Bonnie entered the Biscuit Shack paying no attention to her surroundings. She was worried and hungry, which made her scarier and more irritable than usual. She expected to have a cup of coffee waiting for her by the time she sat down at her booth. She expected that Darlene, her longest serving employee, would greet her with assurances that the rest of her breakfast would arrive before she took her second sip from the cup. She expected to be feared and doted upon by everyone who received a paycheck from her.
It wasn’t until she took her seat that she realized none of her expectations would be met. Her coffee wasn’t waiting for her, and a quick survey of the restaurant revealed it was empty, not an employee in sight.
The door to the kitchen swung open, and Dani stepped out with a smile.
Bonnie, caught off guard, appeared unamused at first, but she quickly settled into her own smile. “Deputy Dani Savage.”
“Bonnie,” Dani said as she moved down the counter. “I’d call you by your full name, but for the life of me, I can’t recall if I’ve ever heard it.”
“Is it important?” Bonnie asked.
Dani reached the end of the counter and made her way to the booth. “I figure I oughta know the whole, complete name of the woman who wants me dead.
Bonnie considered her point. “I suppose that’s fair. Pike. Bonnie Elizabeth Pike.”
Dani reached the booth and asked permission to sit. Her request granted, she sat across from Bonnie.
“How would you like me to address you?” the deputy asked.
“That depends.”
“On?”
“On what capacity it is you are here in.”
Dani shrugged. “I’m just here to open the door.”
Bonnie raised an eyebrow. “How’s that?”
“My capacity is as door opener. That’s it.”
“Am I supposed to know what that means?”
“It will be clear to you soon enough. Now, how should I address you? Bonnie or Athaliah?”
Bonnie let a grin slide up slowly on her face. “Aren’t you the smart girl?”
“I have my moments.”
“Bonnie will do fine.”
“Bonnie it is. I gotta say Athaliah is a strange choice for a code name. She ain’t exactly a hero.”
“I ain’t exactly a hero.”
“Still, she was always presented to me as a cautionary tale in the Bible.”
“That’s because she ruled her kingdom like a man. Drew blood and cracked skulls to hold on to her power. A king does that and he’s revered. A queen does that and she’s a cautionary tale.”
“You might have a point there…”
“I can’t be arrested, you understand.”
“You can’t?”
“I can’t.”
“And why is that?”
“For reasons too long to list, but the most relevant to this situation is that this booth is way the fuck out of your jurisdiction.”
Dani snickered. “That it is, Bonnie. That it is.” The deputy leaned back and studied the crime boss’s puffy face. “So is that a family name? Bonnie?”
“Are we to get to know one another? Is that what this is about?”
“I’m just trying to make conversation. Killing time before I gotta do what I came here to do.”
“Open the door?”
Dani touched her nose and winked. “Right.” She quickly peered out the window and then returned to her attempt at making small talk. “Now, I’m sorry to say that I’m named after my daddy. He was Daniel. Daniel Clark Savage. I got the Dani part of his name. Not the Clark part, thank goodness.”
“Was? Your daddy’s dead?”
“To me, he is.”
Bonnie seemed to relax just the slightest despite her confusion. “My daddy was a bastard, too.”
“Was?”
“To everybody, he’s a was.” A broad smile found its way across Bonnie’s face. “Let’s just say I got a talent for making bastards go away.” Out of habit, she placed her hand on the tabletop to reach for her coffee cup. Drawing it back, she said, “Speaking of going away. You mind telling me where my staff went?”
“I give them the day off.”
Bonnie didn’t respond right away. She chuckled nervously for a few seconds before saying, “Well, now, if you ain’t here to arrest me, does that mean you aim to kill ol’ Bonnie?”
Dani shook her head. “That is not my aim. Told you, I’m here to open the door.”
Bonnie’s expression soured. “Fine. You’re here to open the door. Whatever the fuck that means. You wanna talk until then, let’s talk. Forget the bullshit. I don’t give a goddamn what your daddy’s name is or was or whatever state of alive he’s in, and you don’t give a goddamn that my daddy used to call me Piggy Pike. Ask me a real question, Deputy Dani Savage. Ask me something you really wanna know.”
