“You're the boss,” I say finally to the passing street. It's a dodge, one aimed to rile her temper.
I can tell it works by her heavy pause. She's doing some fast street-style calculation, weighing her moves at lightning speed. This has been her style since I met her. She won't let me take this so easily. No, she seems hell bent on making it hurt the most it possibly can before the ship goes down. And of course I'll take it, but I'll lessen the blow as best I can. That's what I'm good at.
“So what is it that's bothering you about this, Iz?” she asks.
Now she wants to know, now that she's won. I'm not good to her if I lie.
“Are you sure you want to set up down here? Are you sure we can handle the increase in weight?”
These are two of a million questions that beg for answers. Like is she sure she can supply an increase in weight?
She smiles into the sunset and says, “Our workload won't increase. That's the beauty of it. The restaurant will handle most of the traffic. We have willing partners, it makes the most sense to set up here.”
Her limbs have relaxed now that she has my honesty. She rests her left arm on the door, fingers tapping to the beat of the road. She knows her simple reasoning will not be enough to quell my disquiet, but she must make it to me anyway, just so I know where she stands. She can't pretend I don't know the whole story like she does with Josh, but she has been known to avoid my radar.
“Besides,” she adds, “it'll be fun to live here again. I miss this place.”
Fun is not the word I tag to my memories of this city. Long nights, hazy, rough: any of those would do, but fun? Fun was afternoon cookouts in the backyard at the house along some southern country road. It was the never-ending battle against kudzu and mosquitos, the stars changing above us, shooting beer cans, not people.
“It's dangerous,” I mutter.
We both know what I'm not saying, why Charlie kept us out of the city. We're at a disadvantage. She glances at me, brown and sexy, and she must know that she has me at her whim by the desire I can't hide as quickly as I'd like.
“So am I,” she says. “It's unavoidable.”
Suddenly, I understand much more than I'd like. Her vengeance may also earn her grace in the eyes of our debt. Clever. Ballsy.
She rolls to an impossibly slow stop at a light, tucking some hair behind her ear as she checks her mirrors. Her left knee is bouncing next to the clutch. Her breaths come long and forced. Is she trying to provoke me?
A city cop car pulls up on her left, brakes squealing as the thing stops. The pig's windows are up, but I can see him turn to inspect the scene. Who could resist? His appreciation is apparent despite his big black shades, and I want to get out of the car and smash his windshield into his lap. I suddenly understand, more than ever, how Charlie must have felt when she maneuvered him into the passenger seat.
Then she smiles at him, not the sexually smoldering curves she sent my way, yet not quite an innocent grin either. My heart skips several beats. I try to play calm, but she already had me so worked up that surely I look like a breakdown. He never even notices me, the swine, as he laughs and lowers his shades for a better look. Red turns to green and he nods at her, drives away. If I could catch him, I'd break his face.
She turns up her stereo, the most modern piece of equipment in this boat. The CD player is a twist that she had insisted on. Bose speakers bang out a lilting acoustic guitar and driving drums.
My cigarette has burned away. The filter is about to start smoking. I flick the remnant of my addiction out my window. Now she won't look at me. Marilyn Manson's gritty voice rubs my sense for the dramatic like sandpaper as I watch her drive, silently begging for mercy. I'm about to break, to tear across this seat and kiss her like she's never known, or to make her pull over and let me out. I don't care how far it is, I'll walk home.
It's the spontaneous moments like this that remind me that I can't compare them, she is so different from her brother. He hated Manson. And she's right. She is dangerous.
She says, “I'm going to make a place for us here, and we won't have to be afraid.”
How can I say that you should always be afraid in this gig? If you're not, that means you're sloppy. She knows that. Maybe this is her bravado. I have this feeling that I'll get to find out.
Chapter 11 Jazz Funeral
Joshua
The din of voices in this twenty-five table restaurant roars through me. They complement the group of pierced, tattooed musicians in the corner playing a ska-infused version of “Hotel California.” Smoke forms a blanket, hanging just beneath the ceiling and glowing with the bar's electric blue lighting. The house lights are down as low as they will go, dimming the grief, luring out the good memories of everyone's favorite drug dealer, the best friend I've ever had.
The shades are all drawn. I'm sitting at the bar, leaning back against it, elbows propped on its edge. I'm pressed in the midst of a crowd that goes well beyond the regulations of a fire hazard, not
