Colorado 03 Lady Luck (36 page)

Dewey pressed his lips together again.

Walker shook his head then said, “You owe me
twenty-five large, Dew. You jacked me around for six weeks; you got
half of that to get it back. You don’t, I’ll find you.”

“Ty –”

“Make no mistake, I’ll find you.”

Dewey nodded and didn’t say a word. He knew
Walker would find him. He knew, they were tight or not, what Walker
would do when he did. He also knew to avoid that. So Dewey sometime
in the next three weeks would fuck over another fucking idiot to
get Walker’s payback. The vicious cycle of the life of a stupid man
addicted to fucking cards.

“I didn’t come empty, Ty. I got somethin’
for you,” Dewey offered.

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“Your tail is gone. Bad boys of Carnal PD
are convinced five years not breathin’ free, hot snatch you got at
home, you’ll do noth –”

He didn’t finish because his found his body
twisted, slammed against the lockers, his feet six inches off the
ground and Ty Walker’s big hand wrapped tight around his throat,
his face an inch away.

“You do not call my wife hot snatch,” he
growled into his friend’s face and Dewey instantly nodded as best
he could with Ty’s fingers curled around his throat, cutting off
his breath.

Ty dropped him and stepped back.

Then, knowing his point was made in a way
even Dewey understood it, he moved on. “Got eyes. I know I lost the
tail.”

And he did. Three weeks ago. Just after
Keaton saw top-to-toe the talent Walker had in his bed and the boys
assigned to tail and do the drive-bys of the condo took in planters
and deck furniture. They had eyes and ears everywhere. Walker and
Lexie at The Rooster, the Italian place in town, the Toyota
dealership. No doubt they looked into Lexie and no matter her
relationship with Rodriguez, their lives had never mixed and they
couldn’t do smack with speeding and parking tickets. She was
clean.

Message received was that Ty Walker was
cowed, moving on, keeping his head down and nose clean, not about
to fuck his future, especially since that future included Lexie and
he had no doubt they’d all had their look at Lexie.

It wasn’t a play, it was real. But seeing
the results, it was a play he should have thought of though, if he
did, he wouldn’t have gone for it thinking they wouldn’t be that
dumb.

Then again, he forgot they were
half-idiots.

And also, he had no idea he’d walk out to
the miracle that was Lexie.

“What I’m sayin’ is,” Dewey kept talking,
“word ‘round the Station, they’re convinced you’re movin’ on.
They’re leavin’ you be.”

This news was good but Walker didn’t
respond.

Dewey kept going. “Ty, they leave you be
then you can just…
be.
Haven’t seen
her, hear she’s somethin’. Got that, got a job, got your life back.
There’s only one year left on your sentence, one year you gotta
live on parole. More than a month a’ that is gone. Maybe signs are
sayin’ you should just
be
.”

“You do time?” Walker asked a question the
answer to which he knew.

“Yeah,” Dewey told him the answer he
knew.

“Was it fun?” Walker asked.

“Ty –”

“
You earned yours and it wasn’t fun, Dew. I
did not earn mine. Do not fuckin’ stand there and counsel me about
just
being
.”

His friend studied him then he repeated
quietly, “Ty, you push, they’ll push back.”

“Can’t push back if they’re paralyzed.”

“You think a dozen men the last twenty years
have not had your same idea, half of them brothers, you’re wrong.
They all got smacked down.”

“None of them were as motivated as me.”

This was true. He knew. He knew many a biker
or black man in and around Carnal had taken their hits from Arnie
Fuller and the Carnal PD. Knew they tried to hit back. Knew they
failed.

He also knew he was not them.

None of them were jacked near as badly.

Dewey studied him again then said, still
talking quietly, “I’ll keep ears and eyes open. Anything you need
to know, I’ll get word to you.” He paused then offered,
“Freebie.”

“No shit?” Walker asked and Dewey, being
Dewey, grinned.

Walker did not grin back.

Instead he reminded him. “Three weeks today,
Dew.”

Dewey’s grin faded, he nodded then he
replied, “Three weeks.”

