Chapter Nine
Dax
I could tell that she wasn’t sure about being alone with me. I liked flirting with her and I would love to have some more of that hot, sweaty sex with her, but I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable so I promised myself I’d back off a bit while we worked.
We went back into the back office and started pulling out boxes. As we went through them, we did the same thing we’d done last time and just separated them by the date that was written on the outside of the case and made little piles with them. We put the bare ones we found in a completely different box just to get them out of the way.
It was quiet and I was trying to think of a subject that wouldn’t make either one of us uncomfortable when she said, “I registered for the fall semester.”
It caught me by surprise.
“Wow…that’s great,” I told her. It was great. I was happy for her and happy to see that she was planning to move forward with her life. I was a little jealous that I wasn’t going with her though. “And you’re looking for a job?”
“Yeah, I’m starting small. I only signed up for two classes and I thought I could get a part time job too. I delivered three applications out today. I’m hoping for the hostess position. The hours would work well with a school schedule, I think. I need to find some direction in my life. Sitting around and not knowing what I want to do and not having anything to do is killing me.”
“I think it sounds like a great plan,” I told her. “I’ve been having the same thoughts myself.”
“Yeah, I guess you have a better excuse for not having a job and not going to school than I do. I let my life fall apart piece by piece and I hardly noticed it was happening. Part of it is to also get as far away from this club as possible. I just don’t see any good coming out of hanging around here.”
“I would love to be able to go back to school and then get a real job that will get me out of here too. That won’t ever happen though with my felonies. The fact that they’re drug felonies narrows it even further. I did talk to my mom…and my dad, actually about the tattoo shop. We had an uncomfortable family dinner last night.”
“Did your mom agree to help you?”
“We didn’t really talk about it,” I told her. “But she did want to know how much it would cost and what I would need to start. I’m sure she’ll help me. It’s going to be a lot though and I plan on paying her back so I’ll have to do a lot of tattoos.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” she said.
“Yeah, but my plan doesn’t really involve getting away from here any longer like yours does. For one thing, these guys get a lot of tattoos and they know a lot of people who get tattoos so that would be really helpful when it comes to getting my business up and running.”
“Yeah,” she said, hesitantly.
“What? You think it’s a bad idea that I hang around these guys? I’ve been around them my whole life.”
“No, the guys aren’t so bad in and of themselves,” she said. “It’s what goes on when they’re all in the back room that really bothers me.”
“Yeah, I get you,” I said. “I never wanted any part of any of that before and I still don’t. Did Terrance ever talk about it…about what goes on back there?”
The meeting that day with my brother really piqued my curiosity.
“No, he didn’t talk about anything that went on here at all. He was even vague about all of the runs he went on. When he was in a really pissy mood he would tell me it wasn’t any of my business.”
“I’ve been out of the loop for so long. I was curious what they were into these days,” I said.
I was really fishing for what the hell they were into with my brother and the crack house full of body guards in the hills.
She stopped what she was doing and said, “Really? Why do you want to know, Dax? Won’t that just lead to more trouble?”
“I’ll be careful. I actually think I might get in more trouble if I don’t know what’s going on. I went on a run with them right after I got out. We went to this old abandoned warehouse and there were a couple of creepy looking armed guys and a sharp-dressed man and a lot of crates. My dad and Terrance’s dad talked to them out of earshot of the rest of us, but I was curious about the crates. If I had to chance a guess, I’d guess guns rather than drugs. Then today I went with them and I was shocked as hell to see my brother there. I haven’t even heard his name since I’ve been out. He was acting all bigger than shit with his Prez patch. I’ve been so busy with all of this crap, trying to figure things out, that I hadn’t even realized that I hadn’t seen him around. It’s probably a good thing too. His mouth was working overtime today. Have you seen him lately?”
“No, it’s probably been six months since I’ve seen Brock,” she said.
“That’s weird, where has he been?”
She shrugged and said, “I don’t know. He just kind of faded away. I was so preoccupied with my own stuff that I didn’t pay much attention. I know something big went down between him and my dad maybe eight months ago or so. He was around less and less after that until one day he was just gone. I do remember asking Terrance what they were fighting about, but once again, he told me it wasn’t really my business. Hey, what was the date we were looking for again?” I told her and she said, “This one is two days before and goes up to that day.”
“Let’s put it in,” I told her.
She slipped the tape into the player and turned the television on. We watched as it started out with no one in the office, then as I fast-forwarded it, I saw my dad and stopped. He was just going through his bar owner routine, nothing fascinating. He didn’t even log onto the computer that I saw. I fast-forwarded it again and stopped every time I saw someone come in. None of them touched the computer though until my dad and my mom came in and my dad logged on to show her something. I assumed it had to do with their books because she had her little book with her that she used to pay the bills. They left again and I didn’t see him log out. There was a lot more tape of an empty room and then…there was my brother, Brock.
Brock walked in and looked at the computer, whatever he saw there made him smile. My dad presumably left his email logged in again. Brock went back over to the office door and looked out into the hall. He looked up one side and down the other. He came back and standing up, he made a few short key-stroke motions and hit another button. Smiling again, he walked away.
“What the fuck?”
“That was Brock,” Olivia said, as shocked as I was.
“Yeah, that was Brock. Why the fuck would my brother want to set me up?”
I was trying to wrap my head around this thing with Brock on the computer. We both sat there for a while. I was lost in thought and she probably didn’t know what to say.
At last I said, “We can clean this mess up. I’m done for today.”
“Okay,” she responded.
She started putting the tapes we’d taken out back in the boxes when I went on to say, “You want to go with me to get a new tat?”
“Really?”
I laughed. “Yeah, really. I’m not going for anything extravagant. I mostly just need to get out of here for a while. We can take off first thing in the morning. If nothing else it’ll be a nice ride. Come on, it’ll be fun. You can get one too.”
She laughed. “Um, I don’t think so, but I’ll go with you.”
That was satisfying enough.