Dani worked to stay calm as Bonnie’s tolerance was wearing thin. “Okay. How does it work?”
“It? What it?”
“Your business.”
“That’s a broad question, Deputy. I’ve got a big business. There’s a lot I got my hand in…”
“The girls, Bonnie. Tell me how it works.”
Bonnie mulled over her question before saying. “You know what I think? I think you’re out of your depth, Deputy.”
“Tell me how it works.”
“How it works?”
“From the bottom up.”
Bonnie eyed her for a second before laughing. “Fuck it. You can’t hurt me. We procure inventory. A deal is made, cash arrives, inventory gets delivered. That’s how it works. It ain’t no big mystery. Now, would you like me to tell you what you really want to know?”
Dani squirmed in her seat, feeling uneasy for the first time. “What do I really want to know?”
“C’mon, you ain’t that thick in the head. You know what you really want to know. Why is it a little girl can go missing and no one gives a fuck? That’s the question you really want to know the answer to. Ask me that question.”
“No need.” Dani rubbed the back of her neck and ran her fingers across the inked tribute to Colleen.
“Why?”
“Because I know the answer. I lived the answer. I’ve seen a little girl get thrown away and no one care. She wasn’t good enough or rich enough or pretty enough: she wasn’t enough of anything so nobody cared what happened to her. You think no one gives a shit because you own them. You think you got them boxed in with your files and money and guns. Let me tell you something, Bonnie Elizabeth Pike, you’re putting way too much thought and effort in keeping people quiet. Don’t none of them have any desire to speak up because don’t none of them care.”
Bonnie stared at Dani, observing her cheeks turning red as she talked. When the deputy was through, the crime boss said, “That’s a touch cynical. I own a good number of churches, sweetie. You should stop by one of them and get right with the Lord. You know what they say, folks that pray know the Way.”
“No, thank you. I’ve done the church thing, and it ain’t nothing but a building full of people who think praying is caring enough.”
Their attention was drawn outside as they watched four cars pull into the parking lot followed by Step’s truck.
Bonnie turned back to Dani when she heard a gun cock. “What are you doing?”
“I’m caring,” the deputy said with her gun trained on the crime boss.
“But you said you weren’t going to kill me.”
“I ain’t.” Dani motioned toward the parking lot with her head. “But they’ve got a different take on the situation.”
Bonnie watched as women climbed out of the cars armed with gardening tools, knives, and baseball bats. A couple even had hunting rifles. Step emerged from his truck carrying a gym bag with Boss’s scratch gat in it. Laura Farrow pushed the truck’s passenger-side door open and stepped out onto the concrete surface carrying a hammer.
“You’re right about one thing,” Dani said. “You can’t be arrested. Turns out that ain’t as enviable a position to be in as you might think because when you’re too big to go to jail, there ain’t but one other place for you to go.”
Bonnie turned to the deputy feeling panicked. “I’ve got money.”
“We got your money and your files.”
“On the mountain? That ain’t but a fraction of it.”
Dani started to slide down the cushioned bench but stopped. “Fraction of which, the money or the files?”
“Both. You call this off, and I’ll hand it all over to you. Every bit of it.”
Dani considered her proposal and then replied, “Nah.” The gun still on Bonnie, she stepped out of the booth and ordered the crime boss to do the same.
Bonnie clumsily complied. “You kill me and you won’t ever know where the other files are.”
“I told you, I ain’t gonna kill you. They are.”
“Whoever’s to do it, dead is dead. It won’t get you no closer to knowing everything that there is to know.”
Dani waved Bonnie in front of her and shoved her toward the front door. “I don’t reckon they’re gonna kill you right off. If it makes you feel any better, they’ll beat the information out of you before you leave this world.”
They stopped in front of the door.
“So, this is how the law gets done in Baptist Flats,” Bonnie said. “You let other folks do the dirty work?”
“It ain’t the normal practice, but these are special circumstances. Besides, we ain’t in Baptist Flats, remember?” Deputy Savage suddenly got a pained expression on her face. “I hate to have to admit this to you, Bonnie, but I have lied to you.”
“Lied?”
“Yes, ma’am, as I have got to keep my gun pointed at you without distraction, I’m going to be unable to open the door. You’re going to have to do it.”