In Enemy Hands (10 page)

“The shower on the other end is open, Romeo,” he said. “I’m taking this side.”

“Thanks,” Dante replied.

Waynie sat on the sofa, munching a handful of potato chips. He squinted at Dante.
“Dude
, what happened to your head?”

Dante grinned and shook his head. “I don’t know, man.”

He wandered off in search of his room. The ceiling fans pushed cool, conditioned air down on him. He caught the sweet scent of coconut and brought his forearm to his face. He could still smell the scent of her where his arm had rested against her body.

Man, the next thing you knew, he’d be-well, hell, he didn’t know what he’d be doing. This was unknown territory. He was afraid to guess what stupid thing he would do next.

After showering and changing, he joined Ronnie and Waynie on the front porch. They seemed to have been waiting on him, because immediately they wandered to the main house.

“How did you—do in the poker tournament?” Dante asked Waynie while they climbed the front steps.

“Got busted on the last card. It was a bad beat, man. Some amateur. Getting an eight on the river was all that would save his butt, and what do you think he got?” Waynie rolled his eyes heavenward and tugged on his goatee. “I finished five spots out of the money.”

“How many people were playing?” Ronnie asked. “Six?”

“Ha ha. I’ll have you know, there were over eighty people in that tournament. Some of them were big shots too.”

“Here we go.” Ronnie rolled his eyes. “Are you going to tell us you played Elvis again?”

“It was the king, man,” Waynie said earnestly. “He knew stuff only the real Elvis would know.”

“Great.” Ronnie shouldered past him. “The next time you talk to him, tell him I want Lisa Marie’s number.”

Waynie shook his head. “Sorry, I already thought of that, man, but he said he hasn’t spoken to her since the whole Michael Jackson thing. He said that if he
had
been dead, he would have rolled over in his grave.”

Ronnie smacked his forehead with his palm, then rubbed his hand down his face. “Do you see?” he asked Dante. “Do you see what I have to put up with around here?”

Dante laughed and clamped a hand on Ronnie’s shoulder. They entered the living room together.

Dante paused at the sight of Nick and Maria Branson together on the leather sofa. She lay back against the chair arm with her legs propped in his lap. He whispered something to her and she chuckled softly as he stroked one of her nylon covered feet with his thumb. Dante coughed, feeling like an intruder.

“Hey, boys, come on in,” Maria said.

“Sorry to interrupt, Mrs. B,” Ronnie said.

“You’re not interrupting anything.” She smiled and swung her feet to the floor. “Nick and I are being lazy. Are you guys hungry? Lee Ann made chili …”

Ronnie made a face. “Chili? In this heat?”

Nick laughed and nudged Maria. “Ah, ha. See there?”

She gave him a grudging smile and he looked at Dante.

“That’s what I tell them all the time, but they insist that anything she cooks would be hot. It’s not the same, is it?”

“I think you should only have chili during the winter,” Ronnie said, plopping into a chair and brushing a wave of dark hair out of his face.

Nick opened his mouth to speak, but paused when Nadia skipped down the stairs in a bright red halter top and faded jeans. Her dark hair curled around her face, and makeup accentuated her features, though Dante didn’t think she needed any help at all.

“See ya later, guys,” she said, looking at her parents. “I’m taking the boys with me. We’ll be back in a little while.”

Nadia grabbed Waynie and Dante’s hands and pulled them toward the door. Both Nick and Maria jumped to their feet.

“Nadia, where do you think you’re going?” Nick asked, his voice edged with panic.

Nadia blew a piece of hair out of her face and turned around. “Remember, I told you the other day I had a gig at Charlie’s.”

“Surely you can’t mean to go sing in some bar tonight?” Nick sputtered.

Nadia folded her arms across her chest. “Well, as a matter of fact, I do.”

“Honey— that’s crazy,” her mother said, pressing a hand to Nick’s back. “You were almost killed yesterday.”

A flash of impatience crossed Nadia’s face. “So, when do you two propose I venture back into the real world? Tomorrow … next week … next year? Heck, maybe never. Maybe I’ll just stay here the rest of my life, holed up with you guys.”

