He pockets his smokes and lights up. A haunting, urgent tune drifts from the stereo inside, a song of hot grunge guitar and a high-hat-punctuated beat. My knee bounces with the aggravating rhythm, but I won't react on base response. I opt for the cold truth that's been nettling at my resolve.
“Josh doesn't know dick about protecting her.” I shrug, eyes latching onto a shiny black Crown Victoria below, which creeps into view near the store front. The windows of it are darker than the shadows that hide us.
“Josh is good,” Noah points out, exhaling a thin stream of smoke.
The Vic rolls on down the street and I turn my blatant “beg to differ” on him. The smoke curls against his shoulder like his thick hair, both of which upset as he laughs at the ferocity of my reaction.
“He's a joke, can't take anything seriously,” I spit, pulling my legs down and leaning forward anxiously. I nail Noah with a humorless stare and my tone flattens. “Like you.”
“And you're a dick, Freddy, but they keep you because you've got a good eye. That and some twisted fetish with weaponry.”
He leans forward, too, flashing his little boy smile in my direction. That's Noah: never gets angry over the small hitches in the road, has a penchant for the truth.
It's not the whole truth, really. They keep me because I have connections they never could. They keep me because I'm a walking arsenal with a need to intimately know the tools that will keep me alive. When you grow up in swamp country, you gain a little respect for personal protection.
There's humor in Noah's eyes, but his voice is serious when he says, “That's why you're here, it's what you do.”
I don't think I've ever seen Noah cut the clown shit and lay it down.
“Besides,” he sniffs, taking a drag, “Jack runs a good meeting and Izzy's there, too. They'll be fine.”
I stubbornly stare at the street below, and say, “Yeah, great, so Izzy can shove his hands in his pockets and shrug at them.”
It doesn't matter who else is there – if it's not me, it's not good enough. I've got the best gun, fastest, most accurate. We all know it. And I've got rank. Josh doesn't know his gun from his ass.
I stand just to move. I lay the black piece against the railing with a clang as I lean on it. Just as several potential nasty replies surface in my thoughts, the Crown Vic glides back into view. I freeze, glaring at it, and so does Noah.
“Still wish you were inside?” he wonders with a hint of sarcasm.
“Negative,” I grunt, straightening and training my barrel on the passenger window just in case.
Suddenly the night and my slim cut, short-sleeve button-up are stifling. Noah has mirrored my actions, leveling his gun through the bars of his balcony, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. No room for equivocation now.
The car passes and becomes two huge glowing taillights. I consider lowering my gun for only a moment before the hunk of metal slows to a crawl. Anticipation gathers in my gut and my hands as they connect with my Desert Eagle in a steadily familiar way.
“I don't like this,” I say so low I can hardly hear myself.
The shiny black back window begins a smooth roll downward. The muscles of my left arm flex, each pulling against another in a long tension that connects directly to my trigger finger, squeezes once, twice. The back tires of the Vic pop, begin deflating. The car lurches then drops onto its rims and drags to a complete halt.
“Fuck,” I hear Noah wheeze and now I can't help but grin.
The earth's motion stills, creating a sickening backlash within my stomach. For a long, hot, and heavy minute, I believe that Hell is waiting behind those midnight-shaded windows. Why? Something about the way the door swings open slowly tells me that this time I've ruined the Devil's gleaming, twenty-inch rims.
Sometimes I surprise myself with my brazenness.
Mocha-chino hands emerge from the open doorway, long, bony hands the likes of the shifting tarot. I get the impulse to blow them both off at the wrists as I see a thick, gold ring on the thumb of the right hand, gleaming in the dirty illumination of public lighting. That single, tiny detail heralds a full-body chill and then an affirmation: it is the Devil.
A tall, wiry man in his late forties with mulatto skin unfolds from the car. He's wearing a suit the color of red wine by moonlight, and he keeps his hands in the air as he begins a slow pace toward the restaurant.
“Let me be the welcome party,” Noah says, but I'm already halfway to the apartment door.
“Cover me,” I call over my shoulder, palm sweating against the grip of my gun. I can hear him cussing as the door closes behind me. It takes every bit of self-restraint not to fling myself down the entire case and land at the bottom already running. My surroundings blur under the intensity of conviction.
I don't know if Charlie ever really trusted me, even for as long as he let me work for him. I've never been like him, didn't grow up the same, and he could feel that. He didn't like my old crowds or my philosophies. He didn't like my mentor. But I never had a friend like him in my past. It was always Maria's faith in me that he trusted. Now Charlie's dead, and the embodiment of all the things he hated in me has shown up on the doorstep of his funeral.
It's all I can do not to exit the building at a sprint, although I can't be sure why I'd want to rush into such a cold embrace. I keep the Desert Eagle close to my side, ready for a big-screen quick draw. I force the most distant expression I can manage and take post before the restaurant door, leaning my
