Shift did not give me a full brief about this assignment. The bad news was, he was in my life and therefore I was sitting outside a prison in southern California in my 2011 electric blue Charger with the two wide, white racing stripes that went up the hood, over the roof and down the trunk and spoiler waiting for a man named Ty Walker to be released from prison. The other good news was, Shift loved Ronnie more than anything in the world so he didn't play me… too much. Not that he cared about my life, just that I might succeed before he took me down.
Then he knew I'd throw him right under the fucking bus even if I had to take my life in my hands to do it. Though, I had to admit, sometimes then and now, I wondered if he loved me slightly less than he loved Shift-but I didn't often go there. He knew there was no fucking way I'd get involved in any of his garbage.īut he also knew I loved Ronnie more than anything in this world and Ronnie-for reasons only known to Ronnie-loved Shift only slightly less than he loved me. The other good news was, when he did, the shit he asked for was usually not that hard to do and it was never illegal. The good news was, he didn't often scroll down to my number on his phone. I didn't want it, didn't invite it but there they were. Not for anything.Īnd Shift had his talons in me. If Shift got his talons in you, they went deep, attached straight to the bone, the tips sprang open into claws that sunk into your marrow and didn't let go. I would have preferred a vast estate, a fortune in jewels or, perhaps, nothing.Īnd although after Ronnie died I wanted nothing to do with that part of his life, I wanted to move on, turn my back on it all, Shift wouldn't allow that. I came up with no answers except for the fact that when Ronnie was murdered, he'd left me with one thing. I flipped my phone shut wondering, for the seven thousandth time, why the fuck I was doing this. "Call me the minute that brother breathes free air," he bit off and hung up. And he thought he had some sway over the California Corrections Department. Though, that said, he put far more effort into being an asshole than his other occupations. He was a full-time pimp slash drug dealer and part-time asshole. "They got seven minutes," he threatened, and I stifled a sigh. I doubt he's sticking around for a going-away party." "Yeah, so?" he asked back, sounding pissed and impatient. "What's takin' so fuckin' long? He's supposed to be released at noon." My eyes went out the passenger-side window, through the two guard towers, down the long tunnel created by two sides of high, cinder-block-walled fence topped with razor wire circling through lines of barbed wire, the heat sweltering on the day making the air down that open empty tunnel wave and shimmer.
I flipped it open, my other arm twisting so I could look at my watch. M Y CELL RANG, I snatched it off the passenger seat, looked at the display and it said, "Shift calling."
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