Stay Vertical (21 page)

Again
? Had he already puked?

Raising himself on an elbow, Lytton speared his fingers through his mop of hair.
Where the fuck am I? And did I just really say that too? No, I think I’m just thinking it.

Another flowered fabric-covered couch held his partner, Toby Weingarten. Lytton was amazed that Toby’s chainsaw snoring hadn’t woken him yet.
I must’ve been really out. How much did we drink last night?
He had known for a decade that, as at least a part Native American, he couldn’t hold his liquor. That knowledge led to his next question.

What the fuck did we
do
last night?

Lytton shoved aside the leather jacket he’d been using as a blanket and sat up dizzily. Everything must be okay if Toby was peacefully snoring away, so Lytton went back to the beginning, reconstructing events in his mind. An enormous glass carburetor bong on the coffee table gave him a clue as to their fate last night. He couldn’t take much pot, ironically. Mixing pot and booze was a surefire recipe for a blackout disaster with him.

Okay, the back alley blowjob he’d witnessed. He’d deposited the bottles of poison in the trash bin all right. He’d met up with Toby where he’d parked his bike by The Bum Steer. They had decided to go over to the house of a good associate of theirs, Michael Bartlett, who of course everyone called Buttlick. Buttlick was a fun-loving guy, some kind of racecar driver who always had lots of women pass-arounds.

“Why did I come here?” Lytton
had
an old lady. Right. June had gone back to Madison’s in P & E yesterday morning, leaving the house right after him. He had an old lady now. A pleasant feeling threatened to break through his virulent, noxious hangover when he realized
I’ve got an old lady
.
I’d better go buy her a better collar.
P & E wasn’t jam-packed with bondage stores, but he could rustle up something. Maybe a giant pink rhinestone-studded Newfoundland dog collar.

I hope I didn’t do anything with any woman
. He usually did when he partied at Buttlick’s. Boy, he hadn’t gotten that hammered in awhile, not since his foray into the world of Jack Daniels when he’d found out who his real father was. Lytton reconstructed the night before. Jack Daniels had definitely been there, and skinny dipping, and oh, someone had puked onto a keyboard. Lytton hoped it wasn’t him. He was pretty sure it hadn’t been him.

“Hey,” croaked Lytton. “Toby McSmokesalot. Yes, you.”

“Ugh,” Toby moaned from underneath the arm he’d flung over his face. “Is my head still attached to my body?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Tell me something, Toby. Tell me whether I messed around with any women.”

Toby sat up. His sleek bowl haircut was in disarray like he’d just been through the spin cycle. He looked at Lytton blearily. “Hell, I can’t even remember if
I
messed with any women. Now that’s sad, because that’s something I’d want to remember. The last thing I remember was trying to barbecue a watermelon. Buttlick kept insisting it was a new trend. Oh, so someone else threw some kale on the grill. Said they were inventing a new grilled salad. Where
is
everyone? Isn’t some Dotard bringing the weed truck up from Phoenix to A Joint Effort?”

“Right.” It was all coming back to Lytton now, and he stood and stretched. He was wearing pants, so that much was good. “Saul should be there at three for his surprise inspection.” Suddenly he couldn’t even feel gleeful about taking down The Bare Bones. It must’ve been the hangover blues, but suddenly he didn’t want to be there to witness the whole takedown. It was enough that he’d helped in the whole scheme, but now he wanted to focus on making The Buddy System the premier dispensary in P & E. He was done with retribution. It was out of his system.

Finding his phone in his discarded shirt pocket, he checked his voicemails. About eight from the same phone number he didn’t recognize. Iso’s name was on one incoming call from eight that morning, so he hit redial on that. “Iso. What’s up? Everything going smoothly?”

“Sure thing, brother.” He sounded sloshed. Lytton didn’t know how that guy got around on his scoot, but he seemed to. Maybe he was a maintenance drinker. Those people drank round the clock and never seemed drunk because they had such a high tolerance for it. “We just wanted to know what time your man was showing up at A Joint Effort. I plan to be sitting out front at the coffee shop next door laughing my ass off, kicking back and watching the drama unfold.”

