“Tyler, as far as Johnny’s concerned, I don’t give a shit if he was getting some pussy or not. That don’t change the fact that we told him not to.”
“What we gonna do now?”
“I don’t rightly know. But we got to get that shipment to Greer.” I looked down at my phone again. “It’s six thirty here, which mean it’s eight thirty in New York. The first drop-off is nine o’clock. I guess we sit here and pray. If we’re lucky, he’ll be making the drop in thirty minutes.”
“And if not?”
We call Slick and tell him to kill that son of a bitch Johnny,” I said directly. “’Cause I’m gonna be out six million dollars. Five from Greer, and another million from the delivery to the people in New York.”
Vegas
36
“Fuck!”
It was a miracle I didn’t break through the sheetrock—or worse, hit a stud and break my hand—when I pounded the wall in the hallway. I’d just flipped out on Consuela’s selfish ass after she came to tell me that Nevada hadn’t come back to her hotel suite. He’d been gone all night. I was usually better at keeping my rage in check, but my son’s disappearance had me on tilt, and it was better to hit the wall than to hit Consuela. Truthfully, though, I knew I shouldered some of the blame myself. I should have been over there checking on him every day.
“It’s gonna be okay, son. This isn’t your fault,” Pop said as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. I hadn’t even realized he’d followed me out of the room.
“Then whose fault is it? I’m his father. I should have gone looking for him yesterday when Ma came home and said he left the hotel.”
“We didn’t know he’d run away then,” Pop said calmly.
“We would have if Consuela had called to say he didn’t come home last night, instead of waiting until noon. My son’s been missing for twenty-four hours.”
“I know, Vegas. Kids run away from home, but they usually come back. Are you forgetting that you ran away when you were fifteen?” he reminded me. “Was that my fault?”
I turned slowly toward him. “Yeah, actually, it was your fault. You blamed me for stealing parts for my car when it was that sheisty-ass parts manger you had working for you.”
He chuckled, lowering his head. “Yeah, that was my fault, wasn’t it? That guy was robbing us blind.”
“You damn right he was, and you blamed me.” I didn’t want to, but I laughed. Once again, my old man had used humor on me to lighten the mood.
He placed a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll find him. I promise you that.”
He gestured for me to follow him into his home office, where he went straight to the bar and poured two large drinks. He handed me one, then sat down at his desk. “Drink this. It’ll help calm you down so you can think straight.”
I gulped down half of the smooth liquor, then took a seat in a chair in front of his desk. “I really should’ve checked up on him more. I just didn’t want him to see me and Consuela fight all the time.”
“We’re not going to worry about what could’ve been done. Right now, we’re going to focus on what you’re gonna do once we find him. And again, we are going to find him,” Pop emphasized. “I’ve got Junior pinging his phone. We should know something soon.”
“Thanks, Pop,” I said, finishing off my drink. “I guess we should go back in there with Ma and Consuela.” I moved to stand up, but he shook his head to stop me.
“Let your mother deal with her for a while. There’s something we need to talk about.”
“What’s that?” I settled back in the seat.
“You, of all my children, have always been your own man. But moving forward, there has to be some sort of resolution between you and Consuela. She’s not the type of woman to be ignored.” Pop spoke in that do-as-I-say voice he used when he was making a demand, not a suggestion. “Sometimes a man has to make sacrifices for his family. You need to do this for your son.”
“Are you suggesting I sleep with her?” Obviously, my mother had told him what Consuela wanted. I guess they really didn’t keep secrets from each other.
“It’s not like you never took one for the team before. Hell, you spent five years in prison for a crime I committed.”
“That was different.”
“Was it? You went to jail because it was the best thing for the family. You gonna tell me that sleeping with your son’s mother to keep Nevada from running away again or being shipped off to a boarding school isn’t just as worth it?” He was dead serious, and I hated to admit it, but he made a good point.
“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”
“I can’t believe we didn’t have it when she first showed up at the house with him a few years back. We all have our idiosyncrasies, Vegas. I’ve been where you’re at with Donna and Lou.”
I stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate, which he didn’t. So I asked, “Did you sleep with Aunt Donna to keep the peace? Because I know she offered it to you.”
“Hell no!” Pop said adamantly. “But that was different. The circumstances were different.”
“How? How was it different?” I was not about to let him off the hook. This had been a source of contention between us for years.
“You’re not afraid of Consuela or Marie. I love Chippy more than life itself, but I’m also afraid of her.”
I chuckled my understanding. “Ma can be a little scary, can’t she?”
“You have no idea. I’ve woken up to a gun in my face more than once.” Pop said it so sincerely that I
