Kealan Burke - Kin

“See, now that wasn’t such a big deal, right?” Red asked as he approached them, stepping over Pete’s long legs to get to Louise. “Hey,” he said, and she raised her head to look at him. Her mascara had run, making her eyes seem hollow and empty.

“Wayne told me you said he was lazy. That made him feel real bad, you know.” He smiled, revealing the lie in his words. “So he came to me, and I hooked the brother up. He made some good money.” He patted his pocket. “Trouble with that piece of shit was he was greedy, and the boys he workin’ for don’t tolerate that, know what I’m sayin?”

“He was your cousin,” Louise said.

Red shrugged. “Yeah, but shit, I didn’t cap ’im. I ain’t that cold, Louise.”

“So what now? You just goin’ to walk outta here after what you’ve done. You just goin’ to leave us here to talk to the cops?” Her voice, though unsteady, was rising, as anger told hold. “Or are you gonna do what the other thugs told you to do and kill us both?”

Red stared at her for a moment, then glanced at Pete. “Get your ass up for a sec.” He waggled the gun and Pete rose from the couch and moved back toward the shattered TV, which was still trailing smoke. Red sat in his place and put his hand on Louise’s knee. Instantly, she snatched it and shoved it away. In response, he shoved the muzzle of the gun up under her chin, forcing her head back. Louise bared her teeth, the muscles in her neck visible even in the feeble light. Again, instinct propelled Pete toward them, but Red spoke without looking at him. “Lot easier for me to pull this trigger than it will be for you to try to fight me, kid.”

Pete stopped, agonized by helplessness.

Louise grunted against the strain, her eyes fixed on Pete. Stay where you are. Do as he says and we’ll be fine. But nothing was going to be fine. She knew it, and she knew Pete knew it. Here, in this cold dank apartment in a frozen city she hated, she was going to die, along with the boy who’d escaped his own misery to find her.

Still holding the gun under her chin, Red brought his other hand up and slipped it inside her robe. She flinched. His hands were cold, his skin rough. She closed her eyes. “Stop,” she pleaded, weakly. The urge to strike out at him was great, but she knew she would not get very far before he pulled the trigger and ended her life.

“Told you I ain’t gonna hurt you,” Red said as he massaged her breast. “But today, maybe tomorrow, someone you don’t know’s probably gonna stop by and do what I ain’t got it in me to do, know what I’m sayin’? Wayne was a fuck-up, honey. Real loser. He made enemies faster than most folks make spit. Made a whole lot of people out there mad as hell. Tonight they took care of one problem. You, and I guess the boy now, are another one. Talk to the cops all you like, is what I’m sayin’ here. Won’t make no difference.”

He checked over his shoulder, to be sure Pete wasn’t up to anything, and satisfied that he wasn’t, cocked the hammer on the gun. “Don’t,” she whispered.

Where are the police? she thought, panicked. The gunshot was like thunder. Why aren’t they comin’? She couldn’t even hear them in the distance. Her heart sank further as it occurred to her that maybe they lived in one of those places the police preferred to ignore.

Red’s attention on her body increased. “That no-good son of a bitch didn’t deserve a fine hunny like you,” he said. “Soon’s he brought you up here and showed you to me, I told him he’d make more money if he put you on the streets. But he was the jealous type, as I’m sure you know.” He slid his hand down her chest, parting her robe with his thumb.

“Please don’t.”

“He didn’t want nobody havin’ his woman,” Red continued. “Which don’t make no sense considerin’ he liked to brag about whuppin’ you. Man didn’t know how to treat a lady. But I do.”

His hand slid down over her stomach and lower, but Louise kept her knees pressed tightly together. It was no use. Red’s insistence came with the threat of death if she denied him. She winced as his rough fingers dug between them.

“Red, stop… I don’t want the boy to see this. He’s been through enough.”

“Shit,” Red replied. “We’ve all been through enough, ain’t we?” he said with a grin as he slipped his fingers inside her, turned his head and smiled at Pete, who Louise realized was suddenly standing very close behind him, his face lost in shadow.

Red grunted. “Now what the f—?”

Abruptly, Louise realized the boy’s intent and immediately grabbed Red’s hand, jerking the gun away from beneath her chin. It went off, deafening her and blowing a hole in the wall by the door as the light from the muzzle filled the room, just long enough for her to see Pete drive a shard of the broken TV screen into Red’s eye.

Finch couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so drunk. If not for the alley wall, he knew he’d be on his face right now, perhaps singing into a puddle or laughing at some half-remembered joke. Very carefully he let himself slide down until he was on his haunches, his back pressed against the red brick wall of Rita’s Bar. A light breeze played with his hair, and crept down the back of his neck into his jacket. He shivered, momentarily thankful for the numbing effects of alcohol.

The buildings around the cobblestone alley were too tall for him to be able to see if there was a moon tonight. Not that he cared. The moon was for romantics, and even if he’d been one in his younger days, he’d long forgotten how to be one now. He turned his head and looked to the mouth of the alley, where Beau, who had remained perfectly sober thanks to a night spent sipping orange juice, was holding open the door of a taxi as a tall black woman touched his cheek and smiled the kind of smile Finch had only ever known once in his life and now could scarcely recall. It made him feel suddenly isolated and terribly alone, and he wished Beau would either hurry up and say his goodbyes to the woman—Georgia, her name was—or else jump in the cab with her and take off, so Finch at least would know the score.

A moment later, her feet lost in a writhing red-tinged river of exhaust fumes, Georgia kissed Beau long and hard, then vanished into the darkness inside the cab. Beau stood for a moment, hands in his pockets, and watched as it pulled away. Then he turned and started back up the alley toward Finch.

“You still with me?” he called out.

“Barely.”

“Well, don’t quit on me just yet. We got things to discuss.”

Finch knew he was right, but at that moment he found himself wishing that his friend had accompanied the woman home. He didn’t want to think anymore. Didn’t want to talk anymore. He just wanted to sleep. At home. In the alley. Wherever. He was tired of thinking. Tired of feeling as if his head was going to explode from all the anger inside it, and the sorrow. The sorrow was worse because it came unbidden, and unlike the anger, which demanded action, pain, a release of any kind, sorrow asked nothing but for him to just be still while it spread through him like a cancer and drained his resolve, his will to do anything but sleep and feel sorry for himself.

“Hey.” Beau nudged him with his foot, and Finch looked up, startled. Without knowing it, he’d started to doze off, and now, like stop-motion animation, his friend had somehow moved from the alley entrance and materialized right in front of him.

“Jesus,” Finch said and rubbed a hand over his face. “What a lightweight, huh?”

“We ain’t kids anymore, man.”

“No shit. Too bad, too. I had a lot of fun as a kid.”