Page 65 of Wounded Dance
“I guess not,” Blitz says. “I need to call my assistant to arrange for BD’s room and board. Probably can’t do it here with the hounds monitoring our phone use.”
Another officer opens the door to the waiting room.
And we are not prepared for what we see there.
Chapter 24
“Papá?” Blitz says, incredulous.
Blitz’s father stands in the middle of the room, his face angry, his arms crossed. No one is paying any attention to him.
When he sees Blitz, he says, “I always knew I’d be down here eventually for one of you boys.” His voice is gruff. He gets out his wallet and looks around. “You need me to bail you out?”
Blitz lets out a strangled laugh. “I didn’t get arrested. How did you know I was here?”
“Your mother follows Tweeter or Nitwit or whatever it is,” he says. “Apparently everybody’s talking about how you are at the San Antonio jail. She made me get down here right away.”
He sees a woman sitting behind a wall with a small glass window. I guess he figures she’s the one to pay to get Blitz out because he heads that way.
Blitz reaches out and grabs his arm. “I’m not in jail,” he says. “I was here to help someone who got arrested.”
They keep talking but I survey the room in a blind panic. Who recognized him? Was it that girl from earlier?
I despise that Blitz Burn hashtag and wish it would die a terrible social media death.
The girl isn’t here anymore. Nobody seems to care, absorbed in their own drama. Moms, girlfriends, buddies, all with the same grim expression. The grandmother has also left.
I pull out my phone to see what is happening, but then I feel the eyes of the officer boring into me. Right. They don’t want anyone using one. Now I see why. Compromised privacy.
“Livia?” Blitz finally gets my attention. “You ready to go?”
“You might want to rethink just walking out,” his dad says. “There’s a mob out there ready to take your picture.”
Blitz stares at the door. “Really?”
“Out on the street,” he says. “They didn’t know who I was, but one step and you’ll be all over those little newspapers your mother picks up at the grocery store.”
We sit down in a mostly empty row. “What do we do?” I ask Blitz. “They’ll recognize you no matter how we try to hide you.”
“There’s bound to be a back way,” Blitz says. “Let me go ask and see.”
He heads over to the woman behind the glass. I’m alone with his dad. I straighten my skirt self-consciously.
“You stick by my boy,” his dad says. “That’s something.”
I don’t know how to reply to that, since technically right now he’s sticking by me. So I just give him a quick nod.
“Quite a life you’re walking into.” He looks around the room. “You sure you’re up for it?”
“I’ve been up for it all along.”
He leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “Ben is an all-right boy,” he says. “I guess if he’s hung on to you this long, it’s going to work. Nobody else has ever lasted a week.”
This is probably as good as it gets in terms of praise from Blitz’s father.
“He’s a great man,” I say. I avoid adding, “Despite his father.”
David seems anxious. He taps his thumb on his knee, a gesture I’ve seen Blitz do.
