Rock Chick 05 Revenge (63 page)

“Ain’t no friends of yours, Big Momma,” Olivia answered, having arrived on the porch looking ready for action.

“What’s going on?” I asked and Olivia’s eyes swung to me and they got big.

“Shit, girl, what happened to yo’ face?” she asked, forgetting her tirade when confronted with the busted up vision of me.

“Noah Dexter beat me up,” I told her.

“Noah who?”

“You know him as Jeremiah Levine,” I explained.

At my words, Olivia, already ready to blow, pushed the lever up to engage the rocket launchers.

“That no-good motherfucker beat you up?” she screeched and I was pretty certain my eardrums were close to bleeding.

“Duct taped her to a steel post in her basement,” Daisy shared then went ultra generous with information. “Once he’d taped her, he stuck his hand down her pants, dry humped her and then left her in a basement coal room for hours before one of our boys found her.”

Shit.

Olivia’s eyes bugged out and all her girls sucked in breath. “
What?
” she shrieked and the windows on Winnie’s house shook.

“You didn’t tell me that last part,” Winnie Conrad said from beside me, her voice sounding not-sweet-old-lady-who-goes-to-church-on-Sunday
at all
.

“Well –” I began, turning to Winnie but I was interrupted.

Olivia turned to Daisy. “What’s this got to do with you, bitch?”

“Olivia, girl, watch your mouth,” Winnie put in but Daisy ignored Winnie.

“She’s a Rock Chick and I’m a Rock Chick. Rock Chicks look out for each other. We’re after Jeremiah-Noah whoever the hell. And don’t call me bitch, comprende?” Daisy answered, her own rocket launchers fired up and blazing, ready to roar.

“I hear what you’re sayin’, lookin’ out for your girl but no one disrespects me,” Olivia shot back.

“You punched me in the face. What’d you expect me to do?” Daisy fired her bullet.

“I wasn’t aimin’ at you. It was a mistake. You got in the way when I was aimin’ at your
other
girl. What’d
you
expect
me
to do?” Olivia retaliated.

“I expect you to get over it. It all started when Indy stun-gunned you during a bar brawl and she was protectin’ her man by stun gunnin’
your
man and you got all attitude,” Daisy carried on.

“What? She got a right to protect her man and I got no right to protect mine?” Olivia asked what I thought was a valid question.

“Your man had skipped bond, Indy’s man’s a bounty hunter. Sounds to me like your man ain’t worth your troubles. Not that I judge what he’s gotta do to make a livin’, I just judge the motherfuckers stupid enough to get caught,” Daisy retorted.

Hmm, I didn’t think that was the right thing to say.

“Tell me you did
not
just say that,” Olivia demanded, her head bobbing, her ringlets bouncing.

Yep, I was right, that wasn’t the right thing to say.

“Sugar, I said it,” Daisy replied.

Everyone tensed.
 

Time to de-escalate the hostilities.

I went for the sympathy tactic. “Listen,” I put in. “I think Mrs. Conrad and I have been through enough without a catfight between my girls and her girls on her porch. Everyone, please, help us out and stand down.”

“We don’t got time for this silly-ass girlie shit anyway,” Tex boomed. “We got a dickhead on the loose.”

The Rock Chick Posse and the Pissed Off Black Women Posse turned to glare at Tex.

Shit.

Foiled again by Tex being a lunatic.

“Don’t look at me!” Tex shouted, if it could be believed, sounding even louder. “Jee-zus, huggin’ and cryin’ and badass motherfucker showdowns in livin’ rooms and takin’ a break from the action to have Sunday breakfast with your man’s mother, what the fuck? We gonna take a side trip to the mall next or do we want to find this fuckin’ guy?”

“Actually, I could use a side trip to the mall,” Sissy put in. “I didn’t bring enough clothes with me from Wyoming and I don’t want to go back to my house. It depresses me.”

“What’s wrong with your house?” One of Olivia’s girls asked.
 

“Drive by, AK-47 through the living room. It’s a mess, all my pottery, dust.”

