by Johnny Shaw
“Jokes won’t make the situation that you’re in any less serious.”
“That’s literally what jokes do,” Kurt said. “That’s their sole function. Do you not understand jokes?”
“You’ve recently been seen associating with Mathilda and Frederick Ucker.”
“Mathilda?”
“A.k.a. Mother.”
“Is it a crime to spend time with my aunt and uncle?”
“Yes, when your aunt and uncle are known to be dangerous psychopaths,” Cronin said. “You might not believe me, but I want to help you.”
“If I’m not under arrest, frick off. I’m going on my walk.” Kurt locked the front door. He took a step down the walk, but the man grabbed his arm.
“You’re going to help me,” Cronin said, his face close to Kurt’s. “Your aunt and uncle have hurt a lot of people. It’s time they went down.”
“There’s nothing you can do that’s going to make me help you harass my family.”
“I’m not going to harass them. God, no. I’m going to arrest them.”
“If you could, you would have already.” Kurt pulled his arm away from Cronin and walked to the sidewalk. “If you’re not off the property in the next two minutes, I’m going to call the police. Show them my arm bruises. Good day.”
“That’s too bad,” Cronin said. “I wanted to leave your sister out of this.”
Kurt stopped and felt his hands become fists.
Cronin took his phone out of his pocket and nodded for Kurt to come over. After a moment he did. Cronin hit play on the screen. Footage appeared of Gretchen breaking into the back door of a property. Cronin turned it off and put his phone back in his pocket.
“I’ve got video footage of your sister breaking into three different houses. If I wanted to arrest an Ucker, I could do it tomorrow.”
“What do you want?” Kurt said.
“I have no interest in arresting Gretchen,” Cronin said. “I’m a federal agent, for crying out loud. I don’t care about some stupid B and E. She can steal all the comic books she wants.”
“She was stealing comic books?”
“I assumed that you knew. Figured you were in on it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve been after the Uckers for over a decade,” Cronin said. “They use people. If they haven’t already roped you into some scheme, they will. Don’t be fooled. Eventually, you’ll end up on the side of the road with nothing and the police bearing down on you. That’s how they operate. It doesn’t matter that you’re blood.”
Kurt gave Cronin his best steely glare, although probably more of a pewtery glare.
“Think about it,” Cronin said. “Take your time. It’s a big decision. I understand loyalty. It’s the reason I’m talking to you and not your brother. You’re a man of your word.”
“Don’t play good cop with me.”
Cronin pulled out a business card from his breast pocket and handed it to Kurt. “All I’m asking for is eyes and ears into their operation. You can trust me. Information when I need it.”
“And me, Gretchen, and Axel stay out of jail?”
“Exactly,” Cronin said. “I have no interest in the three of you. I want Mother Ucker.”
“I lost my father, my mother, my house, my hometown, and most of my possessions. I got no plan of losing anything else, particularly my new family.” Kurt tore the business card in half and dropped it on the ground between them.
“However this plays out, you’ll still have family,” Cronin said. “You’ll just see them during visiting hours.” He walked away, shouting over his shoulder: “And if I get a hint that you’ve told Mother or Fritz or your brother and sister about this conversation, everyone is going straight to jail.”
“Yeah,” Kurt said, “that’s what he said. Everyone is going straight to jail.”
“You did the right thing coming to me,” Mother said.
“He showed up at the house. Threatened Gretchen. Is after you. I don’t know what to do, because he has evidence and she could go to jail and I’m out of my league and I made jokes and tried to act tough, but I’m not tough.”
Kurt and Mother sat in Pete’s Pit, the location for what had become Barbecuesday, their weekly Tuesday barbecue lunch. Just aunt and nephew.
“Let me turn this forty-five down to thirty-three,” Mother said. “Slow it down. One thing at a time. Cronin came to see you?”
“Yeah.” Kurt took a big breath. “He’s got evidence on Gretchen.”
