Another One Bites the Dust

by Jennifer Rardin

  Once again, Lucille Robinson came to the rescue. She smiled graciously at Tom Teller and said, “You know, that spot really worked well traffic-wise, so I think we’ll just keep it. Do you know when the work will be finished?”

  He pranced from foot to fried foot, bobbing his head back and forth in an effort to see our furious guest. Cole pressed his mouth to my ear and whispered, “He looks like a constipated turkey.”

  My smile went into rictus mode as Tom Teller spat another wad of chew onto the faulty mat. Holy crap, the guy’s going to tase himself into a coma! But again he wouldn’t address me directly.

  “We should have it all done by five,” he told Cole.

  “Did you hear that, boss?” he asked me brightly. “The tent will be up by five!”

  I just wanted the idiot off the mat and to hell with my wounded pride. “Wonderful. Thank you so much.” I slammed the door in his face, and Cole and I helped each other back to the empty couch, where we traded stunned stares with Cassandra. On the one hand we wanted to laugh until we cried. On the other, we wondered just who Jericho meant to annihilate first.

  Bergman had rescued the parts of his phone and taken them to the covered table, where he was trying to put them back together again. Jericho badly wanted to tear out the door and cave in somebody’s face, but he kept looking at Cassandra and she kept shaking her head. Uh-huh. No fractured skulls this morning, SWAT man.

  “Cole,” I asked, “have we got any pop in the fridge?”

  “Yeah, I just bought a case of orange soda yesterday.”

  “Perfect.” I stood up. “Jericho, come with me.”

  Twenty minutes later Cole returned the sledge to the ring-the-bell-if-you’re-man-enough-game guy, I put the last crushed can in the trash, and Jericho dropped into the chair beside Cassandra, looking nearly as calm as he had when he’d walked through our door. Only Bergman had stayed inside to work and watch the monitors.

  Cole came back with fried ice cream for everyone, which we inhaled along with the orange-scented air.

  Jericho wagged his finger at me. “That was genius. Where did you come up with the idea?”

  “I had to be nice to a sick baby and two sleep-deprived, panicky new parents for three weeks. It was either this”—I waved at the trampled, soda-soaked grass beneath our feet—“or a killing spree through an upscale Indianapolis neighborhood.”

  He nodded. “Sound choice.”

  “Thanks.”

  I took a bathroom break. A necessity, but also an excuse to grab our safe phone from the bedroom. I ignored the way my heart skipped when I opened the door. What I couldn’t avoid was the sudden realization that I’d slept right through my last trip to z-land. No trying to shoot myself in the head. No stepping into traffic or jumping out windows. No dreams at all. Just sweet, deep silence, like the kind Vayl enjoyed every single day.

  As I took the phone off the dresser, I considered the black tent that hung over the bed like a huge, bloated bat. I really cared about Vayl. More than I should. Way more than I wanted to. But did I want to be like him? Still pining for what I’d lost two hundred and more years down the line? Somehow that seemed stunted and wrong.

  But wasn’t I doing exactly what he was doing? Wasn’t I holding on to Matt as if I thought I’d find him in the fresh-food section at Aldi’s one day, feeling up the grapefruits with that wicked look on his face that always made me laugh? My anger at him made more sense seen that way. Like I felt he’d cheated on me by moving on. And, as a logical progression of that thought, I was being faithful by standing in place.

  The buzz started low in my head and grew so loud I banged the palm of my hand against my temple. Not now. I’ve got things to do! But Raoul had his own schedule, and I’d finally learned that when he wanted to talk I’d better listen. I closed my eyes before he grabbed my vision to get my full attention and said, “You rang?”

  That enormous voice boomed in my head. TURN IT ONE MORE TIME TOO.

  For some reason I twisted the phone in my hand, so if I held it to my ear the receiver would be on top. No, it wouldn’t work that way. Turn it one more time too.

  Matt had left me.

  TURN IT.

  And I had left him.

  At the height of our love, we’d let death separate us. Some part of me had never believed it would happen. In fact, at some level I’d despised us both for allowing it. I’d been furious at him for leaving. And I’d hated myself for staying.