I stared as all of Olivia’s girls nodded, accepting this as if Sissy had said her house had been accidentally flooded by the normal, everyday, but annoying, occurrence of blocked pipes.

“I could go to the mall too,” Daisy added. “Marcus is takin’ me out to dinner tonight and I don’t have a thing to wear.”

A thought hit me and I said, “I need thirty minutes in the lingerie section, Luke and I have special plans tonight.”

Tex looked to the heavens. “Lord, forgive me for what I’m about to do.”

“What are you about to do?” Sissy asked.

“Wring all you alls necks,” Tex boomed back.

“We take Tod and Stevie to the mall with us, we’d be in and out in thirty minutes. Those boys don’t fuck around at the mall. They got, like, a different kind of gay-dar,” Daisy told Tex. “It’s the kind that they can hone in on the best outfit, pair of shoes, or whatever you need, find your size without even askin’ and feed you the shit in your dressing room without you havin’ to leave it. They don’t spare your feelin’s either. If it don’t look good, they just snatch it from you and find you somethin’ else. They could do it in the Olympics, they’re so good.”

Tex scowled at Daisy, completely unimpressed.

“We have no leads. It wouldn’t hurt, a quick stop to the mall,” Sissy pointed out and I couldn’t stop my smile. Sissy going head-to-head with Tex meant the old Sissy I knew was back. Three weeks ago, Sissy probably wouldn’t have had the gumption to say “boo” to Tex.

“What’re you grinnin’ about?” Tex demanded, his scowl now directed at me. “A second ago, you were thinking of cuffin’ Luke to the bed to get ahead of him in this hunt.”

“Luke?” Olivia cut in, staring at me. “Big Momma told me Luke Stark paid her a visit this week. We talkin’ ‘bout Stark here?”

“Yeah,” I told her.

Her eyes got big again. “You seein’ Stark?”

My smile grew wide. “Yeah.”

“Shee-it, girl. I seen him around. I seen him lots. That boy is
fine
. That boy’s ass, hon-
nee
, that ass could win awards. You sure bounced back from Jeremiah all right. Good for you,” Olivia smiled back.

“Are we goin’ to the mall or what?” Daisy asked.

“I could go to the mall,” Olivia said.

The Rock Chick party stared at her.

“I could join the hunt for Jeremiah too, wouldn’t mind takin’ that boy down,” Olivia went on and then turned to her girls. “He’s the one stole from Big Momma.”

“Rat-bastard,” one of her girls muttered.

“That’s what I’m saying,” I muttered back and got a bunch of big, white grins.

Shirleen, who’d missed all the action and not only didn’t look like she cared but didn’t bother to ask, hoofed up to us.

“We got a situation,” she announced and everyone’s eyes swung to her. “Smithie’s cornered in someone’s yard by a couple of German Shepherds. Any of you good with dogs?”

Crap!

This just keeps getting better all the time,
Bad Ava took that opportunity to chime in.

Oo, puppies!
I love puppies!
Good Ava exclaimed.

“I’m good with dogs,” Sissy said.

“Right, let’s go,” Shirleen didn’t waste any time. She waved at Winnie and took off toward her Navigator. Everyone followed suit except I leaned over and gave Winnie a kiss on the cheek and Olivia gave her a big hug finished with a kiss on the top of her head.

“Be safe,” Winnie called after us as we walked through her yard.
 

“We goin’ to find Jeremiah after this dog business?” Olivia asked, following us.

“Yeah, after the mall,” I told her.

Daisy pulled up short and gave Olivia a look. “We good?”

Olivia shrugged. “I’m over it. The man took Big Momma’s money, she almost lost her house. Fuck that. This hunt takes priority.”

“I hear you,” Daisy said.

I could swear I heard Tex growling to the heavens.

“Can I ride with you?” Sissy asked Olivia. “I’m thinking, once I divorce my stupid, cheating husband, I’m going to get a Lexus. I’ve never been in one but they’re sweet. I’d like to experience the ride.”

“Get yo’ skinny white ass in there,” Olivia answered, which Sissy took as a yes.

