Tracers (10 page)

Cam reached into his bag and pulled out a new skateboard. “Can you give this to Joey? You don't have to tell him it's from me.”

He saw tears well up in Angie's eyes. “He misses you. I wish . . .”

“Me too,” Cam said. “Hey . . . Ang . . . I'm sorry. About everything. I won't bother you guys again.”

She touched his arm for just a second, smiled sadly, and then Angie was gone.

Cam saved the train fare by walking home.

@%&#!!!

There it was, parked outside the fish store: Cam's GTO. Or at least what used to be his GTO. Now it was all fixed up—new paint (silver instead of black), fourteen-inch rally wheels, new rims shining in the sun.

Of course. The bastard didn't just
take
the car, he didn't just
sell
it. No. He had to twist the knife.

And it hurt. A lot.

“Hey!” The knife twister was getting out of the car, hailing Cam like an old friend. “What do you think, man?”

Cam was thinking about getting behind the wheel of the GTO, running over Jerry (and then Hu, for good measure), and driving away as fast as those new rally wheels would take him. So he chose not to answer the question; he just handed Jerry the envelope. Hu emerged from the storefront, stone-faced as always.

Jerry thumbed through the stack of bills. “Uhhhhh . . . there's only two grand here, man. Where's the rest?”

“Give me a few more weeks. I'll get it to you.”

“That's past the deadline, Cam.”

Hu sidled up to his partner and crossed his arms: the nonverbal equivalent of adding “yeah” to the end of Jerry's sentence. In a way, that was Hu's entire function: being nonverbal.

With difficulty, Cam tore his eyes away from the GTO in all its renewed glory. “I was hoping we could renegotiate. I have a new job. Look, you can raise the vig if you want to. But this is all I can do right now.”

“I can raise the vig?” Jerry repeated, as though Cam had said something unbelievably stupid.

Hu continued to be nonverbal and then punched Cam in the gut.

Cam doubled over; he couldn't help it. The guy knew how to deliver a hit that made it seem extremely challenging
not
to hurl. Hu followed up with a choke hold. Next Cam got to check out the car's new paint job close-up, as his face was smashed into the hood.

It was one thing to beat on
him,
but Hu was really crossing the line mistreating the car like this.

“The vig's
already
raised. Go ahead and add another five percent. You keep acting like I'm the boss, Cam.” Jerry put his head down close to Cam's. “I'm not, all right? Chen is the boss. The money you owe me,
I owe Chen.
You put me in a tight spot here.” Hu's hold slackened a bit, enough that Cam could turn his head. Jerry had stepped back a little; he was smiling down on Cam, pretending to be a concerned friend. “I don't want to see anything happen to that friend of yours and her little boy,” he said softly. “But if you don't make this right, it will. Those are the rules.”

Hu released Cam, giving him a push as a parting shot. Cam lay on the sidewalk and watched the two of them drive away. In his car.

“Two weeks. Get us the money, Cam,” Jerry called out the window.

Cam tried to get up, but he was feeling the combined effects of the sucker punch and choke hold. For the moment, he settled for crouching on all fours, coughing as he tried to regain the ability to breathe.

It was a definite low point, even for him.

He raised his head and looked in the front window of the fish store. The dark, silent forms of huge, predatory fish swam excitedly through the water of a tank. Through the watery glass, he saw a set of human eyes watching him. The older Chinese lady who worked there—she seemed to always be there—met his gaze.

She blinked at him once, the expression in her black eyes impossible to read, and then calmly finished feeding the fish and walked away from the window.

Cam heaved himself back to vertical and hobbled down the block toward a bodega. He reached into the ice chest outside the store and grabbed a bag of ice, shoving it up against the side of the building to break up the chunks.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. It was Dylan.

“We're going out tonight,” he said. “Wanna come?”

“Work?” Cam asked, feeling tired.

“More like play.”

Suddenly, Cam felt less tired.

“Where should I meet you?” he asked, already walking toward the subway.

• • •

Cam smiled as he stepped off the elevator. He was meeting his friends at a rooftop club in the East Village; the space was filled with torches, and a lot of very pretty girls wearing very little clothing. On a raised platform in one corner, a DJ stood in front of an impressive bank of mixers. The steady thrum of a trance mix filled the air. The speakers were loud enough that Cam could feel the beat through his feet. Dylan caught his eye right away, and Cam strode over to join the group. Everyone but Miller was there, sitting around a big table, drinking and talking.

