The room went deathly silent as Duane’s face went slack.
Then something so sad, it was impossible not to internalize it in a way I thought I’d be sad until my dying day, swept over his expression for a nanosecond before it twisted into bitter.
“Guess I shouldn’t be surprised and fuck that bitch,” Duane said before he snatched up his cupcakes and headed for the door.
Raye got in his way, so I joined her there.
“Get out of the way,” he bit.
“Duane—”
“Fuck you too and get out of my way!” he yelled.
“This is what’s going to happen,” Raye said in a lethal voice that scared even me a little bit. It definitely got Duane’s attention. “You’re gonna tell us what they’re asking of you. Then you’re gonna leave this room, still pretending you’re terrified they’ll hurt Amy.”
“Fuck that!” Duane kept yelling.
Raye went on like he didn’t speak.
“You’re going to agree to do what they tell you to do. You’re going to tell us when that’s going down. We are then going to make a plan to fuck it every way we can fuck it for them, at the same time communicate that playing with your emotions was not okay, you have friends, friends who will go to the mat to look after you, so if they think you’re open to fuck with, they need to think again.”
Duane just stared at her as Jinx joined me and Raye.
“Yeah. We gonna fuck them hard,” Jinx stated.
Oh boy.
Persia, Lotus and Skyla came to stand with us.
“Whoever this Amy bitch is, she’s gonna wish she never clapped eyes on you,” Persia stated.
“For sure,” Lotus punctuated that.
Joey and Shanti joined us.
But it was Shanti who said, “You be you. So you’re a skeeve, but you provide a”—she looked around and settled on—“somewhat decent and safe place for these girls to do their business, and you’ve done the Angels some good turns. It’s payback time, my man. And we’re paying you back. You in?”
Duane dedicated the next very long ten seconds to continuing to scowl at us before he said, “They want me to be their bagman.”
“Collecting or delivering?” Persia asked.
“Both, taking something to someone, taking something from that someone to them,” Duane answered.
“You know what it is?” Joey asked.
He shook his head.
“You know who it’s to?” Raye asked.
“I know it can’t be to someone too good, or they’d do it themselves,” Duane said.
Uh…yeah.
“I got no interest in that life,” Duane surprised us by carrying on. “I keep my head down. I keep my shit tight. I work my shift. I go home. I eat. I smoke a little weed. I jack off.”
“TMI,” Shanti muttered.
“I sleep,” Duane continued. “Rinse. Repeat. I don’t want trouble. I don’t want hassle. I don’t want to be known to that world. I just wanna live my life.”
