Mine (6 page)

“Have Conrad get you one.”

“Okay.”

“Anything he has will be better, cleaner, than what I got.”

“Yes.”

“You have your knife, though.”

I cracked a grin, teasing him. “I always have a knife; I’m Cuban, man.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Gimme a break, your last name is Bean.”

“’Cause my father went for the Latinas even though he was a black man.”

He chuckled. “And where’s your father now?”

I tipped my head at him. “In heaven, watching over his boy.”

His brows furrowed. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

I shrugged. “Drunk drivers should just be taken out and shot.”

“Agreed.”

My eyes absorbed his face.

“I’ll see ya,” he said quickly, giving my shoulder a hard pat before he turned and walked away from me.

Ira, who never spoke, was suddenly in front of me, hand on my cheek for a minute before he followed after Gabe.

“Be careful, kid,” Francesco said when he reached me, slapping my face gently. “And I never meant anything when I hassled you. It didn’t mean shit.”

I knew exactly what Francesco wanted from me—if he could be certain no one would ever find out, if I would allow it, if it would stay between us. The way his eyes always slid over me, the sound of his breath when he leaned close, how often he teased me about sucking his dick. I knew. I wasn’t stupid.

“And if you need a piece, you call me. I’ll get you something untraceable, like the others.”

But Gabriel had already told me to ask Conrad, and I would have gone that route anyway. Francesco, regardless of what he said or tried to imply, was not my friend. He could not be counted on like the man who might one day, accidentally or purposely, kill me.

“I’m sorry Benji’s dead. I’m sorry about all of them. Make sure you call his folks, okay?”

I was startled and watched him as he left, jogging down the hall after Gabe and Ira.

“Mr. Bean?”

When I turned, there was a doctor, and he wanted to know how to get in touch with Benji’s family. I told him I needed my friend’s phone.

“I better get you some coffee,” Conrad said softly
,
appearing quietly at my shoulder, “’cause you’re gonna be up for a while.”

And of course he was right. He was always right.

Chapter 3

I
CALLED
Landry and told him what had happened, and it took everything in me plus Conrad getting on the phone to keep him from coming to the hospital. Landry was scared that whoever had killed the other runners was coming after me, but I reminded him of who exactly my guardian angel was and that Gabriel had told me that as long as I stayed out of sight, all would be well. Kady and his guys weren’t actively looking for me. They would just find me if I was hanging out in my usual haunts. No one was hunting me; it was more a question of opportunity, and even then, even if they found me, there was still Conrad to consider.

Landry didn’t understand, but he had met Conrad, so when the man said I was safe, he believed him.

My friend had excused himself at the hospital for a while, and when he returned, he reiterated Gabriel’s words to me and told me to lie low, steer clear of all the casinos and my regular clients. He promised that I would be fine as long as I didn’t try to conduct business as usual. It was a clash beyond my scope; I did not need to be involved. They had killed the runners to interrupt Adrian’s cash flow and that was it. As horrible as it was, if I stayed out of sight, no one was coming after me.

“Won’t the cops be all over this?” I asked Conrad. “I mean, he was murdered. Won’t there be an investigation?”

He shook his head. “You watch too much TV where everybody works and takes any death seriously. You have to realize, in the real world, with the way bodies pile up in any big city, no one is killing themselves to find out what happened to Benji.”

I nodded.

“If anything, they might go question Adrian if they can make the connection, but he’s careful, right? I mean, if anyone checks, you guys all work at his health club or some bullshit like that, right?”

“Yeah. Right.”

“So,” he shrugged. “Even if there is an investigation, you’ll never know.”

“I guess,” I said, then dropped it.

Talking to Benji’s father was exhausting, and when I finally got to put the nurse on the phone with him, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief. I did not want to be the one to coordinate with the morgue or to figure out how Benji’s body would get back to Atlanta. It couldn’t be me, and I was relieved that it didn’t have to be.

“Kady should pay,” I told Conrad in the car as he drove me to my mother’s work later that day. I had to see her before she left for her trip; I wanted to give her some money. I had planned to stop at the bank, but Gabriel’s gift made that unnecessary. I had all the cash I needed on me. “He shouldn’t get away with torturing Benji.”

“No, he shouldn’t,” Conrad agreed. “But from what you told me, Gabriel was on his way to see Kady already. My guess is that whatever revenge you’re planning, Gabe’s gonna try.”

I looked out the window at the gray sky, the drizzle already beginning. “The doctor said he was stabbed and beaten, that it would have taken hours to inflict that kind of damage.”

“Sure.”

I turned to look at him. “If Gabriel can’t get to Kady, can you?”

It took several minutes for him to answer me. “Yes.”

“Okay.”

He cleared his throat. “Just so you know, it’s a big jump from defending yourself to killing someone. You’re talking about premeditation, right? That’s a whole other thing.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, taking a breath.

He cleared his throat. “Did Kady come on to you?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I ain’t pretty enough for Ellis Kady, or white enough.”

He scoffed.

“What? I’m not,” I said, holding up my arm, pushing the sweater up so he could see my dark-bronze skin. “I’m darker than you, man.”

He grunted because that was a slight exaggeration.

“And you’re prettier than me,” I teased him. “And you’ve got the cool green eyes; mine are just boring-ass brown.”

Deep annoyed sigh, and I smiled just a little.

“I wonder why that is; your eyes, I mean. I bet there’s a white guy back in your family tree somewhere, huh?”

He was ignoring me.

“I should have the green eyes, since in with the Cuban, there’s Spanish and some German and some French too.”

“Are you still talking?”

“You know, if we were coffee, I’d be something with caramel in it and you’d be, like, a cafe mocha or some shit.”