Cam had almost forgotten about the bruises blooming on his face from his run-in with Jerry and Hu . . . until he saw Nikki's eyes as he sat down.

“Hey.” She pointed to her own face. “What happened here?”

So now she cared about him and his face? Cam stared back at her. He was a guy who'd always prided himself on being fast, but even he didn't downshift that quickly.

He tried to make out whether Nikki was wearing the necklace he'd given her, but if she was, it was hidden under the collar of her shirt.

Looking away, Cam lied. “Biffed a wall trick.”

Tate snorted. “How's the wall?”

Cam rolled his eyes. He spotted a waitress circling near their table. “Can I have a water?” he asked.

The girl nodded and gave him a wide smile. “Sure thing, doll.” With a wink, she disappeared back toward the bar. Nikki rolled her eyes.

Cam grinned, his mood suddenly lifting a notch.

“I got this on a broken railing,” Tate was saying. Cam forced himself to pay attention to Tate as he peeled back his shirtsleeve to reveal a short, jagged scar.

Cam nodded in approval. It did look nasty. “That's nothing,” Dylan interjected, pulling up a leg of his pants. “Razor wire.”

With a grimace, Cam acknowledged that Dylan's was the worst. “Why don't you show them what happened here?” Nikki was pulling her brother's face around toward Tate, Jax, and Cam. There was a scar there, over his left eye.

Dylan shot her a look, batting her hand away.

“That from a curb?” Cam asked.

Tate laughed. “No. Older lady.”

“Hello, Grandma.” Jax whistled.

Dylan shook his head and held up a hand. He clearly wanted to be the one to tell the story. “She was a nice Chinese girl—real smart. I met her on the subway . . . whatever, whatever . . . Anyway, I see her walking down the street one night with this guy I assume must be her cousin or something, so I go up to her, give her a big hug and a kiss, and she freaks out, like she's never seen me—goes totally crazy. Turns out, because . . . it was her husband.”

“The husband: mixed martial artist,” Tate added.

Jax slapped Dylan on the shoulder. “Bad news for the lady-killer here.”

Cam laughed. “So is that why we can't cut through Chinatown?”

Dylan shook his head. “Nah, that's all Miller, man. He's got bad blood with the gangs there.”

“The Tong?” Cam asked. He didn't miss Nikki's raised eyebrow.

Nodding, Dylan said, “Yeah. Some business went sideways. He had to cut a deal. Promise to stay away.”

Nikki wasn't saying anything—not out loud anyway. But her eyes were sure saying a lot. Cam just wished, as usual, that he could figure her out. The waitress came back with his water, brushing his arm as she leaned in (closer than necessary) to hand it to him. Cam turned the full wattage of his grin on the waitress, whose cheeks flushed with pleasure at the attention. He forced himself not to look over at Nikki.

But then he had to look, as Dylan pointed at his sister. “You know, Nikki's got some battle scars.”

She frowned and pushed Dylan away. “I don't know what he's talking about. Not happening.” She turned to Cam. “If I showed you, I'd have to kill you.”

But for some reason she was actually smiling at him over her beer bottle.

“Don't sling it if you can't take it,” Dylan told her.

Jax groaned dramatically, then pointed across the roof. “There she is: the future Mrs. Jackson Smith. Right there.”

“Oh yeah?” Cam replied.

“That's gonna be my future wife. Yeah, we're gonna move to the country, make lots of sweet ginger babies every night of the week.”

Everyone was laughing, but Jax continued undaunted. “I know. You're jealous.” Tate laughed harder, and Jax frowned at the group. “You guys know nothing about women,” he said, shaking his head.

Nikki ruffled Jax's hair, then headed toward the dance floor.

Cam slapped Jax on the back. “Hold on to the dream, buddy,” he told him.

Tate and Dylan wandered off, and Nikki disappeared, leaving Cam and Jax alone at the table. It soon became clear to Cam that Jax had been drinking more than he'd thought.

