The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga 2)

“You want some coffee? Or eggs? Here.” I scraped them out of the skillet onto her plate. “I’ve got some toast coming up.”

She rested her forehead on her fingers. “All right, here it is. Two guys just arrived from Palermo. Real greaseballs. They never know the hit. The hit doesn’t know them. Their fingerprints aren’t on file. They’ve got figures like dildos and inkwells for eyes. After they do the hit, they go back to Sicily and bounce their children on their knee.”

“Who are they here to kill?” I said. My words sounded apart from me, hollow, deceitful. I didn’t want to hear the answer to my question. No, that was not it. I wanted her to say someone else was the target, not me or my family.

“Whoever Jaime Atlas tells them to kill,” she replied. “You split open his son’s face. It got infected. Maybe the old man will let it slide, maybe not. He wants the Harrelson money from Grady’s convertible. Don’t ask me how this is going to play out. I just want to get a lot of distance between me and people who smell like a garlic farm.” She picked up her fork and ate two bites.

“You look different,” I said.

“Yeah, I just joined the Mormon Choir.”

“You look like a lady who’s been working in her garden. I mean, your hair and your clothes. You look nice.”

I could see the irritation growing in her face. “You’re too young to be talking to me like that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ve got six days off the spike,” she said. “I’m going to meetings where people follow some steps and get rid of the kinds of problems I have. I don’t know if it’s going to work or not. It probably won’t.”

She took a brown envelope from her overalls and set it on the table. It was tied with a piece of red cord. “There’s six hundred dollars in here. Take your parents and yourself on a vacation. Take Bledsoe with you. I’ll try to talk with Vick. The old man is out of the question. Ten years ago he bit the nose off his business partner.”

“I’m supposed to tell my parents we need to hide?” I said.

“If that’s what it takes.”

“That’s not the way my family does things.”

“Know how the South lost the Civil War?” she asked. “They never learned that after you’re dead, you can’t fight anymore. Sit down and eat, will you? You make me nervous. Look, maybe all this will go away. Give it time.”

“That’s what Mr. Epstein said. I think he’s just as much a killer as the Atlases are.”

“I’m not going to tell you what Jaime Atlas has done.”

“Detective Jenks has already told me.”

“Merton doesn’t know the half of it. There was a girl in a brothel in Reno.”

“Go on,” I said.

“You get your mother out of town.”

“Why my mother?”

“Jaime Atlas likes killing women. Who do you think you’re dealing with? Jaime Atlas is the devil.”

The toaster popped behind me. I jerked all over.

“Shit,” she said. Then she stared at the roses. “Did you cut those for me?”

“I was trying to brighten up things.”

“I’ve got no magic, Aaron.” She got up from the table. “Close your eyes.”

“What for?”

“Just do what I tell you.”

“Miss Cisco, I’m not sure this is appropriate.”