Page 50 of Rest In Pink

“Maybe they were shooting at you because they were afraid you would be shooting at them?” Peri asked.

“You make a very good point,” I said as that hit home.

Then she opened her mouth to say something else, and Anemone said, very gently, “No, Peri,” and Peri sighed and went back to the last of her waffles.

Shortly after that, I got up to go, thanking Anemone and asking her to tell Marianne it had been excellent, and Anemone said, “Come back any time. It’s nice to have a man at the table.”

“Ask George,” I said and escaped.

* * *

I drove down the hill in a bit of a pleasant haze. It had been a hell of frustrating week, and not being able to see Liz alone had been more difficult than I’d thought, and that had bothered me, and work was just a series of dead ends, and I had a general sense of foreboding. But now I’d seen her, all of her, and spent the night, and also eaten several times, and really, what more could a man want?

Other than some answers.

I drove home and parked at the Big Chef. Before I got out of the Gladiator my phone buzzed with the ring tone I’d reserved for Rain:Ride of the Valkyries.

“What’s going on, wild woman?”

“Any more visits from the Iron Wolves?” she asked, skipping pleasantries and nick names.

“Nope.” I’d almost forgotten about that amidst all the other crap this past week.

“What about Faye and Pete?”

“I haven’t seen anything,” I said, without admitting I hadn’t exactly been pulling surveillance. I’d glanced over on the way down the hill today if that counted, but he could have been parked out back again.

“Faye has a brother,” Rain said.

“Yeah. Mickey. He’s in jail.”

“He’s been out for three months. Rumor is he got the parole board paid off somehow. Or had the Wolves threaten family. No one’s talking.”

I sat up straighter as she piled on the bad news.

“Mickey ran the Cincinnati chapter of the Iron Wolves for several years before he got busted for drugs. Ten years ago, he beat the shit out of a truck driver who was willing to pick him out of a lineup. Mickey got arrested by your very own Chief of Police. The driver recanted, since he liked to live, but Mickey still got sent up for fifteen to twenty on what they could prove since he had drugs on him when he was arrested. Dealing weight. Eligible for parole in ten. Which he got. Which is really unusual.”

“Where is Mickey now?”

“No one knows.”

“But he’s on parole?”

“Yes. He’s gone AWOL.”

“Maybe he’s in Mexico?”

“That would be nice,” Rain said but her tone indicated she wasn’t into my wishful thinking.

“And Pete? The Raider?”

“Peter OneTree. He joined the Iron Wolves as a teenager. Got arrested several times on various charges, but nothing stuck. The Wolves have a way of making witnesses develop amnesia. When he was twenty-six, he got picked up and the witness was a cop. But they must have gotten to the judge. Instead of putting him behind bars, the judge gave him the option of prison or military service. The prosecutor was pissed, but a judge is a judge. Pete went into the Corps. Infantry, then the Raiders. Three overseas deployments. Some of the same places we visited on our goodwill tours. Got out several years ago and went back to the Wolves.”

“So we trained him.”

“Yep. This isn’t an uncommon thing among gangs. The intel packet the OCI gang task force put together indicates that Pete ran the Cincy chapter while Mickey was inside. I have that past tense because they suspect that wherever Mickey is, he’s picked up the crown.”

“Wonder how he feels about his guy boinking his sister?”

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