Page 2 of Dark Alleys

“I grabbed a drive-thru on my way to the carwash.”

“I made banana muffins in case you came home.”

I grinned at my aunt. Couldn’t tell how old she was. I was twenty-eight or nine—might have been thirty by now. No fuckin’ birth certificate to go by—so she was probably close in age to my non-mother. Fifty?

“Sometimes the job I’m working runs on and I can’t get home. I don’t have regular hours. I keep track in a little book and hand the number to Blacky, and he trusts me not to stiff the Agency.”

“And so he should. I’d like to think all of the Donovan boys are honest.”

That’s a stretch, but honest as we can be, considering where we came from. White trash right out of your friendly neighborhood trailer park.

Riverside Bar and Grill. Riverside. Austin.

I dropped my clean laundry off at home, parked my truck in the driveway and jumped on my Harley to go to the bar to start work.

When you work undercover, you have to blend into your surroundings and become as invisible as a bloodstain on the barroom floor. After a while, nobody sees it as a sign of danger anymore. They stop walking around it and ignore it completely.

It’s just there.

They accept it.

The same way they accept me in this bar. I’m here and that’s just the way it is. When they walk in and look for a table, I’m as familiar as the battered booths and the dusty old memorabilia hanging on the dark-paneled walls.

“Hey, Lukas.”

I gave the bartender a wave and right away he sent a kid over with a pitcher and a clean glass for me. My usual booth was in the back corner where I could see everything that was going on.

Any customers walking into the dimly lit bar couldn’t see me.

Bird’s eye view from the shadows.

I’d picked this bar after running a preliminary investigation of my own and found out a lot of guys belonging to the Tango Blast hung out here.

Over nineteen thousand members in the State of Texas and Blacky figured if we could get that number down, then violent crime would go down too.

Simple math.

Made sense to me.

I said I’d give it a shot. Whatever I find out, I text to him, and he runs with it. Or I take the bad boys out myself if I can do it without blowing my cover.

Been working out good so far. I got lots of hours and it ain’t hard work.

I kind of enjoy being somebody else. Hard to figure out if this is the real me, or if that other Lukas is the real one. I feel more real right here in this booth and that’s the sad truth of it.

Four Tangos came through the door and sat down in a booth. One of them I recognized. Adan Pena.

Pena was the enforcer for the local chapter. Heavy hand in Austin and I’d heard his weapon of choice was an antique Coca Cola ice pick.

Nasty.

I kept my eye on the four of them and by the way they were keeping their heads down and talking in low voices, I figured something was going down.

“Hey, Lukas. Want company?”

“No. Are you looking for free beer, Crissy?”

She giggled. “Maybe.”

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