Walker shook his head then said, “You owe me twenty-five large, Dew. You jacked me around for six weeks; you got half of that to get it back. You don’t, I’ll find you.”
“Ty –”
“Make no mistake, I’ll find you.”
Dewey nodded and didn’t say a word. He knew Walker would find him. He knew, they were tight or not, what Walker would do when he did. He also knew to avoid that. So Dewey sometime in the next three weeks would f**k over another f**king idiot to get Walker’s payback. The vicious cycle of the life of a stupid man addicted to f**king cards.
“I didn’t come empty, Ty. I got somethin’ for you,” Dewey offered.
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Your tail is gone. Bad boys of Carnal PD are convinced five years not breathin’ free, hot snatch you got at home, you’ll do noth –”
He didn’t finish because his found his body twisted, slammed against the lockers, his feet six inches off the ground and Ty Walker’s big hand wrapped tight around his throat, his face an inch away.
“You do not call my wife hot snatch,” he growled into his friend’s face and Dewey instantly nodded as best he could with Ty’s fingers curled around his throat, cutting off his breath.
Ty dropped him and stepped back.
Then, knowing his point was made in a way even Dewey understood it, he moved on. “Got eyes. I know I lost the tail.”
And he did. Three weeks ago. Just after Keaton saw top-to-toe the talent Walker had in his bed and the boys assigned to tail and do the drive-bys of the condo took in planters and deck furniture. They had eyes and ears everywhere. Walker and Lexie at The Rooster, the Italian place in town, the Toyota dealership. No doubt they looked into Lexie and no matter her relationship with Rodriguez, their lives had never mixed and they couldn’t do smack with speeding and parking tickets. She was clean.
Message received was that Ty Walker was cowed, moving on, keeping his head down and nose clean, not about to f**k his future, especially since that future included Lexie and he had no doubt they’d all had their look at Lexie.
It wasn’t a play, it was real. But seeing the results, it was a play he should have thought of though, if he did, he wouldn’t have gone for it thinking they wouldn’t be that dumb.
Then again, he forgot they were half-idiots.
And also, he had no idea he’d walk out to the miracle that was Lexie.
“What I’m sayin’ is,” Dewey kept talking, “word ‘round the Station, they’re convinced you’re movin’ on. They’re leavin’ you be.”
This news was good but Walker didn’t respond.
Dewey kept going. “Ty, they leave you be then you can just… be. Haven’t seen her, hear she’s somethin’. Got that, got a job, got your life back. There’s only one year left on your sentence, one year you gotta live on parole. More than a month a’ that is gone. Maybe signs are sayin’ you should just be.”
“You do time?” Walker asked a question the answer to which he knew.
“Yeah,” Dewey told him the answer he knew.
“Was it fun?” Walker asked.
“Ty –”
“You earned yours and it wasn’t fun, Dew. I did not earn mine. Do not f**kin’ stand there and counsel me about just being.”
His friend studied him then he repeated quietly, “Ty, you push, they’ll push back.”
“Can’t push back if they’re paralyzed.”
“You think a dozen men the last twenty years have not had your same idea, half of them brothers, you’re wrong. They all got smacked down.”
“None of them were as motivated as me.”
This was true. He knew. He knew many a biker or black man in and around Carnal had taken their hits from Arnie Fuller and the Carnal PD. Knew they tried to hit back. Knew they failed.
He also knew he was not them.