No one said anything. Teddy looked at me. I didn’t say anything either. Lee told me to keep my mouth shut but even if he hadn’t, I was too shocked to speak.
“I don’t get it,” Teddy said.
“Rumor’s spreading that you talked,” Lee told him. “I don’t know how that happened.”
Lee looked at Vance, Vance shrugged.
They were playing with him.
Lee kept talking. “Coxy’s at war with me and he’s tryin’ to impress Indy. You remember Rick?” Teddy nodded slowly. “Coxy put a bullet in Rick’s brain. He f**ked with Indy and hurt her. Yesterday, Coxy gave Indy Rick’s body as a present, half his head blown off. You hit her and marked her. Now you’re out. Good luck.”
“Fuck,” Teddy cursed, looking at me like I could help him out. He hit me and I was pretty sure he was a bad guy, but I had to say I felt sorry for him.
“Let’s go,” Vance put in.
Teddy turned to Lee.
“I talk, he kills me, I don’t talk, he kills me,” he said as if trying to explain.
“Life’s a bitch,” Lee replied, turned his back on Teddy, jerked his head to me and I walked out of the room, followed by Lee. Vance went into the room after we left it. I kept walking until I got to Lee’s office and he stopped me, opened the door, pushed me in and lifted his fingers, stared me in the eyes giving me a three, two, two. I nodded and he closed the door.
I locked it.
Holy shit, shit, shit.
Not five minute later, the knock came. Three, two, two.
I opened it and Lee walked in “He’s gone, time for lunch. Let’s roll.”
* * * * *
I waited until we were rounding the Brown Palace when I asked, “How did Terrible Teddy’s face get like that?”
“Me.”
“You hit him?”
“He touched you, you said it hurt. I found him and beat the shit out of him.”
Oh… my… God.
“Please tell me you didn’t do it in that little room,” I said quietly.
“It was before he was put in the holding room.”
At least that was something.
I was silent while Lee drove. I’d taken off the gunbelt and put it in the trunk with the one Lee took from a drawer in his desk. His was stocked like Vance’s.
Lee parallel parked the Crossfire in a choice spot in front of Las Delicias.
I loved Las Delicias, it was the best Mexican restaurant in Denver if you didn’t count El Tejado. Though, I really didn’t have to choose since El Tejado was officially in Englewood.
I was also silent while they sat us in a booth and Lee slid in beside me rather than across from me.
I turned to him, looked down at the seat then up at him.
“Let me guess, you aren’t much of a booth sharer?” he remarked.