Chapter 4 Leo #2
I mean, I have to admit, I hoped…a small part of me hoped that Tim didn’t show for dinner.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him, to take out the last year’s emotions on him the way I knew I’d have to if he came through that door.
But since he isn’t here, I don’t have to worry about what I might be tempted to do.
“Sorry, man,” Josh says. He nods. “I texted him, but…”
I nod. He doesn’t have to say any more. “Don’t worry about it. Have a seat.”
I lead Josh into the living room. It’s fall, so I’ve got the windows of the house wide open. It’s cool outside, and I have chicken marinating in the fridge.
“You want something to drink?” I ask. “I asked Lia to pick up more beer on her way home. She’ll turn up in about an hour, and there’s a chance she’ll remember the beer. I’ve got a couple cold ones, though, if you’re drinking?”
“I’m all right, man.” He looks uncomfortable. He hasn’t sat down, and he’s looking around the house like he’s not really in the mood to be here.
I jerk my chin at him. “What’s up? Something on your mind?”
He sets down the backpack and starts unzipping it. “I’m not planning on staying for dinner, Leo. This is a business call.”
“Business?” I drop down onto the couch and motion for him to sit. “We talkin’ about the office space?”
Arrow shakes his head. “’Fraid not, man.”
“I’m not following.”
“I’m here as a courtesy,” Arrow says. “I feel really bad for you, Leo. I want you to know none of this is personal.”
I’m not sure where this is going, but when he pulls a manila folder out of his backpack, my blood starts running ice-cold.
“What’s that?” I ask.
He holds the folder out for me to take.
I grab it and flip it open, starting to look through a stack of paperwork. I see a lot of names and information I recognize—and a whole lot of shit I don’t understand. “Fuck me. This is about Tim…” I’m finally piecing it together.
He nods. “Leo, again, man, if I’d had any idea about everything going on… Well, this shit would have gone down different. Tim called me a while back. He was in trouble, arrested.”
That explains a lot.
That asshole was in jail this whole time? But Arrow is sounding like this is the beginning of a story I am not going to like the ending to.
“He got himself into a lot of trouble, Leo. Serious shit. Seems like your brother was caught up in a small-time drug operation. He was dealing some new drug college kids are going crazy for. Tim got pinched. That’s when he called me.”
I finger the business card stapled to the inside of the file folder.
Joshua Aronowicz
Licensed Florida Bail Agent
Holy fuck.
“All right. I know my brother’s a junkie. I didn’t know he was in business, though.” I’m looking through the paperwork, and I’m reading it. But I can’t fucking believe what I’m seeing. “So, what does all this mean? What does this have to do with you?” I ask.
Arrow rubs his forehead, grimacing. “I need to find your brother, Leo. You need to find your brother.”
I can hardly make out what Josh is saying. He’s saying the words and he’s explaining, but the blood rushes in my ears, making them ring, and it’s like I hear every other word.
“Tim called me. He couldn’t post bail. He put up the house as collateral.”
That’s the only word I need to hear to completely understand the gravity of the situation.
Collateral.
That’s how this all came down on my doorstep.
That’s why Arrow showed up at the shop this morning.
My brother gave Josh—not his old high school buddy Arrow, but fucking bail agent Josh Aronowicz—a call when he got arrested and couldn’t make bail.
And he used the deed to our house as a get out of jail free card. He put up the house as collateral.
“So, what…what happens now?” I ask. “Are you here to take my fucking house?” I ask the question, but my fists are clenched. I’m not about to be put out of my own goddamn home. The only thing I have left in this world. Not without a fight.
Josh holds out his hands. “No, Leo. Calm down, man. We’re not there. Not yet. Let me explain.”
I try to listen as Josh tells me what’s happened over the last few months.
No wonder I haven’t heard from fuckin’ Tim. He got pinched and put the house up as collateral against $150,000 bail. A hundred and fifty K. I literally can’t believe what I’m hearing. Last I checked, our house was worth one-seventy, tops.
