Two for Flinching (16 page)

“Tell her I’ll be by.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I picked you up coming out of the grocery,
figuring you might need backup.”

“And then stood safely back while I battled
two gangstas.”

“Battled.” Nero giggled. “Gangstas.”

Quin moaned. Trey remained still.

Nero said, “I’m guessing it didn’t go so
good.”

“It went fine.”

Nero held out his hands.

“If it went totally to shit,” I said, “it
would’ve been Jajuan.”

“Why I was following.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s all this?”

Quin rolled over on his back.

“Trey put his hands on me.”

“Ah. Hope he learned the error of his
ways.”

“I doubt it.”

***

Blondie came running at my entrance, sniffed
my hand and galloped back into the den. Erin was in my chair,
textbooks and notepads balancing precariously on the armrests.
Sarah was on the couch, in her princess pajamas, her hair still
damp from her bath, the dog now nestled peacefully at her feet.

“Hey, daddy.”

“Hey, baby.” I bent to kiss the top of her
head, smelling the shampoo and the scent of her simple innocence.
“What are you doing?”

Her eyes never left the screen. “Watching
Alvin and the Chipmunks.”

“Again?”

“Yep.”

“How was school today?”

Sarah didn’t answer.

“Baby?”

She blinked, finally looking at me.
“Huh?”

I gave her my stern face.

“Sir?”

“How was school?” I repeated.

“Good.”

I squeezed into the other end of the couch.
“No problems?”

“Nope.”

“No timeouts?”

“Well.” She went into defense mode. “There
was one small problem.”

“What was it?”

“Courtney had my toy and wouldn’t share.”

“And you took it from her?”

“Uh huh.”

More stern face.

“Yes sir.”

“And the teacher put you in timeout?”

“Yes sir. Not for long, though,” she quickly
added. “Courtney is not my friend anymore.”

“Honey, just because someone doesn’t give you
what you want doesn’t mean they’re not your friend.”

“Okay. She can be my friend tomorrow.”

“Good. Glad that’s all settled.”

Sarah went back to the movie she had seen a
thousand times.

Erin said, “Uncle Bees?”

“Ma’am?”

“I was thinking about going home this
weekend. Is that a problem?”

I did a quick mental rundown of my schedule.
Wide open.
Too
open. “Nope. That’s fine.”

“I’m going to leave Thursday afternoon.”

“What about Friday’s classes?”

“Cutting ‘em.”

“Oh.” There was probably some sort of adult
advice I should give her, but couldn’t come up with it. Not after
all the classes I had skipped. “You taking Scott home to meet the
family?”

Erin shot me a look, the look I had gotten
maybe a million times from her mother. “I’m going to my room to
study. You got this?”

I grinned at her. “Sure.”

She gathered her books in her arms. “Good
night.”

“Erin?”

“What?”

“I love you.”

She shook her head. “You too.”

And I settled in to watch a movie I had seen
a thousand times.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Hello.”

“What have you done now?”

“Can you be more specific?”

“The Jenks divorce. What else have I had you
working on?”

“Uh…what do you mean?”

“I just got off the phone with Cynthia and
she wants me to put everything on ice.”

“The divorce is off?”

“No, not yet. She told me to put it on
hold.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem for you. I
thought lawyers loved to drag things out.”

“Normally, I would agree. I think she is
getting cold feet.”

“Maybe she still loves him.”

“We were all set to make some serious coin on
this, Beason.
Both
of us.”

“I doubt you’ll have any problems making the
mortgage.”

“Probably not. But the missus was all set on
redoing the kitchen.”

“What can you do?”

“Love, Beason? Really?”

***

Bo looked up, saw me coming, buzzed the lock
and went back to his paper. It had to have been a really
interesting article to keep him from our repartee. I went up the
stairs and down the hall. Randy and Larry were huddled together at
their desks.

Randy said, “What do you want?”

It’s good to be missed.
“How you boys
doing today?”

