Night and Day by Rowan Speedwell Read Free Book Online Page B

their posts and follow. It’s only you and the odd group by the dance floor.
    “Nate.” Your name is hissed, and you turn to see Billie gesturing for you to come away. You shake your head, and she waves more furiously. “Come on. This is not for you. It’s trouble.”
    You glance up and meet Rick’s eyes. He nods, almost infinitesimally, and you start to turn away, but Winyard’s voice rises.
    “Hey, you. Canary. Why’ncha join us? You too, sweetheart.”
    “Leave them alone, Dion,” Rick snaps. “They’re not part of this.”
    “But they are. On accounta I want them to be.” He eyes you, still smirking. “He’s your fairy prince, Ricky, ain’t he?”
    “Shut up, Dion. Leave him alone. Nate, go with Billie.”
    “I’m not a coward,” you say stiffly.
    He softens and says, “I know, Nate. But this… this is family business.”
    Family? Mario’s obviously a part of it. And where did Winyard fit in?
    Your puzzlement must show, because Billie hisses, “Family in the sense of mob, Nate. Come on .”
    She takes your hand and leads you across the floor to the swinging doors leading to the kitchen. As you’re about to go through, Winyard calls, “Hey, Canary!”
    You turn and look, and he squashes his lips up in a mockery of a kiss.
    When you come through the doors, you’re shaking and nauseous. Billie leads you to a little bistro set in the corner of the kitchen; the place is oddly quiet without Mario’s presence: no banging pots or boiling pasta or hollered orders. The waitstaff and kitchen help are gathered at the back, waiting. Billie turns from you and says to them, “Y’all go home now. You’re not needed ’til tomorrow.”
    They seem to have been waiting for her words, because they’re suddenly in motion, abandoning the club like lemmings. Billie ignores them, bustling about making a pot of tea, which she sets down on the table and drops into the chair opposite. You get up silently and fetch two cups and saucers.
    “Thanks, toots,” she says. Her voice, her face, her body are all tired. She’s always so upbeat it’s disturbing to see her like this. Suddenly you realize she needs the tea as much as you do.
    “What’s going on, Billie?”
    She shakes her head. “About once a month, Dion comes in here to harass them. He never does anything; he can’t intimidate them like he does the other businesses in the area, but he tries. There’s something that goes way back between them—between all of them.”
    “Even Mario?”
    “Even Mario. Harry, too, sometimes. But we don’t know what. Corinna says it doesn’t involve us. It’s something to do with the old country.”
    “Oh. Like Auntie?”
    “You’ve met Auntie?”
    “Yes. Rick took me to Delphie’s for breakfast. We’ve been there a couple of times, but I only met Auntie the first time.”
    “She scares the bejeebers out of me,” Billie said frankly.
    “Me too,” you admit.
    The two of you drink your tea in silence, and clean up afterward in the same silence. Finally Billie says, “I’m going to wait for Corinna, but you just go on upstairs. Nothing for us to do here. It’ll be okay. They won’t let anything happen to us.”
    “I know.” You do know. You know that Dion is no match for Rick, and certainly no match for Corinna. But he bothers them, and that bothers you.
    You decide to sit up and wait for Rick to come upstairs to bed, but the night catches up to you, and you fall asleep. When you wake in the morning, you’re alone, but he appears at the door a moment later, as if he was waiting for you. “Breakfast?” he says with a grin. “Mario’s still here, and he’s offering.”
    “You didn’t come to bed,” you say, yawning.
    “You looked so peaceful, I didn’t want to disturb you. So I slept in my own room.”
    Where you’ve never been; he’s spent the nights since your arrival with you. It’s one of those things you just never think about. But breakfast sounds good, and Rick doesn’t seem at all