“Tell me word for word what he said, as best as you can remember. It’s going to be fine. He’s been trying to arrest my butt forever. And my butt is huge. You can’t miss it, but he has.”
Kurt laughed. Butts made him laugh every time. Because they were butts. He laid it out for Mother as best as he could, explaining how Gretchen had roped him into her crimes without telling him.
“Have you talked to Gretchen about this yet?” Mother asked.
“Not yet.”
“Don’t. Not yet. Not now.”
“Why?”
“She needs to focus on Stephanie Holm right now and her role in that scheme. A distraction could get her in trouble, potentially put her in danger.”
“That doesn’t matter anymore,” Kurt said. We have to cancel the Stephanie Holm job. Cronin is onto us. A federal agent is watching us.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re not stopping anything. Leave it to me. I’ll handle Cronin, but don’t worry the others.”
“What do I do if he comes back?”
“Tell him you’ll cooperate. We’ll feed him bullshit. Keep him on the hook but only leave him with half a worm.”
He felt better telling Mother, but still nervous. Even the thought of barbecue didn’t remove the stone in the pit of his stomach. He had never faced a problem that barbecue couldn’t fix, so he knew things were serious. He was putting his faith in Mother to keep him and his siblings safe. He had to trust her. You either trusted someone, or you didn’t. There was no middle ground.
CHAPTER 17
I figured it would be easier to concentrate here,” Stephanie said. “We can get room service and discuss our dream trajectories. How versed are you in the seminar jargon?”
“Not very,” Gretchen said, accepting the flute of champagne Stephanie handed her. She took a sip. She didn’t know the difference between good champagne and bad champagne, but Stephanie didn’t look like someone who bought a three-dollar bottle of white wine and cut it with club soda. It didn’t burn Gretchen’s throat or make her want to puke, so good enough.
Gretchen had walked into the nicest hotel room she had ever been inside. And she had once been comped at the Imperial Palace in Vegas by a pit boss who was trying to get into her pants. He had even thrown in two front row tickets to Legends in Concert, employing easily one of the top three Dusty Springfield impersonators in Sin City. She knew what a classy hotel room looked like.
“Not too shabby,” Gretchen said. “I’m more of a Super 8 girl. Although sometimes I splurge, pay the extra twenty, and Best Western it.”
“Maybe that’s a goal we can discuss,” Stephanie said, walking to the window to admire the view of downtown San Diego and the bay. “How others perceive us comes directly from how we treat ourselves. I’m sure you see me as one person and I see myself as someone else. Some of it is perception, but we’re usually pretending to be someone that we aren’t.”
The tack of the conversation made Gretchen nervous. She changed the subject. “I never asked you where you’re from. Did you fly in for the symposium?”
“I’m local. I live in La Jolla. When I do a symposium, I like to stay close. The conference hotel is a great base of operations. I can focus on myself, on the work. I don’t want to drive through traffic after I’ve done elemental process work or energy embodiment all day. I can come up here. Meditate. Knock out twenty minutes of yoga. When all else fails, crack open a bottle of champagne, sit in the Jacuzzi, and relax.”
“There’s a Jacuzzi?”
“On the veranda. It holds four people,” Stephanie said. “I kicked it on. Just in case.”
“We might have to find two other people,” Gretchen said.
“Why would we do that,” Stephanie said, “when we have it all to ourselves?”
“I don’t like to share either,” Gretchen said, and gulped the remainder of her champagne. “Although it feels like we’re wandering toward late-night Cinemax territory, if we’re not careful.”
“If we’re lucky.”
Even though Gretchen knew that Stephanie was a con woman using an assumed name, she found herself losing track of the line between Stephanie and her character. There were too many planes of deception. It felt like Christopher Nolan were directing the weekend.
“This sure beats that office I work in,” Gretchen said.
“No kidding,” Stephanie said. “Do your coworkers have a sheepdog? There was a lot of hair on the ground. Nasty.”
“I barely notice anymore. They give me so much work to do.”
