BADDY: A Small Town Crime Romance Read online

  “He's the reason I'm here,” she said, drawing my attention back to her thin, elegant face. Yeah, just like a deer. Prettier, of course.

  “Long way to come just to deliver some bad news,” I said, letting her take the picture back.

  “Well, it's more about wanting to know...more...about him. About you and him. You see, I'm writing a book. Not quite a memoir; not quite an autobiography. What I remember about him, and the truth. I didn't know him as Millions. I knew him as Daddy. But you...you knew him the way the rest of the world knew him. So I was hoping...”

  “Why me?” I asked. “I wasn't that close with him, you know.”

  She bit her lip.

  “Well, it's not just you,” she said. “I'm asking lots of people. Just for memories...I have some questions, specific ones...”

  “Who else is on your interview list?”

  She glanced over her shoulder quickly, like I'd just said the secret word and someone was coming up behind to snap her neck. Maybe I'd been inside for too long, but she was skittish as all hell. She started poking at her own fingernails, chipping the paint.

  “Hey,” I said, getting her attention back, nodding my chin to her hands. “Gonna have to fork over another $40 for a manicure if you keep doing that.”

  “Oh,” she said, swiftly hiding her hands under the table. I couldn't help but imagine something those hands could do for me under the table. But I blinked it away. I had plenty of time to think about that later. “Well, anyway, just lots of old associates. Um, Slickboy. Tanner. Shark and his crew, they still hang out at the Piper. Tommy. Luis, of course.”

  She shrugged.

  “Lots of people,” she said.

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Well. Sounds like you have your work cut out for you, but you've got plenty of great source material. Long way to drive for you to ask me the same old questions. Like I said, I wasn't that tight with him.”

  “Yeah, but...”

  “They don't give us much time, sweetheart,” I said. “And I've got a question or two of my own. Namely, would you let me hug you?”

  “What?”

  Well, that shocked the determination right out of her.

  “A hug, Misty-Lee,” I said. “They let us hug when time's up. And I haven't had a hug in four goddamn years. You know that hugging releases oxytocin? It's very important for human happiness and emotional growth. A three-second hug, princess. Not too much to ask, is it?”

  “Um,” Misty-Lee hummed, eyes darting from side to side. “That's...well, can we just talk about my dad a little bit first?”

  “Sure,” I said, leaning in, smirking. “If you promise me a hug.”

  Now, she scowled. Good. I liked seeing the fight in her coming out.

  “Alright, alright,” she said, voice low. “One hug. Now can we get to talking about my old man?”

  “Sure,” I said, leaning back now, giving her space while I crossed my arms. “But don't you think you ought to tell me the truth? I can answer your questions better that way.”

  “I am telling you the truth,” she spat, cheeks reddening as her anger rose. “I’m writing a book. About my father. Salvador Constatino, better known as Millions.”

  “No, you're not,” I said.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Baby, I know a lie when I see one, and this one might as well be waving a red cape in my face. You're scared shitless. You're not writing a book, you're writing the words on your tombstone. Now tell me, who's after you, and what's it got to do with your father, and why do you think I can help you?”

  Her eyes stilled, fixing on mine. I dropped the smirk, but it took a little effort. I liked the way she looked, more like a deer in the headlights than ever. Curiosity was a stronger instinct, though, and I knew her tongue would be a little looser if I looked serious about the whole thing.

  Which, frankly, I wasn't.

  But this was a lot more amusing than listening to Rancho wax poetic about the various women waiting for his release, or trying to get Slim up for a game of Hearts, or getting myself into a fight with Ryan just for shits and giggles.

  She was a good sight prettier than any of those worn-out cons.

  “You're wrong,” she said, and I heard the scrape of her chair before watching her rise from it. “And I don't need to sit around and watch you get off on how clever you think you are. Thanks for nothing, Rev...”

  She was making all the about-to-leave preparations, but I knew that leaving wasn't on her mind. She was too scared to walk out without a hint of an answer.