  NOW THINK.

  “What?”

  THINK!

  Holy crap, Raoul, that’s all I’ve been doing! Thinking about Matt. More than I wanted to. So few people knew him. But they all liked him. Especially Albert. I put the phone to my ear, only mildly surprised I’d already dialed his number.

  “Yeah?”

  “Albert?”

  “What’s up? Everything going okay?”

  “I was thinking about Matt today.”

  “Me too.”

  “Really?”

  “What a poker face. Did I ever tell you he bluffed me out of a twenty-dollar pot with a king high? That’s it! And I was sitting there with a pair of tens!”

  “No kidding.”

  “You know why I liked him though?”

  “Not really.” You don’t like anybody hardly.

  “Because the day you two got engaged we had a little talk. And he said to me, ‘Colonel Parks, I just want Jaz to be happy. That’s it. It won’t matter where we are, or what we’re doing. If we’re a million miles apart or stuck like glue. As long as she’s happy, I’ll be fine.”

  Don’t. Cry. “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “Your brother called. He was worried about you.” My dad is a lot like a baseball pitcher. He has a windup that he goes through before he throws his curve. I should’ve recognized the tone in his voice as the windup. But it had been a while, and I was distracted.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said you were a goddamn mess! Now you listen to me!” he barked. “Shit like this buries you, if you let it! You’re up to your neck in shit, Jasmine. Is that how you want to go down?” He’d pitched it into a full-out roar now, just like he had when I’d walked into the house covered with mud at the tender age of six. Then I’d wanted to cry. Now I wanted to kick him in his battered old knees. Maybe he’d raised me right after all. I’d finally learned to hit that curve.

  “No sir.”

  “Then get off your ass and do something about it!”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You nailed that boss of yours yet?”

  “What?”

  “You obviously need to get laid, Jaz.”

  “Oh my God, tell me we are not having this conversation. Albert, we are not having this conversation!” I hung up, horrified, yet laughing. The man belonged in a cage. In a zoo. On Mars.

  But in his disgusting, direct way, Albert had given me the answer. Matt and I had loved each other to the end of our lives. To the dawning of our eternity. I sure hoped he was delirious with joy wherever he’d ended up. Did he feel the same about me?

  REMEMBER, said Raoul, keying in my mind the one scene I never wanted to replay. But my psyche pictured us anyway, dead on the kitchen floor of a patently unsafe safe house, my body draped across Matt’s, our souls rising in our last act together. Then his soul, this amazing work of art with so many multicolored facets I could stare for days and never get bored, split. And part of it came into mine. Melded with mine. He’d left a part of himself with me. So I would know. So I could rest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Before I found true peace, however, I had to finish this job. And now that I knew how to do that, I needed to put the plan in motion. I dialed the home office.

  “Demlock Pharmaceuticals,” answered Martha in her rough and ready voice.

  “Marketing department, please.”

  Three clicks and a buzz later Martha felt safe to say, “Go ahead.”

  “It’s Jaz. Is Pete around?”

  “Where e
lse would he be?”

  “Tap class?”

  “Ha! Hang on, hon.”

  Pete’s greeting was typical. “Tell me you haven’t wrecked a car.”

  “How could I?” I replied bitterly. “All you sent was a moped.”

  “Have you taken a look at that palace Vayl leased? It’s costing me an arm, a leg, and a couple of vital organs!”

  “Well, I’d better tell Bergman to get that supercharged V8 off the floor then, huh? Do you think Palmolive gets out Pennzoil?”

  Pete makes this unique sound when he’s about to have an I’ve-reached-the-bottom-of-my-wallet fit. It used to scare me, but I’ve begun to enjoy it. I know, sick.

  “I’m kidding; the place is in mint condition.” Well, it would be as soon as the carpet cleaners showed. “However, the performance tent burned down last night.”