“I see that you brought some with you.” Stephanie pointed to the plastic portable file box that Gretchen had set by the front door.
“It’s been unusually busy,” Gretchen said. “A big project is finally about to be approved, and it’ll get fast-tracked. Zero to sixty. That’s probably why I’m all over the place. One of the reasons I went to Mark Land. To find some balance.”
“It looks like the first priority is to get you relaxed.” In one quick motion, Stephanie’s dress dropped to the ground, leaving her standing completely nude in front of Gretchen. It happened so fast, Gretchen made a yip sound she had never made before in her life.
“Thanks,” Stephanie said.
“Full Cinemax,” Gretchen said. “What happens now?”
“Strip down, get in the Jacuzzi, and I’ll order sushi.”
Gretchen grew up skinny dipping in the canals and had always been ready for a dare. She was a confident woman who wasn’t weird around the concept of nudity, but Stephanie threw her off-balance.
Gretchen didn’t usually have first-date uneasiness. The fact that it was happening on her first undercover assignment was troubling. She had to get her head back in the game, but naked Stephanie was not making it easy.
Stephanie was at least ten years older than she was but stayed fit. Angular lines, almost severe. Her collarbone looked like it could give you a papercut. Her skin was all one color, not tan-sprayed, still very white, but not blotchy. Stephanie definitely used “product.”
Gretchen was the hottest girl at the bus station, but Stephanie was opera-house sexy. The fact that they were both criminals only made the idea more attractive. Criminally, Stephanie was everything that Gretchen aspired to be.
If there was anything more civilized than drinking champagne and eating sushi in a Jacuzzi and looking out at the view of the city and the bay from the twenty-sixth floor, Gretchen couldn’t think of it. It fit her redneck view of class. She felt like a feral child who had been brought out of the jungle to learn the ways of humankind. The raccoons that raised her had done their best, but their cuteness and tiny hands could only take her so far.
“Relaxed?” Stephanie asked.
“Very.”
“What do you think of the uni?”
“Which one is that?”
“The orange, mushy one.”
“To be honest, it’s nasty.”
“It’s an acquired taste, like so many great things.”
“What is it?”
“Sea urchin gonads.”
“Weird. That sounds like it would be delicious. I’m digging the eel, though.”
“What do you want from your life?” Stephanie asked.
“I guess the small talk is done. Big talk on the table.”
“That’s why we’re here. Our dreams, our goals, our future.”
“Is that why we’re here?” Gretchen said.
“You tell me.”
“I’ve never wanted the things other people wanted. A house, a nine-to-five, kids, a husband—I had one of those, bad idea.”
“You have a nine-to-five job.”
“Exactly,” Gretchen said, catching herself. “But it’s not me. Can’t stand people telling me what to do. I want to do my own thing. I want to take instead of waiting to be given.”
“That, I understand.” Stephanie smiled. “More champagne?”
Gretchen held out her glass. Stephanie poured it to the top, spilling some into the water. They both laughed.
“Sometimes I feel broken,” Gretchen said. “Together, but broken. Like I have all the pieces, but they’re not attached and I’m trying to hold them together to maintain the shape. But once I get one piece in place, another falls off. A balancing act that’s in a constant state of collapse. And I’m not even convinced that if I keep it together that it would make me happy.”
“What helps you to hold it together?”
“Greed.”
“Interesting,” Stephanie said.
“Nothing focuses me more than wanting more than I have. Doing what I need to get more. Not accepting limitations others tell me exist.”
“No limits,” Stephanie said. “What about relationships? Are you seeing anyone right now?”
“I’m single.”
“That’s good news.”
“Why is that?”
“Have I been subtle?” Stephanie said. “I got you naked in a hot tub. We’re a camera crew and a funk bass riff shy of a porn shoot. If you can’t tell that I’m trying to get in the pants that you aren’t wearing, then I have failed miserably.”
Gretchen laughed. “So this meeting isn’t about optimizing my dream board or channeling my inner goddess.”
