Rock Chick 08 Revolution (7 page)

“I like you too,” I stated in a
defensive matter-of-fact way. “But I’m not ready—”

He cut me off. “No, Ally, what I’m
sayin’ is, I like you. And if all you got in you right now is casual, I want
more of you so I’ll give you that. But women say shit they don’t mean. I get
that they do it to protect themselves and mean it when they say it. Then they
get trapped in a place they created. This guy you had, you need time to get
over that, I get you gotta take it. I’ll also give it to you. But if the casual
we got shifts and you get stuck and don’t communicate with me the shift you
want, which means I hurt you when I have no intention of doing that…” He took
in a breath. “I like you and I don’t want that to happen. So I’ll take casual,
honey. Just as long as, along the way, you’re straight with me. And in return,
I’ll be straight with you.”

I could be straight.

Mostly.

I nodded and asked, “So, do we have
a deal?”

He smiled.

My heart again squeezed.

Then he answered. “Yeah, baby. We
got a deal.”

Chapter Three

Fucked Up As Love

Rock Chick Rewind

Two
months later…

I was sitting in another bar; not
like Club. This one was seedy and I didn’t like it.

But I was all over finding out what
the fuck was going on. I’d had an informant tell me she worked that bar,
although I didn’t know what “worked that bar” meant and only got the response,
“you’ll see,” so I was there.

Informants sometimes sucked. A lot
of time they were full of shit, and a lot of other times they got paid even
better than me. Fortunately, this wasn’t my problem. My “clients” coughed that
up.

But the case I was on was
confounding me.

Usually, I loved a bit of
confounding. Finding a piece, fitting it into the puzzle, making the picture
become clearer.

But with this chick, things never
came clear. They just got fuzzier. And it was annoying.

I didn’t get it.

But I would.

See, a friend of a friend of mine
came to me, needing my services. He’d talked to his girl and his girl told him
everything was a-okay.

But, according to him, she was
totally lying.

Since her family didn’t have any
money, he was saving up for the wedding of his girl’s dreams, seeing as he was
gone for her. So he couldn’t go to someone like Lee because Lee was seriously
pricey. But he was worried and he needed answers.

So my friend told him about me.

It was another boy/girl problem (most
of them were; more indication you shouldn’t get mired down in romance). This
time the girl had the boy’s diamond on her finger. She seemed into him;
completely in love, over the moon at the prospect of being married, but
dragging her heels in doing something about it.

Her behavior had also reportedly
changed. She’d disappear, sometimes for long periods of time. Not weeks, but
days and nights. She would also not return texts or pick up calls, and have
weak excuses about where she was and why she was incommunicado.

They didn’t live together; not yet.
This was because she was religious and wanted to wait until after marriage
(fishy, because who did that anymore?—especially when she was letting him bang
her; God could see all, so it wasn’t like she was pulling one over on the Big
Guy).

But the dude had the keys to her
place. He’d gone in when she wasn’t there and rifled through her shit, even
bills and bank statements. Nothing was amiss. There were no drugs. No empty
bottles of booze piled up in the recycling bin. No stockpiles of firearms and
explosives or blueprints of banks.

Nothing that he could see.

Enter me.

I didn’t do this for a living. I
didn’t do it for much of any payment. I spent my days in Fortnum’s, my nights
at Brother’s, and not too long ago, got caught up in the next Rock Chick drama.
This was my friend Stella’s big thing with another of Lee’s guys, Mace
(seriously? How were we all connected, most of us for years, and this shit was
happening
now?
).

That one got serious ugly with all
the Rock Chicks again on the line; drive-bys, couch mutilations, and Stella’s
apartment had exploded.

Yes.

Exploded.

Kaplowy.

Dust.

But now, as luck kept having it
(thank God), all was good (outside of all Stella’s belongings being blown sky high
and her being underinsured; but luckily, she’d just signed a recording contract
and landed her hot guy, so her future was bright) and as usual, we were moving
on while waiting for the next one up.

