The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga 2)

Neither of them answered.

“I got no beef with you,” I said.

The biker put away his comb and slipped a switchblade from his right pocket. He pushed the release button and began cleaning his nails as though I were not there. I could hear the guy at the other end of the alley walking toward me. I looked around for a weapon, then picked up a garbage can lid.

“We thought you could he’p us,” the guy in drapes said. “You run with Bledsoe, right?”

“Saber Bledsoe?”

“You know him?” he asked.

“He’s my friend.”

“That’s good. You’re an honest man,” said the guy in drapes. His hair was mahogany-colored, combed straight back, waved across the top. There were pits in his cheeks; his nose and eyes and mouth seemed too small for his face, like lead birdshot that rolled to the center of a plate. “Bledsoe is tight with a couple of spics?”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

He lifted his hand for me to be quiet. “My point is, we’re only interested in the wets. Bledsoe gets a pass. One of them is named Manny. Know a guy named Manny?”

“I think I heard of him,” I said.

“Know where we can contact him?”

“Maybe he’s screwing your sister. Give her a call,” I said.

“That’ll get you in trouble, man,” the biker said. I had taken my eyes off him. He was closer now, the knife in his palm, sharp edge up. “I got an extra shank, man. Want to go one-on-one?” He was grinning.

“No.”

“I didn’t think so,” he said. “Starting to wet your pants?”

In for a penny, in for a pound, I told myself. I stepped farther into the alley. “Put the frog-sticker away and let’s see what happens.”

The guy in drapes flicked his cigarette into a wall. “Cut this crap out. Where’d they put the convertible, buddy? Wise off one more time, we’re going to break your sticks.”

“I don’t know where it is.”

The guy in drapes and the biker looked at each other. There wasn’t a sound in the alley.

“Cut him,” the guy in drapes said.

That casual and indifferent. An arbitrary command to mutilate someone unarmed and outnumbered. I looked at him as I had never looked at anyone before. I wondered if it would be held against me should I kill someone under these circumstances.

I turned around to go back into the drugstore. Grady’s crew-cut friend was standing as big as a house in the doorway.

“Where’s Valerie?” I said.

“Ladies’ room, I think,” he said. He smiled as though full of goodwill.

“Get out of my way, please.”

“Sorry,” he replied.

“You were a linebacker. You were all-state runner-up.”

His eyes dulled over as though he were trying to remember somebody he used to know. Then he came out of it. “Cain’t let you by. Sorry.”

My options were gone. “Valerie Epstein isn’t part of this. If you hurt her, her father will kill you. That’s not a line.”