Riding Danger (3 page)

CHAPTER SIX

Felicity saw Blaine going into her father’s office. As Bennie went the opposite direction, she immediately thought,
Bennie, that big jerk. He is probably going to go bother the maid and try to get a sandwich or a pitcher a tea out of her.
He acts like he lives here! It’s so infuriating!

She did not like Bennie, and what’s more she didn’t trust him. He was too chummy with her father, always sucking up to him and trying to get more and better stuff out of him all the time.

Daddy says he works for him, but I’ve never seen Bennie do anything but odd jobs around the house. He always gives the new guys such a hard time. He gives everybody a hard time. I bet that’s why George left. George was cool. I really liked him, and I wish he hadn’t run off to Chicago like that. I could talk to George and tell him all kinds of stuff. He never told me the kind of stuff that Bennie does. Bennie acts like he’s my dad, but he’s not. He’s just some weird guy Dad hired.

The temptation was irresistible. She wanted to know what was being said in that office. She crept down the hall silently on her tip toes so that her little kitten heels would not tap against the hardwood floors. Her heartbeat accelerated as she made it to the door. Spying was not something she did often, and she was pretty sure that Bennie would come out of the kitchen at any minute, pissed off because the maid would not stop her regular duties to make him anything to eat or drink.

In the office, Greg and Blaine were discussing Blaine’s recent trip to the county jail. Greg asked, “How did they look?”

“Strung out.”

“Other than that.”

“Happy to get out.”

“You’re not a very descriptive man are you?”

“I’m not a talkative one.” Blaine did not even like speaking to Greg. He knew his disdain often showed and that was bad because Greg wasn’t one to surround himself with people who didn’t adore him.

“I see.” Greg leaned back in the chair, folding his fingers together in an almost prayer-like position. “You see, I have a slight problem.”

“Yeah, what is that?”

“I got a girl who doesn’t know how to keep her mouth shut.”

“I’m sure there’s really not a lot she can tell.”

Blaine was sure of no such thing. He already knew where this conversation was going, and his guts were twisting into a knot. Planning a takedown looked the same, whether they were plotting it from the hard, twin bunk of a prison cell or from behind a twenty-thousand-dollar rosewood desk.

“She works over on the corner of Mulligan and Stuart. She needs a good talking to, but just a talking to. At least that’s all she needs right now.”

The fact that all Greg wanted him to do was beat her up didn’t sit any better with Blaine. Hitting girls was not his style. He thought it took a low man to do something like that. He would talk with her all right, but that was about it.

Greg wasn’t finished, apparently, because he said, “You been doing a hell of a job, a hell of a job. You know I couldn’t have asked for a better guy to come walking through the door at the bar that day.”

Blaine stayed silent, waiting to see what was happening now. Eventually, Greg broke the silence and said, “I got a bonus for you. Come on out to the garage. Let’s check the baby out.”

In the hallway, Felicity went scrambling backwards and then down the hall. She had been unable to hear much through the thick door, and what she had been able to hear had been mostly jumble that she couldn’t understand.

Her father’s door opened just as she spun around and began walking back towards it, trying to pretend as if she was simply walking down the hallway. He must’ve bought it because he said, “Well, don’t you look lovely today.”

“Thank you, Daddy. Of course, you’ve been telling me that every day of my entire life. I think you’re a little biased. What about you? What do you think?”

Blaine was uncomfortably aware of her light and floral perfume. It floated around her, rising off her warm skin and tantalizing him. Everything about her was tantalizing. It was also incredibly off limits. “I think you look like your father.”

Nothing could have been further from the truth, but she got the message and so did Greg. His new employee wanted absolutely nothing at all to do with his daughter. Blaine saw the look of hurt on her face though, and it made him feel like an asshole.

“What are you doing, Daddy?”

They were all walking briskly along the hallway, and Felicity and Blaine were both a little surprised when Greg stopped and went toward the double doors that led to the kitchen. Bennie looked up from the table where he was sitting — scarfing down a giant tomato and bologna sandwich — long enough to ask, “What’s up boss?”

“Just going to the garage.”

“I’ll tag along then.”

Felicity and Blaine had the same thought at the same time,
Of course you will
. Blaine looked over and saw the look on Felicity’s face. It gave him pause. She didn’t trust Bennie and that was obvious. The look she was giving him had a sort of sharp and vivid contempt to it.

Greg said, “Felicity, why don’t you find yourself something else to do? I thought you said you’re going out with your friends at some point today.”

Blaine said nothing, but he wondered how the man could be so awful to his own daughter. It was obvious that she was lonely, just as it was obvious that she wasn’t allowed to do too awfully much on her own.

“Okay, Daddy. I think I’ll go over to Jenny’s for a little while.”

She walked away, the bell of her dress swaying around her slender legs. Blaine had to studiously avoid looking at her as she went.