Walker turned away and went to his workout
bag. Dewey disappeared back through the window. Summer, long days,
it was early evening, still light. Even so, no one would see Dewey.
He could be a shadow standing in the middle of a field at noon.
With that kind of talent at hand, him still getting tagged made him
all the more stupid.

Walker bent and grabbed his bag, moving out
of the locker room into the gym. The instant he hit it, he did a
scan. It was automatic. He clocked everyone there, knew who’d
arrived since he went to the locker room, who’d moved stations or
machines, in or out of rings. Years of playing poker successfully,
he’d learned to notice a shift of the eyes, a twitch of the finger,
the way a man would move the cards around in his hand or what it
meant when he didn’t considering what he would eventually turn
over. This served him well inside and he’d spent five years
polishing this skill, facial expressions, the set of shoulders, the
clench of fists, a man’s gait, his position in a room, in the yard.
Anyone sent down with half a brain used their time to hone this
skill or they didn’t last long. Seeing as Walker’s was already
amplified, he could read a man and gauge a room at a glance.

Second nature.

This freed him up to set the meeting and
the frustrations it caused aside. He had other contacts but
considering his first choice was Dewey, he wasn’t fired up to
connect with his second runner up. The other choice was, without a
tail, start digging himself. Risky and time consuming, time he’d
have to take away from Lexie, something he did not want to do. An
elevation in risk that could conceivably
take him away from Lexie,
something he
really
did not want to do.

Thinking about Lexie made his gait quicken.
Workout done. Pain in the ass meet with Dewey over.

Time to get home.

A home without Ella, Bessie and Honey.

The last two weeks had been insane. When he
told Tate that Lexie would want to pack it all in, he had not been
wrong. But she wasn’t the only one who wanted to pack it all in,
all four of those women didn’t want to waste a single breath.

So they didn’t.

This was good, it meant he could avoid the
meet with Tate. A meeting where Tate would try to take Walker’s
pulse, dig and see if Walker was up to something. Then expend the
wasted effort to try and talk him out of it. Then get pissed when
his effort was wasted.

Walker didn’t need that shit. Neither did
Tate. He owed the man his time and he’d give it to him and then try
to manage the meeting so feelings wouldn’t turn hard.

But he couldn’t say he wasn’t fucking glad
he’d had genuine excuses to delay.

These included Ella treating them all to her
“famous Texas chili”, shit so hot, Walker couldn’t taste the meat
or beans, just the heat. This started a contest for each of those
sisters to one-up themselves, something he could have saved them
doing since he hadn’t enjoyed Ella’s treat but he couldn’t exactly
say that, as much as he wanted to, so he didn’t.

Honey’s offering was worse. Thankfully the
bitch was dim so Lexie
and
Ella were able to draw her attention away while Bessie
confiscated plates and dumped vast portions of whatever the fuck it
was supposed to be in the garbage so they didn’t have to eat it.
Walker thought he’d have to go to bed starved but Lexie had snuck
down to the kitchen and made him sandwiches then came up with them
to tell him she’d run into Ella and Bessie doing the
same.

At this, she’d laughed herself sick. She’d
laughed herself sicker when she presented him with bologna and an
excuse of, “This was the best I could do, baby, Ella was
distracting Honey, I didn’t have time to do more.”

It was the first time since he was a kid and
learned better that he preferred bologna to the alternative.

Luckily, Bessie knew her way around the
kitchen. Her meat pie with cornbread topping was the shit.

When they weren’t cooking, Lexie had talked
him into taking them to The Rooster. And she’d talked him into
taking them to the Italian place then to Bubba’s. Further, Maggie
had thrown a barbeque in honor of their visit which meant they had
to go. The next week, not to be outdone, Laurie had invited them
all to dinner. He’d barely step foot at the top of the stairs
before Lexie was telling him he needed to get his ass in the shower
because they were off somewhere.

And even if they weren’t, the women latched
on and his time was full.

