“Mmmm, I’ve missed this so much.” She sighed, as she pulled herself tightly against me, buring her face in my chest.
“How much do they know about us?” I asked.
“Karen knows everything, Daddy, and I’m sorry about that.” She said, getting very still in my arms, signalling her apprehension.
“And Holly?”
“She knows we’re polygamus and that we’re pregnant, but she doesn’t fully understand our dynamic or that your sisters and mother are involved.”
“Let’s keep it that way, yes?” I asked, though not making a suggestion.
“Of course, Daddy.” Melanie agreed, emphatically.
*****
After a few minutes of reconnecting, Melanie and I exited the bedroom and walked down the hall to the living room where the other three were watching tv. I say, watching, but it was merely background distraction as all eyes fell on me as I came down the hall, especially Holly, who had yet to see me and was clearly pleased with the sight of the dashing young man who’d come to her rescue. Like many teen girls, she had no shortage of crimson in her tender cheeks or lack of eye contact when meeting a cute boy for the first time. I took the opportunity to shake Karen’s hand again and thank her for the use of her bed, but again, she was the grateful one. Audrey and Melanie went to the kitchen to fetch us all something to drink while Karen offered me a seat on the recliner. I sat down in the recliner and turned it to face Karen and her daughter who were seated on the sofa. When Mel and Aud returned, they handed out the refreshments before taking their place on either side of my feet, drawing an unusual if not unexpected look from the mother and daughter.
I wanted to find out as much information about Miguel and the people he ran around with so I started my conversation with Holly. She said there were about eight guys he ran with in his crew, but they were just one of several that controlled their section of town. She recalled seeing as many as thirty or forty at parties they had, but she wasn’t sure how many of them were actually members of the gang. She said she was usually too scared to be too nosy and ask too many questions. When asked about firearms, she said that they had lots of guns and she believed that murdering someone was part of the initiation into the gang. Now, I was getting this information from a teenage girl who had probably seen too many of the gang films that seemed to permeate the market in early 90’s cinema, not to mention that Mel and I came from Albuquerque less than two months ago. I’d never heard of any gangs that required initiates to murder someone to get in, but I did know that most of the time it took some manner of violent act so I needed to proceed with caution, nonetheless.
The numbers didn’t fill me with a lot of confidence. I was pretty sure of myself in any fight, one on one, but gangs never fight anything one on one and they won’t fight fair, not that anyone ever should, only fools fight fair. Karen did take the cops advice and purchased a handgun so we had that at least if they should try and shoot up the house. I wasn’t too worried about a drive-by though, at least not unless it was a last resort. Karen was a lawyer and even though she was disgraced, she was still well known by some rather powerful firms. If they came to house, guns blazing, and failed to kill everyone there, word would get out about who was responsible and they’d have far too much heat on them. Gang members are generally on the low end of the intelligence spectrum, but that doesn’t mean they are always idiots. They know the system and they know who they can fuck with openly and who they have to deal with more creatively.
I wasn’t ruling out a home invasion, but I was pretty certain this was more about Miguel and less about his gang. Holly was just some little white bitch to these guys, a dime a dozen and easy to replace. It seemed highly unlikely they would attack the home of a lawyer just because Miguel was posessive. There simply was nothing in it for them to take the risk. However, even though Miguel might not have any real interest in the older women, I had no doubt he might be crazy enough to harm Holly, which meant if she left the house, she’d have a target painted on her back. It was Holly I was going to have to protect and that would change things for Miguel and his crew.
They were not about to let some pale-ass gringo disrespect Miguel or anyone else in their crew. In a way, my presence here would only make matters worse for me and the others, but if I wasn’t here, it would be like feeding Holly to the wolves. Like things were not bad enough already, it wasn’t like Holly could just stay inside indefinitely. I mean, she could, but Miguel would come looking for her and it would only be a matter of time before he learned of my presence either way. No doubt, he would see me as her new man and it would be on anyway. The best case scenario I could think of would be that Miguel got killed by a rival gang and all this would just dissolve, but the worst case scenario would be I have to defend the home and I end up killing one or more of them. Once that happened, the whole gang would want revenge and they wouldn’t care about shooting up the home then.
After hearing the whole story from Holly and her mother it was time to get the house ready. The first thing I wanted to get done was limit the visibility into the home so we went straight to work hanging blankets and towels over all the windows. Next was dismantling all the beds and putting the mattresses on the floors. In the event they decided to spray the home with lead in the middle of the night, everyone would be safer if they were already on the floor. As far as sleeping arrangements went, Karen offered her bedroom to my girls and I and she’d sleep on the hideaway in the sofa. I wasn’t too keen on this idea as it put me at the farthest point in the house away from both the back and front doors. I didn’t think Miguel would stand more than a few days of Holly ignoring him before he’d become impatient and do something, but there was no need for all of us to be there either, so I sent Melanie and Audrey to stay at a motel. I doubted that Miguel or his gang was well connected enough to track the Illinois plates on our cars, but I didn’t want to leave anything to chance so I had the girls take both our cars with them. If we needed to leave the house, we had Karen’s.
After a nice dinner and with their bags packed, the girls and I had an emotional goodbye before they were out the door and driving away. Although they were still unaware of what happened in Wausau, I used the same strategy I employed there. I had them go to the other side of the city, far from here, to get their motel room. Anywhere that Miguel or his crew would be unlikely to encounter them. Fortunately, it wasn’t that long ago Mel and I lived in Albuquerque so discussing the plan was made easy. With my girls out of the picture and safe, it was just Karen, Holly and I.
“Are you going to shoot Miguel, David?” Holly worried.