“You get it, don't you, Cam?” Jax asked, looking up from his beer. “I mean, you're right—it is a dream. It's
my
dream,” he added in a stubborn voice, as though Cam had been arguing with him. “All that stuff I was saying was true. Even the ginger babies. I wasn't lying. I actually want that. You get it, right?”

“I totally get it, man.”

“You want that someday too? Wife? Little Cams jumping off the furniture?”

Cam laughed involuntarily at the image Jax conjured. “Actually that sounds sort of terrifying. Imagine a little kid learning parkour.” Cam shuddered. “Imagine the
doctor bills.
”

“You could teach them to be careful. Put lots of mattresses on the floor,” Jax said, slurring his words so that the last part came out
math dresses on the four.

Cam smiled at him. Jax was one of those guys who got all moody and pensive about life when he'd had too much to drink. That was one reason Cam was strictly a water guy these days. If he started down that path, he might never stop. Better to keep compartmentalizing (and stay hydrated, as a bonus).

“We have to get out of this life first,” Jax was saying. He raised his blue eyes to meet Cam's. “It's no life for a kid.”

Cam thought about Miller's cold eyes and probably colder heart and wondered how he'd react to a member of his “family” getting distracted by marriage. “You got that part right,” he told Jax.

“Maybe someday,” Jax said.

Cam lifted his water bottle and held it out to Jax, who, after a few seconds of delay, raised his bottle and accepted the toast. “To someday.”

Jax wandered off a few minutes later, having imbibed enough liquid courage to approach his future wife.

Cam stayed. He had a good view of the dance floor from where he sat.

This was important because Nikki was dancing.

And Cam was staring—but she didn't notice. Nikki danced alone, in the center of the floor, moving from firelight to shadow and back, completely oblivious to anyone or anything except the music.

Something felt tight in his chest as he watched her. After a few more minutes of (probably creepy) staring, he realized he'd started walking toward her—not even thinking about it, just moving closer to her, like there wasn't anywhere else he
could
go.

It wasn't long before she sensed him standing near her. Her eyes flew open, locked on his. But she didn't run away. Cam moved even closer, put his hands on her waist; she kept swaying to the music, her body close to his.

In the flickering light from the torches, there was a tiny flash of silver at Nikki's neck. Cam reached out and slipped two fingers beneath the chain, slowly pulling the tiny birdcage pendant from where it had rested under her shirt. He let his fingers close around it. The metal was warm from contact with her skin. They were staring into each other's eyes. It was hard to breathe.

He lowered his head; she raised hers. It felt like the most natural thing in the world for him to kiss her. But then she shifted gears, pushing at his chest with one hand.

And running away.

There was a ledge, about three feet tall, between Nikki and the exit. Cam watched her jump up toward the door. The move wasn't very graceful. In fact, she almost fell.

Maybe this wasn't actually a game to her, even though at that moment it sure felt like it.

When he saw her wobbly landing, though, that did it. He took off after her, following her out of the dance area, down the stairs, and out onto the street.

“Hey,” he said, reaching out to touch her arm.

She turned around.

“What happened?” he asked, hating how his voice sounded—like he was pleading with her to tell him the truth.

She shook her head. “Nothing. It's just stuffy as hell in there.”

Cam saw that she'd hidden the pendant again, beneath the collar of her shirt.

He moved a half step closer, keeping his hand on her arm. “Do you want to get out of here? Go somewhere else?”

“Not right now. I can't.” Her words came out clipped. Robotic, almost.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing, I . . .” Nikki bit her lip, not meeting his eyes.

“Nikki. What are you afraid of?”

The eyes she raised to his seemed too bright. Was she trying to tell him something?

Then she jumped as a motorcycle pulled up close to where they stood.

Miller hopped down from his bike and took off his helmet. “Hey, guys. Sorry I missed the fun,” he said, giving Cam a quick one-armed hug. “Had some business to take care of.” He turned to Nikki and handed her a helmet he'd grabbed off the back of his bike.

Cam felt the ground shift beneath his feet as he watched her put the helmet on. Suddenly, everything made sense.

And nothing made sense.

“You okay?” Miller asked.

He felt a nervous jolt, then realized Miller was almost certainly talking about the bruises decorating his face. “Yeah. I'm fine.” Now
his
voice sounded robotic, but it was the best he could do.