Adler

by Jessica Gadziala

  So while it did happen, it was rare a job would just take me a day or two, a few hours drive, and some legwork.

  Usually, I was driving out to Bumfuck, Nowhere, spending all my time leaning on people for a week or so before I finally found the mark. Then there was the inevitable tussle leaving me roughed up and sore before I handed him off to Geoff who handed him off to the cops. Then I got paid, and could finally go home to nurse my wounds, take a few days or weeks off, get just enough time to myself to remember why I put up with the few-weeks-on, a few-weeks-off type of schedule.

  I threw my phone on the charger on my kitchen counter, not bothering to check the message because as soon as I did, I knew I would be back in work-mode, and I wanted to at least get through my shower without wondering what weapons to bring with me and how to conceal them if I was crossing state lines. I mean, not that they were legal in this state either, but the sentences increased when you broke the law in five states in a row.

  And I couldn't go to jail.

  At least not until I finished what I had set out to do when I was hardly more than a child.

  If I ended up in a cage because of that, well, that was a fate I was willing to face. By the time I showered, ran a brush through my hair, and changed into jeans and a long-sleeved tee, my phone was screaming.

  Geoff was getting impatient.

  Which could only mean one thing.

  Someone skipped town on a big bond.

  If he or she wasn't tracked down, Geoff would be on the line to pay it all.

  And Geoff, amongst a plethora of other bad qualities, was one of the cheapest men I had ever met. He didn't pay for a two-dollar coffee if he could help it, let alone eat a big bail, and the collateral offered was too hard to liquidate.

  "Christ, Geoff, can't a woman get a shower?" I snapped before I even had the phone to my ear, reaching for a coffee pod, sticking it in the machine, taking a deep breath when the liquid life force started filling a cup.

  "I'm not paying you to take two-hour showers, Lou."

  "You're talking like I'm on salary," I said, reaching for sugar to slip into my cup before taking a sip of the too-hot liquid, knowing I would burn my tongue, but too impatient to care. "My time is my time," I added, knowing Geoff was the kind of person who frequently needed to be reminded of his place. A bully could only be a bully if you didn't stand up and put them in their place. My standing up had once involved slamming his hand down on his desk and placing a knife against his wrist, informing him that if it touched my ass again, I'd cut it the fuck off. And, what's more, I meant it. And he knew I meant it. And never came within a foot of my person again. He had gotten so used to bossing the girls in his office around that he needed to be reminded that I was not his employee. Not in that way anyway. We worked on a contract basis, and only if I felt like it. When I didn't, he was free to get off his lazy ass to do it himself.

  "Got a skip," he told me, and I could actually hear the greed in his voice.

  "For?"

  "Two-hundred-fifty."

  Two-hundred-fifty-thousand.

  With my ten-percent cut, that put me at a good twenty-five-grand.

  I could take a few months off, get back to work on my real life's mission. I had been neglecting it for too long because bills had to be paid; my stomach needed to be filled.

  "What's he running from?"

  "First degree."

  "With a two-fifty bail?" I asked, dubious.

  "She was eighteen. It was ugly." He paused, letting the words sink in. "Made her really suffer first."

  Geoff had my number, knew my Achilles' heel.

  He knew I loved chasing down scumbags.

  Not just the guy who took down a fellow gang member or got into a fight over a girl or embezzled company money.

  No.

  I liked the cases where the guy was extra wicked, had crimes that meant they should have never been granted bail in the first place.

  I lived for getting those shitheads off the street.

  With maybe a little more force than necessary.

  "Where?"

  "He has some contacts in AC."

  "What kind?"

  "The fuck am I paying you for if I have to do all the legwork?"

  Judging solely on his waistband, the man hadn't done anything resembling legwork in a decade. And that bastard once told me I was getting fat, that I should lay off the hamburgers and add some more cardio into my routine.

  "You at least got a file for me this time, or am I going to be waiting at a fucking Staples in AC later?"

  "The one with the mouth should have it by the time you get here."

  The one with the mouth used to be called The one with the blow job lips until I told him to knock it off. Nevermind that her name was Pam which was remarkably easier to say than both the monikers he attached to her.

  "I'll be over in twenty. I just need to repack."

  "Twenty minutes to repack? What do you think this is some beauty..."

  I hung up, dragging out the repacking process until my coffee was finished. And maybe to spite Geoff before running down to throw my crap into the trunk, going inside the front to clear out the endless fast food and granola bar wrappers, taking the short trip to the garbage on the corner.

  I didn't see him.

  Didn't even think to pay attention, my mind in work-mode, in ready-to-make-half-a-years-salary-in-a-few-weeks mode.