One night, they seated him at the island
with Lexie’s photo albums, ten of those fuckers. Clearly, she
hadn’t just discovered taking photos; his wife had made a habit of
it for two decades. They all stood around him, the best part being
Lexie standing behind him, tits pressed to his back, arm reaching
around to flip the pages, finger pointing to pictures, her body
moving against his as she giggled, pressing closer and circling his
chest with her other arm while she reminisced, sometimes she’d drop
her chin to his shoulder and go quiet as the other three shared
stories. And all four of them told their tales over photo albums
and they’d done it
for hours.

Through it, Lexie was having the time of her
life and he couldn’t say he wasn’t interested, seeing the pages
turn, seeing their lives in pictures, getting to know her family
and, as the photos passed by, watching his wife grow older, mature.
He wasn’t surprised to see she was a knockout from age fourteen,
she’d always had beauty but also there was no way to miss the
promise of what it would be when it ripened. Then the page would
turn and he’d see it ripen. It was exactly what he expected. And he
expected this because Rodriguez, who in the beginning with his
talent could have any pussy he wanted lie back and spread but he
knew, no matter the choice, nothing compared to what he had at
home.

She didn’t hide Rodriguez, quickly turn
pages he was in or skim over his photos, not from Walker, not from
her family. That was Lex. Nothing hidden. No bullshit. Rodriguez
was a part of her life, their lives and she didn’t feel there was a
reason to bury him. Walker guessed this was because he
was
buried, literally and that was
enough. He’d been a major component in her life, now he was gone.
That was it.

Picture night happened once but if he was
not dragging their asses to restaurants, the women in his house
could yammer and they did, sitting around the kitchen or on the
deck furniture, Lexie sipping beer, her girls sucking back
cocktails and, as with the pictures, they did it for hours. He
tried to make a point by sitting in front of a game but not only
Lexie but all of them would call out his name or come to the door
to the deck, tell him a story, share a joke, tell him what one of
them had just said. He didn’t have any desire to be in their hen
huddle but he couldn’t say the four of them weren’t fucking funny,
they were. Every last one. Including Honey. And the sound of their
jabbering and laughter, he had to admit, was far from annoying.

Deep in the second week, Tuku’s framed pen
and ink had been delivered. This night included him and Bessie
holding the frame up in various places in the living room while
Ella, Honey and Lexie studied it, fingers to faces, heads tipped to
the side, uncertain and directing them to move it somewhere else.
Walker tired of this about five seconds in, knowing exactly where
he wanted it. Bessie tired of it ten seconds later and started
throwing sass. She put up with about fifteen minutes more then
announced, “Ya’ll got two seconds to make up your minds, you don’t,
I carry this motherfucker to the deck and throw it over the
side.”

At that point, Walker’s patience and
politeness ran out, he took over and he had the frame mounted over
the sofa opposite the fireplace within ten minutes. Bessie
approved. Ella and Lexie shared grins. Honey declared she thought
it looked better over the fireplace.

On his Thursdays off, when Lexie had to
work, he was pressed into sightseeing duties. Hauling those bitches
to the Colorado National Monument the first Thursday, Lexie telling
them they simply
could not
return
to Texas without seeing it. But when he took them, they liked the
look of it and they did drag their asses out of the Cruiser to
clatter on their platform heels to a location where he could take
their picture with part of the Monument in the background. But then
they clattered right back. No hiking trail for them, no closer
look. Fuck, he wasn’t certain Honey could even spell “hiking
trail”. Then, with uncanny senses, they located a sushi restaurant
in Grand Junction like they could sniff the fucker out, dragged him
there and then spent a whole fucking hour in Enstrom buying enough
toffee and chocolate to supply most of Dallas.

His second Thursday, yesterday, was worse
because he took them to Aspen. There was shopping in Aspen. This
was not good, it was not fun and as hilarious as those bitches
could be, he did not find anything about that day funny.

When he told Lexie about it in bed last
night, she’d again laughed herself sick.

He had to say, he loved his wife’s laugh, he
loved hearing it but at that time, Walker didn’t even crack a smile
because he found not one second of his day funny.