I glance up to a mother and a little
girl rushing through the downpour beneath a small umbrella. The mom
smiles and says to her daughter, “They’re in love,
sweetie.”

Maddy’s face is a mixture of
incredulity and embarrassment. I laugh it off and chalk up the
flutter in my stomach to hunger.

Shortly after the rain
slows to a drizzle, Beraz returns with our meal of croissants,
Paris ham, aged Gruyère, something Maddy called
pain au chocolat
, and bottles of
water.

“
How is Paris ham
different from Georgia ham?” I ask, holding up the thin slice of
meat. I sniff the cheese and cringe at the smell. I eat it
anyway.

“
The manager just threw
stuff in my hands,” Beraz says, “And cursed me in French for
dripping water on her floor.”

“
It’s the curing process,”
Maddy replies. “This particular ham is
Jambon de Bayonne;
it’s salted and
air-dried, similar to country ham.”

“
You have an awful lot of
knowledge about ham,” Beraz says. I nod in agreement.

“
I like to read about
food.”

“
Weirdo,” I
say.

Maddy smiles. “Usually.”

While we walk and finish our food, I
can’t help but admire the way she looks wearing my
hoodie.

Maddy

Spinning and dipping while drops of
water splash around you is exhilarating. I will probably have a
terrible cold after today. The dance signaled a truce, possibly
even forming a friendship I had long since given up on.

I am cautious of the friendship. I
have to be.

Tonight my apartment is alive with the
sounds of Dom and Jackson screaming at a baseball game on
television while helping pack up the rest of my things to be
donated. I am taking only two changes of clothes and whatever I
have on my body the day I leave for basic training. The lawyer is
holding onto Mama’s things for me until I come back. They are in,
what she calls her “private safety deposit box” located on her
family’s property in Port Chester.