ALL GOOD SONS 12-13

Chapter Twelve

Daryl got out of the Dodge just as Joy drove off. She tooted her horn as she passed him.

‘How’d it go?’

‘Nash was the ringleader. He and the other boys were hurting girls.’

I’ve never seen Daryl’s face turn whiter.

‘Was Grey…?’

‘Of course not! He turned snitch as soon as he found out about it. They all got to him before he could get to the cops.’

‘All? Including Lulu?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why?’

‘She thought Grey was cheating on her.’

‘Have you talked to her?’

‘Nash knows more than she does, and if I go anywhere near her I’m likely to bash her head in with her size six pumps.’

Lulu had become a very sought-after fashion model shortly after leaving school, having been discovered by a scout while partying at a night spot on Rodeo.

‘They get the snot kicked out of ‘em and she jets off to Paris for fashion week…doesn’t seem right to me.’

‘I’ll keep her in my back pocket for now. In a couple of years time, when all this is over and she thinks she’s in the clear, then we’ll sit ourselves down and have a real long talk.’

Daryl shook his head.

‘I don’t know whether to cheer you on or bump up my insurance.’

We went into the house and I made us coffee.

‘By the way, Joy sends her compliments on your brew.’

‘She does?’

‘I believe her exact words were: This is the good shit.’

Daryl laughed, and I joined him. It felt good. Then I thought about Nash.

‘She’s going to kill him, isn’t she?’

Daryl took a sip of his coffee and nodded.

‘And I’ll have to let her.’

Daryl put down his cup.

‘Are you okay with that?’

‘I don’t know.’

Nash was the most evil person I’d ever met, but I couldn’t think of anything that would give me less pleasure than watching him die. They had all played their part in the maiming and humiliation of my son, and Nash had led them, but they had all been kids at the time, with kids self control. Nash deserved the strongest punishment, (legal or otherwise), that fit the crime, but murder wasn’t it. I’d be happy to see him become reliant on intravenous nutrition for the rest of his days, or be rendered unable to scratch his ass, but I couldn’t let her execute him. If I did, I’d be a worse person than he was.

‘How are you going to stop them?’

‘No idea.’

‘Want some help?’

I took a long sip of my coffee.

‘All I can get.’

Weird as it may seem, I think I would’ve felt less nervous going in alone than I did knowing Daryl was backing me up. I consider that whole precognition thing a bunch of shiny, well-dressed malarkey, that’s not what this was; this was certainty. I was certain something was going to go wrong, and I was certain that Daryl would have something to do with it.

‘That’s one big honeysuckle of a man you got there,’ said Joy, nodding at Daryl’s car in her rear view mirror.

‘He’s okay sometimes.’

‘I gotta tell you, back when the boy’s daddy first went toes up on me, I courted that man pretty hard.’

‘Daryl?’

‘What’s not to like? He’s sweet, he’s strong, he could charm the habit off a nun, and he gives the best hugs…although I s’pose you know that already.’

‘We’re not…’

‘Maybe you’re not. We had some laughs back in the day but, I never looked into that man’s eyes and saw him taking a bullet for me.’

‘He’s Grey’s uncle…’

‘I’d rather shave my head than hurt that man.’

We pulled up outside Nash’s place at five forty five. The house showed no signs of life, but this would’ve been so whether we arrived at five forty five or twelve fifteen. Nash was a bouncer in a downtown nightclub, not getting home most nights until around five. He was probably just getting to sleep. I didn’t ask Joy how she knew this. I didn’t dare.

Joy stood back, bidding Daryl and I to do the same, while her boys went around to the side of the house and pried open a window. Thirty seconds or so went by between them cracking the window and opening the front door, and that was twenty seconds too long for me.

‘I don’t like this,’ I whispered. ‘He works security. He’s bound to have a gun.’

Joy turned and laid that Mama knows best smile on me.

‘This isn’t our first rodeo, sweetheart.’

We all congregated in the hallway, where Joy handed out ski masks, saving mine for last. She must’ve read the surprise on my face.

‘I told you, women don’t fuck one another over.’

Nash was neither sleeping nor alone when we stormed the room. Joy made a knocking gesture on her forehead, and Dave grabbed the girl by the hair and bashed her head against the wall, instantly cutting off her screaming.