Greg opened the door to the garage that was located inside the kitchen and motioned the other two through it before going in himself. He walked over to a gorgeous motorcycle and said, “This is yours.”

It was a bribe, but it was a hell of a bribe.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Is he pissed off at me?”

Blaine looked at the girl sitting across from him. She was young, and he didn’t want to know how young either. Her skin was clear and unlined, but there was something about her face that said that she had already been around a couple of hard blocks.

On impulse he asked, “Why don’t you just go home?”

She slumped back in the chair, shaking her gorgeous and lustrous auburn locks back from her face. “Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”

He did not have to ask anything else. Either she did have a home to go back to, or her home was exponentially worse than what she suffered out on the streets. There was not going to be any getting through to this one.

“I’m supposed to kick your ass.”

“I could blow you instead.”

“I don’t want a blow job from you.”

“Then, what do you want?”

“Nothing. I just want you keep your mouth shut. You shouldn’t be talking to customers and cops about this little conversation here, either. Those are fresh bruises on your back and arms. Do you want to tell me how you got them?”

The girl looked down at the darkening spots on her forearms and upper arms. She might’ve talked too much, but she wasn’t stupid. “You did it. You didn’t want to hit my face because I might not able to work if my face is all busted up.”

“That’s right. Now tell me what really happened, and by
me
, I do mean just
me
.”

“I went to see my mom. My stepdad still lives there. If we’re done with this little meeting of minds, I got work to do. I got a quota to make you know.”

“How much did you give your mom?”

She looked down at the table, trying to ignore his question. Blaine didn’t even know her name, and he did not want to know her name. There were too many girls just like her out here on the streets, and most of them were being run by Greg. “I’m not going to tell on you, and I am not going to ask you again. You are already in trouble. The last thing on earth you need is to come up short on your quota.”

Her voice was a whisper, “Just two hundred dollars. She needs it. She needs it real bad. I got a little sister, and I don’t want her out here.”

She’d given away her entire daily make. Two hundred dollars was the break line. Anything she made over that was hers to keep; but, if she did not make two hundred to hand over to the goons that collected for Greg, then she lost the right to her corner and the right to keeping her face the way it looked.

Greg said he was not a pimp. He said he provided protection to the girls, and they worked for themselves. If he got them out of jail, he did it because he knew they’d pay him back with interest. Plus, if they were locked up, they could not pay their daily fees.

To Blaine’s way of thinking, he was a pimp. He reached for the bill on the table, looking around as he did so. As he took out the money to pay for the food they had just eaten, he very carefully slid two hundred-dollar bills into his palm.

“Don’t stay here too long, kid.”

She took the money cautiously, as he passed it over. “I just need enough to pay for my room tonight. If I can get a dude that will pay for room for a quickie, it will be the only other trick I turn today.”

Blaine walked out of the little restaurant, and she walked beside him. Felicity was cruising past, her bright red Mustang sticking out in the sea of plain little sedans and minivans; but, he didn’t notice it because he was too busy trying not to notice the way that the girl he had just given the money to was blinking back tears.

***

Felicity saw him though. She saw the both of them. She was stopped at a red light, so she saw Blaine put his hand out on the girl’s arm and say something.
Who is that girl? Is that his girlfriend?

Jealousy filled her, and she could feel her teeth clenching together. It was a new sensation for her, an emotion she was not used to, and she didn’t know how to handle it.
I don’t even know the guy! It isn’t like we’re dating, and I don’t have any rights to him. So why am I so angry?

She made a circle, coming back around the block in time to see him climbing aboard a motorcycle that she recognized.
The bike had belonged to George! What is he doing with it? George had built that bike from the ground up, right there in Daddy’s garage.

George had been an older guy, about forty-eight. He had always been talking about his kids up in Minneapolis and how much he missed them. He said that they had grown up while he was in jail, and there was no sense in trying to talk to them anymore.

Felicity knew that was why he spent so much time talking to her. She reminded him of his daughter. He even had a faded old photograph of his daughter that he kept around, and she had seen it. They did look sort of look a little alike — they both had blonde hair and blue eyes and were built nearly the same way.

Blaine took off and she followed him. Felicity knew she was being silly, she should not be following him at all.
Where is he going?
Her curiosity was getting the best of her, and that was also something she wasn’t used to.

What if he sees me? What would I say to him? I’m sorry, I just decided to follow you around town because I saw you talking to another girl and I wanted to know why you can talk to her and not me?

It was totally ridiculous.
I should just turn around and go home. So haven’t I?
She didn’t want to.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Blaine saw her in his mirrors. His heartbeat sped up a little, and he wondered what she was doing out and about. There was a small ice cream stand to the right, and he pulled over to it, thinking he would just get a cone and maybe watch her ride past.

Instead, she pulled in beside him. The top of her Mustang convertible was down, and her hair was blown all over the place. Most girls would’ve been fussing with it, trying to get it out of their face, so they could make sure he got the full effect of their eyes or lips.

