Page 33 of Prey

“What have you done to her?” I questioned him, pointing my finger accusingly as he picked up my baseball with my favorite player’s signature and tossed it back to me.

“Nothing,” he replied, holding up a brown paper bag. “Mikky’s birthday.”

“Quick subject change,” I stated slowly, grabbing the bottle of single malt The Macallan 18yo double cask whiskey with a red ribbon tied around the neck.

“Shit. How much did that set up back?” he asked, placing the brown paper bag on my desk.

“Six hundy. What have you got?”

“King of Denmark,” he replied.

“Well done, lad. It’ll keep him going for a while. But I…ah, he doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it,” I warned, because I hinted that it was his birthday earlier, and he talked over me.

That was his way of not wanting to go there. He had three birthdays in prison, and we, Mrs. Kaiser and I, did the best we could, but it’s not the same as being amongst family. But of course, Gunner was missing for a couple of those birthdays because he couldn’t face it, and I wondered if he blamed himself for what Annika did. That’s a conversation I had yet to have with him because he clammed up whenever I ventured down that road.

Gunner shrugged as he stepped into the closet, grabbed his dress jacket, and wore it over his white buttoned shirt, hiding those spreading black tattoos.

“Got a tie?” I asked him.

“No,” he frowned. “Since when do I have to wear a tie?”

“Ah…well, Mikky’s back, and he has higher standards than I did,” I pointed to the closet. “Grab that grey tie and put it on.”

“The dress code was always a jacket and buttoned shirt. No jeans and sweats and shit,” he argued, but snatched the tie hanging off a hook in the closet anyway and stood in front of the mirror to put it on.

“Like I said…Mikky’s back and all our members are keen to shake his hand,” I said, imagining Mikky grinning and bearing it, as he’d been pretty reserved since his release.

He sat in the viewing room last night and refused to go down to chat with the members. Mr. Kaiser was great at fraternizing, small talk, cutting jokes, and discussing the share market, and Mikky was, too, before he was arrested. But he had changed, and it’s up to us and Betty to draw it back out of him. At the end of the day, as Mr. Lars Kaiser always taught us, we had to put our grievances aside for the business, and the wealthy paying members fed our businesses.

I stood up, smoothed down my dark blue tie and shirt, and slipped on my Giorgio Armani wool jacket. Three fucking grand wool suit, and I never thought in my wildest dreams that I’d ever be in a position ever to afford this sort of gaff. It was the only proper suit I owned, so I had to be careful not to spill anything on it.

“Bro, you look chipper,” I exclaimed as Gunner turned around, tugging on his tie, looking slightly uncomfortable.

“Thanks, man,” he stated, holding his fist out for me to bump. “Where is the boss?”

“Down the end of the hall, twitching about going down onto the floor.” I combed my fingers through my hair to sweep it back off my face and prompted Gunner to do the same. “He’s pretending that he’s stoic, but you know what he’s like.”

“Yeah,” Gunner grunted, and I sensed guilt in his tone because he hadn’t been as attentive as he should’ve been over the past three years.

He was great with the business, but when it came to family and emotional shit, Gunner was virtually useless. None of us hold it against him, though, because he was hurt really bad, too. But one day, he’ll want to talk about it, so the best I could do was tell him I was there for him. Fuck, I owed this family my life, so I’d do whatever they wanted out of my unwavering loyalty toward them.

“Shoes shined?” I nodded toward the floor.

“Yep,” he grunted, showing his lack of fervor, but he overcame that once we were out on the floor amongst bright lights, the scent of expensive liquor and leather, the sound of wheels spinning and cards shuffling.

“No creases in your shirt?”

“Nah.”

“No lint on your jacket?”

“Nah.”

“Alright, let’s go.” As we evacuated my office, I bumped him into the wall playfully, and he shoved me back. “Did you go into that girl’s room?”

“Girl? What girl?” playing dumb.

I rolled my eyes, shoving him against the wall, but then we composed ourselves as we approached the viewing room where Mikky sat alone with a glass of scotch in his hand, resting on his knee, smoke billowing from his cigar in the ashtray, while his narrowed dark eyes were fixed on the busy club floor.

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