Page 35 of Angels Fall

“Uh, Pete?” That’s the bartender. “Should I call the cops?”

Pete waves him off. “Nah, nah, don’t worry about it.” He steps over to me and Unlucky Logan. I’ve still got Unlucky’s old gun pressed against his unlucky head when Pete wrenches the gun Unlucky’s currently holding away from his grip. Unlucky (I really like this nickname) looks like he’s about to spontaneously combust.

“You work for Castillo?” Pete asks.

Unlucky doesn’t answer right away so I tap him on the noggin with the barrel.

“Answer Pete. He’s your elder.”

Pete looks at me with a ‘what the fuck are you doing’ glance, but I don’t care. I’m having fun. I shrug.

Logan closes his eyes and bites out, “He’s my uncle.”

“I fuckin’ knew it!” I shout out. (Which I don’t mean to do, but I really did know it.)

“Figures,” says Pete, “Like uncle, like nephew, huh?”

“Fuck does that mean?” asks Unlucky. Which I would’ve asked too. Fuck does that mean?

“OK,” Pete says. “Well, look, I don’t really give two shits what goes on out there.” He nods toward the door. “They’re grownups and what they do out in the world is their responsibility. But in here… these girls are my responsibility. So, if you’ve got some kinda deal you need to sort out with Scarlett, you do it somewhere else. You get me?”

Fucking Pete, man!

Unlucky Logan must feel like pushing his luck a little bit more to see just how unlucky he is, because he squares up and gets in Pete’s face. Which, if I’m being honest, I’m real impressed by. He’s either even dumber than I thought or the guy really does have brass balls. (Or cojones, I guess, since it turns out he must be at least part Mexican. I wonder if it’s his mom or dad that’s Carlos’ sibling. “Logan” is not a terribly Mexican name. I wonder if he’s adopted? Whatever. Not the time. Rambling.)

Unlucky is almost nose to nose with Pete now. He leans in and he whispers, “No. I don’t get you. Is this a shitty, second-rate tit-bar you’re running, or a fucking day care, old man?”

Pete doesn’t say shit. Just stares at him.

“So tell me… What if I decide I do need to come back here again to get what’s ours? What the fuck are you gonna do about it?”

Shit. This is intense. I love it!

Pete still doesn’t blink, and he doesn’t look away. The only thing that might change in his expression at all is that his eyelids may droop a little, giving him a sleepy look that suggests he’s kind of bored by the whole thing and would rather just be back in his office doing… accounting or whatever the fuck. And then, like he’s asking someone to pick up milk at the store, he says…

“I’ll fuckin’ kill ya.”

I bow my head slightly, entirely by accident. I have heard some cold-blooded shit in my day, spoken by some cold-blooded motherfuckers, but that shit right there was so cold it would make a rattlesnake crawl backwards into its hole.

And that’s clearly how it lands on Unlucky Logan, too, because he gets like an inch shorter all of a sudden.

“Now go on,” Pete says. “Get outta here.”

There’s a filled beat while Unlucky tries to decide how much it’s worth to him to try to save face, but then he concludes wisely that today just ain’t his day.

He backs away from both of us, me and Pete, who are now each holding a gun that used to be his, and I can only guess how much that has to suck for him. But what’re you gonna do? Guy makes bad choices.

As he gets to the exit, he pauses and then he says, “I’ll see you again,” to Pete, and then to me he goes, “You too… Tyler.” He puts a little something extra on my name like I’m supposed to be all impressed or scared or whatever that the dummy knows my first name. It’s like the silliest threat I’ve ever gotten. For less than a second, I have the same feeling I had before, when I fucked up him and his boy in the alley. Like I almost feel bad for him. But then I remember… I don’t.

And with that, he pushes out of the club and into the morning sunshine.

I open my mouth to speak, but before I get any words out, Pete just says, “Go on,” waving me in the direction where Maddie just left and closing his eyes and nodding his head. There’s this instant where I think about asking him if he’ll adopt me. But that’d be weird. As opposed to everything else that’s happening which is completely normal.

I just nod my head in response and hand the gun I’m holding to Pete. I don’t fucking want it. He takes it from me, nods at me in return, and I head towards the back of the club where I saw Maddie exit.

As I get there, just before I push through the door, I turn back to see the few customers take their seats again as some chick takes the stage. (Now HER, I do feel bad for, having to try to get dudes to think about anything other than what just happened—but then again… She has huge tits and they all have dicks, so it probably won’t take long before equilibrium returns.) The song changes to some new thing, and Pete’s wide back and shoulders lumber up the stairs and out of sight.

MADDIE