All the Sky (Signal Bend Series) Read online

  On this night, as late as it was, there were still two tables of people lingering over the last sips of wine in their glasses. And the folkie chick was at the bar, where Bonnie Halldorsen was tending. They were talking, and Bonnie was leaning on the bar with her arms crossed under her tits. She had a great rack. Like, a major league rack. Havoc stared at those titties every chance he got, because it was just wrong not to appreciate natural beauty like that. Or unnatural, whichever they were. Havoc didn’t know, and he had no intention of finding out. He did not fuck chicks off the roster. There was plenty of pussy to be had in the clubhouse, and those chicks knew the score. He liked a chick who got off his dick when he was done with her and then got gone.

  But Bonnie was nice to look at, and there was no harm in that.

  The folkie chick—Havoc could never remember her name, even though she’d been singing here once a week for a few months—was pretty cute, too, but too hippie dippie for his taste. He could just tell that she was the kind of chick who only ate organic crap and probably saved the whales or what the fuck ever. And she wore jeans and these embroidered cotton shirts that were too loose to show anything good. Sometimes they were a little see-through, though, and she always wore a black bra. That was cool.

  She had good collarbones. That’s what he mostly noticed about her. He liked the way they stuck out. She wasn’t skinny—he didn’t think so, anyway; hard to tell under the loose tops—but her collarbones stuck out like handles. He thought that was sexy. He didn’t have a particular thing for collarbones, he didn’t think, but those he liked. And she wore all these necklaces, beaded things and silver pendants on leather straps, that drew his attention right there.

  He liked her hair, too, he guessed. Wavy and dark. Layered, or whatchamacallit. Whatever—it was shiny. He’d noticed a couple of times that it almost sparkled under the spotlight in the corner when she was playing her whiny granola music.

  So, okay, there was something good to look at there, too.

  “Bonnie, get your tits off the bar and get moving on close. You’re gonna need to clear out fast tonight, so don’t fuck around.”

  He didn’t miss the look the women gave each other—rolled eyes, a kind of disgusted pinch of mouth—and knew that was about him. He didn’t give a fuck. Not trying to be friends with any chick. He turned to the folkie and snapped his fingers.

  “And you, your set’s over, right? So you can move it, too.”

  “Corinne. Cory to my friends. You can stick with Corinne.”

  “What?”

  “My name. I don’t know what culture uses snaps and hand signals like that for language, but it’s not English, and I don’t understand it. My name is Corinne. Which you’ve heard several times. Did you experience some kind of head trauma as a child?”

  He flipped her off. “How about that signal? You get that one? Get out.”

  “Jesus, Havoc, hold on. I haven’t paid her yet.” The register opened with a ‘ding’ and Bonnie pulled four twenties out of the till.

  Havoc watched her closely, making sure she took out exactly four twenties and then closed the till completely. When she handed the money over to the folkie—fuck her and her fancy name—Havoc sneered. “Mouthy bitches should remember who’s paying ‘em.”

  He saw a ripple of uncertainty move across her face, and then her forehead wrinkled down the center for just a second, like she was as pissed at herself as she was at him, and then she waved the little stack of twenties in the air and leaned down for her guitar case.

  “Bye, Bonnie. I’ll see you next week.”

  “See ya, Cory. Tell Nolan hey for me.”

  The folkie nodded at that and then left. Havoc noticed that the other tables had cleared—the bar was empty. Time to call Isaac and Show in.

  Bonnie turned on him as soon as she was out the door. “Hav, you are a real bastard, you know? You can’t talk to people like that.”

  He grinned. He didn’t mind getting shit from a chick. He liked stirring it up too much. “I don’t talk to people like that. I was talking to you two like that—and I wasn’t the one gettin’ all snippy. Get over it. And get your shit done. You want to be out of here in ten. And you want to keep your mouth shut, right?”

  She’d obviously been ready to unload on him, but she pulled up at his last sentence. People in Signal Bend, real town people, knew the Horde. They knew the Horde took care of them and kept order. Handled their problems. Made things right. And made sure what was owed got paid. Everybody knew that, sometimes, that got messy. They didn’t necessarily want to see it get messy, but they understood.