  So when I slammed my door and reached to press the engine button, my heart flew up into my throat when I heard a voice in my car with me.

  "So, where we going?"

  I had a forearm to his throat, pinning him back into the headrest before I realized who it was.

  "You!"

  "Me," he agreed, giving me a warm smile despite the fact that I was still mostly cutting off his air supply.

  "I could have killed you," I told him, eyes squinting small at his still-present smile.

  "Not like this, ya couldn't," he informed me. And, worse yet, he was right. I didn't have enough leverage to really do damage. He could have easily stopped me if he knew what he was doing. Which, judging by the confidence when he spoke, he likely did.

  If that didn't hurt a girl's pride a bit...

  "No," I agreed, releasing his throat as my left hand closed around a handy thing I always kept in the little pocket on my door, pulling it out, and pressing it against his carotid. "But I could like this," I told him as the edge of the screwdriver pressed in slightly.

  "Throws the cops off, huh?" he asked, unconcerned about the tip of the screwdriver which required a lot less force than you'd think to sink into someone's body cavity.

  "What?" I snapped, curious, and annoyed that I was. Every moment he wasted, I was losing more of a trail that led to a twenty-five-k payday.

  "Say ya get pulled over. In a car like this, I'd guess for speedin'. They ask ya if ya have weapons in the car since ya got that look to ya. Ya ask if a screwdriver counts. Or, I bet, there is a hammer under yer seat. They say it's a gray area, but let ya go with yer ticket, seeing no need to search yer car. Which I bet is full of weapons."

  "Alright. You're good. But I'm late. So get out."

  "Nah," he said casually, reaching back for his seatbelt, confidently clicking it into place.

  "What do you mean Nah This isn't a choice. Get out of my car."

  "Rather stay."

  "And I'd rather be on some island somewhere getting served tequila by one guy while getting served by another. But here I am. Life is full of disa-fucking-pointments. Get out. I need to get to work."

  "I'll tag along. Give ya some pointers."

  "Pointers. You don't even know what I do."

  "Nope. But I bet I'd be good at it."

  "Jesus Christ, you're cocky."

  "Ain't braggin' if ya back it up." He turned to me, those deep eyes of his light, dancing, like he was enjoying this. And why shouldn't he be? He wasn't the one running late. "Be faster if ya just hit the road. Kick me out when we get to yer destination."r />
  "Ugh," I growled, throwing the car into reverse, then jerking it into drive. "Fine. But if you touch my radio, I'll cuff you to the Oh, shit bar," I warned.

  "The Oh, shite bar?" he asked, that voice doing its undeniably sexy indeterminate accent thing.

  I lifted an arm, reaching across his face to grab the handle on the ceiling near the passenger window. "This. The Oh, shit bar. When you're in the car with someone who drives like they get points for how fast they take a jug handle, and you grab on because your stomach is doing that Oh, shit thing."

  "Jug handle?"

  "Definitely not from Jersey," I mumbled under my breath as I turned onto the highway, lips twitching when this Adler guy indeed did reach for the Oh, shit bar when I cut it close, just barely managing to speed up before the car coming up my side crashed into the rear fender.

  "Says the girl with the Bronx accent."

  "That's another life," I cut off the topic, it being a hard-limit one for me. My life in the city, and everything that happened there, was no one's business but my own. "I bet I'm more Jersey than you are."

  "Shore, sub, pork roll, cawfee," he said, pronouncing the words like a true native. "Wader," he added, instead of water. "What else is there to know?"

  "Aside that only fake New Jersians on TV say the shore and that a U-turn is called a jug handle, you pretty much get it."

  "So where we going? Tattoo parlor? Gun shop? Bar?"

  "Here," I answered, turning off the highway to a chorus of horns beeping at me for my on-again-off-again willingness to use turn signals.

  Geoff had a prime location right on one of the biggest highways in the area, what used to be a strip mall with a mattress store, florist, and puppy store before the local activists got their hands on it, protested the Amish mills the puppies came from and scared them... all the way across the street.

  Geoff, ever the opportunist, took advantage of the bad economy, got the whole thing on a song, knocked down some walls, and created a giant office where he employed a bunch of office women whose real names he never learned, a handful of legit, licensed bounty hunters... and then me.

  "You're a bounty hunter?" Adler asked, voice a little surprised, maybe impressed, and I could feel his eyes boring into my profile, trying to see inside me.