“Terrible. And it just got worse.”

“That’s great.” I took a visitor’s chair on
the other side. “You got time for a couple of questions?”

“No.”

“What’s the latest with Jeremiah?”

Larry said, “That was your problem.”

“
Was
being the key word. Why haven’t
you put him away yet?”

“Because he isn’t causing us any
problems.”

“Huh. I went to the Bottoms and it doesn’t
look as if it has changed much.”

Randy carefully set the manila folder on his
desktop. “Jeremiah has consolidated his power base since you got
canned. He’s the only shot caller left down there. There is nobody
for him to kill.”

“So what? You giving him a pass on all the
dope he’s moving?”

Randy made a face. “Of course not. But things
are stable and when he goes down, there will be another war to take
over the top spot. Jeremiah is not a…priority.”

“Ah.”

Larry said, “The murder rate down there has
plummeted. It didn’t hurt that your boy Nero left town.”

“Nero is back.” As soon as I let the words
go, I regretted it.

“What?” Randy said, instantly alarmed.
“When?”

“A couple of weeks back.”

Larry shook his head. “Trouble on the way.
Jeremiah know?”

“I’m sure he does, but Nero isn’t going after
him.”

Randy said, “Why not?”

“Nero has no interest in…organization. He’s
moving on to something else.”

“That’s what concerns me.”

Larry said, “Where has been anyway?”

“Afghanistan.”

“Don’t tell me he joined the Army.”

“No. He was doing something else.”

“Security? Like working for Blackwater?”

“Something like that.”

***

The gym was empty. Randy had told me—years
ago—that shooting basketball alone was like meditation for him. I
knew exactly what he meant, being alone, doing something physical,
something you were comfortable with, gave you a chance to think, to
clear your head. I didn’t pick up a ball.

I assumed the ready stance and slowly went
through the twenty-seven movements, Yoshikai’s building block kata.
I moved from that to the Chon-Ji, the seed form, Tae Kwon Do’s
initial white belt form. You might not think punching, kicking and
blocking would help you find peace, but it was perfect for me.

My father was right. I had always enjoyed
fighting. Win, lose, or draw didn’t matter. It fed something inside
me. Something I teased with martial arts, the form, the sparring,
the competition, but nothing like an actual confrontation. The
Rangers channeled it, the training, the shooting, jumping out of
airplanes. War had been my opportunity to let it loose.

I had never been so in my element than when I
was in Afghanistan.
Here is your target, boys.
Seek and
destroy. And take pictures of the corpses if you have a chance so
we can cross them off the list. Bullets flying, adrenaline pumping,
blood flowing, it was what I was put on Earth to do. And once out,
that genie did not want to go back into the bottle.

Those skills did not translate well to the
civilian world. To say the least. I thought law enforcement would
be the best fit. Maybe it was, but it didn’t fit well. I had gotten
out of patrol as fast as I could. Too much like Iraq, but so, so,
different. I wasn’t afraid of the Bottoms. I was afraid
for
the Bottoms. Riding a Humvee, machine gun in hand, danger was
everywhere. Every piece of road debris a potential IED. Every
civilian a potential suicide bomber. Every roof a sniper’s roost.
You’d give the halt command twice—
Halt! Halt!
—and if they
kept coming, you dropped them. No questions asked.
Sorry, buddy,
nothing personal, but I don’t want to die today.
When the crazy
Americans started yelling, you stopped and didn’t move. Friendly
shootings plummeted and the real bombers soon stood out.

Driving the Bottoms put me back in the war
zone. It wasn’t a war zone that recognized
Halt! Halt!
That
you were seconds from death. It terrified me. Scared to death that
I would be standing there with a smoking .45 after a double tap and
some poor kid dead in the street. The nightmares kept me awake at
night. I was on the verge of resigning when the transfer to
detective came in.