  “Yeah, okay. I just need to run the tape. Larry closes everything out and makes the deposit. So I can be out of here fast.”

  He bet Larry made out the deposit. Well, he’d already made out his last one.

  “Yeah. Get it done.”

  She nodded and turned to the register. Havoc went to the front door and nodded to Len, who waved Isaac and Show in.

  Time to play.

  ~oOo~

  What Havoc was doing to Larry wasn’t interrogation. They had him dead to rights, and he’d folded fast—before they’d even gotten him out of the bar. He’d looked up from his desk to see Isaac, Show, and Havoc striding into his room—Isaac no less threatening for the now characteristic hitch in his step—and he’d immediately broken out into a flop sweat. Though there’d been a minute where his eyes had darted frantically around, looking for his escape, there hadn’t been one.

  He’d tried to blame it on Bonnie and Livvie, the bartenders, spinning a crazy tale about how he’d been back here that very night putting the pieces together so he could take it to the club. That had earned him a couple of quick facefuls of Isaac’s be-ringed fist. Then he’d just started to beg.

  By the time Isaac had finally had enough, they knew that Larry Bellen was saving up to leave his wife and kids. He’d met some bitch online, and they wanted to run off together.

  Chicks. Ruined everything.

  So this wasn’t interrogation. They didn’t need more information from him. This was debt collection. They weren’t going to kill him, though. Not that kind of debt. He hadn’t spent the money, and Dom was working on moving it into Horde accounts where it belonged, while Isaac, Show, Len, and Havoc were in the Room with him. Because Havoc had noticed that profits didn’t seem to be coming up much even as the bar got more traffic, and because Dom had found dots to connect, the damage would end up being just about nothing. Besides, the guy had a wife and kids. He’d have to do a lot more than skim cash from the Horde before they’d orphan children.

  But he needed to pay for the offense, and he needed to remember. So he was strung up by his hands from a beam, stripped to his underwear. Tighty whities. Havoc always felt a little sorry for a man who’d wear underpants like that. Like those pants were packed a little light. He himself was a boxer brief man. Grey, no fly. The fly was fucking useless.

  Then Larry wet himself.

  That made Havoc mad. What a weak suck. He’d gone pretty easy on the guy, really. He hadn’t even opened his kit. Just used him for a punching bag. Literally—Len was behind him, keeping him from swinging too much on the chain while Havoc pummeled him. He didn’t look great, all kinds of interesting shades of red and purple, but he was barely bleeding—and most of that little bit of blood had come from Isaac’s fist, first thing.

  He’d been pretty loud at first, but the last couple of blows, he’d just whoofed as the air left his lungs. He was awake but droopy. And now piss was running down his leg and pooling on the floor, stinking up the place.

  Isaac stepped forward. “Okay, Hav. Hold up.” He nodded at Len. “Give him somethin’ to stand on.”

  Len moved a steel chair under Larry’s legs. When he found his feet and moaned—probably with relief from the ease of pressure on his hyperextended shoulders—Isaac stood before him and smiled.

  It wasn’t the kind of smile that anybody should be glad to see.

  “Larry. Stealing is a terrib
le thing. Taking what somebody else has worked for? Taking food out of somebody else’s children’s mouths? Shelter from their heads? That is a terrible thing. Stealing from the Horde is a fuckin’ stupid thing on top of it. So we know you’re a terrible, stupid man. What I want to know now is whether you’re also a forgetful man. Are you gonna forget this?”

  Larry stared at Isaac, his eyes bugged with fear. But he didn’t answer, and Havoc knew why. He didn’t know the right answer, whether Isaac was asking if he would rat, or whether he was asking if he would do something like this again. But Havoc also knew that Isaac wasn’t worried Larry would rat for the beating. Even if anybody cared, and nobody would, he’d have to expose his embezzlement.

  With a sigh, Isaac asked another way. “Are you gonna forget the price you paid for your terrible stupidity?”

  Now Larry shook his head. “No, sir. No way.” The words were muffled in his swollen mouth.