‘Thanks, Honey. Do me a favor and take her into the kitchen, would you? Maybe make her a nice cup of tea. We don’t want her running off all half-cocked, as it were.’

Dave carried the girl out of the room with all the gentle strength of a father putting his child to bed. Joy waited until there was a knock on the other side of the wall before she nodded at Roy to shut the door. Nash began casually reaching under his pillow, and stopped when Joy, Daryl, and Roy pulled their own guns on him.

‘This is one of my favorite pieces,’ Joy said, pointing to her red leather coat. ‘I don’t wanna have to take it to the dry cleaner’s yet.’

Nash paused, but didn’t take his hand back out. Joy pulled back the safety on her gun.

‘Take your fuckin’ hand out.’

Nash pulled his hand out. ‘You’re not gonna kill me.’ He pointed at me. ‘Not until she gets what she came here for.’

‘What did you do to those girls?’

‘That really what you want to know?’

‘For starters.’

‘We gave them what they were asking for until they didn’t want it any more.’

He started to laugh. Joy tilted her head slightly.

‘Something you find amusing?’

Nash directed his answer at me.

‘You have no idea what you’re in for.’

Joy pointed the gun at a flat section of bed sheet and fired. Nash flinched, but the smile didn’t leave his face.

‘How’s Lenore, Miss Perris?’

‘We’re not talking about her.’

‘Why do you think we never did her?’

‘How would I know?’

‘Never touched Lulu, either.’

‘Why would you?’

‘I let ‘em have my sister. I even watched. I wanted Lenore. I like the smart ones…it’s fun to bring ‘em down a peg.’

‘You little fucker!’

Daryl took two giant steps forward and brought the handle of his gun down on Nash’s nose so hard that there was an audible crunch. That stopped him smiling. Daryl took a handful of his hair and pulled his head back until Nash was spluttering.

‘Disrespect my family again and you’ll choke to death on your own fuckin’ snot.’

Daryl let go of Nash’s head and smacked his broken nose again with the palm of one of his bread plate sized hands. Nash spat blood on his silk sheets.

‘Shit, man, take it easy!’

‘Why did you pin it on my son?’

Nash addressed Joy directly for the first time. The smile was back.

‘Because I knew the cops would believe us; bikers are animals.’

‘What did you say, asshole?’ asked the ape at Joy’s side.

‘And the cops never twigged?’ asked Joy.

‘How did Grey find out about the girls?’ asked Daryl.

These were all questions I should’ve been asking, this being fifty per cent my gig, but I was still processing something.

‘The cops are dumber than the b…the cops are dumb, and Grey? He walked in on us one night. The night Dilly boy lost three quarters of his manhood.’

He turned to Joy again. The smile was back.

‘Sorry we stepped on your turf and all…I know the whole one-sided gang bang thing’s a tradition for you guys.’

Joy aimed at Nash’s second brain and fired. The smile was gone again. This time, it would be permanent.

‘How’s that for one-sided?’

She allowed Nash to writhe about, clutching his shattered parts like a kid mourning an empty Easter basket for a few minutes before she finished him off, and as we all stood there, hypnotized by the spectacle of a man frozen in shock and pain, I couldn’t help but feel as though I had achieved nothing. I came for answers, and was leaving with questions. Daryl put his arm around me as we made our way down the hall to the kitchen. Joy stopped on the way out to pick up the girl’s clothes.

‘Don’t give it a second thought. Little bastard was just fuckin’ with you. We were never gonna get a straight answer out of him.’

The girl was conscious when we came into the kitchen, sitting up at Nash’s kitchen table and taking tea with a man three times her size. Her hands were shaking. She looked up at the four of us with big, bush baby eyes.

‘Are you going to kill me now?’

‘No, sweetie,’ said Joy, putting the girl’s clothes down on the table. ‘Come with me to the bathroom and get changed, then we’ll give you a lift home.’

The drive to the girl’s house was silent, but Joy started in as soon as she dropped the girl off.

‘I imagine that gave you a lot to think about. I’m sorry.’

I said nothing. Could say nothing.

‘For what it’s worth, Daryl’s right. Malevolent little sons of bitches like that never die quietly; they always try to take somebody down with them.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Nobody knows a boy better than his mother. If you don’t think the kid had it in him, he didn’t.’

