Page 36 of Torched Spades
When his grip on the steering wheel tightens, I’m not sure if it’s an attempt to center himself or rip it off and hit me with it. “Does Friday morning around four-thirty a.m. ring a bell?”
“Good news travels fast.”
“You think this is funny?” he snaps. “I got a call from the warehouse foreman today. She apologized for not contacting me earlier, then sang your praises like you were the second coming of Christ.”
Here we go.
“Idohave a way with women.”
He scowls. “Too bad your ‘way’doesn’t include a warning that informing your probation officer you assaulted two thugs doesn’t earn you a gold star.”
The fucking disrespect…Anyone else would already be picking glass out of their skull for speaking to me like that. However, seeing as how Alice stayed true to her word and kept the Rogue’s name out of her story, bashing Owen’s head against his window would be counterproductive to my endgame.
“What did you want me to do? Just stand there and let them push someone’s grandmother around?”
“One…” he says, shoving his index finger between us. “The Port has security guards. If there was a problem, you should’ve left it to the people paid to handle them.”
I snort. “Because they’ve done such a bang-up job so far.”
“Irrelevant.” Flipping a second finger, he holds both in front of my face. “Two… Don’t start acting like some goddamn heronow. Getting involved was stupid, if not suicidal.”
I get that he’s pissed. I even get why. He feels like he’s sitting on the outside of a closed circle. He’s supposed to be dictating my life, yet he’s getting second-hand knowledge of the tsunami brewing around it.
However, none of that excuses his fingers being in my face.
Saying nothing, I stare at them as if he’d brandished two loaded guns. There’s an audible swallow, then Owen’s fingers slowly curl inward and return to his lap.
“If getting involved was so suicidal,” I continue, “then why stick me at the docks? Why risk a situation where I’d have to fight ‘thugs’ in the first place?”
He shakes his head and glares out the windshield. “Don’t put this on me, Johnny. I told you to drive a forklift and unload cargo ships, not start fights like some damn dark knight. Speaking of which…” A quick tilt of his chin brings us back to eye level. “Let’s move onto grievance number two, shall we? Do you think I don’t know where you were five hours after your warehouse brawl? Why the hell would you go to the police station? How many times have I told you to stay under the radar? Do you know who you’re fucking with?”
“Do you?” I explode, punching my fist against the dashboard. “Because if so, why would you wait four days to mention it?” He starts to answer, but I don’t give him the chance. If we’re playing curbside confessional, I’m exposing all his sins. “Speaking of fucked-up situations… You want to tell me why you signed off on a medical referral to the chief of police’s daughter?”
Owen’s face blanches, and with good reason. He came here waving the upper hand, only to find it twisted around his back. “Look, I—”
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Jesus, Owen, you’re the one sitting here spouting all that ‘stay under the radar’ bullshit, yet you shoved me right in front of the firing squad.”
I expect a waterfall of excuses, hell, at least a few stutters. Instead, he straightens his shoulders and climbs right back on that moral high ground of his. “I had no choice,” he hisses. “However, if you’re going to point fingers in that particular direction, you’ll need to turn one around,Malone.”
“How the fuck is this my fault?”
He rolls his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you couldn’t be happy with a simple pyromania label. You had to see how far you could push Dr. Kerrigan. You had to embellish shit until you had him so disturbed, he slapped you with a goddamn pyrophilia diagnosis before selling his practice and moving out of state.”
Driving the old man into early retirement was an unexpected bonus. I didn’t even know pyrophilia was a thing. I just enjoyed watching his bow tie cut off all oxygen to his brain the more vulgar I got.
“Did you stop to think how rare pyrophilia is?” Owen chides, boldly flinging that finger in my face again. I narrow my eyes in a silent warning. Taking the hint, he lowers his hand and continues his rant. “Did you know once you’re diagnosed with it, that shit sticks around longer than herpes? Or that very few doctors will take on such cases?”
“No.”
“Exactly,” he mutters, turning back toward the windshield. “So, yeah, Johnny. It’s your fault. I didn’t have a choice in sending you to Dr. Brennan. However, I didn’t think it’d be a problem. I assumed you’d be your usual,charming self”—he punctuates the insult with a wave of his hand—“and within a couple of visits, she’d refer you out.”
Asshole.
I have to admit it was a solid plan—with one major flaw.
I chuckle. “You obviously don’t know Becca.”
I may as well have fired a bullet.