  Isaac nodded. “That’s good. Real good.” He nodded again at Len, who released the winch abruptly, and Larry’s bound arms dropped. He screamed and then fell off the chair to the concrete floor. As he curled into a ball, Isaac went over and squatted at his side. He had a funny way of squatting since he’d gotten his legs back, with one leg kicked out in front of him, like he was one of those Russian dancers Havoc had seen on TV somewhere.

  “Here’s how this is gonna go, Larry. We got our money back. So that’s good. You’re fired, but I bet you already knew that. Since you don’t live in town, we’re not gonna make you move. But you cross the town border again, for any reason, and what we do to you will make you look back on this night with fond nostalgia. You catch me?”

  Shaking on the concrete floor, his hands still bound with steel chain, Larry nodded.

  “Good man. There’s hope for you, maybe. Now get yourself cleaned up, and I’ll have Wrench get you back to your car. Good talk.” Isaac slapped Larry sharply on the shoulder, and he groaned loudly.

  Isaac stood and nodded for Havoc to follow him. When they got through the door and into the hallway, he stopped. “You take point at the bar. We need somebody we can trust.”

  Fuck! No way he could manage the place day to day. He didn’t know enough, and he already had a fucking job. One he liked—lead mechanic at Keyes Implement and Repair. “No, Isaac. Come on. I won’t be any good.”

  “Yeah, brother. You will be. You know it better than anybody else. If you’d hired a manager from Shannon’s list, maybe we wouldn’t be in this place now. But you didn’t, and you’re gonna deal with your mess yourself.”

  He’d hated all the slick city folk who’d come through from that list to interview for the job, all of them talking about sommeliers and vintages and whatever. Isaac hadn’t been around to pitch a fit, and Show, his attention focused on Isaac and on taking care of Isaac and Lilli’s little girl, had left Havoc to it, so he’d hired somebody local. Or at least local enough. And Larry had managed the Boar’s Head Lounge outside of Springfield, so it wasn’t like he’d hired some moron with no experience.

  No, that moron would be him.

  Fuck.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Corinne Hawes pulled up at the curb in front of her sister’s house. The porch light was on, as it always was when Cory was out late. But the living room light was on, too. It was almost two o’clock in the morning. Either Lindsay was waiting up for her, or she’d forgotten to turn out the lights. Lindsay never forgot to turn out the lights.

  “Fuck.” Exactly what she needed, after that weird scene in Signal Bend, where she’d almost, yet again, gotten her ass fired because she couldn’t hold her tongue. A wee-hour ambush from her sister would really be just the thing to finish the night off. These things were starting to become a routine.

  She wondered what Nolan had done now.

  She and her boy had been living here for almost a year now, and tensions had been…tense. Nolan was fifteen, and he wasn’t loving the way things were going. Losing their last apartment had been especially rough. It wasn’t the first time they’d had to move on short notice, but this time he’d left behind a girl who lived in another building in the complex. They’d only been fourteen-year-old kids, but to them their love had been real, and he’d taken it hard. Now Cory had a moody, hostile boy. That wasn’t working out so well, especially not with Lindsay’s husband.

  But until Cory could find a new job and manage to stick it out without getting fired for her smart mouth, walking out in a huff, or just bailing on it because she couldn’t get out of bed, or unless Nolan’s dad suddenly made it big and could manage to pay child support, all Cory was making was eighty or a hundred bucks a gig, three or four gigs a week, and that wasn’t going to get them out on their own.

  She sighed and opened the door on her ancient Ford Explorer. As it swung wide, the door squealed like she’d stepped on a deranged cat. All the doors squeaked, the floor was rusting out under the mats, and she had one of the backseat windows secured with suction cups so it wouldn’t slide down. The Beast also ate gas at an alarming rate, which bothered Cory on several fronts, but it was paid for and ran more or less reliably, and she couldn’t afford to do better. For a twenty-five-year-old truck, it was doing okay.

  She slammed the door and went back to pull her guitar out of the hatch. Then she trudged up the walk, resigned to her fate.

  Lindsay was the younger sister, but by everyone’s accounting, that was only true chronologically. She had been the one who’d gotten the grades and the degree and the career and the husband with the MBA and the big, beautiful house and the perfect set of twin girls. Now she was a stay-at-home mom. She’d done everything right and in the right order, and she had very specific opinions about people who did things differently.