“Oh, look! We both seem to have wanted ice cream at the same time.” Felicity smiled at him, wondering if he could tell that she was lying. She had absolutely no interest in ice cream, at least not right then.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Felicity eyed the bike, wondering if he knew it had belonged to George. Before she could ask him that he asked, “What kind are you getting?”

She looked at him blankly.
What kind of what? Does he think I’m getting my own motorcycle?

She realized that he meant ice cream, and her face turned scarlet. Felicity was not a good liar, mostly because she didn’t practice at it. “Oh, butter pecan probably. It’s one of my favorites. How about you?”

“I like butter pecan.”

“I guess you don’t get much of it in jail.”
Now, why did I say that? It sounds like I’m rubbing it in that he’d been locked up!
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that in a bad way. I guess there’s really no good way to say that? I’m sorry, sometimes my mouth just runs right off on me.”

And the girl he had just left was supposed to get a serious beat down for that very thing. Felicity can excuse hers with words in a flutter of her hands but that girl had to pay for her carelessness with a pound of flesh, or at least she was supposed to. She wasn’t out driving around in a fancy car and stopping for ice cream. She was back on the corner trying to find some guy that would pick her up and fuck her, so she could get a room for the night.

Blaine knew it was irrational. This girl was not her father, and what her father did was not her fault. She didn’t even know what her father did. None of that mattered, at that moment he wanted nothing more than to scream at her to take a good look around herself. Her ice cream was being paid for by some young kid who had just given the money that was supposed to pay for her protection to her mother to keep her even younger sister off the streets.

It was a hard world. Blaine had always known that. Growing up in a rough neighborhood with a mother who was absent and a father who split his time between the drunk tank and a neighborhood bar had given him first-hand knowledge of that fact.

“Enjoy your ice cream.” He cranked the bike back up, enjoying the feeling of the powerful machine below his body. He squealed out of the lot, leaving her there wondering just what she had done wrong.

When Felicity got home, she found her father in the informal living room, his feet up on an ottoman and Netflix on the television. “What are you watching?”

“Oh, just one of those crime movies. You know the kind: gangsters and guns and women in scanty clothing. I don’t know why I watch them.”

It was an old joke between them, but she didn’t feel very much like joking right then. He looked over at her and asked, “Are you okay?”

“Daddy, I thought I saw the new guy riding around on George’s bike. I don’t mean to get him in trouble or anything but… Do you think he stole it from the garage?”

Greg reached out ruffled his daughter’s hair the same way he had been doing ever since she was a two-year-old child. The gesture had been irritating to Felicity for years now, but since he would rarely give her any kind of physical affection, she took what she could get. “No honey, I gave it to Blaine.”

He gave it away? Why would Daddy give away a motorcycle the belonged to George? So, the new guy’s name is Blaine. I like it, it’s a nice name.

She was still confused though and said, “But what if George comes back for it, Daddy? You know how much he loves that thing! It’s not fair to just give it away!”

“George is not coming back, Felicity.” There was a hardness in her father’s voice that Felicity knew better than to try to argue against. When he got that tone in his voice, he meant business.

“Are you sure?”

“I know what he meant to you, Felicity. It was better that he left, and it’s better that he never comes back either.”

“But why, Daddy? I thought he was a good employee.”

“I am not going to discuss this with you. The motorcycle is Blaine’s now, and that is the end of it. Do you understand me?”

She understood him perfectly. She turned her attention to the television, watching as a car careened through darkened streets, narrowly missing dozens of others. She could never understand that. In every single movie that her father liked, all the cars almost crashed into the other cars, or the cop cars all got flipped
.

She thought,
It’s usually the heroes driving the cars that cause the wrecks, so why is there never any mention of what happened to the people in the other cars? Wouldn’t a true hero go back and help those people?

“I’m having a big party on Friday, Felicity. It’s for all the guys who work for me. I know they’re a rougher crowd than you like, so why don’t you make some plans to go somewhere else that day?”

All the guys that work for him? Does that mean Blaine, too?
I bet it does. So, Daddy wants me to make plans to do something else that day, does he?
she thought.

“Sure thing, Daddy. I’m sure I can find something to do,” she said, appearing to be agreeable to his order. She crossed her fingers behind her back as she said it.

I have absolutely no intention of going anywhere that day. When Daddy allows his guys to come to the house, they always bring their girlfriends and wives with them. If Blaine shows up alone — that must mean that the girl who he was with today is neither of those things to him.

She was desperate to figure out whether or not he was single, and whether or not he liked her. Given his behavior at the ice cream stand today, it wouldn’t seem like it. A blush crossed her face, as she considered another possibility.
What if he had just seen me following him, and he had pulled over as a polite way of letting me know that he knew I was following him?

That was even worse than the possibility that he just didn’t like her.