“To L.A. We have a job for you.”
“L.A.? What kinda job?” He looked a little upset as he tossed the tickets onto the bar. “Don’t tell me you have some gay man out there you want me to sleep with for information, like you did in Detroit. You can tell my father I’m not a hooker and I won’t be pimped out.”
“It’s not like that, Rio.”
“Then how is it?”
I lowered my head and cleared my throat, wishing I had spent my time in the car preparing a speech instead of worrying. Did I really think he was going to accept his assignment, no questions asked? Now, I had no idea how to sugarcoat this. I went for the straightforward approach. “Well, you know how we’re holding Miguel as a marker ... ? Well, I guess you could say you’ll be a marker for Alejandro.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” He pushed his plate away and stood up. I couldn’t blame him for losing his appetite. “Y’all want me to be Alejandro’s collateral?”
“Trust me, Rio, if I was in charge, this wouldn’t be my call.”
He shook his head. “I can’t believe this. Orlando actually wants me to go to L.A. and play hostage? If anything goes wrong, I’m a dead man.”
“Nothing’s going to go wrong. We’re not going to let anything happen to you.”
“You can’t guarantee that! I can’t believe Orlando.”
“Orlando has nothing to do with this,” I corrected him. “He doesn’t even know I’m here. This is what LC wants. He’s the one who sent me here.”
I might not have been able to read my wife, but I could read Rio’s expression loud and clear. He was hurt. I would say this about Rio, though: he was loyal to a fault. Once he learned that the order came from his father, he gave up all protesting.
He examined the tickets again and said, “At least it’s a round-trip ticket,” with a nervous laugh.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that my orders were to get him a one-way ticket. I’d opted for a round-trip. It made it feel a little less like I was handing Rio a death warrant—though there was still a good possibility that was exactly what it was.
“Guess I better go get packed, huh?” In an attempt to ease the tension in the room, he added, “Wonder how the weather is. I have this killer purple outfit that has L.A. written all over it.”
I hated to rain on his gay pride parade, but I had to. “Actually, you don’t have time to pack. You have to leave now. A car is waiting outside to take you to the airport. You can shop for the things you need in L.A.”
“Oh, it’s like that, huh? Well, do I at least have time to grab my new pair of sunglasses? Although for some reason I have a feeling the sun is not going to be shining bright.”
I nodded. “The car is waiting.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Rio said. He took one last bite of his sandwich and then looked at me as if to say, “Hey, you never know. This could be my last meal.”
“Fuck!” I cursed under my breath after he left the kitchen. It was tasks like this that made me hate my job sometimes. When my mother-in-law found out it was me who sent Rio to L.A., she was going to hit the roof.
My cell phone rang, and I looked down at the caller ID. “Shit! Not now,” I said and ignored the call. It rang again almost immediately. I knew he would just keep calling until I answered. I hit the TALK button.
“Yeah.”
“Hey, Harris. It’s Vinnie Dash, baby.” Had he been in front of me and not on the phone, he probably would have tried to give me some corny hand-slap secret handshake type of shit.
“Look, Vinnie, now is not a good time. I’m in the middle of taking care of some serious business.”
“I’m sure you are, but that’s because of me, isn’t it? I’m just calling to find out when I’m going to get my money.”
Okay, so now he’d piqued my interest. “And exactly what money are we talking about?”
“The hundred grand you owe me.”