Tom completed 'the mission' and flopped onto the bed.

"Jesus Tom. You should get anger management or something..." Shelby said, adjusting her clothes that had been rearranged in the haste.

There was a knock on the door. "Chica. You okay?" the unmistakable Mexican accent asked.

"Yeah, fine. It's Tom..."

There was a pause as if some mental calculations were being done. "Okay. You holler if you need us."

"You know I will."

The sound of footsteps receded down the hallway.

"Fuck that. I'm not going to any an-ger man-age-ment," Tom replied, almost face down into the pillows. He tried pulling his pants up from around his ankles but couldn't reach so his bum continued to stick out on the bed.

She reached over to the bedside, pulled a cigarette out of a pack and lit it.

"So what are you going to do?"

But there was no answer. Tom had already fallen asleep and had even started to snore a little. She turned back to face the room and used the remote control to turn the TV on.

"Well Shell," she said, doing her version of Tom's voice and manner. "I'm gonna slay these here dragons, take all the money and disappear to a desert island - with you. Only if it's with you. You're the one, honey."

"Yeah, right," answering herself in a disbelieving tone. "I've heard that one before..." She placed the cigarette on the ashtray beside the bed and went into the small ensuite, partially closing the door and obscuring herself from Tom's view should he wake. Shelby was beautiful; one of the most beautiful girls the world had ever borne. She adjusted her hair in the mirror this way and that but couldn't seem to find a way to make it sit in a way that satisfied. She turned sideways and looked herself up and down and then moved away after giving herself a look of disapproval, minor imperfections standing out and obscuring her view.

Tom's mind's eye wandered somewhere within his sleep. It was the same scene he played over and over in his mind. Sometimes he could remember it upon wakening, this future memory. His vision floats down out of the palm trees as they gently sway to and fro. There is a couple and a child on the white sand of the beach. The water is the colour you see in those Photoshopped brochures or online travel sites except it's real. As he draws closer to the group he sees Shelby's face and a feeling of warmth bursts within him like a whiskey shot does. And then he is there, on the sand, with her and the infant. The child runs, laughing, away from them and Shell gets up and gives chase, catching her before too long and spins her around and around in the air before gently flopping her back onto the sand. There's a squeal of delight and she runs towards Tom and crashes into him, arms around his neck. "Daddy!"

He wakes and sees Shelby moving across the floor back towards him. She falls onto the bed and uses her arms and hands to support her face, legs crossed with feet wriggling behind her.

"So..?!" she says.

"So what?"

"So - what are you going to do?!"

"I gotta go see Ernest."

"You mean Ernest-o," Shelby, correcting him on the pronunciation. Tom liked to use the English version of his name. It was the name Ernesto used when I first met him to make him somehow more palatable to white folk. Plenty of people with Mexican sounding names did it back then but I thought it was bullshit. l always thought it was bullshit - but he insisted. "Please John, it makes me feel more comfortable." But after things had turned in his favour it had definitely been Ernesto ever since. Tom was probably the only person who could call him his former name without some kind of verbal whipping, or in a less forgiving moment, a physical one. But there were others to do that kind of thing now - the standover, the debt recovery, the muscling. 'That kind of thing' being so very beneath him now.

"Well this is Ernesto's place, I just thought you might want to get his name right." Shelby, reintroducing Tom to the concept and looking at him like there's 'shit he don't get'.

Tom paused and sharpened his focus, looking Shelby straight in the eye. He didn't have time to explain the history nor was it something he wanted people to know, for a few reasons.

"Okay. So I gotta go see Err-ness-to," he said to her, accentuating every syllable as if a child in a remedial reading class. "I gotta see what he can do for me... For us."

"How much do you need?"

"A lot."

