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“He said he shouldn't have let her slip away, or something like that. I don't remember exactly. He was mumbling something about protecting. All's I know is he didn't give me a big tip, and I listened to him moaning and wailing for a good ten minutes.”

I wasn't listening. I was gone, out the door looking for Meatloaf. Pushing past men who grabbed at my silk kimono, I rushed to get to the table where I'd seen the Dead Lakes pit crew. It was empty. Glasses of half-melted ice and empty beer bottles littered the tabletop. I spun around, looking back at the runway, but there was no sign of Roy Dell's crew.

“Damn!”

“I know, honey,” the waitress said, strolling up. “They stiffed me, too.”

I must've seemed confused because she kept explaining. “When the little guy got thrown out, the whole rest of the lot followed behind him like yard dogs following the supper dish. Their boss over there made 'em all go home,” she said, nodding to where Mickey Rhodes sat with Vincent.

“It shouldn't be much longer,” he was saying to Vincent as I approached their table. “And you can take that to the bank.”

“All's I want to take to the bank,” Vincent replied, his jaw muscle twitching, “is the money.”

I should've stopped myself, but impulse control is not my long suit. I had crossed the room and was standing by their table before I'd thought about what I was going to say. So I wound up standing there like little Joey Romano the time his mama chewed him out in the street for stealing an apple off a cart down at the Italian market in South Philly. He'd just stood there, his mama wailing on him, with this goofball, quasi-nonchalant look on his face, like maybe every kid gets his ass whipped in the street by his mama at age eleven. I had the same expression on my face now, I just knew it.

Vincent only looked up when he saw Mickey had stopped listening to him and had turned his attention to me.

“What, Sierra? What? I'm busy here.” Vincent puffed out his chest like maybe he was really important. He was doing it for Mickey's benefit, but Mickey couldn't see past the tips of my 38DDs.

“Where are the boys?” I asked, looking only at Mickey, like maybe he was gonna get lucky if he told me.

Mickey squeaked and found his voice. “I sent those animals back to Wewa. I saw how they were acting and I apologize for them.”

I leaned over, resting my hands palm down on the tiny table, and stuck my chest as close to his face as possible without asphyxiating him.

“That's too bad,” I purred. “I was hoping to talk to them.”

“You were?” Mickey seemed shocked. “A lady such as yourself ought not trouble herself with morons!”

I let my face droop down into a look of deepest sorrow. “Aw, I guess you can see right through me, Mr. Rhodes.”

“Mickey, call me Mickey,” he gasped.

“Mickey, if the truth be known, one of the girls was just telling me how close Meatloaf was to my dearly departed friend Ruby. I just thought maybe if I talked to him, it would relieve some of the pain we're both in.” A little tear rolled down my cheek, prompting Mickey to reach for a handkerchief and offer it to me. He looked uncomfortable with my distress, and I couldn't blame him. I was doing my best to seem inconsolable.

“Sierra,” Vincent sighed, “this ain't hardly the time—”

“Eh, bite me, Gambuzzo!” I snapped, completely blowing the moment I had worked so hard to create. Vincent jumped up out of his chair, Mickey along with him. Vincent was looking to hurt me and Mickey to defend my honor should it actually come to blows.

I stared at Vincent and he stared right back just as hard. We were both breathing heavily. In fact we were all breathing heavily, but Mickey was panting for another reason altogether. In that tense minute, I remembered that it wouldn't do to lose my cool right now.

“Screw it!” I snapped finally, and seemed to give in. “It's the grief. I'm overwhelmed.” Vincent appeared to be considering publicly humiliating me when I was at my weakest, so I added, “But what with Ruby dying and me having company from Cape May”—I looked straight into Vincent's eyes, indicating that he should know Moose had sent in his henchmen—“I just can't be held responsible for my emotions.”

Mickey sighed and reached out to pat my arm. Vincent looked downright frightened, because at that moment his wanna-be mobsterism was encountering the possibility that the real thing was in town.

“Whatever.” Vincent gave up.

“However,” Mickey replied, “however I can be of service.”

