Thin Love(105)
“What the fuck you say to me?” That humorless laugh was back and when Ricky spoke again, the gravel in his voice had turned to glass. “You not that stupid, man. I know you not. You open your mouth and that pretty little bitch of yours gets bloody. You feel me?”
Kona was two seconds from tossing his phone across the room. He did owe Ricky, he knew that. Worst of all, Ricky knew that Kona understood what owing him meant. And if that motherfucker laid one finger on Keira… he blinked, slumped down on his bed rubbing his eyes. “What do you want?”
“The week after Christmas, North Rampart. It’s the biggest shipment I’ve got coming in. Someone’s been blabbing to Dino Arceneaux. That asshole thinks he’s going to gank my shit before I get to it. I need you to be there so that don’t happen.”
Kona didn’t know what Ricky expected of him. He’d watched shipments before, but they were small, easily handled with one or two duffle bags in his trunk as one of Ricky’s boys headed back to New Orleans from Texas, having already picked up the shipment from someone else entering the border from Mexico. There was little danger in it and no real threat of being busted. Ricky always picked clean-cut guys for the transfer, sometimes a girl who looked a little like she could pass for someone’s twelve-year-old sister to deliver his shipments. Kona had always been nothing but muscle, had always been used for his size in case the shipment was light. He’d never been asked to chaperone a big shipment before. Dino Arceneaux was a juice head from Kenner with two muscle shops. He thought he was going to be Mr. Olympia. He thought he was Scarface, but he stood at barely 5’6 and didn’t have the balls to challenge anyone.
“Man, if I do this for you, you gotta cut me loose. I’m serious. I don’t want in this shit anymore. I just want a clean break.” Kona could practically hear Ricky thinking. He knew getting out wouldn’t be easy. He knew Ricky liked having him around to scare off punks like Dino, but Kona was done being his muscle. He wanted free from the weight of Ricky’s bullshit.
Finally, the man exhaled, released the sound that Kona thought was a little too calm and a little too forced. “Fine. You do this shit for me and I won’t bug you no more, but Kona, everything has to run smooth… I mean fucking perfect. No fuck ups.”
“I got you.”
“I mean it, man. I’d hate to have to…”
“I said I got you. I’m not a kid. You don’t have to warn me.”
He ended the call before Ricky could threaten him again. Or threaten Keira. Flat against his mattress, Kona covered his eyes with his arm, heart slamming as Ricky’s voice ran over and over in his mind like a stuck track on a busted CD player.
That pretty little bitch of yours gets bloody.
Kona wanted out; he’d wanted out for over a year when Luka started seriously bitching at him about dealing. It’s was too much and Kona always felt dirty, pathetic when he sold for Ricky. He didn’t want that life. He didn’t want any of it to come near Keira. If that asshole touched her… if anyone touched Keira—Kona sat up, gripping his phone again, not bothering to check for her message and when her voicemail picked up immediately, Kona ended the call, moving around the room for his keys.
He knew he was being paranoid. He knew she’d probably crashed on her bed as soon as she got home, but Kona couldn’t ignore the need to see her again; that crushing urge to touch her, to make sure no one had bothered her. And behind that protective need lay a more urgent want. Kona needed to be calm, to feel the world disappear for just a moment. There was only place he could find that peace.
Keira dreamt between notes. Not every night, not every dream was filled with lyrics. Only the good ones. Most mornings she couldn’t remember them, but when she did, she heard the soft rasp of her father’s voice and felt his rough fingers smooth on the inside of her wrist. In those good dreams he was always happy, always proud. He was young, full of the potential she remembered him feeling before everything turned to darkness. Before his life clouded with the burden of expectancy and the disappointment that colored most of Keira’s childhood memories
The dream that night wasn’t dark and Keira suspected it came from being happy that day, from being around Kona and his family. There had been laughs, broken apart only by the cool stare his mother gave her and the overwhelming sadness she felt once she was driving away from the city, away from Kona.
Keira dreamt of her father, of them together, smiling easily, happy, and the strum of twin guitars, both Hummingbirds, both his, that pushed back reality. In that dream he sang in a loud, clear voice, encouraging her, praising her talent. He sang Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love,” something she knew wasn’t for her. Keira thought it might have been for her mother, but the woman in the song sounded nothing like the woman who threw her best china at her father’s head. The song her father sang was slow, slower than Morrison’s version and as her father sang it, his voice carried around them, kissed into her consciousness and Keira sat fascinated, amazed at his emotion, at the joy on his face. It was a song about falling in love, falling hard and deeply and completely. It was a love Keira told herself she was inching toward with Kona.