“You have my vote!” Philip shouted.
Cyrus barked.
Hero snarled.
“Three’s good enough for me. Hold him steady, boys, and spread those legs. Jeez, where’d it go? C’mon, Otto, let me see it!”
Harry ran to the bathroom. Dennis turned away, and Jack laughed out loud. Ted Robinson just looked at Maggie and vowed never, ever to get on her bad side. Never, ever.
“Crap, I’m going to have to dig for it. I need gloves.” She set the curling iron on the counter and ran out to the garage, where she routed around for her gardening gloves, which had dry dirt all over them. She shrugged it off and pulled on the gloves, giggling as she did so. Wait till she told Myra and Annie about this.
Back in the kitchen, she waved her hands to show off her gardening gloves, reached for the curling iron, then bent over, where she started to poke and prod among the jewels. “Okay, since I can’t find it, I’m just going to fry your balls. Last chance!”
The room went silent. Even Hero stopped snarling and hissing. Cyrus crept closer to Jack to see what was going on.
The scream was so primal, everyone in the room clapped their hands over their ears.
“Sign now or you know what’s coming next,” Maggie singsonged.
Dennis inched his way to Jack and whispered, “Holy shit, I thought she was just kidding. She did it. Do you think he’ll hold out for the encore?”
“Nah.”
Otto’s eyes rolled back in his head, Ted slapped him a few times, then Espinosa dumped cold water on him. He came around slowly, moaning in pain.
“Sign the papers, you dickweed,” Jack said.
Otto Andover signed his name as clearly as he could.
“Someone call Snowden and help Otto get dressed,” Jack said as he gathered up the contracts and the check that was going to make Nikki go over the moon.
“Abner, did you transfer all the monies out of their personal accounts? Where did you send it?”
“For now, the Antilles. We can decide tomorrow what we want to do. For now, it’s perfectly safe.”
“Dennis, call your friend Jamie and get his bank account number. Let Abner wire the money in now. How much do you want to give the guy?”
“Five million!” Dennis said smartly.
“Done,” Abner said ten minutes later as Dennis rattled off numbers to him.
“Snowden said he’s thirty minutes out. He’s coming in an ambulance. He said that’s the only kind of vehicle allowed on the road,” Ted said.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen, I’ll take my leave of you all,” Harry said. “My job here is done and my family awaits me.”
“Hold on, Harry. You’re going to be driving right by Georgetown Messenger Service. They’re open twenty-four /seven. I need you to drop this off, and pay cash. Feel free to tell them your name is Otto Andover. Just plunk down this hundred bucks and tell them to keep the change. I think the fee is seventy-five bucks.
“Maggie, you got a manila envelope?”
“In the kitchen drawer behind you.”
Jack motioned for his friends to gather round. “This might be the only time in your lives—I’m sure in mine, too—that we will ever see a check for $650 million. I can’t wait for Nik to see this in the morning. Remember now, any questions, you all know nothing.” Heads bobbed up and down, faces smiling.
“What about all this other money?” Abner asked. “The money I sent to the Antilles?”
“Care to give us a number?” Maggie asked.
Abner laughed. “Upwards of $450 million. These three are rich. Oops; were rich.” He laughed again. “I left enough in their personal accounts so their families can live more than comfortable lives. Their spouses will presumably inherit their stakes in the company, if it doesn’t tank. We are good to go, guys.”
“Bastard!” Otto spat.
Maggie’s doorbell rang. She ran to answer it. A minute later, three guys as big as oak trees and Avery Snowden entered the kitchen. They picked up the three Andovers like they were rag dolls and walked out of the kitchen, none of them saying a word.
Snowden looked around. “This is gonna cost you, Emery.”
“Meet me tomorrow at Ding’s, noonish, and I’ll have your money ready, or we can do it right now, if you want. Abner is still set up.”
“Let’s do it now.”
The others watched as Abner’s jaw dropped at the amount Snowden told him to transfer. And then he grinned. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”
“Wiseass,” Snowden said and grinned in return. “Nice doing business with you.”
When the door closed behind Snowden, the others looked at one another. The manila envelope in hand, Harry waved good-bye.
Dennis slipped into his heavy jacket and followed him out the door, along with Abner and Espinosa. “Where do you think they’re taking them?” he asked nervously.
Harry shrugged. “Probably some potato farm in Ireland. Do you care?”
Dennis thought about it for a second. “Nope.”
Then it was just Jack, Maggie, and Ted. Jack already had his coat on. “Tell Nikki I said hi,” Maggie said.
“Can’t do that. I’m going to have to come up with some story about where I’ve been so she doesn’t chop me off at the knees. She’s been calling and texting me since early this afternoon. If she calls, you guys know nothing, okay?”
“Will you go already?”
“I’m gone,” Jack said, Cyrus at his side.
And then it was just Maggie and Ted and the slithery sheets that waited under the bed warmer.
“I just love it when things work out,” Maggie said as she started peeling off her clothes on the way up the steps.
