Page 28 of Thug

“At the…curb,” he huffed. “By the…donut…shop.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He looked up. His face was beet red. “She’s…there.”

“Who’s there?”

He gave me a bug-eyed look. “The girl.”

Whoever it was had him shaken to the core. Knowing Brisco, it was likely one of the many women he was mixed up with. I had no idea what their names were, but I asked, nonetheless.

“Which girl?” I asked.

“Pig Pen’s daughter,” he stammered. “Gray.”

I gave him a look. “I don’t think the fucking world’s going to come to a fucking end if she buys a donut, do you?”

He looked at me like I was crazy. “It ain’t a fucking coincidence that she’s there while we’re having a meeting. It’s my job to protect this club. I’ll hit that bitch in the head with a brick if I have to.”

“You’re not hitting her in the head with anything,” I said. “Especially a brick.”

His eyes narrowed. “You went over there last night, didn’t you?”

“Go cop a squat in my office.” I waved my hand toward the office door, thirty feet behind him. “Have a shot of whisky. Settle down a little. I’ll walk over there and see what she’s doing.”

“You didn’t answer me,” he said. “You went there last night, didn’t you?”

I turned toward the door. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“You’re thinking with the wrong head, Boss.”

While Brisco continued to mumble his complaints to the contrary, I stepped out of the garage and peered across the street. Just as he claimed, Gray’s Pathfinder was parked across the street beneath a streetlight. I paused at the edge of our parking lot, near the curb. Unaware that I was watching her, she appeared to be texting someone.

Small groups of motorcycles raced up the street, more than likely headed to strip clubs, bars, or to fuck their ol’ ladys. A group of four men shot out of the lot, chasing each other. In the wake of their exhaust, I sauntered across the street.

Immersed in what she was doing, Gray had no idea I was approaching. I snuck around the back of the vehicle and up to the back side of the driver’s window. I peeked around the edge of the door frame and through the window. The phone’s screen illuminated her face.

Without looking up, she rolled the window down two inches. “Want your wallet?”

I was shocked that she knew I was there. “How the fuck did you get my wallet?”

While she continued to text with one hand, she poked my wallet through the sliver of an opening with her other. “You were in such a hurry to leave last night that you left it on the bar.”

I took the wallet and immediately opened it.

“No, I didn’t take anything,” she said in a sarcastic tone.

“Doesn’t mean someone else didn’t.” Satisfied everything was there, I put it in my back pocket. “Appreciate you taking the time to bring it by.”

“Funny you mentioned that,” she said, shifting her attention from her phone to me. “Did it cross your mind that it’s Friday night at eleven o’ clock and I’m not at my bar?”

“It did.”

“Do you know why I was able to leave on a Friday night?”

“Someone else is running it?”

“There is no one else,” she said. “I had two customers today. Grand total of twenty-three bucks in income. I closed early.” She tossed her phone into the passenger seat and rolled the window down another inch or two. “I think I’m going to go get drunk.”