by Bower Lewis
She bit her lower lip and looked up at Zane again. “You were already forgiven?”
He nodded.
She sighed and touched her finger to the screen.
HOW MANY MRTYRS DOES IT TAKE 2 SCRW IN A LGHTBLB? :)
AFTERWORD
The last technician stepped into the darkness a little past eleven p.m. He patted down his pockets, checked for his keys and wallet, and trudged to his car. When he’d driven away at last, John stepped from the shadows and approached the building. His feet and back ached from the hours spent standing around, but sometimes a SCUD’s got to do what a SCUD has got to do, and unfortunately for John, what a SCUD has got to do sometimes is wait.
He approached the fire alarm at the main entrance and punched in the glass with his elbow. He pulled down on the handle and the bells sounded throughout the building as he turned the corner and pulled smoke bombs from his bag. He circled the building slowly, shattering windows and lobbing them inside, until the lab’s security guards and housekeeping staff spilled out through the doors in droves, some with pieces of clothing pressed against their faces.
Once he’d accounted for every member of the third shift, John slipped back into the shadows and pulled his M32 grenade launcher from his back. He set it upon its stand and braced himself. Then he fired each of its six Hellhound 40mm grenades into the building in lightning-fast succession.
The SolarTech Industries Exploration and Development Laboratory went up in a ball of fire as brilliant as the sun it strove to harness. The night-shift staff all fell back and stared, their amazed faces lit up by the flames.
The beauty of the moment almost made up for the wait.
John turned away from the glorious glow of the SolarTech inferno with the sound of sirens in the distance. It warmed him to know that the executives’ sudden courtship of the freshman senator from Nebraska was about to end as abruptly as it had begun, and it was hard to deny feeling a certain satisfaction in the clean and simple elegance of the solution. He walked off into the darkness with a nod up at the sky.
“There Ya go,” he said. “No blood.”
If you enjoyed PATIENCE, MY DEAR, please be sure to check out
DAMN IT, JANE DAMSEL
by Bower Lewis
Coming Soon From Infinite Words
Turn the page for a sneak preview!
CHAPTER ONE
You don’t run a pawn shop within the city limits of Boston without weathering the occasional incident here and there, but holy fuck almighty, Mack had not seen this one coming. The girl wasn’t much over five feet tall and she was skinny, but not drug-strung-skinny. She didn’t look nervous or too confident. She didn’t look a whole lot of anything, really, other than damn good in an interesting and off-setting sort of a way.
The long blonde curls that fell alongside her face to dance above the glass of his display case had been something of a distraction. She looked, kinda bored, down at the rows of jewelry and keepsakes precious to people other than those who’d sold them to him, and her dark lashes brushed lightly across her pale cheeks. Those details had been mitigating factors as well, so it was what it was.
His appreciation for the kind of girl Mack’s Pawn saw far too few of was interrupted when she turned her clear blue eyes up to his and asked if he had any antique thimbles for sale. Who the hell comes in to rob a pawn shop in the heart of Allston Center looking for antique thimbles?
Mack leaned forward on the counter and told her not at the present moment. She asked him if he knew of anyone who might, because her grandmother collected antique thimbles. He explained that an item like that was bound to be luck of the draw at any given time, but he did have a pair of one-of-a-kind button hole scissors—solid gold, not plate—in the back that once belonged to a personal seamstress to Queen Victoria. The seller had been a great- or a great-great-grandniece of the seamstress who’d fallen on hard times, so he could probably let them go for two hundred fifty.
The girl said her grandmother didn’t sew.
She looked the regular kind of frustrated. It’s not a good idea to rely on the pawns if you’re looking for something that specific, he advised her. She just shrugged and slipped her arm through the window of his shield.
She had the cutest little Ruger .38 caliber pistol he’d ever seen duct-taped to her hand.
“Aw, what the fuck, honey? Are you kidding me?”
She suggested—earnest and trying to be helpful—that he keep his hands above the counter and come out to the front by her. She was clear that he should use the knob to release the door and not the buzzer.
“You don’t really seem like the kind of guy who needs killing,” she said. “You’d probably feel obligated to hit the alarm button you’ve got hidden under there and I’d prefer not to shoot you if it’s not absolutely necessary. I’m generally a pretty safety-conscious person.”
Mack shook his head and turned away from her. No ninety-pound twitch with her goddamn gun taped to her hand was going to rob his pawn at two-thirty in the afternoon on a Wednesday. He kept a loaded Glock 31 .357 stashed in the cage as a precaution against just this sort of thing. It was kind of a shame this kid—who was a really interesting-looking girl and who, discounting the gun, hadn’t been at all unpleasant during their exchange—was going to get an ear full of lead, but what the fuck, man?
He ignored her when she told him to turn his ass back around, and it was as he was reaching for his piece that he heard the hammer cock. He froze, deciding that she might be a little more sincere than he’d initially surmised, and turned back to face her—loused up as hell and still goddamn gunless.
