Holding Out for a Hero (Baytown Heroes #9)

Chapter 6

6

FLIP

Flip stood motionless and watched as the sweet little baker hustled back into the office. Then a long, sly grin crossed his face. He continued around the back of the building, glancing toward the dilapidated barn in the distance before rounding the corner. He looked in on Jaybird, and his eyes widened. A vintage Volkswagon Beetle was having an oil change.

Walking over, he kept his voice down. “Does this belong to that girl?”

The young man rolled from under the car, wiping his hands on an old, grease-stained rag. He stood and chuckled. “That sweet piece that came in and is talking to the old man? Yeah.”

A long, low whistle emitted through Flip’s pursed lips. “Find out what you can from the old man when she leaves. I want this.”

“Parts or whole?”

Flip rubbed his chin, his eyes narrowing as he walked around the car, then nodded slowly. “I'm not sure. Maybe whole. Is it a ’66 or ’67?”

“It’s a ’67.”

“Good restoration.”

Jaybird grinned and shook his head, seeming to warm to the conversation and what he could bring to the table. “No way, Flip. Original.”

“Fuck. Whole would be good. But parts might bring more.”

Jaybird bounced on his toes. “Want me to talk to the old man? I can keep this here for some reason.”

Flip scrutinized the young man before him, his gaze sharpening as he took in every detail. Jaybird was just seventeen, a middle school dropout who’d fallen in with the Bloods in his neighborhood. He’d learned simple auto work, but Flip thought he was always too much in a hurry… too willing to take unnecessary risks, thinking that would elevate his status in the gang. Risks weren’t bad, but unnecessary risks? That was the way to end up dead.

Flip shook his head in frustration and pity. He’d learned early on that life in the Bloods was precarious, characterized by thrill and danger. Most of them never made it into their thirties—a harsh reality that Flip had no intention of succumbing to. Despite being in his late twenties, he’d been wise enough to carve out a different path. Eschewing drug use, he started lifting cars as a teen in Baltimore. He’d learned to trick them out for drug carrying, leaving the selling product to others. It made him valuable and less likely to get imprisoned for a long sentence or killed. Like Jaybird, he’d grown up with Bloods, but he had his eye on moving up the chain and not dying young. Willing to stay the course, he’d been tasked to lead their expansion on the Eastern Shore.

“Come on, man, let me get the info for you,” Jaybird begged.

Their conversation was interrupted when the office door opened, and the old man stuck his head out.

“You ’bout finished? Can’t take all that long to change the oil.”

Flip turned and caught Jaybird’s face contorting, ready to reply in a way that would make their stay tenuous. “Yes, sir,” he replied instead. “I was just checking his work to make sure it was good.”

“Thank ya,” Artie said, then closed the door.

Jaybird lifted his hand and made the motion of firing a gun straight toward the door.

“Fuck off,” Flip warned. “We need him for now. His time will come. Hell, as old as he is, he could drop any day.”

“That’d work?—”

“No, it wouldn’t, shithead. Then people would start sticking their noses in his business. I want to leave on our terms, not get kicked out too soon. We got a deal here… don’t fuck it up because you can’t control yourself.”

“No, no, man. I get it. I get it, Flip,” the younger man placated, his hands now up in a show of defense.

“This shit done?”

At Jaybird’s nod, Flip jerked his head toward the office. “Get it in there. I’ll talk to the old man after she’s left.”

Several minutes later, Flip looked out the garage bay door to see the VW Beetle drive down the road. From the back door of the garage, two other men emerged. Flip offered a chin lift toward TinMan and Babyface, more of his team. TinMan was in his early twenties, and Babyface was thirty but named appropriately… he could still pass for a teenager. Both men came down from Baltimore with him. He scoffed, knowing what the old man thought, and told others—they were just some guys wanting to earn an honest dollar doing whatever work they could to keep the old garage running.

But old man Williams had no idea Flip was running the multi-million dollar car theft and money laundering scheme for the Bloods. Flip could work for the long goal, even if that had meant starting at the bottom before he was in his teens. But he was rising, and this job out in the middle of nowhere would buy him the place with the Bloods he wanted.

Thinking about the sweet baker, he grinned but then pushed that thought down. No piece of pussy was worth getting caught and blowing up his plans. But her sweet ride? That was an entirely different matter.

Still grinning, he left the other three to keep working in the garage as he headed in to find out where that sweet little VW Beetle resided.