Colorado 03 Lady Luck (16 page)

He decided to concentrate on putting the car
in gear rather than responding.

She opened her window, put on her music and
his torture began.

Two minutes later she told him she was going
to, “Die in five minutes if I don’t have coffee.”

He swung into a convenience store, they went
in and she bought a two-liter cup filled with joe and a pack of
breakfast Ding Dongs. He bought a cup of coffee about a quarter the
size of hers and a stale bear claw from the donut display. After
bite three, he decided he couldn’t deal with the stale and threw it
out his open window.

To this she snapped, “Ohmigod, Ty! What the
fuck?”

“It was stale,” he told the windshield,
trying not to smile because he’d learned from her tone which he’d
heard before that this was going to be good.

“So! You just littered.”

“It’s food so it isn’t litter.”

“You’re telling me food is omitted from the
official definition of litter?”

“Yeah.”

“All Knowing Ty Walker, also known by his
superhero alter-ego, Mr. Humongo has memorized the definition of
litter?”

Yep, he was right, this was good. Even
pissed, the bitch was funny.

“They make you do that kinda shit in
prison.”

“They do not.”

“Babe, five years in one building, they
gotta do something to keep us occupied.”

“You’re full of shit,” she mumbled, he
looked to her and saw her shove an entire Ding Dong in her
mouth.

Ding Dongs.

Christ.

Total goof.

They hit the highway, she jacked up the
music and he experienced the unusual desire to beg someone to drive
ice picks in his ears so he wouldn’t have to listen to it.

Then she started singing while sipping her
coffee, just like the day before, at the top of her lungs with
occasional car dancing.

And again. Total goof.

The country-rock song finally died and she
snatched up the iPod to consider his next agony.

“Baby?” he called and he felt her eyes on
him.

“Yeah?” she replied, her sweet voice soft,
another tone he was getting used to and this was because the last
couple of days it had started to come at him often.

“Do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“In a second, I’m gonna pull over, get out
my gun and give it to you. When I do, shoot me with it.”

“What?” she whispered.

“I’m facin’ another hour and a half of your
music. I’d rather be dead.”

Silence then, “Shut up.”

“No, seriously.”

A smile in her voice then a repeated, “Shut
up.”

He bit back his own smile.

Then he heard her say, “Actually, a pit stop
wouldn’t be amiss at this juncture.”

He glanced at her then back at the road.
“What?”

“I need to use the restroom.”

He sighed.

Two liter cup of coffee.

Jesus.

“We been on the road two hours,” he pointed
out.

“You are correct but that doesn’t change my
need to use the facilities.”

“Next time, you get a coffee the size of
mine.”

“I have a small bladder.”

She didn’t have a small anything, thank
Christ.

“You drank a two liter of coffee.”

“It was hardly two liters, Ty.”

“A liter and a half.”

“
Are you
trying
to be a pain in my ass?”

“No,” he straight out lied.

“
I’m rethinking my ‘I do’,” she muttered
and he grinned at the windshield not knowing his wife had her head
bent to her iPod selecting his next torment and missed it and also
not knowing she would have given
him
fifty K in order to see it.

Then straight on hillbilly music filled the
car and some had-to-be white man started singing about a man called
Amos Moses.

“Jesus,” he groaned and when he did, he
heard his wife giggle.

Since he was listening to hillbilly music,
he wasted no time finding a restroom for her but as he hit the exit
off the highway and Lexie bent to strap on the sandals she’d taken
off, he looked in the rearview mirror, saw the SUV follow and his
mouth got tight.

Bag of Bones had disappeared at the
Utah/Colorado border and the SUV had taken his place. Fuller’s
California connection was off-duty, the local boys had been sent
in.

They either expected him to make trouble,
they wanted to make trouble for him or they wanted to make a point.
No matter what the fucking reason, he didn’t like it.

He hit a gas station and decided to fill up
so as not to totally waste this waste of time so he guided the
Charter to a pump. He was angling out his side as Lexie folded out
of hers when his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, looked
at his display, flipped it open and put it to his ear.

“Tate, can you hang on a second?” he said
into it, eyes on Lexie strutting to the building.

“Yeah,” Tate replied.

