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still unreadable but
something about him made me think that he wasn’t blank, he was
alert and assessing and he gave no indication of it but it felt like he was reading me down to
my bones.
    Then he said quietly, “Shift has fucked
you.”
    “I know,” I said quietly back and he had.
Shift knew this, he knew Walker wanted this, he sent me anyway, he
blew right through my boundaries, lying to me and putting me in the
clutches of a huge, terrifying, taciturn, freshly-released ex-con
with enemies and a gun.
    “This time, you walk out that door, nothin’
bites you,” Walker told me. “You go back to him, he’ll find a way
to fuck you worse and how he does it, you might not be walkin’ out
the door.”
    I pressed my lips together then unpressed
them and whispered, “I know.”
    “I can get you clear of that.”
    I had to admit, that was definitely
something to consider.
    He kept talking. “Fifty G’s will set you up
anywhere you wanna go. I’ll take care of Shift.”
    He held my eyes. I noted his were
unwavering. He was hiding from me, I knew it. Though I figured you
learned a pokerface in prison, probably not healthy to wear your
heart on your sleeve. But he held my eyes, he didn’t look away,
whatever he was hiding was his to hide from the world, not
something he was specifically hiding from me.
    And he was also not in my face. He wasn’t
pissed. He wasn’t shouting. He wasn’t threatening. He told me I
could walk out and I believed him. In fact, everything he told me,
I believed. I’d been around a lot of the dregs, Ronnie saw to that,
so I had a highly tuned bullshit detector. Whatever this man was,
he was not bullshitting me.
    And he could get me clear of Shift, I knew
it. I knew it because Shift was scared of him, I could see this
now. That was the reason behind the frantic phone call. He wanted
to make sure Ty Walker got what he wanted and liked what he saw.
He’d played me to make sure Walker didn’t lose it and take what
Shift owed him a different way.
    And he was right, I pulled up stakes, fifty
thousand dollars would set me up.
    And I’d be clear of Shift.
    And away from that life, clean and free.
    Clean and free.
    Finally.
    “How long would this, um… business last?” I
asked.
    I didn’t know if I was seeing things but I
could swear it looked like his body relaxed even if the change was
so slight it seemed like an illusion.
    “Don’t know,” he answered.
    “I have a job,” I told him.
    “You want clear of Shift, you gotta leave
Dallas. You leave Dallas, you leave your job. Might as well do it
now.”
    This was true. It sucked because I liked my
job; I’d been working at Lowenstein’s for nearly ten years. But I
always knew I’d be leaving it one day, either when I gave up on
Ronnie or when Ronnie made a break for it and took a chance on us
and, more recently, to get away from Shift.
    However…
    “I didn’t give notice.”
    “Emergency,” he said.
    “What?”
    “Emergency leave of absence. You gotta look
after your sick Mom. Your Mom don’t get better, you don’t go back.
Shit happens. They’ll deal.”
    “I don’t have a Mom.”
    He went silent and did that blank but still
alert and assessing thing.
    Then he said, “Your Dad.”
    “I don’t have one of those either.”
    Again, I could swear something happened to
his body even though I couldn’t be sure but this time it wasn’t
relaxing, it was tensing.
    “Don’t give a fuck who it is, a grandparent,
whatever –”
    I shook my head indicating I didn’t have
grandparents either.
    He stared at me.
    Then he whispered, “Jesus.”
    “Long story,” I muttered.
    He went silent again and stared at me.
    This went on awhile.
    Then he said, “I told you, got shit to do. I
don’t have time to give you a chance to consider your options. It’s
now or never. Walk out that door or stay and become Mrs.
Walker.”
    I pressed my lips together.
    Then I took the nanosecond he was giving me
to consider my options.
    Then I sucked