Chapter 19 – Niki
Chapter Nineteen
NIKI
“Any reason you tagged Sunshine Highrise? I heard it was a crack den and not in our territory.” Clark cocks his head.
I shrug. “It seemed like the thing to do.”
“And no other reason?”
He wouldn’t be asking if he knew for sure, so I keep my mouth shut. The fewer words said here, the better. I don’t need Andy to be on anybody’s radar.
“It kind of puts you in a whole new light.” Clark stands up and walks around to the front of the desk.
He leans back, uncomfortably close in this small room.
Emile sits behind me in the corner, the money counting machine whirring quietly.
Nothing else makes noise as Clark flicks a nonexistent piece of lint off his school blazer. I wonder if he sleeps in it.
“Before it seemed like you were content just to take the orders you were given.” Our leader breaks the silence. “But now you are taking initiative and expanding territory.”
Clark is impossible to read, so I don’t know if he feels I’m threatening his position, if he’s just being nosy, or if he’s trying to keep me in my place.
“This is probably the last time you’ll ever see that.”
Clark and I stare at each other for an uncomfortable amount of time until he nods. At least my sincerity seems to be getting through.
“No one cares that you did it. It would’ve been nice to have had a heads-up. I could’ve sent someone to help you. You didn’t even bring Bam?”
“It was spur of the moment.”
He nods slowly. “Are you interested in doing more expansion work?”
“Not particularly.”
I seem to have satisfied his curiosity because he returns to his position behind the desk and stretches out a folded piece of paper for me to take. “Then there are a couple collections you and Bam should make.”
I commit the addresses to memory by reading them out loud twice. Once I feel like I can remember them well enough to share with Bam, I put the paper inside the shredder and start out. Clark stops me at the door.
“Don’t forget your pay.”
I glance over to Emile’s table and spot a stack of bills on the side, more than I usually make. I can’t hide my confusion.
Clark laughs. “Expansion pays well. Maybe you want to reconsider.”
I hesitate, just for a moment, but everyone in the room sees it. I shove the wad of cash in my pocket and repeat my earlier denial. “Still not interested.”
This time everyone in the room knows I’m lying.
I hurry over to walk Andy to school. She’s blushes most of the way, but it’s fucking adorable.
After, I give Bam a call, and he meets me at the corner of Thirty-fourth and Templeton, just down the road from the rich kids’ high school.
“I heard you did some acquisition work,” Bam announces when he arrives. The Riders gossip more than old ladies getting their weekly blue rinses at the hair salon.
“Didn’t mean to,” I admit.
“That girl, then?”
I can’t answer because if I do and Bam is ever questioned, he won’t have any plausible deniability.
He takes my silence as a response, though, and asks, “Did you like the expansion work?”
“Wasn’t any harder than what we’re doing now.”
“The pay is better.”
My eyes slide to meet his.
“You didn’t know?”
I shake my head.
“They’ve got some formula based on the size of the property and the income it brings, but residential places like Sunshine really aren’t worth a lot.
It’s the retail shops because their security fee is a percentage of their gross.
I heard that Fingertip earned six figures bringing on board a strip mall with about fifteen businesses. ”
“Was that when he killed the kid?” A year ago, a kid a year younger than us used someone’s family as leverage. He didn’t know the ten-year-old had a peanut allergy and fed him a peanut butter sandwich while he was holding the kid hostage.
“Yeah, but it was a mistake.”
Not a mistake I’d be okay making. “Do you ever think of life outside of this?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Like the suburbs.”
Bam barks out a laugh. “They do drugs in the suburbs. Look at where we are now.” He waves his hand. As we get farther from the school, the lawns are bigger and so are the houses. Some of them have three car bays attached to the main structure.
“But not like this.” I jerk my thumb in the direction of the laundromat, a mile away, where nothing grows because the concrete is everywhere and anything green is trampled under a million dirty shoes.
“I don’t wanna live in a fuck-ass suburb. I belong here.” Bam crouches down and taps his fist against the sidewalk. “Besides, you can’t get good tacos in the suburbs. No imagination out there, no flavor.”
I wish I had a house that looked like everybody else’s house.
“Not everyone likes spicy food.”
“Then they got no taste.” He hops up and strolls up the walk to a two-story house with a double porch.
It looks almost as big as Sunshine Highrise.
Bam knocks on the front door. No one answers, but I see movement in the long skinny window bracketing the entry.
I give a chin nod. Bam backs up and slams his boot against the handle, breaking it off.
“Just don’t make them like they used to. ”
Whenever that was. I shoulder the door open, and we race after the sweatpant-clad figure who darts toward the back.
“Don’t make us run, gerbil. We’ve got school in thirty minutes,” Bam yells.
It only takes a couple minutes to catch the asshole but another eight as he fumbles with his dad’s gun safe.
We take two Berettas in lieu of the cash.
The other collection is much smoother. The lady, a lawyer, has the money ready for us.