I bent my head over Mickey's handkerchief and turned away. “I'll be all right,” I said. “These things just take time.”

The music started up, Marla skipped out onstage, and I was forgotten. Wherever Meatloaf was and whatever he knew, it wasn't going to be discovered by me tonight. Tonight was a dead loss, except for the wad of money I'd collected off the dirt track dummies.

Seventeen

I was tired. My feet ached. All I wanted was a good night's sleep. It was all I could think about—the way my sheets would feel against my skin, the hum of the central air, the darkness of my room. It was stupidity at work in its most elemental form.

In Philly you learn: Don't go out and not watch the street. Don't walk across a dark parking lot to your car thinking about anything but who might be out there and what you'll do if they confront you. You stop thinking about that, and eventually, some wise guy'll try and make you a victim, and it'll happen sooner rather than later.

I was standing by the Camaro, my key in the lock, when I heard him coming up on me fast, running. The damn key wouldn't come out of the lock. I was disoriented because my mind had been wandering. I couldn't even get to my Mace. He was on me before I could move, slamming me against the side of the car, throwing something over my head, and pulling me to the ground.

“Son of a bitch!” I yelled, my voice muffled by the thick fabric over my head.

“Shut the fuck up!” he growled, his voice thick. “Feel this?” Something round and hard pressed into the small of my back. He had a gun.

I nodded. My throat tightened as my heart threatened to burst through my chest. It was hot and close under the blanket. I couldn't breathe. I was going to suffocate.

“I brought you something,” the voice said. “Something to make you think.”

I waited for him to hurt me, knowing that I couldn't get away.

He was winding something around me: a rope. He pressed it tighter as he pulled it in and knotted it.

“You ask too many questions,” he said. “Let the dead rest. It ain't got nothing to do with you.”

I bit my lip hard to keep from crying out. He shoved me against one of my tires, pushing himself away from me. Where was Bruno? Why wasn't he out in the lot? He was almost always outside at closing time, making sure we got to our cars safely.

My assailant kicked me then. Right in the ribs, knocking the air out of my chest, leaving me dry-heaving as I lay on the warm asphalt. Son of a bitch. Then I heard him leave, heavy footsteps running across the lot, toward the thin ring of oleander bushes that divided the Tiffany's parking lot from the endless string of tattoo parlors and strip-mall stores.

I lay there, waiting for the air to return to my lungs, struggling to move my arms out of the rope that bound them, and finding I was making progress. The rope rolled upward as I freed myself and pulled the thick fabric away from my head. With one final tug, I jerked free and cool. Beach air filled my starving lungs.

I sat there, gasping, staring at the drab olive-green wool blanket that the creep had used to cover my head. At my feet lay a Barbie doll, naked, one breast severed crudely and red fingernail polish dripping down her body to resemble blood. In one hand, Barbie held the head of a small brown dog, just like Fluffy.

A warning or a promise? I sat there, leaning against my car, still too weak to move, holding the Barbie doll.

“You rotten bastard,” I gasped out into the darkness. “I'm going to find you. You got Ruby, but you ain't gonna get me.” I eased myself slowly to my feet, gathered up the blanket, the rope, and the doll, and tossed them all into my backseat. My entire body was shaking.

“Yeah, you go on and hide in the darkness. You sneak up on people smaller than you and take them when they're not looking, when they're feeling safe. You just go on and do that!” I could hear my voice sounding shrill, bordering on hysteria. “But watch your back, you miserable lowlife, 'cause I'm coming.”

Fat lot of good it did me, saying that out loud to the darkness. Chances are he was far away by now, hiding from us all. It didn't really matter. Those words were what picked me up off the ground and reminded me of who I was. I was a Lavotini and Lavotinis don't run from bullies. They may regroup, they may call in their brothers to help, but a Lavotini doesn't stand by and let her friend's murderer go free.

Ruby's killer had just made a serious mistake. He had sought to frighten me off with intimidation and had instead given me that false sense of courage that comes from intense rage. It was time to call in the big guns and quit eatin' shit.