“Do you take the whole house?” I demand. “What if it’s worth more than the bail?”
Arrow shakes his head. “Won’t matter. When the house is put up as collateral, part of the deal isn’t to protect the accused’s assets. You won’t get a dollar-for-dollar refund if the house is worth more than Tim owes. If he doesn’t show up to court and I seize the house, you’ll get nothing.”
God fucking damn my brother.
“Why’d he call you?” I ask. “How did he even know to call you?”
“Occupational hazard,” Arrow admits. “Most of us who are good at what we do, it’s not hard to find us. I’m sure when Tim got arrested, all he had to do was have his wife ask around. Bars, even the jails. You name it. The only place you’ll never find me is social media.”
He tries to crack a joke, but it ain’t gonna land. I’m still tripping on something he said.
“Wife?” What in the actual fuck? “Man, Tim’s not married. Or at least, he wasn’t.”
Just when I stopped feeling like I needed to smash Tim’s face in, I wanted to smash Arrow’s face in. Now, I’m back to wanting to kill my brother again.
“The marriage is legit, man, or at least as legit as a courthouse deal gets.” Josh shakes his head. “I think she’s his mule, honestly. I think he probably married her so she couldn’t testify against him. She’s the one who found me while Tim was locked up. But listen, Leo.”
I lift my chin and grip the folder of paperwork in shaking fists.
“There’s still a chance to save your house.”
He makes it sound like a good thing. Like there’s any reason to feel hopeful in this mess.
“Part of the deal when you work with a bail agent is doing whatever they require. Tim was supposed to check in with me twice a week, every single week, until the trial. When I didn’t hear from him Friday afternoon like I was supposed to, I called.
Then I texted. But when he didn’t respond, that’s when I showed up at the building. ”
“Wait…” I look Josh over. “If Tim put up the house, why did you come to the strip mall? Why didn’t you come here first?”
“Well, I didn’t know he didn’t own the place anymore. He told me you guys still had the shop and were working together.”
That trips my interest. Tim had to know the building was about to be seized when he ran off a year ago. Why else would he have left? He may have been dealing drugs and on the run from me, but if he didn’t put up the building, he had to know that it wasn’t his anymore to stake against his bail.
If he offered up the house, that meant he also had to know I was still here. And the way Josh explained it, it sounds like Tim might know I am still working at the shop. Unless telling Arrow we were both still working at the shop was an outright lie?
It grates the shit out of me that this guy I haven’t seen since high school knows more about my brother and his business than I do.
Josh looks apologetic. “I figured if he was still working, he’d be at work. That was my first stop.”
“What if you hadn’t found me there? Then what?” I don’t think I want to know, but I have to ask.
“Look, Leo. If I’d found Tim at the shop this morning, I would have checked in with him and reminded him of his duties until that court date. That would have been the last of it.”
“Right,” I grit out. “But he wasn’t there.”
Arrow nods. “This isn’t the first time someone lied to me to protect someone they love from the consequences of their actions.”
“What are you talking about?” I stifle the urge to kick this asshole out of my house—while it still is mine.
“Tim has to know that when he didn’t check in, I’d come looking for him.” Arrow shrugs. “He’s either sniffing around and will show up at some point, or he’s in the wind for good now.”
Fucking great.
“If he’s sniffing around, I think I’d know about it,” I said.
Arrow shrugs. “Maybe. Maybe you would but wouldn’t feel right telling his bail agent about it.”
“Are you fucking kidding me, man? You think I’m hiding Tim from you?”
Arrow doesn’t say anything, but he looks me in the eyes, a challenge there.
“I’m not gonna lie. I’m trying really hard not to bounce your ass out of my house,” I say.
“But I’m acting civil because you’ve got the information I need.
If you hadn’t shown up tonight, I might never even know that he’d put up the house.
After what I’ve been through this last year, you can bet your ass, if I see my brother, you’ll be the first call I make. ”
Correction. The second.
The first call would be for an ambulance. Somebody’s gonna need to stop the bleeding when I punch my brother in the face.
