Flash forward. Here we are again making our way like devils out from the mall. Anthony Gerard—the guy whose arm I probably would’ve broken if I hadn’t seen his glittery birthday card—turns out to be one of these guys who’s neck-deep in Maya’s pack. He’s all smiles and ‘no harm done’ and waits with his hands in his peacoat rotating from his heels to the flats of his feet up until security arrives. The sales clerk appears again from the back room and tries to smile. I get the idea that Maya doesn’t want me standing side-by-side, so I sit on the bench facing the store and try to wipe my smile away.
Security doesn’t need much talking to. Theo’s got his understandings with every policeman or woman from Portsmouth to New York City. Maya throws them a couple laughs and drops her last name casually like a used napkin and the next thing you know it these guys are practically scraping the ground bowing to Her Majesty. She slips them both what look like hundred-dollar bills and then we’re out of there.
We walk back to the car in silence. I dump the five bags into the trunk and open Maya’s door, and she slides in coolly.
She waits until I’ve pulled out of the parking lot before laying into me.
“You gonna tell me what the hell you were doing back there?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Kirill’t you damn well ask me that, not after I saw you twist Anthony’s arm like that. You ought to be thanking your lucky stars that it didn’t break.”
“Lucky stars don’t have a thing to do with it. If you’re that excited your friend’s okay, thank a solid radius and coordinated distribution of strength.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
Maya hasn’t told me where I’m supposed to be going. We’re drifting on the service road right now, and I’m switching over to the highway when Maya’s hand makes a grab for the steering wheel, tugging us sharply back. I can hear the sound of squealing tires as the eighteen-wheeler behind us pumps its breaks. The horn sends off a groan, and I see in the rearview mirror the guy flipping me the bird.
“Jesus. You trying to kill us or something?”
“I asked you, are you trying to be fucking funny? Is this some fucking joke to you?”
Maya still hasn’t let go of the wheel. We’re doing sixty with a pissed-off trucker trailing behind us by a hundred feet or so, and I’m beginning to wonder whether or not I should fear for my life. Theo didn’t mention any suicidal tendencies, but now that I’m thinking about it I get to wondering if what I’ve seen so far of Maya Butler is just the good side of potential bipolar.
“Keep the gas on,” she hisses. “We’re not pulling over. I want you to get something straight.”
“We can get it straight in a parking lot. If you want me to pay attention, I’m more likely going to do that if I’m not fearing for my life.”
“I’m not going to kill us.”
“You ever heard the old motto ‘never trust a pretty face?’ ”
“Kirill’t you dare try to be cute right now.”
A flash of orange on the road ahead, followed by a couple SERVICE ROAD CLOSED signs asking me to reduce speed and cut along a side road. Thank God for road crews.
“No choice now. Let go of the wheel, and I’ll pull into the first lot I see.”
Maya shoots me another one of her hellfire glances, but lets go. It relieves me more than I imagined. It would’ve been easy enough just to force her hand off, but I’ve got a feeling Theo’s got something like medieval-era laws for laying unwelcome hands on his daughter. Plus, a mob boss seems like the kind of guy who’d keep rusty machetes in his office desk for the purpose of cutting off bad hands.
I swing the Mercedes around and slot us through a lane at the very end of a Lowe’s Home Improvement. Maya doesn’t waste a second.
“I’m gonna make it simple for you so you can understand. If you ever put a hand on one of my friends again, I’ll make sure that within the hour you’ll be out of a job. And a word to the wise, if my father puts you out on your ass, good luck trying to find work again in this state. If you think that’s a threat, then you’re absolutely right.”
She wraps this speech up handily and sinks back into her car seat. I’ve got to admit it’s one of the better-worded threats that has been thrown at me, compared to the usual stuff. It gets me to thinking that I’m probably not the first guy she’s laid into.
“Are you even going to say anything?” Maya says, although everything I read in her face is saying ‘don’t even try.’ One thing I picked up on from the first moment I saw her in her daddy’s mansion was that this isn’t a girl who’s ever been told ‘no’ before in her life. Lucky for me, this isn’t the first time I’ve had these problems: problems like Maya. They’re really not all that bad to deal with if you get everything set up straight in the beginning so that you understand each other nice and clear. It’s like when somebody asks you to paint his garage black but then sends you blue paint and thinks you ought to be the one to fix it. No choice but to tell the guy you won’t.
“There is,” I say, turning to face her and looking into those doe-like, fresh-chocolate-on-an-Easter-morning eyes so that there won’t be any confusing what comes next. “Just a couple of things. I work for your father. Not you. Tell me what to do all you like, and it won’t make you my boss. You expect me to turn over on my belly and lick your fingers and say ‘yes ma’am’ like one of your toys in the shopping mall. I’m not going to do that. I’m going to keep you alive. And as for your friend, if he wants to give you a birthday card, he’d damn well better make sure it doesn’t look like an Item when he takes it outta his coat. You see him again, you tell him he’s lucky he didn’t get his wrist snapped. I don’t trust a damn one of the people I saw today, but it’s that mistrust your father’s paying me for so you’d better get used to it.”
I try to for something else to say and realize there isn’t anything more. Then I notice the whole time we’ve been exchanging our spiels we’ve had the radio on. Bobby King and the crew have been crooning on about chain gangs, and I hadn’t heard a note of it. Maybe not usually the kind of stuff most people go in for, and probably not the kind of music the Stitches eat up, but I love it.
Maya’s gone quiet on me. Can’t tell yet if it’s the consideration kind of quiet or the time bomb quiet. Either way, the best option is silence, and that’s exactly what I do as I reverse out of the lot. Chances are Your Highness will be taking us further downtown to continue the high-end shopping crusade, so it’s not a total shot in the dark when I pull us back onto the service road, then the highway. No pissed-off truck drivers or maniacal shifts in the road. We’re making progress.
Maya waits until we’ve gone about five miles before breaking the silence. “I see your point,” she says, which was pretty much the absolutely last thing I was expecting. More than that, she even sounds sincere about it. I decide not to say anything to this, sensing the ‘but.’ It comes about five seconds later. “But don’t you ever talk like that again to me.”
“I hope I won’t have to, Miss Butler.” She doesn’t say ‘call me Maya,’ which I’m glad of. The less buddy-buddy we can keep this, the better.
I weave the Mercedes over to the right lane to exit at the enormous Nordstrom’s that’s just pulled into view. Maya puts a couple fingers on the wheel and my hands lock—no way she’s wrestling us away again. Just a tap this time.
“Kirill’t exit here.”
“Okay.” We twist back into the passing lane and blast by a black BMW, then a police cruiser. Maya twists around in her seat and waves. The cops wave back, recognizing either her face or the plates.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“No. Not right now. Just go until I say to stop.”
“No problem.”
“Chain Gang” fades out, replaced by sixties cigarettes-and-tar-voice Bob Dylan singing about rolling stones. “You mind?” I ask although my hand’s already twisting the volume.
How does it feel?
How does it feel?
To be without a home?
“Be my guest,” Maya sits back and drapes her right leg over her left. She’s wearing this short black dress, and she’s got miles of suntanned leg to show. I’ve always liked nice legs, though I know better than to spend too much time staring at Maya Butler and turn away.
“Just so you know,” she says, closing her eyes, “‘Jokerman’ is better.”