“Nadia, that’s not fair,” Maria said.

“No, it’s not,” Nadia said sharply, then she softened her tone. “Look, I’m not going to hide. Yes, if he kills me, he wins. But he still wins if I cower here in the shadows, afraid to go outside. I’m not going to let him control my life.”

Nadia crossed over to her parents and hugged them both.

“I love you guys, but I can’t live like this,” she said gently. “I’ll be okay. Dante and Ronnie will be there, along with the others. I have a whole platoon following me around. What could happen?”

When they didn’t reply, she pivoted toward the door. “I’ll be back around midnight, okay?” she called over her shoulder, and pushed out the door before they could protest. Dante followed.

She jumped off the porch, not bothering with the steps, and strode toward the garage in the moonlight. Dante glanced back at the house.

Maria Branson stood in the doorway watching, her hand twisting the gold chain around her neck. He felt a little sorry for Nadia’s mother, even though he could see Nadia’s side of it too. Nadia was a lot like him, he suspected, and the worst thing anyone could do to people like them was to cage them up.

“Ronnie, Waynie!” Nadia yelled. “Are you coming?”

“Yeah, yeah. Hold your horses,” Ronnie called from the house.

Another bodyguard stumbled out of the barracks, tugging a black T-shirt over his head. Waynie started toward the Hummer clutching a bag of Fritos and Ronnie waved him away.

“Huh uh. No, you don’t. I just vacuumed this thing. You and your Fritos have to ride with Jacobi.”

Waynie made a loser sign on his forehead with his thumb and forefinger and Ronnie flipped him a bird. Finally, Dante found himself in the back of the Humvee with Nadia. She leaned in close to press her face to his shirt.

“Geez, Dante, what kind of cologne is that?” she demanded.

He hesitated. “Uh, it’s called Diesel Green. Why? Does it smell bad?”

“No! It’s wonderful.” She gave him a wicked smile and ran her freshly polished nails up the back of his neck. “Makes me want to scratch and sniff.”

She reached over the driver’s seat and rapped Ronnie on the head with her knuckles. “I think that’s what I’m going to buy you for Christmas. A whole case of Diesel Green. Maybe then you can get a girlfriend.”

Ronnie grunted and adjusted the rearview mirror. “No, thanks. Now that I know it’s a proven attractant for annoying little pests like you.”

“Better a pest like me than no pest at all.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

Ignoring him, Nadia turned back to Dante. “You know, I forgot to ask. What did Nick have you doing all morning?”

Dante shrugged. “Nothing much. He showed me around and explained my duties. Stuff like that. He warned me about you too. About how much trouble you could get into.”

The amber glow from the streetlights lining the drive illuminated her face and Dante grinned when she rolled her eyes.

“Not hard to do around here, believe me.” She leaned back in the seat and pressed her leg against his.

“Does he know you jump off bridges too?” he teased.

“Sure he does,” Ronnie said, wagging his eyebrows in the mirror. “I have the picture to prove it.”

Dante laughed. Nadia leaned against him, resting her head in the crook of his arm.

And she’d talked about
his
cologne.

She was wearing that perfume again. It enveloped Dante like a drug, stealing his common sense. Nick had told him to ignore her, to pretend he wasn’t interested. He wondered how on earth he was supposed to do that.

Her hands lay in her lap and he picked one up, tracing his fingers over her palm. “I find it hard to believe you don’t have a boyfriend, princess.”

“Believe it,” Ronnie said from the front seat. “She ain’t even had a date in awhile.”

Nadia frowned. “It’s been a few days.”

Dante caught Ronnie’s wink in the rearview mirror and tried to hide his smile.

“You know, now that I think about it … you haven’t had one in a few weeks, huh?”

“No.” Nadia stretched to pop Ronnie in the back of the head. “But thanks for clearing that up for us.” She smiled at Dante. “You know how it is. I’ve been biding my time, waiting on a real man.”

He laughed, remembering their first conversation.

Glancing at three pairs of headlights following them down the drive, she said, “Geez, I bet the president’s daughter doesn’t have this much security. I’m sure to fill the house tonight, since I’m bringing most of the audience with me.”