Then he took the phone from his ear,
whistled, Lexie stopped and turned to him.

“Money,” he called across the fifteen feet
that separated them.

“I got it,” she called back.

“Money,” he repeated.

“Ty, I got it,” she repeated.

“Woman,” he growled and knew by the slight
upward shift of her chin she’d rolled her eyes to the heavens
behind her shades then she strutted to him.

He shoved his hand in his back pocket and
slapped some bills in the opened palm she’d stretched over the car
door.

Her fingers curled around it and her hand
moved away as she asked, “Do you want anything?”

“No, and you don’t either.”

Her head tipped to the side just as her hip
hitched the opposite direction.

“I don’t?”

He knew that tone too. It was the danger
tone.

“Lex, I’d like to get to Carnal before
Christmas.”

When he started speaking, her head jerked
for some reason and she waited a second before she responded.

“We’ll be there before Christmas.”

“Not if you drink another two liter of
coffee.”

“It wasn’t two liters, Ty!” she snapped
loudly.

“Just pay for the gas,” he ordered.

“We need snacks,” she informed him.

“We don’t need snacks.”

“
Okay, let me rephrase,
I
need snacks. We’re on a road trip. It’s a moral
imperative to have snacks, the worse for you, the better,” she
explained.

“Christ,” he muttered.

“Do you want anything?” she asked.

Had his wife been in another dimension the
last thirty seconds?

“You seriously askin’ that shit?” he asked
back.

She stared at him through her shades. Then
she decided out loud, “I’ll stock up, just in case.”

Then, before he could say a word, she
strutted away.

He put the phone to his ear to hear Tate
flat out laughing.

He waited for him to stop and then he waited
for him to talk.

And when he talked he said, “I fuckin’ love
this.”

Walker remained silent.

Tate didn’t. “You two take that show on the
road?”

“There a reason you’re callin’?” Walker
returned.

“Yeah, but first, with what I heard, I’m
guessin’ you’re on your way to Carnal.”

“You’d guess right.”

“How far out are you?”

“Depending on what snacks Lexie hauls back
to the Charger, we could be there in a coupla hours, we could be
there next week.”

“Good news,” Tate muttered through a
distracted chuckle.

“The reason you’re callin’,” Walker
prompted, moving to the gas cap.

“Right, how much time we got before she
comes back?”

“We’re in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere but
still, she’s in a building where there’s shit to buy so probably a
lot,” Walker answered as he jerked the nozzle out of the gas pump
and fed it into the car.

“Didn’t know you’d be home so soon so this
could wait but while I got you, might as well give you what I
got.”

Walker pressed the buttons on the pump, got
the zeroes on the display then pulled up the handle and set the
lever. Then he turned his back to the car and leaned into it,
scanning the area, finding the SUV, clocking the driver, clocking
that he knew the driver and controlling his blood pressure when he
saw who it was while saying, “Talk to me.”

“Last coupla days, got a lot of info on
Alexa Berry.”

“Walker,” he corrected automatically.

Silence then through an obvious smile,
“Walker.” Then, quietly, “Congratulations, man.”

“You sayin’ that means the shit you got
isn’t shit that’s gonna suck,” Walker noted.

“Opposite in regards to Lexie.”

Walker bent his neck, studied the toes of
his boots and listened.

Jackson spoke. “She’s got a juvie file.
Considering her history, not surprising. Nothin’ big. Vandalism.
Disturbing the peace. A couple of times picked up for shoplifting.
Started when she was around twelve, ended abruptly when she was
fourteen.”

Around the time Ella Rodriguez entered
Lexie’s life and gave his wife her first taste of having a
motherly-type woman who gave a shit.

“Right,” he muttered.

Tate went on, “Found out what happened after
the Granddad died, home for girls then foster care.”

Walker knew that so he didn’t respond.

He heard Jackson take in a breath. Then he
asked cautiously, “You remember that ballplayer Ronnie
Rodriguez?”

“I know about Rodriguez,” Walker told him as
he heard the lever disengage, he yanked out the nozzle and shoved
it back into the pump.

More caution with, “Lexie forthcoming about
his chosen profession?”

“Pimp. Drug dealer. Occupational status
changed when he took seven, two to the face.”

