“Are you going to keep them beside you or are you going to speak?” I asked him.
“Y’all go, this will only take a second.”
“I’m still here, bitch. When my ending at?” She sneered at me, swinging her waist as she left. Ignoring her, I focused on cleaning.
“So you’re the governor?”
“So you do know who I am,” I said, not bothering to look up at him.
This table is fucking disgusting.
“Yeah, yeah. Everybody knows the famous Melody Callahan, plus I saw your picture in the paper. Your husband looks like he has one hell of a time with you. I wonder how it feels to grope one of them.” He nodded at my breasts.
“It feels like two .38 Special bullets in the spine.” I smiled. “Or at least, that’s what my husband would say, but I know you wouldn’t even make it close enough in your dreams, so you shouldn’t bother asking.”
“You’re a spicy one, Governor, it must be that Italian—”
“I’m tired of wasting words with you, so I’m going to cut to the chase. The drive-bys and shootouts, those end today. You will also give me the person responsible for the drive-by on 42nd. Then you will crawl back to whatever hole you came out of and stay there until my husband or I say otherwise.”
“Can you believe this bitch?” He laughed outright along with the rest of his crew. “Come into my diner and you gonna boss me around, sweetheart? Go back to your ivory fuckhole and fuck yourself. Ain’t no fucking way me, Big John Matty, gonna be listening to any Italian bitch, governor or no—”
Grabbing the fork on the table, I rammed it down into his hand. The scream that came from his lips was so pathetic I almost laughed…almost.
“You must be new around here,” I said, taking the knife and once again stabbing through his skin. “Which is why I’m taking this time to educate you…nicely.”
“KILL HER!”
They all got up with their guns, but before they could pull the trigger, their phones started ringing one by one.
“If I was you all, I would answer that. God only knows when you’ll hear from your mom, your brother, your daughter, or son or girl again…hell, a few you even got guys waiting on the end for you. I mean one minute they’re right there and the next BOOM, the government should have done something about to those faulty wires sooner huh?” I said calmly, reaching for a spoon.
“Ma! Ma! What’s going on? What happened?”
“Willow?”
“Zoe!”
“What?”
One by one, they all answered their phones. I smiled, spinning the spoon around my fingers as Big John stared in confusion. “Like I said, you must be new around here. Now, you could kill me, but that’s going to get messy. My husband will burn Bella Vista to the ground, kill all of you one by one and you all will turn on each other because…well, that’s what weak bitches like you do and then it’s just one bloody fucking mess. Meanwhile, I asked you nicely. Would you like me to repeat my demands?”
“His name is Tyrone Williams. He did the hit on 42nd.”
“And you ordered it?”
He swallowed and nodded.
“Big mistake.” I rose from the table. “I better hear nothing out of Bella Vista. So much as a broken window without my family’s approval and today will seem like a good day for you.”
As I grabbed my purse, they all parted for me as if I had the plague. I paused. “Also, about your girl….”
Turning to face the window, I saw her laughing outside the diner right up until a black Ford Escape accelerated into her. Her body flew up like a doll being thrown by a child before crashing back to the ground and rolling off the hood onto the ground.
“You’re going to need another one.”
The whole diner went quiet. One by one, they pressed up against the window.
Murphy held the door open for me and Mina, keeping silent like always during times like these. In the car, I waited for Murphy to put his seatbelt on.