“So, that’s your job? You’re a singer?” Dante asked.

Ronnie snorted. “To qualify as a job, it’s supposed to be something that makes money.”

“Hey, Charlie paid my bar tab last time,” Nadia protested. Turning back to Dante, she said, “Nah, this is only for fun. When I was a mean little kid, my grandma would take up for me, saying, ‘That girl’s got ants in her pants. She doesn’t mean to get into everything. She’s only working off energy.’ That’s what I’m doing. Working off energy.”

Dante squeezed her shoulder and kissed the top of her head.

She glanced out the window and said, “I can’t stay cooped up in that house like they do. I know this makes them nervous, but I really don’t do much. I even go to college here in Sewanee because Nick’s afraid somebody will assassinate me on campus. This last semester, he started sending people
in
the classroom with me. I walked into Psych class one day and there sat Waynie.” She chuckled. “Hey, Ronnie. How did Nick manage to get Waynie enrolled in that class anyway?”

“I don’t wanna know,” Ronnie replied. “But you should’ve seen Waynie doing his homework.”

“Your father must be very afraid of this man,” Dante commented, wondering how long this had been going on. Had Nadia always lived under armed guard?

“He’s evil,” Ronnie said matter-of-factly, and Nadia nodded her head in agreement.

“Why is he after your father?”

“He thinks Nick took what was his.”

Then she changed the subject, talking instead about the term paper Waynie had done for the course,
Slobs Who Live With Obsessive Compulsives
.

“He did not!” Ronnie accused, staring wide-eyed in the rearview mirror.

“He most certainly did. He had a hypothetical that mentioned two roommates, Dwayne the slob and Ronald the neat freak. Ronald was all uptight and tense, taking out all his aggression on his poor roomie Dwayne, who was just your average guy. He blamed Ronald’s compulsiveness on his lack of female companionship. Said he was sexually repressed.”

Ronnie nearly wrecked. Dante slung a protective arm around Nadia to keep her from being pitched into the floorboard. She was laughing so hard she was almost in tears.

“I’m gonna
kill
that moron!” Ronnie shouted.

Leaving Nadia to get ready for her set, Dante strode down the corridor and reentered the bar using the stage door. A sense of relief stole over him as he surveyed the crowd. Charlie’s was a pretty small bar. There were probably no more than fifty people here tonight, and they all looked like they belonged. A bunch of college kids, a couple of roughnecks … no farm workers with fifty dollar manicures.

This was the kind of joint he was comfortable in. Peanut shells crunched underneath his boots, and the place smelled like pizza, beer, and cigarette smoke. Dante walked past the blaring jukebox, past the crooked tables with mismatched tablecloths and took a seat at the bar.

A flashing pink sign above the bar advertised a beer he’d never heard of, and the bartender caught him staring at it.

“You want one of those, hon?” she asked.

Dante shook his head. “I’ll take a Coke, though, when you have time.”

The bartender nodded and snapped her gum. She had teased red hair, thick blue eye shadow, and a name tag that read “Flo”. Dante smiled when she walked away, thinking of the waitress from a TV show he’d watched when he was a kid.

Ronnie hopped up on a barstool beside him.

“Wait till you hear Nadia sing. She’s great.” He winked. “Just don’t tell her I said so.”

“Okay.” Dante smiled.

The bartender slid Dante’s drink to him. He thanked her and reached for his wallet, but Ronnie shook his head. “Put it on my bill, Flo.”

Flo nodded and walked off.

“Thanks, man,” Dante said, lifting his glass.

“No problem. We’re co-workers now.” Ronnie was quiet for a moment, then he said, “Nadia likes you, you know?”

Dante paused, wondering if Branson had told Ronnie about their arrangement. Maybe not, since he hadn’t been fired yet. He weighed his answers and, in the end, decided to be honest. “I like her too.”

“I’ve been working for Mr. Branson for eight years now. Nadia was a kid when I started. I taught her how to drive.” He looked at Dante over his own glass and said, “All I’m asking is, don’t hurt her, man. Nadia ain’t as tough as she acts.”