I jumped into the driver's seat and chirped the tires as the Camaro screamed out onto Thomas Drive. I should've gone back inside. I should've told Vincent or called a cop or anything other than what I was doing now. But I couldn't stop myself. I was shaking and driving too fast. Besides, what good would it do to tell the cops? I'd only end up reading about it in the paper. Hell, that's probably what had gotten me roughed up: the newspaper article that named me as an eyewitness. And now that I thought about it, maybe Roy Dell and the boys hadn't screwed up my car. Maybe someone had done it on purpose.

I was talking, loud, with the window open and the wind fighting to shove the words back down my throat. I talked and screamed my way across the Hathaway Bridge, past the used-car lots and cheap hotels that line Fifteenth Street, past the police department where who-knows-what was going on.

“And I don't see you people doing anything except putting my life in more danger,” I yelled out as I drove past.

I cut through side streets, winding my way to the Lively Oaks Trailer Park. It was completely dead, a rarity for a trailer park, even at three
A.M.
Here and there a streetlight lit up the trailers, reflecting off the taillights of the cars that sat still on their parking pads. I saw eyes everywhere, staring out of the darkness, watching me. Now I was acting hyper-vigilant.

Two huge glowing eyes stared at me as I pulled up onto my parking pad and cut the lights. Fluffy. Her entire body radiated disapproval. Where have you been? she seemed to say.
They
are still here.

“I know, girl,” I said, climbing the steps slowly, clutching my side with one hand and reaching out to her with the other. “But we need family right now. We're gonna need all the help we can get.”

Fluffy sighed and pushed through the doggie door, not waiting for me to unlock the door and step inside. Fluffy had her pride after all. She didn't think we needed anybody's help.

“Wonder where you got that attitude?” I muttered into the dimly lit kitchen. Ahead of me, Fluffy sighed again loudly, walking on toward the bedroom, her sharp little claws clicking across the parquet floor.

Eighteen

It was not even fully light outside when I convened the first meeting of the War Council. Fluffy, disdainful of the whole idea, had chosen to sleep in, racked out on her satin pillow at the head of my bed. But Ma and Al were overjoyed to be included. All right, so maybe the word
overjoyed
is a bit strong, but they were both in the kitchen, sitting at the table, thick white mugs of Italian roast in their hands.

I don't know how Raydean got in on the Council. I long ago quit trying to figure out how she knows when something's about to kick off. She just appears. Call it a psychotic's sixth sense, or call it paranoia, if you will. Whatever the extrasensory perception, Raydean had appeared just after I turned on the kitchen lights and flicked the switch on the coffeemaker.

Ma was bleary-eyed, her hair still in little yellow plastic curlers and her pink-flowered flannel bathrobe pulled tight around her midsection. She insisted on baking cinnamon rolls from scratch, but used the cheater's ingredient: quick-rising yeast. To her, it was almost a cardinal sin. In order to serve the very best, one must slave and suffer. Quick-rise didn't offer enough pain to produce truly good rolls. From the look on Al's face, it didn't matter. A roll is a roll to Al. But then, he's a cop. They never watch what they put in their mouths.

Raydean came prepared. For what, I don't know, but she was prepared for any and all circumstances. She wore a clear plastic rain hat and carried an old-lady purse in her left hand and a shotgun in her right. Her floral house dress was rumpled, its pockets bulging with tissues, and because this was an important meeting, she wore white ankle socks over her standard knee-high hose. I figured she was coming up on time for her Prolixin shot down at the mental health center. In fact, we might be walking a thin line between time for the shot and past time for the shot. The gun was a sure sign that Raydean was losing touch with reality and expecting an alien invasion by the Flemish.

The four of us sat at the table, a plate of Ma's steaming rolls between us, discussing strategy.

“I don't like this,” Al mumbled, his mouth thick with cinnamon roll.

I rolled my eyes. He kept insisting that we call the cops to let them handle this.

“Al, this ain't Philly. This ain't one of your APE cases. There is no acute political emergency about a stripper gettin' whacked at a dirt track. Panama City doesn't have the manpower to pursue it—”

“What?” Al boomed. “What? To pursue it like you can, Sierra?”

“Yeah,” I said, but he knew I was bluffing.