Page 63 of Beautiful Rush
“The Bat phone is ringing,” she murmured against my lips.
“Fuck the Bat phone.”
“I’d rather fuck you.” She pulled away and I checked my phone. Dmitri.
Two seconds later, a text came through.Where the fuck are you?
Keira looked over her shoulder at the souvenir shop we had stopped in front of. “Hey. Take your call. I need Chinese fans and paper lanterns.”
I took the bag of fruit off her arm and she waved over her shoulder as she entered the shop, a bell over the door chiming to announce her presence. My phone started ringing again and I answered Dmitri’s call, watching Keira through the shop window.
“Where are you?” he asked, skipping the greeting.
“What do you need?” I moved closer to the window and leaned my shoulder against it. Keira was wandering around, trailing her fingers over every item on display. Paper fans and lacquered rice bowls and chopsticks, miniature replicas of a Buddhist temple. The fat, smiling Buddhas caught her eye and she stopped in front of them, picking up each one and studying its face before setting it down and moving on to the next one. From here, they all looked the same.
“I need you to come to my apartment. Tonight, we celebrate.”
“What are we celebrating?”
“Not on the phone. You’ll find out when you get here. I have good news.”
He had sounded downright giddy. This was it. This was what we’d been waiting for. He had hooked up with someone who could help him flood the streets of my city with drugs and weapons. Dmitri had millions of dollars sitting in shell accounts, waiting to be spent on his last hurrah before he retired to his McMansion. He was looking for a supplier who could sell him at least two hundred kilos of cocaine and heroin. Bonus points if the supplier coughed up enough Fentanyl to kill a few million people.
A few minutes later, Keira joined me on the sidewalk and showed me the laughing Buddha she bought. “It’s so ugly. I love it,” she said with a big happy smile. “It’s supposed to be good luck.”
Keira and her superstitions. “Are you going to rub its belly every morning?”
“Exactly. And make a wish. Maybe it’s like a genie.” She dug around in the bag and came out with a smooth, oblong stone, shades of brown swirled with white, and pressed it into my hand.
“What’s this for?”
“Warriors used to wear them on the breastplates of their armor before they went into battle. It’s to protect you and give you strength and courage.”
“That’s a lot to ask of a small stone.”
“I know but…keep it in your pocket, okay?”
She was serious. She wanted me to carry this stone in my pocket for protection. I smiled and slipped it into my pocket. “Thanks. I feel safer already.”
Keira chewed on her lower lip and looked down the street. “You have to go, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.”
She nodded, still looking down the street at everything but me, sensing that I had more to say and she wouldn’t like it. I couldn’t keep doing this. I needed to focus on my job and get it done. Once it was over, I’d be free to see her whenever and wherever we wanted. I’d be able to hang out with her family, wake up with her in the morning, go out with her in her neighborhood, without the fear that someone would rat me out or that she’d inadvertently get dragged into the middle of this. Sneaking around and constantly looking over my shoulder had gotten old.
“I need to stay away for a while, until this is over. It won’t be much longer.”
“Good. Because I’m planning to bake you a cake for your birthday.”
My twenty-ninth birthday was next week. Chances were slim that I’d see her on my birthday, but I would love to see her baking a cake. I grinned. “You’d bake me a cake?”
She gave me a mischievous smile. “You said you trust me with your life. We’ll have to test that theory.”
I laughed. “Can’t wait for that cake.”
Her smile slipped. “Stay safe, okay? I’d kind of miss you if you weren’t around.”
“I’d kind of miss you too.”