  Again with the sound, a subtle blend of choking-on-rib-eye, suffering a megawedgie, and walking barefoot over broken glass. I quickly added, “The people who burned it are replacing it as we speak. Which leads to my problem.” I explained last night’s scenario, Jericho’s involvement, and how Pengfei—through Lung—had begun to cover their tracks. “They’ve already pocketed the governor of Texas. Has anybody been on you to shut us down?”

  “No,” he said thoughtfully. “But I have been asked to brief the president tomorrow morning on an unrelated matter. Now I’m wondering . . .”

  “Yeah, me too. Is there any way you can make yourself scarce until then? Just in case?”

  “You can get this done tonight?”

  I have no idea. “Absolutely.”

  “Then I’m feeling queasy. Must’ve been that cream cheese on my morning bagel. I’m going home now, Jaz. Twenty-four hours. That’s all I can promise you. And you know what? Thanks for the excuse. I hate this suit I’m wearing today. It hits me right in the pits. Can’t wait to shuck this coat and—”

  “Oh my God, Pete, I think I have a lead.”

  “What?”

  “You mentioning your suit just brought it together in my head. Samos’s avhar told me he’d gotten this obnoxious purple three-piece at a men’s store called Frierman’s. Then, later, the reaver Samos hired said he’d bought some cowboy boots at the same place.”

  “We’ll check it out.”

  “Hang on. Let me think. Let me try to remember the conversations . . .” I took my mind back to the talks I’d had with Shunyuan Fa and Yale. “The store’s in Reno.”

  “Excellent.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Since Pete had given me his blessing to bring Jericho in as far as I thought necessary, I was set to spill the beans when I went back outside. But the old desire to protect those frail lives surrounding mine started banging cymbals in my head when I saw him talking earnestly with Cassandra.

  This guy’s a dad, and not an Albert type either. Right now he’s safe. Even his department wants him off this case. So let him off.

  Which was when Xia Ge showed up. Like Cassandra, she’d taken some extra time in front of the mirror this morning. She wore her sleek black hair down, which complemented her red V-neck sweater. Her black slacks looked immaculate, one of the advantages of having a kid who doesn’t regurgitate his meals on a regular basis. Baby Lai, dressed in a blue one-piecer dotted with monkeys, cruised in the stroller in front of Mom, looking so cheerful he might’ve been smashing miniature baby bottles all morning.

  Cole had already risen to greet them. The light in Ge’s eyes when she smiled at him disturbed me. I didn’t think she’d ever act on her crush, but the fact that she felt it at all made me hurt for Shao. There should never be another man. Not in your fantasies. I looked at Ge. Not in your dreams.

  I crouched by the stroller and spent some time talking to Lai, suggesting maybe someday he could give E.J. lessons on how to bounce without spitting up. Within a couple of minutes Ge squatted beside me. Though she smiled at the baby she spoke to me.

  “Shao gone to airport to pick up his brother, Xia Wu. He asks have you spoken to police yet?”

  I nodded to Jericho. “That’s him.”

  Ge looked so relieved I nearly patted her shoulder. But she clearly thought we were being watched, so I played along.

  “What he say?” she asked.

  “Something bad has happened and powerful people are trying to cover it up,” I told her. Her hands tightened on the sides of the stroller, but otherwise her expression remained serene. “The regular police have been ordered away from here.”

  I lowered my voice. “I am not regular police, but I do work for the U.S. government.” I tickled Lai under the chin, making him giggle madly. “I can’t tell you why I’m here, only that your family will be safer when my job is done. If I give you a phone number, will you remember it?”

  “Yes.”

  I gave her the numbers in sets for ease of recall. I said them three times and made her repeat them back three times. “Tell Wu to call when it’s safe for me to come aboard the Constance Malloy. Tell him under no circumstance is he to try anything on his own. He will fail. We have the only means known to defeat Lung.”

  She hesitated for so long I finally looked at her. She was digging in the diaper bag, hiding her face from view.

  “What is it?”

  Tears slurred her voice. “That our countries should cooperate is so unlikely. I fear the worst. Wu will die. Shao will be struck with grief. Perhaps Lung will kill him too. Maybe his rage will turn to Lai and me.”

