“Okay,” I said. “Okay, Old Sam, I get you. But something has got to change here.”
“Zeus is up for parole in less than a year.”
I nodded, then tilted my head when the music changed and “Hot Blooded” by Foreigner came on.
I rapped my knuckles on the counter as a thank you to Old Sam and then made my way make through the haphazard shelves to the back corner. Harleigh Rose was there sitting cross-legged on a stack of empty record sleeves eating a Snickers candy bar in a way that was hilariously defiant.
I was careful not to grin as I crouched down in front of her. She stared at me insubordinately and ripped off another huge chunk of chocolate covered candy.
“You know the difference between good and evil, Harleigh Rose?”
She tilted her head to one side and squinted at me, but didn’t answer because she was smart enough to know she had no fucking clue.
“One has a conscious. See, good people don’t abstain from doing bad things. Everyone makes mistakes, gives into temptations, lies, or even steals, but it’s the good ones that know when the bad deed is done, there was something wrong in the doing of it. So, maybe the next time they face that crossroads between doing what they want despite the consequences—and Rosie, there are always consequence—and doing what they know it right, they make the right choice. At least the majority of the time.”
“I’m too young to get a job,” she said. “And mum never buys any groceries unless she’s havin’ a party like she is tonight, then all her friends eat the food ’cause we aren’t allowed in the house when they hang out. Lots of times Bat and Trixie take me and King for dinner or give us some money for food, but Trixie just had twins, so they’re too busy.” She paused then looked up at me with her crazy bright blue eyes and said, “You weren’t here, so what was I supposed to do?”
I rubbed at the flare of pain making itself known to the left center of my chest and tried to think of how to answer that question. I was only nineteen, I didn’t have much of a wealth of wisdom and what I did had, I figured wouldn’t be very applicable to a ten-year-old girl with chaos in her blood.
“First up, you call me. You know my number, you know if you need me, I’ll come up from Vancouver and get you what you need, okay?” When she nodded, one of the dozen notes tied tight around my heart loosened. “You also call Bat, okay? Do you or King have a cell phone?”
“No, Daddy gave Mum the money to buy us one, but I think we both know where that went,” she said casually, as if the fact that her mother chose to snort that money in the form of coke instead of providing for her children was normal behaviour.
I guessed for Harleigh Rose it was.
My chest constricted again.
“Okay, tomorrow I’ll take you and King to the store and we’ll get you one.”
“King doesn’t think we should hang out with you anymore,” she told me.
It wasn’t like I hung out with the Garro kids, but since their dad had been shot in front of H.R. years ago, I’d felt a certain responsibility towards them. With King, it was easy. Sometimes he’d walk by my parents’ house on the way home from school and spot me in the garage, tinkering with my father’s old 1968 Mustang Fastback. Even at eight and now twelve, the kid knew more about cars than I did so he’d roll up his sleeves and help out. With H.R., it was a little more complicated, mostly because she was a complicated kid. I’d spend a few hours with her every Sunday at Mega Music, but if Farrah was being a bitch, H.R. often ran away from home.
Straight to my house.
At first, I hadn’t known what to do when I opened the door late one Thursday night to see her drowning in the rain, her face red from tears. Happily, my mum had.
My dad was a lot of things, most of them bad, but my mum was an angel.
So, without hesitation, she’d taken Harleigh Rose into our house, fed her, bathed her and put her to bed in the guest room beside their master.
We had a history, the Garros kids and me, but I was still surprised by how much it hurt to hear her say those words.
“’Cause you’re a cop now, it’s prob’ly bad for your reputation to be seen with bikers,” she explained.
I blinked at her earnest expression then laughed. “You and King aren’t bikers.”
“No, but he’s a biker-in-training and I’m a biker chick…” She shrugged. “And King just read this play by an old white guy about two families that hate each other. A kid from each family fell in love and they all ended up dying because they shouldn’t’a been together in the first place.”