Olivia, her posse and Sissy all scrunched into the Lexus, the rest of us shoved into the Navigator. Shirleen pulled out and Olivia tailed us.

“Let me get this straight,” Tex boomed from the passenger seat. “Now Dexter has got Lee and his boys, Ava and the girls, the Zano family and four crazy black women after him. Indy and Ally are at a prison on a fool’s errand ‘cause that boy ain’t gonna talk. Smithie’s pinned in a yard by dogs and after we do a dog rescue we’re goin’ to a lingerie department?”

“That’s right,” Daisy said.

He blew out a huge sigh. “Shee-it,” he muttered (but it still came out as a boom).

* * * * *

Shirleen hadn’t gotten the story exactly right.

Smithie wasn’t cornered by two German Shepherds. Smithie was
treed
by two German Shepherds.

By the time we got there Smithie was perched on a stout limb twelve feet up and the two dogs were at the trunk, snarling and barking so viciously, white slobber was lapping at their doggie lips.

Ee-yikes!

Sissy valiantly tried cooing at them, one of the dogs broke off still snarling and chased her to where we all were standing behind a ten-foot chain link fence at the side of the house. She rushed through the gate and Jet threw it closed behind her.

Luckily, the dog preferred Smithie-meat likely noticing that Sissy didn’t have as much juice on her bones and ran back to the tree.

“Motherfuckers!” Smithie yelled at us. “Do somethin’! I been up here an hour.”

“That isn’t true. He’s only been up there half an hour. Forty-five minutes, tops,” Stevie corrected.

“Anyone tried to stun gun the dogs?” Daisy asked.

“You wanna walk up to one of those dogs and stun gun it? I don’t
think
so,” Tod put in.

“We should have brought Tasers,” Roxie said.

“Indy and Ally have the Tasers,” Jet reminded her.

“Maybe we should call the fire department,” I suggested.

“You wanna explain to the fire department why a black man with no connection to the owners of this house is in their yard?” Duke asked.

“Why
is
he in the yard?” I asked Duke.

“Search me, I was down the block, not gettin’ shit about Dexter by the way, when I got the call from Roxie,” Duke answered.

“I think he said he heard something and thought the owners were back here. He came around to talk to them and got caught by the dogs. Though I can’t really be sure since he was yelling the story and cursing a lot while he told it so I didn’t follow,” Roxie put in.

“Why don’t we go buy a few steaks and bring them back? Lure the dogs away,” a voice said from behind us and my body got tense when I recognized it.

I turned stiffly to look, hoping that I was hearing things, and not the usual Good Ava and Bad Ava nonsense, not even caring that it would mean I had finally lost what was left of my mind and everyone turned with me.

Mrs. Stark and my Mom were standing behind our tribe. It had been Mrs. Stark with the steak idea.

For the second time that day, I had to ask, what… the…
fuck?

“What are you doing here?” I screeched. Yes, I screeched, totally unable to control the shrill in my tone. I’d lost it, I was done. This was too much. I could take no more.

“Who are they?” one of Olivia’s girls (earlier she had been quickly introduced as Rhonda) asked.

“Hello. I’m Josie Stark, Luke’s Mom. And this is Christine Barlow, Ava’s Mom. Pleased to meet you,” Super Mom Stark came forward and started shaking hands and bestowing warm smiles on everyone as if she was at a church mixer.

Everyone shook her hand but they all continued to stare at her.

“You’re Luke’s Mom?” Shirleen asked, staring wide-eyed with wonder at Mrs. Stark.

I wasn’t surprised at her reaction. Luke seemed more the type to explode fully formed out of a pit of blistering lava, not spring from the loins of a woman with a conservative hairstyle, low-heeled, faultlessly-shined, bone-colored pumps and sporting a short-handled, matching-bone-colored purse two steps up from a granny bag.

“Sure am,” Mrs. Stark stated proudly.

“I love this!” Daisy squealed and then giggled her tinkly-bell giggle. Jet, Roxie and Shirleen were grinning at each other huge and I feared they were about to join in on the giggles.

“Um…”
 
I cut in before hilarity could ensue. “Again, can I just ask, what are you doing here?”