  Like Cory, for instance. Where Lindsay chased goals, Cory chased dreams. Problem was, Lindsay’s goals had always been far more concrete than Cory’s dreams. So Lindsay had what looked like everything, and Cory had what looked like nothing. Lindsay had the huge house, and Cory slept on the sleeper sofa in her scrapbooking room.

  Lindsay had a scrapbooking room, and Cory had scraps.

  She went through the front door. With every entrance, she was intimidated anew by the foyer (which Lindsay always emphatically pronounced fwah-YAY). It was a towering two-story cylindrical space—Lindsay’s house had a turret—with echo-y tile floors, a wide, sweeping staircase to the overlooking second story, and an enormous antique crystal chandelier. The fwah-YAY screamed, ‘Welcome. We have more money than you do.’

  Cory set her guitar case on the floor near the base of the stairs and walked into the living room, where, as she’d expected, she found Lindsay waiting for her, sitting primly on one of the long sofas, a glass of white wine on a coaster on the table in front of her, and a novel in her lap, her finger holding her place in the middle of the closed book. Historical romance of some sort—Linz did have a weakness for the old-school Fabio stories. The cover was getting pretty worn, but this one was a Laura Kinsale, looked like.

  Cory smiled. “Hey, Linz. You’re up late tonight.”

  Her sister did not smile back. “We have to talk, Cory. Have a seat.”

  Not even a greeting. She really fucking hated being treated like a wayward teen by her five-years-younger sister. But she and Nolan were living rent-free because she couldn’t get her shit together, so she guessed she deserved it. Eyeing Lindsay’s wine glass and wishing she had some fortifying spirits of her own, she sat on the sofa facing the one Lindsay was on.

  “What’s up?”

  “You know what’s up. We need to make a plan. There’s too much stress in this house. Alex and I talked about it tonight, and we’ve decided that you have two choices. Get counseling for you and Nolan, or get your own place.” Bombshell dropped, Lindsay set her bodice-ripper on the table and prissily arranged her silk robe over her knees.

  Well, that was a new wrinkle. Nothing routine about that. “What? Counseling—why?”

  Lindsay scoffed. “Honestly, Cory? You are asking that
honestly? Because Nolan has anger management issues, and you have success issues. And depression.”

  “And your degree in fashion merchandising—that qualifies you to make psychological diagnoses?”

  “No. My living with and caring for your disrespectful, sullen, foul-mouthed son for the past year qualifies me. And my knowing you and watching you fail for twenty-nine years. That qualifies me.” With a huff, Lindsay tossed her dark hair, perfectly styled even at this hour, over her shoulder. Not much longer than her shoulder, it slid forward again, and she left it.

  Righteous anger, hurt, and fear whirlpooling together in her stomach, Cory tried to keep her voice calm and quiet. She didn’t want to end the night with her and Nolan sleeping in the car. They’d avoided that so far, but it was the next step down. A doozie. “What happened?”

  “I had to pick him up from school—again. He’s got in-school suspension for three days for calling his English teacher a”—she stopped and blushed—“C-word.”

  “Cunt?” Cory couldn’t control a little smile; even now, her sister’s perfect primness was amusing.

  “Corinne! That’s an awful word. You do things like that just to upset people. It’s terrible. And Nolan is just like you. Six days left in the school year, and he’s suspended for three of them. My God!” She cleared her throat and composed herself. “Anyway, when Alex got home, he tried to talk to him, and that ended up in shouting and slammed doors. Just like it always does. He uses awful language when he’s angry, and he’s always angry. The only reason we’ve let you continue to stay with us is that he doesn’t do it where Vienna and Verona could hear.”

  Her son did not have anger management issues. He was a fifteen-year-old boy whose emotional well-being had taken a lot of body blows over the past five years, and he was having very appropriate angry feelings about it. He didn’t hit or break things. He yelled and he swore. Sometimes he went out walking in the middle of the night, but he always came home, and he always went to school, as much as he hated it. Cory thought he was playing an awful hand well.