Page 235 of A Lick and A Promise
“Ten men.”
“Yes. That’s what he said.”
“Okay, baby. It starts happening, you get low and safe.”
“He says Vincente can have the women. He just wants his product, and the men. He has deliveries to make.”
“Okay. Can you give me a hint where you are?”
“He looks like you.”
“I know.”
I stared at his father. “Just like you.”
“You’re looking at him now.”
I didn’t reply.
“Office?” he asked.
“I love you,” I answered.
“I know. Get safe and low. Promise me.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“Love you too. Not long now.”
“All right. Bye.”
I hung up and looked at Mr. Chambers, and now my body was wound up tight because he couldn’t have missed me blurting out the word “nine” for no reason, and he had to know he had nine men with him.
“He’s going to see what he can do,” I told him.
“That,” the man jabbed a finger at me, and I wound up even further at his angry gesture. “That right there was where I made my mistake. That’s how I lost Cynthia.” He threw both hands up. “Bitches, they don’t need much. A gesture here or there. I didn’t give her enough gestures.”
Well, backhanding her didn’t help, I was sure.
He sniffed and I refocused on him.
“My youngest son has looked down his nose on me his whole fuckin’ life. Swear, that kid came outta his mother smirking at me. But his woman out of his control, he’ll deliver his brothers and my shit.” He smiled in a way I did not like. “Finally, he’ll play my game, and he’ll hate it. He’ll fuckin’ stew on the fact he had to do it, and he’ll do that until his dying day. But, for you, he’ll do it. As for me, that’ll mean I bested his ass, and I get to live with that the rest of my life. Better, I get to live with it knowing he has to live with it too.”
Oh, Knox was going to do something all right.
And, oddly, the man missed me saying the word “nine.”
Oh, and not incidentally, he wasn’t a dick.
He was a total asshole.
“So is this about getting your stuff back, or getting one over on Knox?” I asked to keep him occupied while the guys prepared to do whatever they were going to do.
His gross smile came back.
“I get a twofer with you,” he crowed. “More, actually, because it’s me who’s pulling the strings with those badasses who think they run the entire fuckin’ west. The hit to their rep I’m gonna deliver that I got one of theirs and made them do my bidding is gonna be hard for them to live down.”
Right, so he wasn’t an asshole either.