Coming from where he did, a family background of lawyers and law enforcement, Tom was naturally tight lipped. That was a part of his inheritance. He didn't have many rules but the ones he had, he stuck to. At the top of that list was - if they don't need to know, don't tell 'em. Standard communication protocol, not just for those who were into wrong-doing but in this section of the world, the underworld - the streets, the rooms, the cars, the hallways - all had eyes, ears and mouths. Once you let something out of the bag it travelled immediately to those it would benefit most. Those, who by any means, one way or another, could get something out of you. Vultures, that if you let them, would tear apart the carcass of what you were doing until there was nothing left and that's the best case but at worst would leave you in their debt and that's the way they liked it the most. Tom hadn't put Shelby completely in the picture. She knew he was holding a lot back and she liked to tell herself it was for her own protection but she wasn't that naive to not know that ultimately it was for Tom's.

"You never tell me anything," she said, frustrated, watching her hands fidget in front of her.

It was a pointless conversation and one they'd been through before so instead of responding Tom slid down beside her, put his arm around and held her. This apparently wasn't the response that was required though.

Shelby got free of Tom's arm and sat up on the bed. "How come you get to have all the fun anyway? I want to do what you do. I'm going to come and work in the hotel."

"Fun? You call it fun?" Tom asked from where he lay, eyes closed and motionless.

"Well it's more fun than being here..." She said looking bleakly around the room.

They both knew where this conversation led and it was normally Tom who would bring it to a close. He raised himself to sitting on the edge of the bed and finally got his trousers back around his waist.

"I've told you before - it's best if you stay out of it Shell..." The tone of his words came harsh and damning at her. He hadn't meant it that way but Shelby read it at face value and Tom knew what he'd done. They turned to face each other and Tom saw that face. It was the face of let down, of disappointment, of the fear that she was letting herself be hoodwinked again by empty promises - and she couldn't help it - Shelby was genuinely good natured and her face told you of that and of something else - her belief in 'something better'. A life without fear. A life of freedom. A secure life, a family life. Four bedrooms and a two car garage. If there was one thing in the world other than a knife, or a gun, that could force Tom to act though - it was this face. It wrenched the very guts of him and he understood what he'd done even if he didn't mean to but he reached out to console her anyway because apart from all the bullshit, Tom was head-over-heels, tush-over-tit in love with Shelby Lee Wheeler.

"I'm sorry, Shel. I didn't mean to... You know I..." And sometimes, when you need the words to flow, they don't, because you're too worried about hurting someone more than you already have and your heart runs the angles on how it may sound from every corner of the room to make sure they're okay but it all just gets caught up in the process and anything that does get out just doesn't ring true.

"It's okay," she said, softly, withdrawn.

But it wasn't.

"I promise..." he offered but Shelby had heard it all before.

"Don't..." She interrupted and held a hand up, releasing herself from him.

There was only one thing for it... He kissed her and got to his feet and started moving around, trying to dance like James Brown. "I feel good!" facing away from and then turning to her, "I knew that I would..." He switched to Michael Jackson moves and tried to moonwalk. Shelby offered a reluctant smile but the rest of her demeanour stayed the same as it was. "Shel-bee, is not my lover, she's just a girl..." he went on, moving closer to her and crouching down to be at her level. "That's not true. She is my lover. And she's not just a girl..." getting under her gaze. "She's the most beautiful girl in the world. And anyone that can't see that... Well they're just not looking hard enough. But I know..."

She rolled her eyes and smiled as he smooched her square on the lips. "Go on then, go and get your all important meeting done mister dancing-fool-big-shot."

Tom tucked his shirt in as he headed to the door.

"And hey!" she added. "Call me when you're done...?"

"You got it," he said. He opened the door wide and went through it but stopped just short of closing it. Turning back he saw her moving towards the bedside and pulled a picture frame out of a drawer. It was a frame of them, a photo she'd snapped on their first night out. Shelby gazed at the photo of the two of them. Tom hadn't seen it before but he immediately knew what it meant.

"Shell," he said from the other side of the doorframe and she looked back, clutching the frame to her body, surprised he was still there.

"Yeah?!"

"It's you."

He gently closed the door and went on his way and she heard the sound of his boots echoing down the hallway.