That’s all. No fit of anger, no fist shaking, no oaths to hunt down and kill whoever’s doing this. Just a level gaze and a simple question.
“I want to put Kirby on Bonnie, 24/7. That’s my real concern in all this. I was fine when it was just a text message—well, okay, not fine, but it was just about me then.” I shake my head. “This is different. He came to my home. I can’t function unless I know she’s safe.”
He thinks, then nods his approval. “Kirby’s very good.”
“We’ll have to pay her something, Tommy. I can’t ask her to do fulltime bodyguard work for nothing.”
“That’s not a problem. You talk to her and then have her call me about the financial details.”
“What about you?” I ask.
“I’ll guard myself.” It’s said in a way that indicates that’s the
I’d put double deadbolts on all the doors. At the time it had made me feel better, but—once again—it was only me then.
“I’m scared, Tommy. We’re too happy.”
He plays with my hair again, strokes my cheek with a knuckle, and then he takes my hand and heads toward the door, pulling me along with him. “Wine and pasta are great levelers,” he says. “‘Calm your stomach, calm yourself,’” he quotes.
“Who said that?”
“My father.”
I let him lead me down to the promised peace.
Dinner is a happy thing. Tommy was right. It doesn’t take away the fear, but I feel grounded again.
Bonnie is chatty and animated, talking about her choice for an extracurricular activity.
“Track,” she says. “I think I could run pretty fast, and they have meets and everything. I like running and being healthy, and it’s a good way to meet other girls.”
Track coordinates too well with her desire to become an FBI agent when she grows up, but she’s so obviously happy about her choice that I let it go easily, a butterfly on the breeze.
She doesn’t even mention the other part of the deal—our time at the gun range. I’m sure it’s on her mind, just as I’m certain she’s not bringing it up now on purpose. I accept this manipulation with a kind of relief; it’s very teenage, almost normal.
She helps Tommy clean up after the meal. He likes to hand-wash the dishes and refuses to let me do it.
“It relaxes me,” he says.
The man wants to do all the dishes, all the time. Who am I to argue?
They work quietly, not speaking. Bonnie is very comfortable with Tommy’s taciturnity.
I enjoy watching them when they don’t know they’re being watched. I give them a final, lingering glance and then go upstairs to our bedroom. I close the door and retrieve my cell from the bed where Tommy had tossed it. I dial Kirby. She picks up after two rings.
“Howdy, Smoky,” she chirps. Kirby is almost always chipper, except when she’s killing someone, and maybe sometimes even then.
“Good job on the wedding, Kirby,” I tell her, meaning it. “Sorry it got interrupted.”
“That’s okay. I don’t think I was feeling as bad as the bald chick.”
“I can confirm that.”
“I’m most pissed off about the cake. I mean, gosh, I really got a good deal on it.”
Probably by flashing your gun and that kilowatt smile, I muse. “What did Callie do with it?”
“She took two slices home. Two slices! That’s all. Does that make any sense to you?”
“What happened to the rest of it?”
She giggles. “Let’s say it was put to good use on a beach by a fire satisfying the munchies.”
“I guess a man was involved?”
“Of course! I mean, what girl with any self-esteem eats wedding cake on the beach alone? Talk about pathetic pictures, you know?”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“So, boss woman. What’s the job? Need someone fucked silly until they give up secrets in the throes of ecstasy? Or maybe you need someone to become extra-special quiet?”
Kirby’s only half joking. I imagine if I asked her to kill for me, she’d do it without much concern. She’d kill and then head back out to the beach with a gosh and a giggle for some more marijuana, wedding cake, and man. Kirby is a creature of the now, and she doesn’t question her own enjoyment of things. I envy it sometimes, but only sometimes. I’m happy with my current moral compass.
“I need you to guard Bonnie. It will be full time, which I guess means you’ll need to pull someone else in to help. I’ll let her know it’s happening. She’s too smart to do otherwise. She’d figure it out.”
A brief silence tells me she’s disturbed by this request. Kirby is the only person I know who’s more inscrutable than Callie, but I’ve seen enough and become attuned enough to the minutiae of her variations to be certain that she cares about Bonnie.
“Someone threatened her?” Her voice is cool, mild, dangerous.
“Me. Someone threatened me.” I fill her in.
“Hmmm …” she says. “Sure, I’ll do it. It’s going to cut into my sex life, but that’s the biz.”
“We’ll pay you, Kirby, of course. Tommy said for you to call him about that.”
“Puh-leeeeeeze! Your green stuff is no good with me, babe. You’ll have to foot the bill for whoever I get to help me, but I won’t accept a shiny thin one for anything else.”
“Kirby,” I protest. “That’s a lot of time, and—”
She interrupts me. “You do know that I’m rich, right?”
“You are?” The thought had never occurred to me.
I can almost hear her rolling her eyes. “See, you think blonde means dummy, just like the rest of the world. Hella yeah, I’m rich! Solving all those problems with drug cartels in South America tended to leave cash lying around, if you know what I mean, plus I was playing them off against each other, selling information and my own special brand of silence to both sides.” If she was here, she’d be winking at me. “Then there’s years afterward working freelance. People pay a lot of money for what I do, Smoky. I’m what is known as
What can I say? “I appreciate it, Kirby. I really do.”
“No problema. Now, gotta ask the question, hate to but have to. If something does happen, how do you want me to solve the problem?” It’s asked with the same level of unending cheer as all the rest of it.
“Lethally,” I answer, without hesitation.
The penalty for messing with my family is death. This is a morality I no longer have the slightest quandary about.
Kirby takes it in stride, never missing a beat. “You betcha. When do you want me to start?”
“Tomorrow morning, if you can.”
“Coolio. Then I’ll call Tommy, hammer out the details, and head for the beach. One more night licking wedding cake off my current hunk of man before heading into the salt mines.”
I hang up, feeling troubled and amused, which is par for the course when it comes to conversations with Kirby. She weaves stories of carefree sex with cheerful tales of assassination in a dance that leaves you wondering how much is true and if you should be worried about the state of your soul or hers or both.
An adage from my father pops into my head.
It applies to Kirby. Either cut her out of your life or accept her as she is, because you’ll never tame her. She’s the wind.