“She was forthcoming,” Tate muttered. “The
news I got for you, and it surprised the fuck outta me, I got a
call from a vice cop, Dallas PD. Don’t know this guy, didn’t ask
for the call. He heard I was snoopin’ and he called me wonderin’
why.”

Walker felt that barbed sensation at the
back of his neck and his eyes went back to his boots but he didn’t
see them. He was focused on Tate.

“What’d you tell him?” he asked.

“The truth,” Jackson answered. “That she
married a good friend of mine, that friend had been jacked in the
past and I was taking his back.”

“You give this cop a name?”

“No, considering his interest in your new
wife.”

The barbs pressed in.

“What’s this fucker’s name?”

“Detective Peña. Angel Peña.”

Fuck.

“You get a bad feeling about this guy?”
Walker asked.

“No, but she’s not my wife. She was then
fuck yeah.”

Fuck.

Walker looked from his boots to the horizon
still not seeing anything and he shared quietly, “She hasn’t
mentioned him.”

“Reckon she wouldn’t. Don’t think he’s on
her radar. But she sure as fuck’s on his. He’s taken an interest in
Alexa Berry now Walker. The good news is, this was a natural
progression seeing as he had an interest in Rodriguez before he
caught sight of your wife.”

“Explain,” Walker rumbled.

“He had a lot to say about Rodriguez. Gotta
tell you man, heard about her association with him, wasn’t pleased
to hear those two were paired and you were in Vegas marrying her.
That was until Peña called and gave me the full brief on Lexie,
who, by the way, he’s surprised as fuck to find out is in Vegas
gettin’ hitched.”

Walker didn’t like that. Not at all. Some
vice cop who knows Lexie enough to be surprised. Some vice cop who
hears someone asking around and gives a shit enough to pick up the
phone.

He didn’t fucking like it at all.

Tate continued, “He liked Rodriguez. Had a
lot to say about him and a lot of what he said was good.”

At this news, news that took him off guard,
Walker pulled in a deep breath but didn’t speak.

Jackson went on, “Said he didn’t get why
Rodriguez was in the game, never understood it. Talked to him
often. At first it was because he sensed Rodriguez would flip,
wanted to groom him to become a CI then he did it because he sensed
Rodriguez might straighten his shit out. They struck up a
relationship. Rodriguez gave him time but not info and during these
times Rodriguez shared he had a variety of pressure from his family
and his woman to leave that life. Peña took an interest in him,
sought out Lexie and tried to work with her to work Rodriguez.”

“He explain to you the interest?” Walker
asked.

“Yep. Called him an ace pimp, you believe
that shit though the way Peña said it, even after all this time,
sounded like he couldn’t believe that shit either. Peña said the
man treated his girls like gold. From the start, a john jacked them
up, that john got a visit. Another pimp tried to lean on them, that
pimp got a visit. He protected their turf, gave them a high
percentage of their take, they got roughed up or knocked up, he
took care of their medical bills and he never took freebies. Girls
all over Dallas leavin’ their men to join his stable, he took all
comers and beat back the pimps who came lookin’ for them. When he
died, far’s Peña knew, he had fifty-seven girls in his stable.”

Jesus. That was a lot of women.

And Walker was not feeling good hearing that
Lexie’s claims were true about Rodriguez. He’d convinced her
different. And apparently he’d been wrong.

Jackson kept talking. “Rodriguez and Lexie
told Peña that he steered clear of Lexie and when I say that I mean
they didn’t live together, never got engaged, she didn’t take any
of his earnings, most of the time they met it was on her turf so he
rarely brought her around his business. Not only didn’t she take
money from him, neither did his family. It was separation of family
and business, strict. This caused Rodriguez to be conflicted seein’
as he was doin’ that shit to provide for Lexie and his family. So
his main motivation for doin’ it wasn’t a motivation. This is what
confused Peña, seein’ as he kept doin’ it and, from what both
Rodriguez and Lexie told Peña, the pressure he was gettin’ to stop
was far from light. By his report, Lexie threatened to end it with
Rodriguez about once a week. How he talked her around, Peña didn’t
know but he did. And Peña was even more confused that he went down
and he went down not because of the girls but because of dope.”