My guess, it would be Lee’s last
unattached guy, Hector. But there were bets (yep, the posse bet on this shit)
on me.

Not a chance.

I’d lived through six of these and
had intimate details. No way that shit was happening with me. Some over-the-top
macho guy forcing his way into my life, taking it over and bossing me around?

Unh-unh.

I didn’t care if it came with
regular orgasms. That shit was
not
for me.

But, the thing was; with Stella’s
situation, someone had leaked a lot of personal shit to the media about Lee,
Indy and the entire crew. The paper had done exposés on all of their romances
at the same time they followed Stella and Mace’s gig.

No one knew who leaked it, not even
Lee, who had ways of finding out everything.

I’d also used my growing network of
contacts to find out who the source was, but no one was talking.

It was weird. It wasn’t like it was
a state secret. But all lips involved were sealed, as in with super glue.

So I worked, spent time on finding
out who was talking about the Rock Chicks and did my other business. Not to
mention, I often hooked up with Ren so I woke up in his bed, or alternately he
woke up in mine, with more than a hint of frequency (in other words, nearly
every morning).

Therefore, I didn’t have time to
spend all of it following this woman. That meant it was about putting out feelers.
With limited time, I needed to pinpoint my activities. And information
sometimes came in slowly, especially about a girl who was not on the underworld
grid of Denver. She worked in admitting at St. Joe’s, went to church on
Sundays, had a Shih Tzu dog she doted on, a pastime of gardening (seriously,
her backyard was the bomb—I’d jumped the fence and looked) and loved her
fiancé.

Because I didn’t have the time, and
this case was so weird, I’d called in reinforcements.

With the promise of a six-pack of
Red Bull, a bottle of vodka and an entire afternoon of me at his place playing
some game on his PS3 (this, a sacrifice for me; I rocked Guitar Hero, the rest
of it I could take it or leave it—usually leave it), I’d talked my computer
genius friend Brody into digging into this chick. I wanted to see if there was
some electronic trail the fiancé couldn’t find rifling through her desk.

I also needed to learn how to pick
a lock. I wanted inside her place to see for myself. I’d bought a couple of
locks at the hardware store to examine them and try to figure them out, but I
hadn’t had time to do that.

Alternately, I hoped the chick
showed tonight and gave me some insight into why a good Catholic girl who loved
her dog, geraniums and worked at a children’s hospital would be coming to this
bar and giving lame excuses to her supposedly beloved fiancé about why she
wouldn’t pick a date for the blessed event.

This was on my mind when I felt
movement beside me.

I turned my head and saw Darius
sliding into my booth.

I didn’t know whether to take this
as a good or bad thing. Darius and I were tight so if he saw me out and about,
he wouldn’t hesitate to approach. He also worked for Lee, so he could be
anywhere at any time doing anything.

Then again, if he saw me out and about,
he’d never see me someplace like this unless a Rock Chick was on the line. But
we were currently in Rock Chick/Hot Bunch Downtime.

I led with, “Hey,” to get the lay
of the land.

He shook his head and grinned.

Darius was black, had twists in his
hair, soulful eyes, and the lean he had been when he was a drug dealer, which
had bordered on hungry-looking and mean, had filled out now that he left that
life behind. He looked healthier; not content but not angry, and his lean was
no longer mean. It was kickass edgy.

Then again, he’d always been hot.
Even when he was a drug dealer.

“Since it’s you, I’ve decided to
find this amusing rather than drag your ass outta here and tell you to get your
head out of it,” he declared.

I blinked.

Then I asked, “What?”

“Woman, you are not flying under
radar.”

I looked around the bar to see if
eyes were on me, particularly if the woman I was hoping to see there was there
and had, for some bizarre reason (since she couldn’t know I was looking for
her), made me.

“Not the bitch you’re after,”
Darius said, and I looked back at him. “Lee.”

Oh. That.

I didn’t care about that.

“I’m not doing anything illegal,” I
pointed out.

He ignored me and said, “And Hank.”

“So?”