  “Alright,” I said with a shrug. “Thanks for the visit. I'll say a little prayer for Millions before I lay me down tonight, how 'bout that? And for you, too, since I don't imagine I'll be seeing you again – alive, at least.”

  Her jaw clenched so hard I could almost hear the click, and she collapsed back into the chair.

  “Has someone been talking to you?” she hissed, leaning way forward. Damn. She didn't look so much like a deer anymore. Her eyes were narrowed, her features pointed sharp as knives. She looked like some animal you wouldn't want to mess with. But I've never been the smartest chicken in the coop, and messing with her was too fun to give up.

  “Just you, baby,” I said. “Though it hasn't been too enlightening.”

  She looked around the room again before meeting my eyes.

  “What do you know about my father? Tell me, Rev.”

  “Maybe I know a lot,” I said. “Maybe too much to tell you in the...three minutes we have left.” I glanced at the clock on the wall to confirm. “But here's the kicker, doll.”

  I leaned in real close, until our noses were almost touching; almost too close for the guard's comfort, and I could see ol' Rusty tensing up back there, his beady eyes narrowing.

  “Maybe I don't know a god damn thing.”

  She could have screamed, and it would have had the same effect. Instead, the chair did the screaming for her as it scraped across the linoleum again.

  “Go to hell, Rev,” she spat, turning on a heel.

  “How about that hug?” I called before she was three steps away. She stopped, stiffened, and glared at me over her shoulder.

  “Dream about it,” she spat.

  “Hey,” I called before she could walk out the door, a guard ready to escort her out that long hall back into the outside. “Misty.”

  I could see all the fight in her, telling her not to turn around. But she did.

  “You come back here and tell me the truth, I'll tell you everything I know,” I said, my tone flat and serious. “Tit for tat, yeah? You tell me your story, and I'll tell you Million's.”

  Her jaw worked in a tiny circle, her eyes caught somewhere between hate and hope. And then Rusty was nudging at her elbow and opening the door. Just like that, she was gone, along with my prime entertainment for the day. I looked around the room. Poor Smithy looked like he wanted to kill me for causing a scene when his woman and kids were visiting, and James was just staring at his mother, the same way he stared at everything, his big dumb eyes open but nothing getting through.

  “Ready when you are, boss,” I said, turning towards the guard who stood at the door on our side of the room. I had no more reason to be there. I had a lot to think about, and I thought better in my bunk.

  Millions’ daughter. Little Misty-Lee. Misty, now. All grown up and too damn pretty to be in the kind of trouble I saw behind those eyes. It was a damn shame. If she died before coming back to me, I'd feel bad about it. But hell, I probably couldn't help her anyway. The wheels keep turning in the world outside these walls. Four years on the inside might as well be twenty years out there. Anything I still knew about Millions might as well be ancient history.

  Whatever she was dug into, I didn't think I was the shovel that could get her out. And the fact that she thought of me at all said she'd run through plenty of better options. She was desperate.

  It’d be a damn shame to bury a body like that.

  A damn, damn shame.

  Chapter 3


  Misty

  Why did I think he was going to help me?

  What stupid-ass worm crawled into my brain and told me that visiting him was a good idea? Six hours in the car for twenty minutes of run-around. My fingers were so tense on the steering wheel that they were turning white. I forced myself into a few deep breaths and relaxed.

  You had to try, I told myself. You have to try everything. And now, you have to run. It's time to run, Misty-Lee.

  Shit. Even just being around him had my brain reverting back to my childhood moniker. No one called me Misty-Lee. It was just Misty. I liked it better that way. But of course, he hadn't seen me since I was 18 and still shopped in the Junior's department.

  Dammit, I still shop in the fucking Junior's department. I’m short and petite, and it’s cheaper.

  Shit! Damn shitballs!

  I was getting all upset again, cursing myself out, thinking in staccato expletives instead of full, coherent thoughts.

  Calm your ass down, Misty-Lee, I thought, forcibly. Just thinking the name had Dad's voice ricocheting through my head. He always sang my name instead of saying it.