Ted tried not to think about the curling iron in his beloved’s hands as he galloped up the steps. She would never...
Epilogue
Nikki Quinn unlocked the door to the offices of her firm, then quickly adjusted the thermostat. Today was going to be a nonstarter. So much snow. She’d be lucky if one, or possibly two, lawyers would make it in. Only those who lived within walking distance, the way she did, might give it a try. She shed her coat and headed for her office.
She didn’t want to be here, but she’d told Jack last night that she needed to walk through these doors one more time before she kept the promise to herself that she was taking a year off and possibly selling the firm.
She couldn’t do this anymore. She just couldn’t. “I’m not doing it anymore,” she muttered to herself as she picked through the mail, leaving a messenger-delivered envelope for last.
She ripped at a plain white business envelope that bore the name of the Stayman Pet Food Company, the firm’s other class-action suit. The single sheet of paper held only two short paragraphs.
Nikki blinked, then blinked again, just as the buzzer at the front door sounded. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew it was Alexis. Then she let out a whoop of pure joy just as Alexis appeared in the doorway. “They caved!” she said, waving the single sheet of paper under Alexis’s nose. “Do you believe that? They aren’t going to fight anymore. They’re going to settle with us for the full amount. I can’t believe this!”
Alexis sat down, shock written all over her face. “Why? Two weeks ago, they were going to go the distance and fight us till hell froze over. Such a stupid question; who cares why? We won! Oh, my God! We won!”
“You are so right, who cares why? Listen, Alexis, I need to talk to you about something. We talked about it while we were out west, and we talked about it ad nauseam while we were stuck in those airports for days, but I’m really serious now. I can’t do this anymore. At least for now. I’m going to take a year off and do absolutely nothing. At the end of the year, I might even sell the firm. I am so burned-out, I can’t see straight. I was so blinded by our cause, I could have lost Jack.”
Alexis started to laugh and couldn’t stop. “Now why do you think I braved all that snow out there this morning? I came here to tell you the same thing. If yo
u weren’t here, I was going to leave a letter on your desk. Like you, I realized people like Joseph only come along once in a lifetime. I love him. I hope he still loves me. I will grovel if I have to when I ask him to take me back. No damn career in the whole world is worth the misery I’ve been going through. I’ve saved some money, and I’m going to ask him to go with me to some sunny island where we can get our lives back on track. Please say you aren’t upset with me, Nikki.”
“I am not upset. I want you to do it. I’m doing it. The firm can carry on without us. The one thing you don’t have to worry about is the cost of your getaway. The firm will pay for that. And if you need more than a year, take the time. Your pay will be deposited automatically in your account. You earned it. We were crazy, you know that, right? We thought we could take on Andover and make those skunks pay, and bring some closure to all those parents. We made a dent. There is nothing more we can do. Let the second string fight it now. We did the hard part, laid down all the groundwork. Whatever happens, happens. So, let’s get through all this”—Nikki motioned to the pile of mail and the Georgetown Messenger Service envelope—“then we can go home and veg out. You okay with that, girl?”
Alexis nodded as she tapped out a text to Joseph Espinosa. “You don’t think he’ll tell me to go fly a kite, do you, Nikki?”
“If he does, I’ll kill him. The short answer is no.”
Nikki ripped at the sealed envelope and withdrew another envelope. “Hey, look at this, Alexis! It’s from Andover Pharmaceuticals. Sent by messenger.” She ripped at the smaller envelope and the single sheet of paper that bore the Andover letterhead. Still inside the bigger envelope was a thick packet of papers. But it was the small blue-and-yellow check with butterflies on it that left her fighting for air. Alexis craned her neck to see what Nikki was holding in her hand while she gulped air like a caught fish.
“Oh, sweet Jesus. Am I seeing what I’m seeing?” Alexis practically screamed.
“If you mean a check that has butterflies on it and is written for $650 million, then yeah, you’re seeing what I’m seeing. Maybe we went snow blind on the walk here. This is real, Alexis. Look, here are the signoff contracts, signed by all three Andovers. We won! My God, we won! Alexis, we won!” Nikki whooped.
“Call the brokerage house to make sure it’s good! Do it now, Nikki, before I explode.”
Five minutes later, Nikki’s fist shot in the air. “It’s real! We have to get this to the bank! We need to call all of our people. All the names on the lawsuit. Every single one of them deserves a personal phone call. But first, we’re going to have a drink. I have a bottle of two-hundred-year-old brandy I’ve been saving like forever. A gift from a grateful client years ago.”
“It’s only nine o’clock in the morning!”
“I don’t care! Do you care?”
“I. Do. Not.”
While Nikki dusted off the brandy bottle, Alexis made a fire in Nikki’s fireplace. She set out crystal snifters from Nikki’s private bar and sat down, her head reeling. She was elated, over the moon about the class-action suits, but it was Joseph Espinosa who was on her mind. She said a little prayer that she wasn’t too late, that Joseph would forgive her for choosing her career over him.