“I told you I was good for it,” she says in a snippy tone as she tosses the brown envelope at us.
“Everyone says that, ma’am, but unlike this lug, I believed you.” Bam winks at her. “You can call me any time you need something more collected.”
Her Stanley mug nearly beans Bam in the forehead after that remark.
“Did I come on too strong?” he asks as we’re leaving. Bam is flirty, but I’ve never seen him actually act on it when I know he could.
“She might have been touchy about the debt collection.”
“We were nice,” he protests. “I didn’t even call her a gerbil to her face.”
“People are just ungrateful these days,” I console him.
We drop off the guns and cash at the laundromat and then hustle off to school. We’re late, but at least we’re attending today.
“You think Clark ever goes to school?” Bam asks as we walk across the patchy grass expanse that’s supposed to be our soccer field.
“Because I think he just lives in the laundromat. I’ve seen him there at five in the morning and five in the afternoon or ten in the morning and ten in the evening.
When do you think he’s got time for classes? ”
“Since you see him there at those times, probably the same amount as you.”
“I’m not really here much.” He kicks a rock and sends it flying toward the net. Bam is seriously athletic but has no patience for organized sports.
“There’s your answer. Why are you so curious? You want his job?”
“Nah, but I was thinking we don’t know anything about Clark.”
“We know the important stuff. He’s as reliable as the bank clock.
If he says he’s gonna be somewhere, he’ll be there.
If he says you’ll get paid five big ones for a job, you’ll get paid five big ones.
” I like that there’s no surprises with him.
That’s probably why he’s got the position he does.
He's dependable—as much as a leader of a gang can be.
Bam and I sleep through our classes. Before dinner, we check in with Clark, who doesn’t have any more jobs for us today. Bam cons me into buying him dinner because of my acquisition bonus.
“Who's the extra burrito for?” He polishes off his bowl in about two seconds.
I don’t answer, too busy shoveling the food into my mouth.
“Can I eat it?”
“No. If you want more food, buy it yourself.”
“But you got an extra one sitting right there.”
“It’s not for you.”
He frowns. “Don’t tell me you’re going after that girl again.”
Silently, I gather all our trash.
He makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “That pussy is dangerous.”
I stop in mid-motion and pin him with a hard stare. “I don’t like it when you say that.”
He sighs and slumps back in his chair. “Fine, I won’t use that word when talking about her, but I don’t like this situation.
She’s dangerous. She’s gonna get you hurt or she’s going to get hurt, and then you’ll go on a murderous revenge rampage, and I’ll be left reading twelve stories a night to your sister because you won’t be around. ”
I resume clearing the table. “I’ll be around.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he says as I toss the garbage into the bin.
When I don’t respond, he mutters, “I know. I know. I said don’t tell me.
But seriously, if you need something, you should reach out to me.
We’re buds, remember. I watch your back; you watch my back.
If you’re not around, I’ll have to break in a new partner, and they will suck, so for all of our sakes just be careful. ”
“I will.” I venture a glance in his direction. “Speaking of reading books to Julie, are you up for that tonight?”
“I’m not even gonna ask you why.”
“Good call.”
“What? You’re not gonna tell me?”
“You’re pretty smart, Bam. You can figure it out.”
This time when I see Andy at the library, she’s not sleeping.
“You’re here?” She blinks her pretty, lacy eyelashes at me. I feel myself grow warm all over.
“Your book bag looks heavy. Can’t have you carrying it by yourself.” I sling the bag over my shoulder and hold out the sack with the burrito in it. “It’s not warm, but it’s good food. I ate with Bam earlier.”
She holds the bag up to her nose. “It smells amazing, thank you. Can’t eat in here so let’s—” She points toward the exit. “Don’t you have to be home to read to your sister?” she asks when we’re outside.
“Uncle Bam is doing it tonight. She likes him better than me anyway.”
“I highly doubt that. How long have you known him?”
“Eighth grade. He bumped into me in the lunchroom and spilled my food all over my clothes. I hit him, and he hit me back, and we both ended up in detention. I think we fought like three more times, which ended up extending our time in detention. Basically, we ended up spending three months together. Since we didn’t want to serve it anymore, we made this pact that we wouldn’t beat each other up no matter what. ”
“So yours is like an enemies to lovers story.”
“I don’t know about the lovers, and I can’t really even say we are enemies. We’re just dumb. And we like to fight so maybe like dummies to less dummies?”
“You don’t seem very dumb to me. You seem like you know what’s going on.”
I snort. “Andy, I don’t know shit. I don’t have my life together like you. You have plans. I can barely see what’s happening tomorrow, let alone having dreams of houses in the suburbs and earning four-year degrees.”
“I think you have more vision than you give yourself credit for. You’re obviously doing what you’re doing because you want to give your sister a better life.”
“You see me differently.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s good. Because you see me in a good light. But it’s bad because I don’t know that I’m the person you see.”
“I have perfect 20/20 vision.” She tucks her hand in mine.
With her beside me, I know I want to be better.