There are about two hundred people milling around where we’re standing - guys in long coats, families with kids, squads of teenage couples, and dozens of girls who look exactly like Maya. Their hair is the color of a Hawaiian beach and they’re wearing enough expensive jewelry to buy a private island in the South Pacific. Most of the girls are slightly taller than Maya, but that’s not saying much. You could fit Maya inside a straw or purse, and she’s light enough that you’d think the first strong breeze would send her flying. Hummingbird-light. Fragile as a China doll. Those were her old man’s words. Not exactly a comforting thought when this whole city’s just bursting with guys with big guns who’d do anything to get their hands on her.
I’ve got my eye trained on her alright. She’s the one chatting up the shop assistant outside the Yves Sainte-Laurent dressing room, talking so fast that you’d think she was afraid someone would steal her words before she got them out. The guy she’s talking to is telling her he gets his hair cut every three days by a barber named C—honest to God, C—who Maya knows, surprise surprise. She’s the one who set him up with his boyfriend, a designer for Dior. No danger here. She and this shop assistant are as peachy as a brother and sister.
But this guy wasn’t the one I was worried about. It’s this army of shop assistants she’s got working like camels that are making me nervous. It would be so easy to stash an Item beneath those designer pants or coats or whatever else she’s got the minions bringing her.
One crack of a weapon and the head don of the Mob Family would be minus a daughter, which means Quinn Tolliver would be minus a job, and in a few days, out feeding fish beneath the waters at Kingston Pier.
I set my copy of People magazine down on the chair next to me, and took out my carton, popping three Tic Tacs before crunching them with my teeth. This is right about the time I’d have a cigarette if I hadn’t given them up when I was seventeen. Worst decision of my life, and that’s coming from a guy who’s done a lot of dumb things. Things like agreeing to look after Maya Butler.
It’s only my second day on the job, but I’m wondering how in the hell I’m ever going to last if I’m sweating bullets just sitting in a department store. You’d think I’m crazy if I said I’d prefer just throwing punches. Or even taking them. I’ve gotten my face opened so many times it’s like one of those old books that you open and it flips automatically to the page where the binding’s been smashed down. The only difference is that I doubt anyone looks at my face and thinks “library book.”
Whatever Maya was looking for either she’s found it or she ain’t. She gives this guy C a little hug with a pat on the back. He has to bend down for her even though she’s propped up by six inches of heels.
“Having a ball, honey-cake?” she quips, hips swinging like a snake in a basket. I say nothing and take the four bags she’s got draped over her palm. “Such a gentleman.”
She puts so much stress on every word that I can’t ever tell when she’s being sarcastic, which is why my default is just to say nothing. Her daddy’s paying me to be her bodyguard. Not her friend.
Someone ought to tell her that, but I can hardly ever get a word in when she’s yapping on like this. So I shut up instead and do what I’m being paid two-and-a-half grand a day to do.
“Guy in the blue navy coat. Nine o’clock. He’s done nothing but stare at you since you came in.”
“Is the guy in the blue navy coat cute?” She cranes her neck above the shoppers pouring out of Gucci.
“Bald guy. Mid-forties.”
“Bald can be sexy if you wear it well. Ever seen early Phil Collins?” She gives up the search, turns back to the hall, and ignores me.
The bald guy’s got a black beard with little silver hairs in it like Christmas lights and a don’t-fuck-with-me-face. I try but have difficulty putting that face on an eighties Phil Collins. We exchange looks, and he breaks first to take a right into Ted Baker. Bald. Peacoat.
Maya stamps left into Nieman Marcus and takes the place by storm, all glittering smiles and greetings. Shopping malls and designer outlets are the same to this girl as sports bars. Everyone knows her, and she knows everyone, and from the sounds of it, everyone really is everyone. She asks about Darius’s cousin and Anton’s mother’s good friend, who just had a showing in Paris, and Mark’s recent breakup, which she was so sorry to hear about although she’d been wanting to say, ever since they’d all gone out with Lex, that she’d thought he was a total bitch.
She doesn’t say a word to them about me, and they don’t acknowledge me, which is nice. Never cared much for small talk. It doesn’t help that I’ve gotten pretty good at shutting the other person down without saying a whole lot.
The thing is, in my business, if you’re a Stitch or Brother or Ceallaigh—whatever the hell you are—the less you say, the better. Treat words the way you treat an Item. Assume they’re loaded and only fire if you’re sure of hitting the mark.
