Page 8 of Pointy Ears and Purple Glitter
“Is your mam’s cookie tin already empty?”
“Yep,” Ian said, biting into the cookie he’d bought. “And you can’t tell her I’m eating shop-bought cookies, either,” he mumbled around the crumbs. He swallowed and then added, “She’d start sending them to us twice a week.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Malik leaned over to where the small fridge sat by the wall, pulling out a large bottle of water. “I thought you loved your mam’s cookies.”
“I love my mam, and her cooking is the best. But you know, sometimes…sometimes a grown man has to have a different type of cookie.”
Malik chuckled. He wasn’t a major cookie eater, although he liked how Ian’s mam always thought to send enough sweet goods along for him as well as her son. She didn’t need to know that Ian ate most of them. He looked down at his burgers. He still had a full one and a half left, but his stomach churned just looking at them. His animal side was agitated, and it was as if he was pacing back and forth in Malik’s mind. It was an unusual sensation that was enough to give Malik a headache.
“Hey, I think we’ve got company.” Ian nudged Malik’s elbow. “Isn’t that one of the people you’re always warning me away from?”
Malik glanced over to the workshop entrance, which, of course was wide open. “Yeah, I’m guessing that’s for me,” he said gruffly. “Keep that ginger head of yours low, and stay in here until he’s gone, all right? No point in getting on anybody’s radar if you don’t need to.”
Malik got up and shoved the rest of his lunch in Ian’s direction. It would be gone by the time his chat was finished. He sauntered out to the front of the workshop, meeting Grok on the pavement.
Grok was a big man, not as big as Malik, but big enough to hold his own among most of the idiots that ran around the streets at night. Dressed in an expensive suit, his white shirt crisp and his Rolex glistening on his wrist, at first glance, he looked like any other businessman who had somehow strayed into the wrong neighborhood. But anyone with an ounce of street sense would recognize the bulge under his arm, barely hidden by his jacket, and the hard look in his dark eyes.
He nodded when he saw Malik, but that was as far as any respect went. “I got word this morning that thanks to a couple of my men, I owe you restitution. Thought I’d better come down here and see what the issue was.”
Malik grunted, folding his arms across his chest. Grok knew exactly why Malik had a beef with him. He just didn’t want Malik looking for him. Just thinking about what happened to Tynan in his back yard was enough to make Malik’s blood boil, and it seemed Grok had good survival instincts.
“My crew knows the rules. They do know better than to hang around here.” Grok shrugged. “Mistakes happen. It’s not easy getting good help these days.”
Malik waited him out. It’s not like he wanted to have a conversation with the man. Grok wasn’t good with silences.
“My boys said they’d tracked that guy for six blocks. It was just an unfortunate coincidence he ended up here.”
Malik glared, his anger growing as his rhino rumbled. He did not like the idea of Tynan being hunted. “I didn’t know the victim, but I’d hazard a guess he ended up here because I’m the only onewho leaves a light on at night. You know, if there were working streetlights, he wouldn’t have had that problem.”
“A lot of my men are shy. They like the shadows when they’re working at night.”
“Your guys were told to keep their work activities away from my territory.” Malik stepped into Grok’s personal space. “I don’t tell you what to do or how to run your men or anything else. It’s none of my business, and I prefer it that way. Provided you keep your business away from my doors, then I’ve got no beef with you. But I have got camera footage of your men deliberately attacking an innocent guy.”
“He can’t have been innocent if he was walking around here.” Grok laughed nervously.
“Yeah. About that.” Malik’s voice dropped into a warning growl. “Funny how he ended up here because of a note, handed to him in a bar, telling him to come here. A note poorly scribbled and signed with a G. Would you happen to know anything about that,Grok?”
Grok looked up as Malik loomed over him, his Adam’s apple bouncing as he swallowed hard. “I can’t think what or who that might have been,” he said.
Malik sneered as the scent of Grok’s lies hit his nose.
“Okay, you know, sometimes people who ask too many questions need to be put in their place. Surely you can understand that.”
“Actually, no,” Malik said. “If somebody asks questions and you don’t want to answer them, particularly if it’s got nothing to do with you, then you just don’t say anything at all. He was lured here so your men could attack him. Why? Did you think he had a lot of money?”
Grok shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “It’s not like that.” He couldn’t meet Malik’s eyes, glancing up and down the busy street. “It was a joke. I was just messing with the guy. I didn’t know he was actually going to turn up.”
Bullshit.“It didn’t stop you from having your guys track him down like a damn animal and attack him. He told me he was working on a case. He’s trying to find a missing person. Did you have the information he was looking for?”
“No, damn it!” Grok kicked at a stone. “I don’t have anything to do with missing people, I’m not a poxy trafficker. You know that about me.”
Grok was telling the truth. He did a lot of things, but trafficking people was not his usual MO.
“I meant what I said. I was just messing with the guy. I was in a bar the night before last. He comes in, looking so buttoned up and out of place, wandering around in a long black coat like a private eye from those noir movies back in the fifties and sixties. I just wanted to shake him up a bit. He was pushy, being too cocky. It was clear someone was going to take a swipe at him at some point.”
“Cocky?” Malik sighed. Socially awkward maybe, but Malik could never imagine Tynan being cocky about anything…And no, that word isn’t an invitation.Malik resisted the urge to adjust his dick. “We had an agreement,” he said, holding out his hand. “Pay up.”
“This is an awful lot of fuss over someone you don’t know.”
