Page 73 of Existential
THIRTY-ONE
Hooch
This is exactly what I was trying to tell her: I’m toxic to those around me. She’s better off without me if this is what I do when I’m not trying to hurt her.
“You just goin’ to sit there?” King asks, glancing between Dagne’s disappearing form and me.
“What’s the point?”
“You really got to ask me that?” He frowns, shaking his head at me. “Pull your head out of your ass, Hooch. The girl cares about you.”
“Hey,” I snap, leaning forward in his seat. “Don’t you get all high and mighty on me, asshole. You were doin’ the same fuckin’ thing as I was: using her problem as a catalyst to get to the bottom of why Digits has been acting strange.”
“Yeah, well,” he cedes, “I don’t think either of us did it consciously.”
“Regardless. She has a point.”
“So make it right.”
I tip my head to the side. “By confronting the abusive little cocksucker?”
“No, man.” He slams a hand to his forehead. “By finding a way to get the bastard to reveal his true colors that doesn’t involve her. Show her you care too by respectin’ her wishes and leavin’ her outta it.”
“I don’t trust Digits anymore,” I admit, leaning an elbow on the arm of King’s chair. “You saw the way he was baiting me in the meeting.”
“Yeah, I did.” King slips the door closed again, taking the seat Dagne vacated. “He ever been trouble before now?”
“Never.” I shake my head. “He’s Mr. Quiet and Reliable.”
“Quiet ones always are the trouble makers.”
“Ain’t that the truth?”
King scrubs a hand over his face, staring absently at the pictures on the wall. “Those messages about her drive north, did he know about your deal with her?”
“He knew I’d asked her to run a job for me, but nobody knew where she was headed. I hadn’t told anyone about finding Mel outside of Ty.”
“I wondered what it was you were asking him to do.” King gives me a knowing smile.
He’d caught me cornering one of Lincoln’s newest connections every time I’d paid this place a visit: Ty. The guy’s a whiz with information: if anyone could find her, it was him.
“What’s your thoughts on it?” I ask.
King tips his head one side to the other, as though thinking through the details. “I’m wonderin’ if he was the one who tipped our friendly sheriffs off about her drive.”
“What the hell would he have to gain from that?” I mean, it’s plausible. But without any solid evidence we’re throwing darts blindfolded and hoping they strike the bull’s eye.
“I’m not sure.” King taps his fingers on one knee. “But I think we need to find a way to trick him into lettin’ us know.”
Sounds so easy in theory, but what I’m implying can get me crucified for the same thing if I fail to prove it. Treachery doesn’t go down lightly amongst the Aces … especially from an officer.
“I’ll have a word in Murphy’s ear,” I say. “I owe the old bastard an explanation about Mom anyway.”
King chuckles. “What the hell was that, anyway? I never met her, but damn, the stories I’ve heard over the years ain’t so flash.”
“It’s probably only the half of it, too.”
I’d love to say I have fond memories of my mom, but the truth is they’re sketchy and hard to come by as the years have worn on. Sometimes I catch myself reminiscing about something we did together when I was a kid, only to realize I’ve got fact and fiction mixed up and it wasn’t me pegging the washing out on a stool, but the boy on the fabric softener commercial that screened the night before while I was half asleep.