It’s the same dog and pony show as the last place. Even the haircuts are the same. C must have a thing here. One of these guys directs me to a lounge chair by the dressing room and points to a basket filled with an identical batch of mags as the last store. I grab the same edition of People and flip to page sixty-four, where I left off to finish the article about Justin Bieber’s latest arrest, when something catches the corner of my eye. I don’t even need to turn to see who it is. Peacoat guy is keeping his ground outside the store, looking in. Right at Maya. Two thoughts hit me as loud as pennies down a well. One is coincidence. Two is that this guy is insane. Meaning blood. Meaning mob.
There’s a tingle in my hands, and they get stiff. Stiff enough that the thumb and finger holding the corner of Justin Bieber’s bearded face tears it in two. I almost don’t notice. That’s the thing about adrenaline. You sink all your thoughts and energy into just one direction, and suddenly there’s no divided or undivided attention, no distraction and no caution. Just the question yapping through your brain: “If it comes to it, are you going to do what you have to do?”
The guy in the peacoat hesitates before entering the store—I still haven’t seen him full on, but I can make out his reflection in the polished, wooden closets near the front. I grip the magazine firmer to keep my hands steady and try not to smile. That’s just something I do before a fight. I can’t help it either. Even if I try forcing the muscles down with my fingers, they just pop back up again, and my face just stays that way—as wide as Chloe the clown. It’s been doing that since my first real fight when I was twelve. Doesn’t mean a thing about how I’m feeling, though it’s scared the hell out of guys in the past who’d been thinking of starting something.
But everybody’s got a tick like that. Maybe not smiling, but some weird shit their body does when they go into fighting mode. One of my boys in the Stitches—guy we call Glass ‘cause of what his fist can do to another guy’s face—starts up with this hyena laugh any time shit’s about to go down, but only when it’s a physical fight. Give the guy an Item, and he’s cool as a cucumber. Another one of our guys slaps his cheeks like he’s stuck in a dream and trying to wake himself up.
So here I am smiling while Maya is being thronged, doted on, brushed, and coddled like a new kitten into a dressing room, and peacoat guy hasn’t moved a muscle since he stepped into the store. The girl at the counter asks him if she can do anything to help him and you can tell by the way she says it that even she’s wary. She’s thinking: this guy clearly isn’t here to shop.
I set the mag down and turn.
His eyes are glued to the dressing room, and he doesn’t see me at first. That means I’ve got a second to size this bastard up properly before deciding what’s gonna be done. Six feet, three inches. Arms like thighs. And this motherfucker’s clearly got something beneath his coat otherwise he would’ve stopped fishing around in his pocket.
I stand up.
Cashier girl twists to look at me—this hulking, smiling giant— and presses something on her desk before flying into the back dressing room, her heel’s clattering like skittles.
The guy notices me finally, and he starts coming forward. We’re both sizing each other up, doing this wordless, eye-to-eye dance with each other, like I was Wyatt Earp and he was the guy who tried to shoot Wyatt Earp.
It’s a bit of a stretch, but I figure if I’m fast enough I can take this guy from the left side and drive him into one of those big closets. If he trips on the woodwork like I’m planning for him to do, then I can maybe get in a couple of solid body kicks before he gets up again. Everything after that will depend on the Item and how long it takes Security. No use planning in advance what you can’t guess.
“Hey,” he says. The hand beneath his coat stops moving. “You got a problem, friend?”
I don’t say anything. Most of the guys who know their business don’t say anything to shit-talk. Plus with this stupid smile, it’s hard to get in a word.
The first thing you want to do with a guy with an Item is to get him by the arm. That’s just plain common sense although I’ve seen plenty of guys try to go for the neck first and get knifed in the belly. Two steps and I close the distance between us. I get his left wrist and start to bend, and this guy drops to his knees. He tries to cry but can’t, and I’m still bending when I hear Maya’s voice from the dressing room.
I let go of the guy’s wrist. He flops out on the floor, wincing and shaking his hand out though I’ve put in enough finger pressure that he’ll be feeling it at least until the end of the week. And then, in swoops Maya with her cavalcade, one of which has already gotten the guy water and another of which has got his hand on the guy’s back and is whispering that it’s going to be fine, just fine.
All this is going on while I’m still wearing this dumb smile, which really isn’t helping my image. Maya’s got eyes that could freeze fire. I shrug.
“Maya Butler,” the guy says weakly. You’d think he’d been shot, not had his elbow twisted around a little.
“Anthony, I’m so sorry.”
He puts his right hand into his coat and takes out an envelope. There’s a card inside, with glitter on it. “Happy birthday.”