  What do you think I should do, Pops? Is it time to run?

  I honestly didn't know what he'd say. I knew he'd want me safe – which meant I should run. But I also knew Dad never ran, except from the cops. Sorghum Bend was his town. No one could chase him out of the house he'd built with his own damn money – a joke, because all Dad's money was other people's money. Still, the sentiment was a strong one, and it was drilled into my bones. All his talk about Costa Rica was just that, talk. He was bound and determined to stand his ground, no matter what the cost.

  You don't run. Constatino never runs.

  And maybe that’s why there aren’t any other Constatino anymore. There was just me. No layers of organization between me and everything that was coming. No big, bad, gun-toting men left behind to protect me. Any friends Dad left behind were only so loyal. If they knew who was after me, they cared too much about their own skin to step in.

  I was pressing the speed limit, my knuckles white again.

  Like I didn't have enough problems without a smart-ass con pushing my buttons and acting like the cock of the damn walk. Well, Rev, who's driving away, street legal, and who's still rotting away behind cement walls?

  And who's bound for a long walk off a short dock, I reminded myself.

  Fuck!

  I couldn't hit the interstate fast enough. I would go home. I'd call Janie. We'd drink tequila and eat nachos and I'd pretend like I wasn't on someone's short list. Janie didn't know a damn thing about my life. She didn’t know about the world I never chose for myself, and that's what made her the perfect friend. We could bitch about work and I could pretend that I had nothing more to worry about than building up the funds in my Christmas Club account.

  Once I merged onto the road, into the gently anonymity of mass transit and the steady thoughtless dance of merging lanes, I felt better. Driving always made me feel better. With four tires on asphalt you weren’t supposed to do anything except drive. Letting your mind wander could turn you into road meat. I turned on the radio and Patsy Cline was singing, which was a genuinely wonderful thing. And then I was singing, too, sliding down into my seat with my shoulders falling just a little bit looser.

  I had no right to relax.

  I had no right to let my mind wander.

  But dammit, I needed to. 'Cause if my unknown enemy didn't kill me, freaking out about it just might.

  Tequila. Melted cheese. A Lifetime made-for-tv-movie. Yeah, that sounded swell. And Purrloin was waiting for me, which brought a smile to my lips as soon as I thought of her. The one-eared, one-eyed, lint-gray hellion I called a pet cat. As rough around the edges as my old man, and twice as deadly to her enemies. When she wasn't bringing me dead things, she was finding things that smelled dead to roll around in. She was a stinking mess with a constantly blocked colon and a wail that could break glass.

  But she also purred like a lawn mower and loved the ever-loving shit out of me. No one else, just me. We were soul mates, Purrloin and I. Meant for no one but each other. We took no men and made no excuses. We were soldiers, survivors.

  I'd survive this, just like Purrloin survived whatever it was that claimed her ear and her eye. I just needed some help. Just a little bit of help. Just an answer, a thing to start working on. A hint. A clue. I couldn't afford a private investigator. Dad's inheritance wasn't much more than a safety net for me and my mortgage. Trust me, I priced every dick from Sorghum Bend to Asheville – and I don't mean male escorts.

  I was doing this on my own, but I'd take every ounce of help I could get.

  And dammit...

  Fucking Rev. Now his head was shaved. Now he had a little bit of a five-o-clock shadow. Now he wore orange, with big black numbers over his heart. But he was still worth his nickname, able to rev lady engines from here to Olympus. Still a born Casanova.

  Now, he was also a thorn in my side.

  Was he screwing me around, or was he legit? If I leveled with him, would he tell me what I needed to know?

  Could I even afford to wonder?

  I had to go back. Dammit, I had to go back to him. I actually growled, audibly. Johnny Cash took Patsy's place on the radio. He was whining about his Folsom Prison Blues, but I had my own version of that song, named after Guvcheck.

  Cash had Reno and lonesome whistles, I had Guvcheck Minimum Security Correctional Institution, and William “Rev” Daly.

