And he was also not in my face. He wasn’t pissed. He wasn’t shouting. He wasn’t threatening. He told me I could walk out and I believed him. In fact, everything he told me, I believed. I’d been around a lot of the dregs, Ronnie saw to that, so I had a highly tuned bullshit detector. Whatever this man was, he was not bullshitting me.
And he could get me clear of Shift, I knew it. I knew it because Shift was scared of him, I could see this now. That was the reason behind the frantic phone call. He wanted to make sure Ty Walker got what he wanted and liked what he saw. He’d played me to make sure Walker didn’t lose it and take what Shift owed him a different way.
And he was right, I pulled up stakes, fifty thousand dollars would set me up.
And I’d be clear of Shift.
And away from that life, clean and free.
Clean and free.
Finally.
“How long would this, um… business last?” I asked.
I didn’t know if I was seeing things but I could swear it looked like his body relaxed even if the change was so slight it seemed like an illusion.
“Don’t know,” he answered.
“I have a job,” I told him.
“You want clear of Shift, you gotta leave Dallas. You leave Dallas, you leave your job. Might as well do it now.”
This was true. It sucked because I liked my job; I’d been working at Lowenstein’s for nearly ten years. But I always knew I’d be leaving it one day, either when I gave up on Ronnie or when Ronnie made a break for it and took a chance on us and, more recently, to get away from Shift.
However…
“I didn’t give notice.”
“Emergency,” he said.
“What?”
“Emergency leave of absence. You gotta look after your sick Mom. Your Mom don’t get better, you don’t go back. Shit happens. They’ll deal.”
“I don’t have a Mom.”
He went silent and did that blank but still alert and assessing thing.
Then he said, “Your Dad.”
“I don’t have one of those either.”
Again, I could swear something happened to his body even though I couldn’t be sure but this time it wasn’t relaxing, it was tensing.
“Don’t give a f**k who it is, a grandparent, whatever –”
I shook my head indicating I didn’t have grandparents either.
He stared at me.
Then he whispered, “Jesus.”
“Long story,” I muttered.
He went silent again and stared at me.
This went on awhile.