Lytton chuckled without enthusiasm. He’d been planning on doing that, too. The Bare Bones had probably already noticed the abandoned Staples truck with the skeletons inside, but suddenly it seemed more juvenile than hilarious. He’d been looking forward to rubbing their faces in the fact that The Cutlasses—and him—had jacked the truck full of medical marijuana, but suddenly Lytton wanted to distance himself from it.

June had said Ford had a good reason for killing Cropper. Maybe Cropper had murdered Ford’s mother, who knew? Lytton wanted to back off until he found out more. He didn’t regret planting the bottles of poison in the dumpster. It was still a brilliant plan. The Prospect August had eagerly taken Toby’s Assassin’s Creed flash drive from him. From what Toby said, the nerdy biker was heading right into the back room to insert a stream of nasty viruses into his accounting and security system. Everything was going off according to plan.

“Saul’s going to be there at three,” Lytton told Iso. “I’ll probably join you for coffee and yuks, but I’m going home first. I never made it back there yesterday.”

“Yeah, the place was silent as a grave when I left,” said Iso. “You don’t have guys working Saturday, do you?”

“Just me, Helium Head, and Toby, usually.”

“And no workers on Sunday?”

“No one. Why, was anything suspicious going on? You closed the gate behind you, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did. I’m not an airhead. I just saw a suspicious-looking van heading up the mountain while I was heading down. Must be nothing. You’ve got your security cameras working, anyway. Nothing to worry about.”

Iso’s strange talk actually made Lytton worry
more
. He had no deliveries scheduled for yesterday. He listened to his voicemails, discovering it was Madison Illuminati behind the slew of unfamiliar phone calls. She answered on the first ring.

“Hey, Madison, what’s—”

“
Lytton!
Where the fuck is June?”

“Isn’t she with you? She left my house yesterday morning, same time I did.”

“No. She was supposed to be at my house yesterday at noon and never made it. Not answering a single call or text, either. I would’ve driven up to your house but didn’t know where it is. Are you there now?”

The cold, panic-stricken tentacles of fear were starting to work into Lytton’s heart. He put on his plaid shirt with one arm while holding the phone between shoulder and ear. A disheveled Toby seemed to realize something was up, too. He started snapping his cuffs closed and looking for his boat shoes.

“No. I’m at a friend’s in P & E. Listen, now you’re starting to make me wonder too. Let me text you the address and I’ll head up there right now.”

Lytton’s brain went over every possible scenario as he rode back home with Toby on the back. He saw June as a reliable, stable person, part of her allure for him. He didn’t see her as anyone who would bail on babysitting chores for her own niece. She might’ve crashed that stupid rental car on her way down the mountain, just gone over the edge and nobody noticed. He should’ve bought her a new car. She shouldn’t be paying so much coin for such a dumpy cage. If she didn’t want a Harley, she could at least drive something more stylish, although it would have to be American made, of course.

Lytton narrowly avoided getting a Fast Riding Award. Luckily Toby banged on his lid like a bubble gum machine to alert him there was a motorcycle cop hiding behind a ponderosa pine, so he slowed down in time.

The front gate of Leaves of Grass was wide the fuck open. “This is not fucking good,” he yelled before he even cut his engine. Toby’s cage was there, but Helium Head’s Prius was gone. The doom and dread grew even stronger as Lytton realized Helium Head would
never
leave the gate open. He was only called Helium Head due to his blond ‘fro, not his forgetfulness.

Toby was already running while taking off his helmet. For a guy who didn’t pack a piece, he was certainly making a big act of bravery. But he ran down the side path of the house, presumably to check on the greenhouses.

Lytton went straight for the house.

The front door was wide the fuck open, too. Lytton took the front steps four at a time, bounding like an antelope into the foyer while whipping his Glock from his waistband.

Living room was clear. So was the kitchen, dining room, family room. One strange thing Lytton didn’t pause long enough to really ponder was a bloody hammer on the kitchen table. It looked just tossed there, a dark red streak of already-dried blood giving it away. In the family room, after clicking through a few screens on one of the laptops, Lytton saw that the entire security system had been turned off right after eleven AM, after he had gone down the mountain with Toby.