He again ignored me and continued,
“And Eddie. And your dad. And Indy’s dad—”

I cut him off. “I get your point,
Darius. I just don’t know why you’re making it.”

“They’re letting you do your thing.
But you gotta know they’re beginning to get antsy about it.”

Uh-oh.

Letting
me do my thing?

Letti
ng?

I decided to let that slide since I
loved Darius and figured he didn’t mean anything by it (or I was giving him the
benefit of the doubt) and focused on something else.

“Why on earth would they be getting
antsy?”

“Because you aren’t stopping.”

Uh-oh again.

“Okay. Now tell me why they’d want
me to stop? Or maybe the better question is why they’re in my business at all?”

He turned and leaned closer to me
before answering, “I don’t know, Ally. Maybe it’s ‘cause you’re their sister.
Or as good as a sister, or a daughter, and they’re worried. Maybe it’s ‘cause
you’re untrained, which is why they’re worried. Maybe it’s ‘cause you’re out at
places like this and unarmed, which, if they knew you were here, they’d be all
kinds of fuckin’ worried.”

“I have a stun gun,” I shared.

“The last three years, this bar has
had four hits carried out in it,” he told me. “Bullets are flying, stun guns
aren’t worth shit.”

Fuck.

Four?

That was a lot.

Hell,
one
was one too many.

I knew this place was seedy.

Maybe I should have asked Brody to
do an electronic look-see into the location I was casing. I’d remember to do
that next time.

“Ally,” Darius called my attention
back to him. When he got it, he said, “I can tell by your face you aren’t
listening to me.”

“I am,” I returned. “I just think
you need to be straight up about what you’re saying.”

He leaned in closer and replied
quietly, “You have no business being here.”

“I have a friend who has a friend
he cares about who has a fiancée who, I’ve heard, is tied up in some business here.
He’s in knots about it. He loves her. And he can’t afford Lee. He can’t even
afford Dick Anderson.”

Dick Anderson was another local PI,
less expensive than Lee and his boys, also less talented. Though, a nice guy.

“So enter me,” I finished.

“Whatever shit she’s wound up in
here is shit you don’t want swirlin’ around you.”

I had a feeling he was not wrong.

“I’ll exit this situation shit
free. Promise,” I assured him blithely.

“You do not have the skills to do
that,” he contradicted me.

My back went up, but my attention
sharpened.

“Do you know the job I’m on?”

“Yeah,” he didn’t surprise me by
answering. He’d already mentioned “the bitch” I was after. “Brody spilled,” he
went on. “You pulled him in, gave him the name. He talked to me. When he did, I
decided it was time to stop delaying
our
talk.”

That Red Bull, vodka and gaming
session was exchanged for information
and
confidentiality.

If Brody got me good shit, he’d get
his Red Bull and vodka. But for this crap, I was so totally not spending the
afternoon with a joystick in my hand when I could spend it with Ren and a
better kind of joystick in my hand. Or in other parts of me.

Brody. God, such a big mouth.

“Ally,” Darius called again, and my
attention returned to him. “Focus, woman. What I’m saying is important.”

“What you’re saying
would
be important if you had info on
the woman I’m checking out.”

Darius stared at me.

This lasted a while.

I let him. I could be patient.

Or I could be patient for a while.

Luckily, I was able to be patient
for the while it took Darius to break his silence and mutter, “Stubborn.”

Told you Darius had known me a long
time.

“So,
do
you have info on this chick?” I pushed.

“No. Don’t know who the fuck she
is. What I know is that two kinds of women walk in those doors.” He jerked his
head to the door to the bar. “First kind is looking to score, and by that I
don’t mean get laid. I mean tweaker bitches too stupid and too desperate for
their fix to stay away. The second kind is looking to get laid, but if that
happens, they also get paid.”

I knew both. I hadn’t seen one
woman there, outside me, who was not one or the other.

Therefore, this gave me nothing.

“You don’t care,” Darius declared,
and I focused on him again.

“Care about what? I mean, you
aren’t telling me something I don’t know.”