Page 18 of Etched in Stone
“I appreciate the effort, but I swear, I’m okay. And I don’t plan on him ever returning again either.” As far as Pablo knew, she was a flat pancake, though he’d probably wondered why there wasn’t a huge scene around her corpse as he left the building.
“How do you know where she lives?” Ray said pointedly.
“He’s got a side hustle,” said Jesse. “He does deliveries at the bodega sometimes.”
“And who’s he?” Luis squinted at Ray.
“He’s my grandpa.”
Ray let out a huff, but said nothing more. He squinted back at Luis. “That fool in the suit tried to kill her today, so I appreciate the extra eyes.”
Luis glanced back at Jesse to confirm.
“Tried to throw me off the roof, but Ray--er, Grandpa heard and stopped him.”
“Are you shittin’ me? And you just let him walk? I would have broken this bat over his fuckin’
head.”
“I know you would have, Luis, but what else could an old man have done?”
“Neither one of you called the po-po?”
He looked at Ray, eyeballing the old man from head to toe, expecting him to be the type with the police on speed dial.
“I prefer to deal with my issues in-house,” Ray said.
Was that a little light of appreciation glimmering in Luis’s eyes?
“I got you. I got you. Jesse, you need anything, you just call for delivery. We’ll come real fast.”
“Thank you, Luis.”
“Yes. Thank you,” Ray said. He backed up and grabbed a sticky note off the counter. “But if you see them again, call this number first. These are some scary, scary guys, and I don’t think a baseball bat will do much if you don’t catch them by surprise, put them down on the ground first. If they see you coming, they’ll shoot first.”
“Got it. Be sneaky or pack my own heat,” Luis said with a nod.
“Don’t you dare get shot, Luis,” Jesse warned.
“Aww, you care that much? Eh?”
Luis’s phone rang and he answered. Jesse could hear rapidfire Spanish out the other end. He rolled his eyes and saluted with the bat, giving her one last wink before heading down the elevator.
Jesse closed the door and relocked the two deadbolts. She went to sit down on the couch. With his wings folded away, tucked tight against his body, Ray sat on the other end of the couch, as if he did so every day.
There was another awkward silence.
Good God, were they back to that?
“I’m going back to my place to get a start on the elevator,” he said as he stood up.
“I- okay,” was Jesse’s only response.
He left the door to the garden open on his way out. She figured he wanted to be able to hear if she had any more unexpected visitors.
Jesse had so many questions floating around in her head. She felt like the whole world was spinning. Maybe she should write them down. No, they weren’t ordered enough yet. She needed to paint. Jesse stepped out onto the garden patio and waited for the panic of nearly falling to overwhelm
her. Nothing. She felt safe, ready even to work on her painting.