The two women sipped. Then they gulped. Then they guzzled, and, finally, by ten-thirty, the two-hundred-year-old brandy bottle was empty. Sitting Indian style in front of the fire, the women looked at each other and said in unison, “We are soooo drunk!”
Neither Nikki nor Alexis heard the buzzer at the front door. They were so cockeyed drunk, they saw three of Jack Emery standing in the doorway. They saw three of him send off a text to Espinosa that said, Get your ass over here to the Quinn offices. Your woman needs you. Fly if you have to, but get over here.
Jack walked back to the kitchen, a grin as wide as the Grand Canyon on his face. He made coffee, knowing full well that it wouldn’t do all that much good. The kind of drunk the ladies were on was going to have to run its course.
The phone rang at that moment. Jack picked up the extension on the first ring. It was Myra. He quickly explained the situation.
“Just like that! Amazing,” he could hear Annie drawl in the background. A shiver ran up Jack’s spine.
“Uh-huh. Just like that. So, where are you two, and what are you doing?” Jack asked, hoping to divert the conversation.
“We’re on our way home, dear. Annie got a brainstorm and wants to invest in something she said is going to make us millions.”
“Really! What is it?”
“Elastic!” Myra laughed. She couldn’t button her slacks this morning. Jack laughed right along with her. They talked for a few more minutes, then ended the call.
Carrying the tray with the coffee, Jack made his way back to Nikki’s office, only to find two sleeping beauties dead to the world. He smiled.
He did love it when a plan came together.
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Jack pulled his car into the driveway of Harry Wong’s dojo and carefully maneuvered around to the back of the building. He sat for a moment, shivering, even though he had the heater going full blast. He looked at the clock on the dashboard—6:20—an ungodly hour to be making a visit to his best friend. But he couldn’t leave without saying good-bye to his best friend in the whole world before he and Nikki left for the islands for a whole year of sun and fun, and not necessarily in that order. Dennis West had been magnanimous in offering the use of his private plane, an offer Jack snapped up in a New York minute. Wheels up were scheduled for ten o’clock that morning out of Dulles.
A whole year’s vacation. Nikki had gone over the moon when he showed her the rental villa that came with a staff of three to see to their needs. The best part was, they were allowed to take Cyrus with them. Jack could hardly wait to feel sand between his toes and the warm sun beating down on his shoulders. He grinned when he remembered Nikki’s showing him her new bikini, which would fit in his ear. Oh, yeahhhhhh.
It was almost full light by now. Jack turned off the car lights, then fished around in his pocket for the key to the dojo. How well he remembered the day that Harry had handed him the key, like it was the holy grail. And in Harry’s mind, it was. That day, he and Harry had crossed the Rubicon together. He knew in his gut that he would lay down his life for Harry Wong and that Harry would do the same for him. Harry was the brother he never had, and he loved him as such.
Key in hand, Jack sprinted from the car. The arctic air body-slammed him. He slipped on a patch of ice, managed to right himself, then he was at the door. He ripped off his glove, pl
aced his hand on the palm reader, waited for the light to turn green, removed his hand, pressed in the digits of Lily’s birthday, and inserted the key. The massive door opened slowly on its well-oiled hinges. Jack waited for the door to close behind him.
He knew the dojo like he knew his own house. He recognized the smells, the disinfectant, the sweat, the eucalypts, the lingering odor of the shitty tea Harry brewed daily. He knew every squeaky board, every cracked tile in the building, the sound of the wheezing air conditioner in the summer, the grumble of the heat in the winter.
Silence.
The fine hairs on the back of Jack’s neck moved. The heat hadn’t come on. Spook that he was, Harry should have called out his name by now, demanding to know why he was here at such an early hour. Because . . . Harry had security upstairs that showed both the front and back doors of the dojo and anyone even approaching the alley and the special security door he’d just entered. Plus . . . Cooper hadn’t barked. Cooper always barked. A friendly bark, but still a bark. Jack had always taken the bark to be a greeting, the same way Cyrus barked when someone came to the house.
Total silence.
Something’s wrong.
Jack debated a moment as to whether he should go back out to the car for his gun. He nixed that idea immediately. As Harry always pointed out, he was his own weapon. A third-degree black belt meant he could, if necessary, kill with his bare hands.
Jack looked around the dimness of the dojo. The only light coming through was from the shuttered windows in the front of the building. And it was just slivers of light. Harry locked things up tight at night.
He moved then, through the locker room to the main training room of the dojo, out to the hall, down another hall that led to a staircase that would take him to Yoko and Harry’s living quarters. No one ever dared approach the stairs unless invited by Harry or Yoko. No one. Except for him. He approached the stairs now, cautiously, his heart pounding in his chest. By now, Harry should have swooped down somehow, someway, and had Jack’s head in a vise.
Take Down (The Men of the Sisterhood) Page 9