Tipsy (15 page)

“
Blue?” It was more of a
whisper than anything. I blinked, wondering if perhaps I was still
dreaming.

He stopped but kept his back turned. I
didn’t have to see his face to know it was him. My heart was
practically clawing its way out my chest to get to him. No one else
affected me that way. No one.

“
I shouldn’t have come so
late,” he said, his voice low.

“
I don’t care what time it
is.”

His shoulders slumped, just ever so
lightly. I only noticed because everything in me was focused on
him. It was almost like he was relieved I opened the door, relieved
that I would welcome him inside.

“
C’mon. It’s cold outside,”
I told him, trying to open the door wide, but the chain stopped it
from moving. I rolled my eyes at myself and closed it, quickly
removing the lock. When I reopened the door, I stumbled back a bit
because I wasn’t expecting Blue to be so close.

He was in the doorframe, his broad
chest inches from my face. After recovering from my initial shock
from his closeness, I looked up and gasped.

He looked like hell.

14

Blue

A couple weeks since I saw Julie. A
couple weeks of slumming with people I really didn’t like.
Bullshitting and waiting for Dom to really accept me into the crew.
I still felt like I was an outsider waiting to be invited into an
exclusive clique.

It wasn’t a position I reveled in. In
fact, I hated it. The real me was the kind of person who didn’t
necessarily care what other people thought of me. I was never the
type to try to fit into a certain crowd or group. I was who I was,
and trying to be anything else was a waste of time.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t be the real
me right now. I had to be Gray. Apparently, Gray was the type of
guy who waited around for an invitation.

I could see the logic in that,
especially in this line of business. Just like in the corporate
world, there was a hierarchy to drugs: the big man who ran the
operation, the supplier, the area bosses, and then the minions who
worked for them.

But being someone’s bitch wasn’t my
style. It was annoying. It was vaguely pathetic, and I wasn’t
pathetic. I certainly wasn’t going to let Gray be pathetic
either.

In the past two weeks, I’d barely made
any headway in this case. Things started out strong the night of
the club, but after that, Dom didn’t really say much. He made no
invites, no inquiries. I was certain he asked around about me in
Myrtle Beach because Slater told me. He couldn’t have been told bad
things because he wouldn’t tolerate me hanging around with some of
the crew and showing up at the clubs they frequented.

So what was the deal?

Push.

Something whispered in the back of my
head. The Gray in me said it was a bad idea, but everything else
seemed to come up with a badass plan.

The night that went well was the night
I acted like Blue. Challenging Dom, getting in his face, using my
fists and basically ordering everyone to keep their hands off
Julie. He responded to that, to the action, to my hands-on
approach.

Sitting around wasn’t going to get me
anywhere with Dom. Action was the solution, so I climbed into the
Mustang and put it in drive.

As far as I could tell, Dom lived
alone, but there were always people at his place. There was always
more than one female there as well. He lived in a one-story brick
house, not really in the heart of the ghetto, but more on the
outskirts. In my opinion, he chose that place because it was nicer
than what the rest of us had and it made him feel like a king
ruling over his subjects. The guy had a major ego
problem.

However, his place wasn’t so far that
he wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on what was going down in his
neighborhood.

I parked at the curb and got out,
jogging across the half-dead lawn, and pounded on the front door.
It swung open and one of the crew members, Tony, stood blocking my
path.

I motioned with my chin. “What up,
Tony?” I said and held my fist out for a pound. He regarded me
suspiciously for a moment, but then he returned the pound and
motioned for me to enter the house.

Even though it was the middle of the
day, the place was shut up like a tomb. Curtains covered the
windows, and the only light was from a floor lamp sitting in the
corner of the room. Dom was sprawled out on a black leather couch,
holding a controller to an Xbox as he and a few guys played some
bloody war game on the large flat screen.

No one paid me any attention as I
walked into the room, which was filled with marijuana smoke, and
the scent made my nostrils burn. How anyone smoked that shit was
beyond me. There were a bunch of open forty containers on the
coffee table, and I held back a snort. Nothing like getting drunk
and high in the middle of the day instead of actually getting a
real job. One that didn’t kill people with overdoses.

“
What’s up, Dom?” I said,
stopping behind the couch and pretending interest in the Xbox
game.

He ignored me.

A flash of irritation slapped my
insides. I had enough of this shit. I worked on this case for
months in Myrtle Beach and we got nowhere. I came home, thinking I
could finally get my life back. I got a second chance with Julie,
and then this case got in the way again.

I stalked around the couch and across
the room, toward the game console. With a very angry and deliberate
jerk, I yanked the cord from the wall. The TV screen turned blue as
the game system shut off.

The silence in the room was
deafening.

I could feel the anger wafting off Dom.
“What the hell!” he roared, throwing the controller down, and it
bounced off the coffee table and hit the floor. He jolted to his
feet, an angry set to his jaw and fisted hands at his side. “You
trying to piss me off?”

“
I’m tired of waiting
around,” I replied.

“
Excuse me?”

Everyone in the room sat tense and
waiting to see what Dom would do.

“
You said there was an
opening in the crew. You said you were going to check me out, give
me a position. That was weeks ago. I’m tired of waiting. I need to
get paid.”

He regarded me stonily for several
minutes. I held my ground. Shit, I would love for him to charge me.
I was up for a fight. Frustration simmered just underneath my skin,
and the more time that passed, the harder and harder it was getting
to contain it.