He knew then—the way he knew gold from plate at a glance—that this kid didn’t have the desperation or the desire to kill a man, but she’d probably be okay with shooting a guy in the ass if the occasion called for it. She reached through the window and took him by the hand, pulling it not un-gently back to her side of the shield.
“Hang on to that pole there, okay?”
She drew a half-spent roll of duct tape from the pocket of her pink down vest and pulled a strip free with her teeth. “Little lower… lower…okay, perfect.” She nodded when he was stretched long and kissing the Plexiglas. She wrapped the tape around his wrist, binding it to the counter pole, and then she motioned for his other hand.
Mack felt like an asshole hanging over the counter of his own pawn with his cheek pressed up against the bulletproof shield like a fifth-grader making faces for the traffic on the school bus. He caught an eyeful of the twitch’s chest as she rose again and raised an eyebrow at her T-shirt. It had her name spelled out across the front in letters formed by yogic kittens.
“You’re Jane, I presume?”
“I’m Jane.” She nodded. “And I presume that you’re Mack?”
“That’s me.”
“Nice to meet you, Mack. What’s the best way for me to get back there now?”
Mack considered her question for a moment. “I believe you’re going to have to break the handle of the door.” He sighed. “I could probably reach the buzzer with my knee, but I’m not sure I can avoid hitting the alarm at the same time, and trust me when I tell you that neither one of us wants that to happen now. Hurry up though, would ya, darlin’? This is fucking uncomfortable.”
Jane looked around the shop for something heavy and Mack directed her to a brass urn at the far end of the counter.
“And would you shut those blinds and tape the Back in Five sign up in the window? If the cops show up now, you’ll pull sixty months’ free accommodations and I’ll be the laughingstock of Boston. Every wasted fuck with a jones or a grudge will line up to knock me over if word about this fiasco finds its way around the neighborhood.”
“I told you to open that door,” Jane reminded him. It was awkward work, trying to smash the heavy knob with a pistol taped to her hand. “What did you have to make this so complicated for? I was being pretty nice, considering.”
Mack grimaced and flinched as he watched her, until he
simply couldn’t take the stress of it.
“Jesus Christ, Jane! Would you take that gun off your hand? Even if you don’t shoot one of us dead, the cops will drop you in an instant if they catch you in here with a weapon you can’t lay down. And darlin’, I can’t duck at the moment. What the hell did you tape it to yourself for?”
“Don’t you read the papers, Mack?” She hit the doorknob a few more times and then set the urn on the floor. She started pulling at the duct tape. “The majority of inexperienced gun owners shot during a highly charged situation are shot with their own weapon. I figured a guy who owns a pawn shop is likely to be pretty handy with a gun, so I’d better make it extra hard for you to disarm me.”
Mack looked at Jane and Jane looked back at him as she worked her gun free at last. She tucked it into the waistband of her little skirt as Mack sighed at the door knob.
“You’re trying to get at the strongest part of the knob.” He nodded. “Hit it at the base so you can knock the spindle off its alignment. All you really need to do is get the spindle free of the pins.”
Jane smiled and picked up the urn again. She followed Mack’s advice and had the base dislodged in no time. Then she rattled the knob a few times and the door swung free of its frame.
“That was a messed-up story about Queen Victoria,” she said. “But I understand that you’ve gotta make a living.” She opened the drawers below the counter and found the envelopes where Mack kept his working cash stashed. She smiled at the bills and slid them into her pocket, then rested her elbows on the counter to look down at him.
“What about the safe?”
Mack’s nose dragged against the Plexiglas as he shook his head at her.
“I’ve got a box in back that contains the cash I keep for changing out money. It’s in the metal cabinet in the corner, and it should be easy enough to break into for an inspired girl like you. Go ahead and make yourself at home back there, darlin’. But I’m not giving you the combo to the safe.”
“I will shoot you in the ass, Mack.”
“You’ll have to. I can’t absorb the cost of what’s in there, and there’s no way I’m explaining to the police or to some pointy-headed suit at my insurance company that I handed the combination over to a little girl. I’ll take that shot in the ass and be done with it, thanks.”
“Can’t you tell the cops and the insurance people that you were jacked by a gang or something?”
“You’re on video, kid. Your prints are all over the shop, and you’re wearing a T-shirt with your goddamn name on it. So, no darlin’, I can’t tell them I was jacked by a gang or something.”
Jane laughed.
“I guess that’s all true,” she said. “All right, Mack, you can win that one. You’ve got an ass that’s pretty cute for shooting at, and I like you besides. Looks like you’re lucky that way. The metal cabinet?”
“Second case on the left, kid. You’ll be in gumballs for the rest of your life.”
• • •
Jane had just about had it with Mack calling her kid. The way she saw it, she had him ass-end-out over his own counter and that alone should have been enough to spare her the dismissive attitude. She pulled her State Liquor ID from her pocket and held it up to his face.