It was broad daylight when we got home. Joy made me wait inside the car while she got out and waved Daryl over. Daryl opened the door for me and took me by the arm as soon as I got out. I made a meek, mute protest, but truth be told I was feeling a little heavy on my feet. Daryl and Joy said their goodbyes, and Daryl started leading me down the walk toward the house.

‘Daryl?’ Joy called just as we got to the door.

‘Yeah?’

Daryl went down in a heap on the porch and took me with him. Joy, who unbeknownst to us had been following along behind, put the gun back in her purse and wiped away a tear.

‘That wasn’t me fucking you over; just me evening the score.’

I don’t know how long I laid there, crouched up against the man who was, for all intents and purposes, my one true love. All I know is that I never would’ve left him, had Rusty Miller not shown up and dragged me away.

‘I told Daryl that woman was bad news, I told him. Shit!’

Chapter Thirteen

I slept like a dead woman after I was treated for shock, and woke up late in the afternoon to find Rusty Miller sitting on my couch, watching a movie. A photograph album had been left open on the coffee table. I pointed to the TV. The movie was a British production from nineteen seventy called And Soon The Darkness.

‘I’ve seen that at least seventy times. It was one of Grey’s favorites. He snuck out of bed and watched it when he was seven. He said he’d always be there to rescue girls when he grew up.’

I didn’t know why I felt the need to explain this to a man who hadn’t been privy to anything I’d learned that day. I supposed I was just on autopilot. I always was when it came to Grey.

‘He’s a great kid, by all accounts. Haven’t talked to a single person who said otherwise.’ He pointed to a picture of Daryl and the kids. ‘More like his uncle than his daddy, it would seem.’

‘I’ll always be grateful for that.’

Rusty stopped the DVD and got up.

‘I’ll get out of here, I can see you’re okay…’

‘Why are you being so nice to me?’

He closed the photo album.

‘No point keeping up an act once the play’s over.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I’m not on your kid’s case; I never was. I’m head of the task force on the high school gang rape cases. I’ve been investigating those little bastards for years. I had to have you think I was bent to keep you away.’

‘Good job.’

‘I know, right? We were about to close in on them when last night’s little cluster-fuck took place. We had all of them in custody, not counting the dead one of course. All we needed was the leader. At least we got his DNA now.’

‘How did you find out about them? Did Grey tell you?’

‘Some of it…before they got to him. He came to us the day after he found out, said he wanted to help us put them away. I guess he wanted to right some of JJ’s wrongs while he was at it.’

‘What does JJ have to do with this?’

‘Underage groupie assaults. Twelve of them. You didn’t think he was trekking around Nepal all this time, did you?’

‘How is it that this is the first I’m hearing about it?’

‘Nobody knew but us and the feds. Grey overheard Daryl and I talking about it. It cut him up pretty bad. He was going to tell you himself, said he didn’t want you hearing about it anywhere else. Like I said, he’s a good kid. Speaking of kids,’ he picked up my cell phone, ‘you might want to call your other one and tell her about her uncle before she hears about it on the six o’clock news.’

I took the phone.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Rusty.

Eric answered the phone. He sounded uncharacteristically irked.

‘Who is this?’

‘Eric? Hi, this is Viola.’

‘Viola? Are you okay?’

‘Oh yeah,’ I lied. ‘How are you? You sound out of sorts.’

‘It’s just that it’s after midnight here.’

‘Oh yeah, I forgot about that whole time difference thing. Sorry.’

‘That’s okay. Lenore’s right here, I’ll put you on.’

There was a whispered exchange, then a gasp.

‘Mother? What is it?’

‘I, um,’ I choked down a painful lump in my throat, ‘I thought I ought to tell you. Uncle Daryl’s dead.’

Lenore screamed. I didn’t try to calm her down. She was entitled to let it all out. I owed her that.

‘When’s the funeral? I want to be there.’

‘It’s not safe for you to come down here right now. It was a biker shooting. The cops aren’t sure they’re done yet.’

‘What do you mean, they’re not sure? Do the police think they’re after you too?’

‘No, Honey, they don’t think that. They just want us to be cautious until this guy’s caught, that’s all.’

‘Get on a plane; Eric and I will pick you up at Heathrow.’

‘I’m in protective custody. They say that’s the best place for me right now. I’ll keep you updated…I promise.’

‘But I want to be there for you.’

‘You stay where you are and let Eric be there for you. He’s a good man. They’re hard to come by.’

I hung up before she could say anything else.