3. Julie
three
Julie
You get good at waiting, in my line of work. I’d spent six years cultivating an expression that suggested nothing ever surprised me. It worked most days, but not all. Today, for instance.
The DA’s office looked like every other government box: white walls, hollow wood, chairs so cheap you’d swear the legs would fold under the weight of a tough question.
My desk sat center stage, caught in the sunlight that bled through the single window.
On the wall behind me, three law degrees stacked like warnings, each a different flavor of Latin.
A small cactus kept dying and reanimating on the corner of the blotter, surrounded by a procession of case files tagged in three colors.
I liked the effect. It said, I know exactly where your bones are buried, and which color I’ll use to label them.
As much as I tried to ignore the letter at the center of my desk, it kept speaking to me: “Hey bitch, he’s being released in three days. Whatch-ya-gonna-do?”
Great question that only had shit answers.
I could sit back and watch it all happen, watch the town burn to the ground.
I could pack my shit and run—the better sounding of my options.
Or, the last thing I actually wanted to do, I could stop the Colonel’s release and hope it held up in court.
If it didn’t, well, I was fucked either way.
I returned to my elbows-deep plea offer on another case—a real shitshow, meth and domestic, the kind that always ended with some kid getting shipped to a grandparent in Hinkley—when the intercom popped.
I ignored it. It popped again. This time, Marcy’s voice broke through, nasal and tense.
“Ms. Sparta? There’s a—uh, a Bram Jackson here to see you.”
I dropped my head to the desk. “You can schedule him for next week; tell him I’m in a meeting.”
The pause was just long enough to make my teeth itch. “He says it can’t wait. He’s already in the lobby.”
Of course he was. “Did he specify a topic?” He didn’t need to. I knew why he was here. Hell, I had expected him earlier.
“Said it was about your shared—‘interests.’ And he’s—well, he’s not alone. He’s with two other men, but they’re staying outside.”
I closed the file and set my palms flat to the desk, feeling the cheap veneer flex. The hand that reached for my water glass shook, just a fraction, but enough. I crushed it by making a show of straightening my blazer, then clicking the pen twice.
“Julie?”
“Send him in, Marcy,” I said, and I was proud of how level it sounded.
The outer door opened and closed. Heavy footsteps—one limp, two normal—approached. Marcy made a strangled attempt at an introduction, failed, and then Bram Jackson filled the door like the world’s most unwelcome weather system.
Six-four, lean and roped with the kind of muscle you didn’t get at Gold’s Gym.
Gray hair that looked silver if he stood in the light.
He wore a club cut, faded denim and leather, with the word PRESIDENT riding above a patch that said exactly what everyone in Barstow already knew.
He wore a long-sleeve black tee under the vest, and his hands—scarred, one knuckle split open and healing—hung loose and empty.
I stared a moment too long, caught up in the badass arrogance that followed him around.
“Ms. Sparta,” he said. He always used the formal. Never Julie. Never.
“Mr. Jackson,” I answered, letting his own name do the work of an insult.
He stepped inside. I didn’t tell him to sit, and he didn’t, just kept coming until his shadow landed across the desk.
He looked past me, at the degrees, at the window, at the case files, at everything except my face.
Fuck, I imagined his picture next to the word masculinity in the dictionary.
He was everything women loved and hated.
I waited him out. That’s the trick with men like him. Let them fill the silence with their own ghosts.
He produced a single sheet of paper, folded in thirds. He set it down on my blotter, smoothed the edges, and tapped the top line.
I read it upside down. California Department of Corrections. The word “RELEASE” in bold; the date should have been on a tombstone.
I let a second pass before looking up. Met his eyes—steel gray, cold and direct, the kind that broke stares and noses with the same effort.
“Is there a problem?” I asked.
He tapped the sheet again, harder. “You tell me.”
I blinked. “It’s a routine matter, Mr. Jackson. Inmate serves his time, the Board signs off, the DA’s office is notified. No appeal was filed because there was no legal basis for one.”
He didn’t move. “Bullshit.”
I shrugged and let my lips go tight. “I can have Marcy bring the full case file if you want. Or you can make an appointment like everyone else.”
He leaned down, slow enough to be deliberate, but not slow enough to be a threat. The room shrank to just the two of us. When he spoke, I felt it in my chest.
“I had to hear about this from a prison clerk,” he said. “You and me, we have an understanding. Or I thought we did.”
Now he was looking straight at me. I could smell the engine oil on his jacket, the desert sun baked into the fibers. He was close enough to see the way the scar above my left eye—two centimeters, pale and flat—caught the overhead light.
“I don’t answer to you,” I said. My voice wanted to tremble, but I kept it still. “If you want to talk about the Desert Scorpions, you make an appointment. If you want to threaten me, you’d better be a lot smarter about it. Chief Maddox…”
“Don’t name-drop to me, Julie. You know what this means.” He leaned across the desk, the whiskey on his breath burning my nostrils.
I gathered myself, not wanting to show fear. “There was nothing I could do about it, Bram. You know that.”
“Mr. Jackson,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Are you ready for the war that’s coming, Julie?”
“Ms. Sparta,” I said.
Bram straightened, picked up the paper, and refolded it. The silence between us was dense as wet sand.
“I’m not here to threaten you,” he said. “I’m here because every time you pull a string, someone bleeds.”
I let that one hang. He wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t right, either.
He said, “You want to keep running this town, you don’t keep me out of the loop. We have a system.”
“We had a system,” I corrected. “Now we have a problem. I’m not responsible for what’s about to happen. I’m the one who has to try and manage a bunch of dick-swinging men who want to kill each other!”
His face cracked a fraction, something between amusement and rage.
“You don’t think I know that?” He turned and walked towards the door, and I knew he was going to slam it just by the way his shoulders tensed.
He didn’t. He paused, half-in, half-out, and said without looking back:
“Next time, you come to me first.”
“Bram, I’m sorry about what happened to her.” I knew better than to mention her name.
“Yeah, I can tell.”
He left, the air in the office breaking with the closing of the door.
I stood there for a minute, hand pressed flat on the desk, trying to unroll my spine. The release notice sat there, a time bomb counting down in sans serif. I wanted to sweep it into the trash. Instead, I opened the file drawer and locked it away, third folder from the back, under a different name.
I watered the succulent. I went back to the plea deal.
But all I could see was Bram Jackson, and all I could hear was the word “next.”