“
I checked you out,” he
said, offering no other explanation.

“
Well, then I know damn well
you know I’m qualified.”

“
You’re qualified.” He
allowed.

“
Then what the fuck, Dom?
You trying to jerk me around? You want to see how far you can push
me?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. He
looked stupid in his way-too-baggy shorts and too-big designer
white tee. I would never understand the trend to wear a baseball
hat crooked either. It looked stupid.

“
The crew in Myrtle Beach
might trust you. But I don’t.” His eyes narrowed as he
spoke.

“
Isn’t LeBraun your boss?
Are you saying what’s good enough for him ain’t good enough for
you?”

A couple guys who’d been reclining
against the couch jumped to their feet. Dom held up his hand like
he was telling them to stand down. I wanted to roll my
eyes.

“
This is my territory,” Dom
began. “And I run it how I see fit. If I don’t trust you, then I
don’t trust you.”

“
So that’s it, then? I’m
out?” I kept a lid on my cool. Showing how upsetting this was
wouldn’t be good. Mentally, I was kicking myself. This could end
badly. I could blow everything I’d been setting up. This could be a
real setback for the case. Watson would have a shit fit if I told
him I pissed off the crew here.

Maybe I should have listened to Gray on
this one instead of listening to what my gut was telling
me.

When Dom didn’t say anything else, I
muttered a nasty expletive and then stalked to the door.

“
Gray,” Dom said before I
got there.

I stopped. “What?” I spat.

“
You want my trust? You
gotta earn it.”

Boo-yah! I mentally high-fived myself.
I was kickass.

“
How do you want me to do
that?” I asked, trying to sound like I was bored.

“
Do a job for
me.”

My stomach revolted. Selling drugs to
people wasn’t what I wanted to do. Yes, it was part of a bigger
plan to get those drugs off the street, but selling them to anyone
and adding to the problem I was trying to clean up felt
wrong.

But I would do it if I had
to.

“
What kind of
job?”

“
I got a shipment that needs
to be delivered to Myrtle Beach.”

Something inside me relaxed, and I
swung to face Dom. “You want me to deliver it?”

I could set up a sting. I could
confiscate the drugs and we could take them all down for
trafficking. This was good. Real good.

“
No,” Dom said, cutting into
my mental happy dance.

Well, damn. “Then what?”

“
I need a delivery
vehicle—one that won’t look shady—to transport the shipment.
Something that won’t catch the eye of the po-po.”

Po-po = police.

“
Everyone in this room has a
car.” I pointed out. “I’ll drive it down in my Mustang.”

“
You ain’t got enough room
in your backseat for the goods,” he said.

I perked up a little. So this was a
major haul. These assholes were going away for a long
time.

“
We don’t use crew cars for
this shit, man. The less connected we are the better.”

“
So you want me to steal
something,” I said, understanding what he was getting
at.

“
You do that. Do it without
getting caught, and I’ll let you make the delivery.”

Slater, who’d been making out with some
blonde in the corner until this point, looked up. I ignored the
fact he was looking at me. I wondered what he was
thinking.

“
You gonna pay me for the
delivery?”

Dom smiled. It was a cold and
calculating smile. “You’ll get a cut.”

“
Consider it
done.”

“
Gray,” Dom said.

I looked back.

“
Don’t fuck this up. I only
give one shot.”

Little did he know this was my one shot
to take him down, and one shot was all I was gonna need. “I’ll be
back in a couple hours.”

Dom seemed surprised. “You’re doing it
now?”

“
Time is money,” I
said.

“
Slater, go with him.” Dom
ordered. “Watch him.”

Slater untangled himself from the
blonde and followed me out the door. We didn’t speak until we were
both shut in my Mustang and pulling away from the house. Slater
glanced at me with a smirk. “Tired of waiting around?”

“
Fuck,” I said. “I don’t
know how you do this shit. How long you been under?”

“
I stopped counting a long
time ago,” he said, low. Something about the way he said it made me
wonder how much of himself he’d lost along the way.

“
One shot,” I said, bringing
us back to the topic at hand.

“
Better make it
good.”

“
I can do better than good,”
I said and pulled out my cell phone I used when I needed to contact
the department. I hit a button and a few minutes later spoke into
the other line. “It’s Markson,” I said when Watson picked up his
end.

Slater looked at me and
smiled.

“
I need a tow truck and a
junker on the back of it,” I told Watson.

“
Where?” he said, not
bothering to ask me too many questions. He would never ask me
unless the situation was dire. He had no way of knowing who was
within earshot and what angle I was working.

I rattled off the name of a street
across town.

“
I’ll have it there in an
hour.” Watson confirmed.

I hung up. “We got an hour. Want to
grab something to eat?”

Slater laughed. “Hell yeah.”

I drove to the nearest drive-through
and pulled into the line.

“
A tow truck?” Slater
asked.

I nodded. “I figured I could sell it to
Dom as being cop proof. Cops don’t usually look twice at tow trucks
on the interstate. Those guys are just doing their jobs, hauling
damaged cars to the junkyards and service centers.”

“
The supply can go inside
the car its hauling,” Slater said, nodding.

“
Exactly. Keeps it out of
the cab with the driver. Plus,” I added as I drove one car length
forward, “it will just look cool I had enough balls to ‘steal’ a
frickin’ tow truck in the middle of the day.”

“
What would you have done if
Dom had sent someone besides me with you?” Slater asked.