Detectives had been better for me. More like
collecting intelligence than patrolling a war zone.
Here is your
target, boys.
Instead of taking pictures of a corpse, you took
a mug shot. Of course, we couldn’t round up a hundred guys and
interrogate them until something shook out. They got the Miranda
reading and a lawyer.

The politics, though, got the better of me.
Idiots abound in the military, but—for the most part—results were
what mattered the most. In the field, it was all that mattered. The
Indianola Sherriff’s Department didn’t work that way. Who you knew
was more important than what you did. Who you pissed off more than
anything else. I pissed off superior officers for my entire career
as a Ranger, but they understood one thing. I got results. And
aside from the not so occasional ass chewing, they left me alone.
It didn’t work that way in the civilian world and my failure to
adapt had been my undoing. That and an untimely remark by my
lieutenant.

Not that I was terribly disappointed. My wife
had just taken off with my partner and I could do without walking
into the department day after day. For the first time in my life, I
could do what I wanted when I wanted. How I wanted. The money,
however, was terrible and the work mind numbing.

Until something happened like last night.
Trey and Q had rubbed the bottle and the genie got a chance to poke
his head out. Now I was trying to shove him back in. I had to.

I had a daughter to rear.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Vanessa?”

“Yeah?”

“Did I wake you up?”

“No. I was just laying here asleep.”

“Sorry. I forgot you work nights.”

“Who is this?”

“Beason. Beason Camp. We met the other day at
the gym.”

“Right. Amber’s boy toy.”

“Uh, I guess.”

“What do you want, Beason Camp?”

“I need to ask you a few more questions.”

“Then you haven’t found her.”

“No. Have you heard from her?”

“No. Ask your questions. I’m drifting back to
dreamland.”

“Does Amber have any connection to
Louisiana?”

“Louisiana? Not that I know of. Why?”

“Some boys from there have popped up in the
investigation.”

“Who?”

“Clarence Starling. Amber ever mention
him?”

“No.”

“Anybody nicknamed Bird? Or Big Bird?”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“I wish. Um, one more thing and I’ll let you
go back to sleep.”

“What?”

“Was she involved with any other men?”

“Are you the jealous type?”

“You better believe it, but that’s not why
I’m asking. Someone told me she…played the field.”

“Steven would be my guess.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“Uh huh. You can rest easy. As far as I know,
you were the only one.”

“What about before me?”

“I doubt it. I can’t say for sure. I will
tell you that she was actively considering it. Before you. She was
looking to see what was out there. Sick of Steven’s shit, Amber
wanted to have some fun, some excitement in her life. She was
flirting with a doctor or two, but you’re the only one she
actually…did anything with. You’re the lucky one, Beason Camp.”

“Yeah. That’s me. The lucky one.”

***

The bell dinged as I pushed into the shop.
Mary, sitting in her chair, met me with wide eyes. “I haven’t heard
from her.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“I’m not sure what else I can tell you.”

“I’m not here to talk to you.”

Those wide eyes went to the other chair. “I’m
going to grab a coffee.”

No response. The bell jingled as she went
out.

I sat in one of the waiting chairs. A long,
tense, minute passed. Hannah kept the magazine between her face and
mine. Another minute.

The magazine dropped, only enough for me to
see her eyes. “What do you want?”

Must be the new universal greeting.
“Sign says walk-ins welcomed.”

“False advertisement.” The magazine went back
up.

I sat.

The magazine dropped to her lap. Hannah said,
“You’re not going to leave.”

“Not until I get a haircut.”

She reluctantly rose, shaking out the plastic
curtain. I took her place in the chair and she wrapped the curtain
around my throat. A little tighter than was needed. “How do you
want it cut?”

“Just a trim. No need to mess with
perfection.”

She grunted, making a few experimental passes
with a comb. “I’m not a miracle worker.”

“Of course, you are.”

The teeth dug into my scalp. The scissors
snipped and the hair began to fall un-gently to the floor.

“Hannah, I understand why you’re angry with
me.”

Snip.

“I wasn’t using you to help me on my case. I
could have done that with a phone call.”