“Please stop talking.”

I chuckled, turning back to my window, the raindrops hitting it hard now, blurring the world outside.

“Tell me the truth
.
Did Kady come on to you?”

I coughed softly. “Once.”

“And?”

“He wanted to see what a guy from the hood was like in bed.”

He scoffed.

I turned to look at his profile. “Why is that funny?”

“You? From the hood?” He snickered. “That’s good.”

I grunted because I knew it. My mother had married my father and they had moved to Troy, supposedly away from all the things that could hurt them. After my father was killed walking across the street on his way home, my mother went to work as an office manager for a man who owned a string of dry cleaning stores. She liked it, but it wasn’t enough to take care of her and my sister. So I helped out, putting my sister through college, helping my mother pay the mortgage and her bills, making sure that I stepped in where my father, Donald Bean, would have. I missed the man a lot.

Even after ten years, I still could have used his advice. Mostly I missed that he had never met Landry. I would have liked to see them sit together and talk. I had told him I was gay, and my dad had given me the nod and said okay. He wasn’t sure that I knew everything at fourteen, but he agreed that my sexual orientation was one of those things I could be sure of. He had been surprised but never judgmental or angry or anything. He was the sort of father every kid should have: kind, supportive, and loving.

“Are you listening to me?”

I hadn’t been, I realized. My mind was drifting instead of listening to Conrad. “No, man, I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right, but look, now, I need you to go into that glove compartment and get the gun there.”

I didn’t really want to, but what was I going to do if somebody broke in during the night? The bat I kept under my bed wouldn’t help if the guys invading my home were armed, and I had to be really close to use my butterfly knife.

“You need a gun.” Conrad shrugged. “The life you have, the life I can’t convince you to leave… you need one.”

“What’s with you and Gabe wanting me to open my restaurant now? You both know I don’t have enough, and I ain’t ready to go yet anyway. I figure three more years, maybe two, I’ll be done, but not right now. I only got sixty saved, man; I need more.”

“Landry can’t—”

“Landry’s money and mine don’t mix for dreams.”

“You used your money to get him started, and then he took out a loan for the rest.”

“Which he’s still paying off,” I told him. “Until what he sells completely covers his costs, all his profit has to go right back into his business. I mean, he’s close, you know. We go see the accountant together and I see his books, but there’s still a way to go.”

“It’s up to you.” He shrugged. “I just need you to understand that I don’t want to see you hurt. Gabe’s trying to get you out; that’s his idea of protection. Mine is a gun.”

“Okay.”

He nodded and tipped his head at the glove compartment. “Go ahead.”

I was expecting something out of
The Matrix
, of course, but what I got was a Glock 22. It was what most policemen carried, and basically once the safety was off, you aimed and pulled the trigger. Conrad promised to take me to his gun club on the weekend to show me how to shoot it properly, but until then, he wanted me to have it.

“Is it registered to you?” I asked him.

The look I got, like I was just so stupid, was one I actually deserved.

“Sorry. Do you have any guns that are actually registered to you?”

“Of course, just not one I would give you.”

“So what do I do if I’m being chased by a policeman?”

“Why are you suddenly contemplating a scenario where you would be chased by law enforcement?”

“It’s just a question.”

“Jesus,” he groaned.

“C?”

He growled at me. “If you’re being chased by cops, ditch the gun. If you’re being chased by some guys from the neighborhood or someone from Kady’s crew, shoot at them.”

“Cop, ditch; bad guy, shoot,” I teased him. “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.”

“I will shoot you myself.”

I started laughing even though I shouldn’t have. He was very dangerous.

“You’re really a wiseass, you know that?”

I did know that, I thought, as some of the tension in my shoulders and neck finally started to dissipate.

“When we get out of the car, I’ll help you with the holster.”

And then it wasn’t funny anymore. “I wish Benji had had a gun.”

“Me too,” Conrad agreed. “At least that way it would’ve been over faster.”

“Why?”

“He would have shot at them, and they would have killed him right then.”

I shouldn’t have asked the question.

M
Y
MOTHER
was happy to see me. It was her last day of work, since she had asked off starting the following day, Wednesday, to go to Dallas to visit her sister, my Aunt Janet, who just had a baby. It was strange. Her sister was forty-three and having her first child, and my mother at just forty-six had been finished bearing children years ago. I was twenty-four and my sister was twenty-three. She’d had me at twenty-two, when she met and fell in love with my father. Everyone had said she was too young, but now, when she was still really young with no children in her house, she was free to do whatever she wanted.

“When are you going to take a real vacation?” I smiled at her from where I was leaning on the counter above her.

“After the first of the year,” she said softly, her eyes flicking up to me and then away. “Marissa and Clover and Patrice and Judy and I are going to Jamaica.”

I chuckled, and when she looked up, she was scowling.

“What?”

“You know what,” I teased her.

“No I do not, or I would not be asking.”

“It’s like that movie,
How Stella Got Her Groove Back
.”

She growled at me. “I’m gonna hit you.”

I smiled bigger and braced for the smack with her pen.

“You and I both know that a man for me is out of the question,” she assured me, making my knuckles sting where she hit them with the pen. “I won’t be—”

“Don’t say that,” I told her, reaching into the breast pocket of my coat. Gabriel had given me money, which had shortened the number of places I’d had to go. Not having to stop at the bank had been nice. I had separated the cash out in the car on my way over. “Here, this is for your trip and for the mortgage payment this month.”

She took the envelope and looked inside. “Trevan.” Her head snapped up, her dark brown eyes on mine. “There’s twenty-five hundred dollars here.”