“Look, Leo, I get that you’re hot right now, but there’s still a way to save the house.” He explains how the collateral against the bail bond works.
It all makes sense to me, what Josh is saying, where he’s coming from. But there’s a problem.
“Tim knows that if he doesn’t check in with you, you’ll come looking for him. Yeah?”
Arrow nods. “And I have the right to haul his ass back to jail where he’ll rot until the trial.
” He looks at me. “I don’t think Tim wants that, man.
He knows he’s got a court date coming up in two weeks.
Between now and then, I need to find your brother.
If I don’t, and if he doesn’t show for the pretrial hearing… ”
Arrow looks around my living room and back at his boots.
I get it.
“Can you give me the name of his wife? Have you tried calling her?” I ask. There’s got to be a way to get out from under this.
Arrow shook his head. “Privacy reasons, I can’t say much, but the information is available online if you know where to look. I tried calling her when I couldn’t reach him.” He shook his head. “Burner phone, no doubt. When I called the number she used to call me, it was dead. Not in service.”
My stomach sinks even lower, hearing that.
Arrow pretends to look at an imaginary watch on his wrist. “I can’t tell you anything confidential, but if I told you a tiny blond girl named Juliette likes to hang out and shoot pool at Checkers on South Fairfax Avenue…
And that she might know where to find your brother…
” He looks at me again. “You wouldn’t know enough about Tim’s wife to track her down, but you could probably get a lead on her. You feel me?”
I want to feel Arrow. I want to feel his nose crunch under my fist. But I have to appreciate the guy is doing what he can here.
He is trying to stop my brother from stealing the only goddamn thing I have left right out from under me.
While at the same time saving his own ass on this bond.
I have the feeling that getting Tim was a much better deal for Arrow than getting our house would be.
“I feel you,” I grit out, clenching my hands into fists so hard my knuckles pop.
“We have two weeks until the court date. Your brother needs to be on time, at the courthouse, and in his seat for that hearing. It’s the only way to save your house.” Arrow stands and gives me a curt nod. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but we’re actually on the same side here, Leo.”
“Right.” I slap the folder closed and drop it onto the coffee table. “I’d say thank you for letting me know, but don’t hold it against me if I’m not exactly feeling grateful.”
Josh shrugs but has the decency to not look around or look back at me. He lets himself out.
I lean my head in my hands before letting out a slow breath. “Goddamn you, Tim.”
Not even ten minutes later, the door opens.
“I’m home,” Lia sings out as she comes through the door. “Leo. Are you okay?”
“Come here, Pixie.” I scratch the ears of the little bugger, and she frantically licks my hand as if I dipped it in a vat of bacon. I’m feeling a little better seeing her floppy ears and happy tail. A little better.
Lia’s carrying a twenty-four pack of beer, and it looks as if the cardboard is about to slip out of her hands.
“Jesus, let me help you with that.” I jump up and leave Pixie and grab the cardboard box from Lia’s hands.
“Sorry I’m late,” she says. “I know you gave me one thing to do, but I got distracted.”
I shake my head, but I’m not mad. That’s why I had Lia pick up something that wasn’t necessary to actually making the meal. I knew she’d be an hour late, at least, as she always is. But she’s here now. She got the beer, and she’s looking gorgeous. Too bad dinner’s canceled and I have shit news.
“Dinner’s not happening,” I tell her.
“Wait…why?” She sits beside me on the couch. “You look like shit, babe. What happened?”
Lia takes my face in her hands. She smooths the scruff of my beard with her fingertips, stroking the line of my jaw and trailing her way down my neck.
I love when she does that to me. It’s my kryptonite.
I close my eyes and tell her everything.
She listens intently, looking scared at first, and then sad. Finally, her eyes fill with resolve.
“We have two weeks?”
I nod.
Lia looks at me with something I don’t recognize in her eyes. It’s serious and yet so, so caring. She nods and takes my hands in hers. “Well, let’s do it. Let’s find your brother.”