  Since we seemed to be going through diapering motions I unstrapped Lai and lifted him from the stroller. Good grief, the kid packed a lot of weight in a little package! “I see we’ve eaten our Wheaties for breakfast,” I told him. He grinned and, as a token of goodwill, deposited a long loud stinky in his Huggies that I was only too glad to let Ge address.

  I tried not to sound harsh, though it leaked through as I said, “You tell your brother-in-law to hell with China and the United States. This is for your family. Got that?”

  She nodded. So did Lai. Then he farted and we both laughed. Meeting adjourned.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  After Ge and Lai left, I went back into the RV. Bergman sort of lunged on top of the table, realized it was me, and sank back into his original position, hunched over his toys, a magnifying glass clamped over the left lens of his regular glasses, looking like a jeweler evaluating diamonds.

  “Bergman, I have an idea.”

  “What.”

  “Quit snapping; you’ll love it.”

  He sat back. “Jasmine, I have about ten hours to make a translator that currently sounds like this”—he hit one of the laptop’s keys and a robotic voice started speaking stilted Chinese—“sound like this”—he hit another key and the computer began to replay Pengfei’s last tirade.

  “Hmm, that’s quite a difference.”

  “You think?”

  “Bergman, this is where you shine. You’ll nail this easy. Which is why I’m sure you’ll have time for my other idea.”

  He slumped so far in his seat I thought he might actually slide under the table. But his knees hit the other side and he stopped. So I went on. “The pill we wanted to feed Lung last night? Can we put it in a bullet and speed it up? You know, so the reaction is nearly instantaneous?”

  As if someone had hauled him up by the armpits, Bergman rose in his seat. “What caliber?”

  “Well, the bullet has to stay embedded, but I’d like to use Grief. That way the crossbow would be backup. I’d just go with that from the start, but I have to be so accurate with it, you know? This way I could hit Pengfei virtually anywhere and bam!”

  He sat up straighter. “More like sizzle, wap!”

  I nodded. “Cool.”

  Bergman smiled. “I’m on it.”

  I went back outside. Cassandra and Jericho were still talking. Cole had joined in, so laughter interspersed the conversation fairly often. I pulled up a chair and they all looked at me expectantly.

  “How do you know I have somet
hing to say?” I asked.

  “Cassandra told us you would.”

  I made a face at her. “Remind me never to try to throw you a surprise party. Okay,” I went on. “She’s right. Here’s the deal.” I caught Jericho’s gaze. “We’re after lizard face. We’re pretty sure we have to get him tonight because by tomorrow whoever crawled up your governor’s ass may slither on into the president’s liver. Now, I know you can’t do anything official. But something is going down tonight. Hopefully it will happen on that yacht”—I pointed to the Constance Malloy—“far away from here. But if we can’t contain the violence, the people who are here at the festival will not be amply protected. I’ve seen the security in this place and it sucks.”

  Now why is that? asked a part of my brain that really should’ve said something earlier. We have the potential for large crowds, so you need cops just to cope with those problems. We’ve already had a mini protest from other-hating fanatics, which, while pitiful in itself, could certainly breed bigger, scarier rioting if not dealt with correctly.

  “Why is Lung here?” I asked.

  “I take it you’re not looking for the obvious answer,” said Cole.

  “He’s stolen an invaluable item that, if he can duplicate it, will make his army damn near invincible. So why isn’t he riding a rocket to China?”

  Cassandra said, “Don’t you mean why hasn’t Pengfei made herself scarce?”

  “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  “I’m lost,” said Jericho.

  I sat forward in my chair. “Look, tonight Lung will have a full Chinese crew aboard that yacht of his. He’s been biding his time, waiting for them to arrive. What’s that say to you?”

  They looked at me, their faces a study in blank.

  “It’s his getaway car—er, boat,” I explained. “That’s why he’s still here. He couldn’t do anything because his crew was still traveling here from China.”

  “So is he leaving tonight?”

  “I think so, but something else is happening first.” I turned to Jericho. “Logistically speaking, this place is primed to blow. It’s going to be packed with people. Security bites, and what people the organizers have hired are largely untrained.”