Who the fuck
. Although calling the cops would be anyone’s first logical response, Lytton had to stuff that impulse down. He was dealing with the MC world now, and he’d done some pretty fucking illegal things too the past couple of weeks. This must’ve been The Bare Bones’ natural response to having their weed truck jacked and parked in the alley behind their shop decorated like a Halloween shindig. Could be the Ochoa’s response, too, for missing a driver.

Lytton knew he was playing with fire. Retaliation was the name of the game with those motorcycle clubs. He had assumed his security system was foolproof, but something had fucked up big time.

He was sneaking down the hallway soundlessly like an ATF agent in a crime show when he heard another car come up the front drive burning rubber and brake with a squeal of tires.

Madison Illuminati and another old lady came tromping into the foyer, bellowing at the top of their lungs, so the jig was up anyway. Lytton joined them in screaming, “June! June, where are you?”

The blonde with the four-inch black roots didn’t wait for any response, though. She stomped right over to Lytton and took a handful of his shirt in her first. She snarled, “You fucking lowdown traitor. I heard what you did, disowning your own fucking brother. Now you’ve joined with The Cutlasses and look what fucking happens! We could’ve told you those fucking Cutlasses weren’t to be trusted. This is all on your head if anything has happened to June.”

Of course Lytton didn’t hurt women, so he wasn’t sure what to do with this muscular tigress bullying him. She was definitely wasting time, though, so he wrenched his shirt out of her claw and shouted, “Shut the fuck up, woman! June could be anywhere around here and we’re here making enough noise to keep the wolves awake!”

“He’s right, Brunhilda,” said Madison, who had her phone in her hand. She put her finger to her lips, listening. “Ssh.”

They all heard it at the same time. June’s phone announcing “Call from Madison!” and muffled whimpering, coming from his play room here on the ground floor.

Lytton reached the room in what seemed like four long strides.

Once inside the room, though, he went all limp. His hand that had gripped the pistol as though it were life itself suddenly went dead, dangling at his side.

A badly beaten June dangled from one of his fucking suspension cuffs. She resembled the most battered piece of meat hanging from a fucking hook, what was left after a boxer finished pummeling it.

Lytton fell to his knees beside her, easily unbuckling the suspension cuff while Madison collapsed on the other side of her sister. Madison was a nurse, he recalled, as she lifted June’s wrist to feel for a pulse.

“Holy
fuck
,” swore Brunhilda, now in a hushed tone. “Whoever the fuck did this is in for a world of hurt.”

Lytton didn’t want to let June’s arm down too swiftly. If she’d been hanging in that one position with her weight bearing on it, drifting in and out of consciousness, she could very well have dislocated the shoulder. He never kept anyone in the suspension cuffs, which were designed to bear weight, longer than thirty minutes. If the shutoff timer on the security system was correct, she’d been hanging like this for twenty-four hours. Her hand was frighteningly cold and clammy, but that was probably understandable.

“She’s alive,” whispered Madison, “but unconscious. Slow pulse, maybe fifty. Get me paper towels, bathroom towels, anything.”

Lytton said, “There are rolls of toilet paper in that closet.”

Lytton had been in many fights in high school. He’d participated in backyard Brazilian jiu-jitsu matches where blood was a common occurrence. Even then, no one had been beaten nearly this bad. June’s nose looked crooked, both her eyes were severely blackened.

“June, June,” he crooned. “June, wake up. We want her awake, right?”

Madison handed Lytton a wad of toilet paper. “Clean her up so we can see what’s going on. Sure, awake is a good sign.” She busied herself pressing on June’s fingernails, then rubbing her knuckles against June’s sternum. There was no response from June, and Lytton sopped up the blood that had pooled in the pit of her throat, the blood that had rolled down between her breasts, the blood around her mouth. He saw she apparently had all of her teeth, although a couple might be wobbly.

“Get a container of water. Some of this blood has dried.”

“Sure,” said Brunhilda. “Should we call 911?”

Madison glared at Lytton, who by now was almost as bloody as June. “No, thanks to
this
horse’s ass.” Brunhilda had left the room, so Madison continued muttering at Lytton. “You fly off the handle and disown your own blood brother based on something you don’t even know the details of. To add insult to injury you hook up with our mortal enemies—
mortal enemies,
Lytton! What the fuck were you
thinking
?”