“What does that say?”
Mack studied the ID and then looked back up at her, exasperated.
“Well, it says you’re twenty-three years old, dear. It also says your name is Jane Eleanor Damsel and that you live at forty-fucking-seven Dunster Street in Allston. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Jane slid her ID back into her pocket. “Are you gonna come over for some iced tea, Mack?”
“Get your money and get the hell out of my shop, Jane Damsel.”
Jane smiled at him. She really did like him all right, and he was a good-looking guy. The money was where he’d said it would be and the lock was indeed easily broken. She pressed the cash flat and zipped it into the lining of her vest with the rest.
The monitors for the security cameras were stacked up on a table in the far corner of the workroom and Jane turned to take a quick look. She stood still for a moment, voyeuristic, transfixed. Watching him in the little black and white televisions—bound up and vulnerable the way he was—made her feel strange in a not-entirely-unpleasant sort of way. It wasn’t easy to pull off looking good while duct-taped to a counter, but Mack was doing just that. He had the kind of body that came from working hard, not working out, and his position gave her a very nice view of his ass. But what Jane liked most were his eyes. She wouldn’t have minded hanging around to watch him a little while longer if she’d had time to kill.
She returned to the cage and sat down on the floor beside him. He startled as she reached for him, which made her smile. Then she winked and ran her hands over the curves of his ass. Mack was amusing to her now because he finally looked shocked by something she had done.
She found what she was looking for and slid the wallet from his back pocket. She removed his driver’s license from its sheath and studied it.
“Hey, we’re neighbors, almost.” She smiled at that, then turned her eyes to Mack’s and her expression became mildly critical. “You look a little older than thirty, Masterson Patrick Chester. You’re probably not getting enough fiber in your diet.”
She replaced his ID and slid the wallet back into the pocket of his jeans for him. Then she grabbed him by the belt loops and used them to pull herself back up to stand. As she passed back through the distressed door to the service area of his shop, Jane held up a pair of tiny gold scissors.
“Solid gold? Really?”
Mack grimaced a hard grin at her through the Plexiglas.
“They’re gold plate, kid, and cheap at that. Try not to be so goddamn gullible.”
“I figured as much.” She considered the scissors for a moment and then smiled. “I like them.” She nodded. “Add them to my tab, all right?”
“Fuck you, darlin’.”
Jane used the scissors to snip into the duct tape binding him to the counter poles. She was conscientious about not pulling too hard on his arms as she worked.
“Do you think you’ll get free okay on your own if I cut the tape halfway through?”
“I have no idea, Jane. I lost all feeling in my arms about five minutes ago. Why don’t you just take my money and get the hell out of here so I can figure out how to clean up this mess?”
Jane stepped back and narrowed her eyes at him through the shield. “You seem like a pretty okay guy, Mack Chester. What the hell would you want to deal in other people’s misery for?”
“Money.”
She cut the tape the rest of the way through and slipped the scissors into her pocket. Mack’s arms pulled free of the counter poles and dangled there for a moment, and then they snaked through the Plexiglas window as his body fell back onto the floor. Jane turned toward the door, then paused and looked back at him.
“I’ve enjoyed meeting you, Mack.” It appeared to her that he was trying to show her his middle finger, but his arms were not yet ready for the job. She just smiled back at that. He hadn’t been a bad sport, considering. He was a little bossy maybe—for a guy who didn’t have a gun handy—but as she watched the really all right-looking heap squirming on the slate tiles, she decided that she wouldn’t mind running into him again if their fates aligned. She couldn’t stay and chat just then, of course, because Mack’s limbs were not going to stay numb forever, so she waved goodbye with a reluctant smile and turned back toward the door.
“Jane Damsel.”
“Yeah, Mack?”
“I am going to kill you dead, kid.”
Jane paused with her hand on the knob, considering his words. “That’s likely to add some stress to our relationship,” she decided.
“Ain’t it?”
Bower Lewis writes off-beat mainstream fiction, infusing her novels with romance, humor, intrigue, and a touch of sex whenever she can get her characters to sit still long enough. She is the auth
or of Patience, My Dear and the forthcoming Damn It, Jane Damsel. She lives outside Boston with her husband, three Roombas, and two badly behaved cats. Visit the author at www.bowerlewis.com.
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INFINITE WORDS
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
© 2015 by Bower Lewis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means whatsoever.
For information address Infinite Words, P.O. Box 6505, Largo, MD 20792.
ISBN 978-1-59309-644-1
ISBN 978-1-4767-9343-6 (ebook)
LCCN 2014942326
First Infinite Words trade paperback edition March 2015
Cover design: Keith Saunders/Marion Designs
Cover photography: © Keith Saunders/Keith Saunders Photos
Book design: Red Herring Design, Inc.
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