“Not unless those are euphemisms,” Stephanie said. “Because I can definitely see myself wanting to channel your goddess.”
“We’re going to need more champagne.”
CHAPTER 18
Axel needed to get himself out of the Living Word Chapel’s version of the mail room. The entry-level position of “Prayer Request Room Facilitator” had all the majesty of a job at the DMV. Open envelope, register money, enter contact information, sort, categorize, pray, repeat.
Axel did his best to believe as much as he could in the moments he prayed, trying to have respect for the devout writing to the ministry. So many of the stories were tragic and heartfelt. He hoped God heard their pleas. It was hard, though, not to feel a little squeamish about someone struggling with their finances sending a big check to the church. They were planting the seed of faith to reap the tree of wealth, or whatever metaphor was being offered at the moment.
Scuttlebutt around Prayer Central was that Brother Floom was planning a tour of small towns in America. With more competition on the airwaves and among the megachurches, ratings and attendance were on the decline. With the noticeable reduction of personal appearances, word was that Brother Floom needed to reestablish his relationship with his base.
That was the opportunity Axel and the gang needed to get Floom. A tour was chaos and pulled everyone out of their routine. If they were going to steal their money back, it would happen on the tour.
He had been getting closer to Virginia. Ever since the day he ran into her on the third level of the underground parking garage—okay, he had followed her down there—and caught her smoking a joint, they had bonded. She didn’t ask what brought him down there, just handed him the joint. He took a rip off it, and they had been pot buddies ever since. It was their secret. It felt intimate.
When Virginia walked into the prayer request room, she approached Axel with a goofy smile on her face. “Mr. Christian, I have a few things to discuss with you concerning a joint venture with Mary Jane Hyer at four twenty. Do you have twenty minutes?”
“Tobias?” Axel said to his supervisor.
“I need to borrow Fletcher,” Virginia said, the two of them already walking to the door.
Once in the hallway, they both laughed. A
xel said, “Subtle. Very nuanced.”
“Most of those kids aren’t even allowed to watch TV. The odds they know any drug slang are very low.”
“Hey, I’ve been hearing rumors,” Axel said. “Is it true there’s going to be some big tour coming up?”
“Yeah, it’s going to be announced soon,” Virginia said, her voice flat, almost angry.
Axel had prepared his pitch. “I know it’s outside my current role as prayer lackey, but in my former life, I was a creativity liaison and live-performance-optimization specialist.”
“You used a lot of words but said nothing.”
“That’s what my business cards said.” Axel laughed. “In English, I was a concert promoter and talent scout.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t tell people that either,” Virginia said. “Not exactly professions that elicit trust. You don’t hear the phrase, ‘a concert promoter for God’ often.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Axel said. “Redemption. I saw myself for who I was. And myself was a scumbag. Pardon my language.”
“Is ‘scumbag’ a swear word?”
“Everything is a swear word in church.”
“You’re talking to the wrong girl. Ezekiel 23:20 used to make me giggle as a kid. Still does.”
“‘Whose flesh is as flesh of the asses,’” Axel said. “Yeah, I pretty much know all the times ‘ass’ is used in the Bible, as well.”
Virginia laughed loud. Making her laugh gave Axel warm cockles. He could die happy. His cockles had been cold for some time. When she stopped laughing, she said, “You want to help on the tour?”
“I thought maybe my experience could be better used. Playing to my strengths. Maybe even why I was sent here.”
“You want out of the prayer dungeon.”
“Desperately.”
“You’d have to convince Thrace or one of his orcs—I mean, assistants. He’s a tough nut to crack.”
“Oh, okay. Do I just—how do I?”
“Follow me,” she said.
He started to protest but, distracted by her loveliness and her perfume, followed her. She smelled great. He wasn’t even sure if it was perfume. It smelled more soapy than perfumey. Less Gladey and more fresh-cut-grassy. Like she just got out of the shower and rolled in flowers and cinnamon.