  I have to go back.

  My gas bill was going to hate me, and I was likely going to hate myself, and I was pretty sure I already hated him. Maybe it'd bruise my pride and leave me looking the fool. Still, it was better to have a bruised ego than a snapped neck.

  I didn't need my father's voice in my head to remind me of that.

  Chapter 4

  Rev

  It doesn't take a very imaginative mind to figure out what a guy wants to do after being in close contact with a pretty woman for the first time in four years. Or, at least, the first time he's talked to a woman who isn't wearing a guard's uniform and looking slightly terrified or overtly malicious.

  But a guy doesn't get a lot of privacy in prison. Not even when he asks his bunk mate very politely to take a walk. Especially when that bunk mate is a perpetually surly 6'2 gang-banger who doesn't know why a man would need privacy to do what I wanted to do. In my time living in close quarters with Dante, it's fair to say that I'd seen more dick than any straight man cares to see.

  There's the bathroom. You can pretend you need to have a sit down. But you never know who's going to hear something and listen in on the other side of the door – some men are decent, but plenty of men in here aren't. Sick fucks are a dime a dozen on this side of the wall.

  To make a long story short, I didn't get a chance to get Misty-Lee out of my system after she huffed away all distraught and offended. She stayed there, a spectral vision casting a fog over my brain. I tried to think about her old man instead, figuring it would remind me of the first times I’d met the girl. That just made me think of her at 18, the last time I’d seen her. And at 18, she was…well, it’s not quite fit to print.

  I remember Millions watching me with an impressive amount of pre-emptive malice in his eyes when I looked her over that day... I wasn't going to shit where I ate, but he clearly didn't trust me on that account. I knew damn well if I’d have tried anything I never would have lived long enough to end up in this prison cell.

  Things were different now… Millions was dead and buried, and there was nothing stopping me from imagining all sorts of wicked things my body could do to hers.

  Not that it didn’t tear me up, knowing her old man was gone. Millions was a hell of a guy. Sure, he was a criminal through and through with zero respect for law and order, but he was literate as fuck and sharper than a Vermont cheddar. He demanded respect, and he earned it too.

  And he loved his daughter.

  Loved his daughter so
much he didn't have room to love anyone else, I guess. He certainly didn't love me. But he liked me, even though I was a ratty teenager with a wide stance and a trouble-seeking dick. He saw me as a kid with some potential, I guess. He liked the way I talked. Said I was like Roosevelt. I made a joke about a big stick and he rolled his eyes, but he grinned all the same.

  I never did cast any blame on him when I got thrown in jail. Why would I, when he was rotting away for the same damn job? We both knew the other wasn't the rat; that left Lucky Lenny, our third man on that gig. The cops let him run free, but the street wasn’t quite so forgiving. He tried to push his luck with a new crew and things didn’t go his way. Last I hear they were scattering his ashes into the river.

  So much for being lucky.

  That left me and Millions to wait out our time. We’d done half a dozen jobs together before the one that went wrong. It was my first incarceration. Amazingly, it was Millions' first time, too. Old man made it fifty years flipping a bird to the Department of Justice before they finally got something to stick.

  Someone like that deserved an early retirement with topless nymphs massaging his feet, not a shank in the side and a bleeding death on the wrong side of barbed wire. It’s a shame, but I couldn’t act too surprised about it.

  Live by the big stick, die by the big stick. Someone wanted Millions dead, and someone got what they wanted.

  I knew it had to be a hit; Millions had enough connections on both sides of the gate that it couldn't have been your typical gang bullshit. I guessed whoever ordered the hit on Millions must be the one bothering his daughter, too. Millions had to be rolling in his grave, knowing Misty-Lee was in trouble and he couldn't do anything about it. I was only half surprised that his old friends weren't offering to help. Loyalty doesn't always survive a funeral. Especially not when the friends are getting old themselves. Any of them still enjoying their freedom were probably smart enough not to get involved. Why risk death and dismemberment for shit that won’t even pad your retirement fund?