Low Sided by A.J. Downey (best detective novels of all time txt) 📕

shoot the messenger on that one, beautiful,” he said, raising his long-fingered hands in surrender. I shook my head and went down the bar to refill the bourbon for a longshoreman they called Sharkey.

Major slowed way down after the first two beers, preferring to nurse the next couple over the remaining hours of my shift. I thought he planned on staying until I was off but about ten minutes before I started chasing the stragglers out of my bar after last call so I could lock the doors, he had disappeared.

I leaned heavily against the door once the last two patrons were out and threw the lock.

“Boy, I’ll be glad to be outta here!” Manuk called from the kitchen.

“You and me both!” I called back before I shoved off the bar across the glass and with a heavy sigh, half-assed my way through final closing and cleanup. There wasn’t much to do, and damn it, I was tired. Physically as well as mentally and emotionally. It’d been a damned long few days.

After finishing up my work and making the drop to the safe, I donned my light jacket and called out my goodbye to Manuk.

“You want I should walk you, sistah?” he called, and I shook my head.

“No, I’m good!” I called back.

He waved from the kitchen and I pushed back through the door into a cloud of fragrant green smoke. I looked over as I keyed the lock so Manuk wouldn’t have to leave the kitchen.

“I thought you fucked off back to the club, or home or something,” I said casually to Major who stood by with a spliff in his hand.

“Naw, figured I’d walk you home.”

“Mace ask you?” I asked, curiously.

“Nope, Mav,” he declared, falling into step beside me.

“Mav?” I asked. “Why would he care?”

“Like it or not, girly, you’re still a friend of the club for what you did for Mace. Mace may have fucked up, but he still loves you. Mav asked that we all keep a lookout for you, make sure you were good. A brother asks for help, you help him. The president asks you to do somethin’, well… that goes without sayin’.”

“So, all that talk back there about whether I was available?” I asked.

He gave me that shit-eating grin again, his teeth very white in the dark, the shadows of the alley behind him engulfing him so his smile hung like a Cheshire cat. The visual made me smile in return, how could you help it?

“You know how I got the name Major?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I thought you weren’t supposed to ask,” I said.

He gave another one of his gallic shrugs.

“Some dudes care, some, like me, don’t give a fuck.”

“Okay, so how did you get the name Major?” I asked.

He stopped and put a hand on the door leading to my stairwell as I unlocked it. He dragged it open and said, “’Cause I’m a major pain in the ass.”

I laughed, and he swept open the door for me. I stepped through, expecting him to follow, but he just let the door swing shut trapping us on either side of the glass, shot me a weird little salute, and jogged a little sideways out of view, in the direction of the club.

I shook my head, locked the stairwell door behind me, and went up to my door.

“Hey, you!” I called the next night when Sauley slid onto the barstool across from me.

“Hey, Raven,” he said, tossing his too-long brown hair out of his eyes. I sighed.

“Any word when they’re going to let you cut it?” I asked, pouring him his usual beer.

“Probably when I start to look like a girl,” he said laughing.

I shook my head. “I can’t say I will ever fully understand it all.” He shrugged, and I smiled and asked, “What brings you in?”

“Mace asked me to walk you home, then Mav ordered it,” he said.

“H—” I hesitated on the question then decided I really wanted to know. “How’s he doing?” I asked carefully, not looking at Sauley.

“Got his ass beat,” Sauley said. I looked up sharply.

“What?”

Sauley swallowed his mouthful of beer. “Don’t let anyone know I told you,” he said. “It’s technically club business, so that’s all I can say. Don’t pry for more – please.”

I nodded, unsettled and unhappy and asked, “Is he alright?”

Sauley nodded. “He’s good. Sore for a while, but that’s so the lesson sticks if you know what I mean.”

I shook my head and leaned onto the bar and said, “I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Club’s different, Raven. You fuck up, they let you know about it. The system of club justice is swift – you take your whoopin’ and that’s it. No dragging shit out through the courts or whatever. You pay your price and it’s done. Mace fucked up, he got his ass kicked, and he won’t fuck up again. That’s how it works.”

“It sounds brutal,” I said sadly and Sauley nodded.

“Brutal, but efficient. No waiting or wondering if it’s really over. Once it’s quashed, it’s quashed. It’s easier than how citizens operate by far. Simpler. In the end? In a lot of ways, kinder.”

I listened to him, absorbing his words, and finally nodded slowly.

“It makes sense,” I murmured. “Even if I don’t always agree with it.”

He smiled. “You’re more one of us than you are one of them,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the bar and the rest of the people in it.

I shook my head and sighed. “I honestly don’t know where I belong,” I said.

He searched my face, a strange set to his expression that I had no name or words for, and he said, “Honestly? I know he fucked up, but you know the answer to that just as much as I do, and I wish it wasn’t so…”

His expression shut down then, sulking, sullen, as he took his beer back up and drank nearly half of it down in just a few pulls.

I straightened and blinked, a little shocked, as the