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“I remember,” admitted Flynn. “He just hates that shit. Can’t even watch a girl in a movie getting a beating. Just flicks a switch in him, or something.”
“Well, fellas,” said CJ thoughtfully. “I think — just right now — it’d be a good idea to keep him away from things that flick his switch.” He slid the shotgun back onto its shelf under the bar. “Let him take out his aggression in the ring, like he used to.”
“He is,” Flynn replied. “He got his membership back and he’s been training there twice a week.”
“Well, that’s good,” said CJ, clearing away their empty glasses and wiping down the bar.
“Yes and no,” said Mitch, prompting a raised eyebrow from the barman. “They said he’s different from before. More... angry, the guy said. Meaner.”
“You can see it in his eyes,” Flynn confirmed. “It’s almost like he wants revenge or something.”
CJ shook his head. “Got to handle him with kid gloves,” he said. “They all just need to berealcareful.”
CHAPTERFOUR
Her phone had been ringingfor nearly a minute when she finally found it at the bottom of her bag. “Oh,God, not again.” Raven sent the call to voicemail for the third time that morning. “Leave mealone,” she breathed. The old Pontiac started without complaint, and Raven pulled out into the patchy traffic of a Friday lunchtime. Her second shift at Cheryl’s Bakery had been exhausting, in no small measure because of the 5:30 a.m. start, but her new boss couldn’t have been happier. Once the rolls and cookies were in the oven, Cheryl had sent her to bus tables and ring up some checks. She learned quickly, smiled almost all the time, and enjoyed meeting the morning crowd, all of whom had a friendly word of welcome.
Raven relaxed into the drive. She had changed out of her work-wear — apron, hairnet, short-sleeved white blouse, and white draw-string cotton pants — and was in her more familiar jeans and a comfortable sweater. She turned on the radio and hummed along for a while, scanning the road carefully as she always did. One of the older male customers had called her ‘pretty as a peach blossom,’ which had made her day. Glancing in the mirror, she found for the first time in a while that she liked what she saw. Wes’s big breakfasts were putting meat back on her bones, and her color had improved the instant she’d left Illinois.
The phone rang again. Raven growled angrily but decided to take the call; at least, here in the car, nobody else would hear and, if she needed to yell at Hank, she could do so without raising any concerns. With the new law in place, she had to pull over into a farm entrance before reluctantly pushing the green button.
“Hank, for the love of God, what do you want?”
“How’s that for sisterly kindness?” asked the voice on the line. “You’re a tough lady to get a hold of.”
“I’ve been at work, Hank,” she explained as if to a child. “You remember, the thing that most people do where they leave their house, contribute to society, and bring back a paycheck?”
Hank gasped. “Sounds awful. What kinda work?”
The less he knew, Raven had learned, the smaller a problem he would be. Hank had been mooching off his sister for two years, and her patience had expired long before. There was, in truth, a whole list of reasons why she had left Illinois, but Hank was certainly on that list. “Never you mind,” she replied sternly. “I’m more interested in what workyou’regoing to be doing.”
“Oh, I’m doing fine,” he said, although Raven was skeptical as usual. “I got a nice job lined up and I’m going to be making more than enough.”
Yes, I’m sure crime pays better than getting arealjob, she didn’t say. “Does it come with benefits?” she quipped. Drug gangs tended to balk at providing health insurance for their ‘employees.’
“I’m taking care of things,” was his reply. “I miss you, sis.”
Raven had gone as far as to read a book about addicts and how to deal with their crazy-making behavior. To give them money or support, or even kindness, was seen from one point of view as simply enabling their addictive tendencies. Tough love was called for, not soft-hearted pandering; that would only make things worse. The problem was that Hank was her only brother, the only one of her family who would still speak to her, even if it was to beg for money ninety percent of the time. Her tactics were carefully chosen for their balance of strict boundary-setting and the compassion necessarily shown to family.
“Hank, I want you to call me a week from today, OK?”
“Sure, but...”
“And when you call me,” she spelled out, “I want you to give me the address of the new place you’re working at. I don’t care what it is. A burger joint, a supermarket, a goddamnedcleaningservice, whatever. Give me their address the next time we talk.”
“You got it, sis. The thing is...”
She cut him off, something she had learned to do. “You’re not going to buy any this week.”
“I’m not, but there’s this guy and he says I owe, and I don’t really, it’s just bad accounting, and...”
“I don’t want to hear it. You pay him off, and all the others, when you get the job.” Her patience was audibly wearing thin. “We talked about this, remember? No more shortcuts.”
The line was quiet. Then in a resigned tone, Hank said, “OK, Raven. You got it. Talk to you in a week.”
Raven drove the remaining five miles to Pendale with tears in her eyes.
The house wasquiet when she returned. She poured herself a tall glass of iced tea and settled down in her room with her notebook. Right now, she judged, there weresixdifferent ideas for a novel, all of them wildly compelling, and in her idle moments she imagined her characters, the exotic settings she had in mind, the dangers and pitfalls they would face. She removed her sweater and jeans and slid under the sheet with her notebook and thoughts to scribble. Her afternoon reverie was broken only when Wes came home two hours earlier than expected. His shift had finished early, he explained over dinner, as it was only the preliminary assessment of a residential site just outside Pendale. The foundation hole had already been dug, and he had done the measuring and planning for his company’s role in the construction of a new family home about the same size as their own. “Couple of the guys from McMahon’s were pretty cool characters, Maggie. Hope you don’t mind, but I invited one or two of them over for the Rangers game tonight. Nothing big, just maybe four of us. Sound OK?”