  "Technically, according to the government, those ever-so-nosy people at the IRS, I am a telemarketer." Which I did do. Here and there, getting fired when my bosses found out that I never actually called anyone. Well, I called them, sure. But then I played them a recorded message while I did shit I actually enjoyed. Like catching up on TV or inventorying my weapons. But it gave me some papers to turn in at tax time, kept them off my case. And since I lived in a shit area, no red flags ever came up.

  "So, I'm guessin' that you ain't licensed. That ya are the one they call in when the case needs a special touch."

  "Oh, my touch is special alright," I agreed, turning off the car, jumping out. "Now go on your way," I demanded, waving a hand as I made my way to the door.

  "Fucking finally, Lou," Geoff growled at me, slamming his meaty hands onto the surface of the desk, huffing a bit as he hauled himself to his feet.

  Geoff was probably a decent looking guy twenty years ago. But in that slimy way. The guy at the bar who grabs your ass and offers to buy you a drink, then suggests getting it on in the bathroom. Attractive, but ugly. Because no amount of window dressing will pretty up a busted ass window.

  Now, he was around fifty-seven with a hangover waistline, receding black hairline, slightly jaundiced deep blue eyes, and the kind of fashion sense that ran toward Hawaiian shirts. So... no fashion sense at all.

  Today, it was a bright baby blue one with orange flowers. It really brought out his liver spots.

  "I'm here now. You're wasting time riding my ass."

  Geoff thrust a beige folder at me, a sole paperclip holding the pages inside in place. Light. What he had was suspiciously light.

  "Wouldn't mind riding that ass to... can I help you?"

  "Nah, go on. Finish painting yer revoltin' mental image there," Adler's voice said, making me suddenly wish Geoff had invested in a bell or chime for the door. Of course he hadn't run off. His curiosity was piqued. I had a feeling he'd be like a dog on a scent until he was satisfied. "Lou here and I will just look over this very lazy file."

  I couldn't stop the smirk that pulled at my lips at Geoff's shocked look. In his world, I was the only one who dared talk back to him. Money sometimes did that to people. Made them scary. And Geoff certainly had money. Even if he was cheap about reusing coffee filters at the office and writing on the backs of dirty napkins instead of taking a spare sheet of paper. He was well-off enough to fund the two-hundred grand car parked out front taking up three spots. It made people think before they shot back at him.

  Luckily, money meant shit to me.

  Adler seemed of the same mind.

  I was going to add to his comment, loving nothing more than whittling away at Geoff's pride little by little, but I felt a body move in behind me. I felt his body move in behind me, the heat somehow breaking through the barrier of his clothing and mine, seeking my skin underneath, sending a shiver across the surface, making goosebumps prickle up over my back, chest, down my arms.

  "Got yourself an assistant? Lord knows no man could stand being with you for more than an hour without being paid."

  "Yeah, like the panties are dropping all across this town for you, Geoff," I told him, tone bored as I flipped the file to the police report of my new skip's case.

  Thomas R Malon.

  "Real fuckin' prince," Adler's voice said behind me, his breath brushing my ear in a way that shouldn't have been, but absolutely was, erotic. "Ya know, it's been a while since I visited AC. Last job I had there was, well, a good three years back I guess."

  "Do I want to know what kind of job that was?" I asked, taking a step toward the side like I was trying to see him while I spoke to him, not like his nearness was causing all kinds of chaos in my too-long-untouched body.

  To that, Adler's head ducked to the side a bit, lips quirking up, eyes dancing. "Think ya can handle it?"

  "If you're done with the foreplay, I want my two-fifty back," Geoff snapped, banging a hand on his desk in a way that was meant to startle me, but I was too used to it by now to do anything but shoot him a raised brow.

  Ignoring the foreplay comment, I rolled my eyes toward Adler, finding his brow already quirked up.

  And it was right then that Graham's voice broke through the steady hum of low female voices talking - to each other on the phone.

  "I told you I could handle it, Pops," he declared, voice firm, unyielding, the kind of confident his father could only imitate, not actually possess.

  Graham was the proof that even wholly unappealing men could get laid. Not only laid, but laid raw. Producing offspring.

  That offspring was Graham who had the double bad fortune of being born to slime like Geoff and a woman who was either a junkie or a whore or both, who got shot of him as soon as she was out of the hospital, leaving him for Geoff to try to rear. Or, more accurately, Geoff's poor mother and a string of office women.

  And, to their credit, they did a decent enough job. Graham was confident, intelligent, respectful, and undeniably attractive - tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired, dark-blue-eyed, cut jaw, slightly cleft chin. But he was also too young, untrained, untested, hot-headed.

  One day, he would be good.

  Better by far than his father ever was, than most of his father's men were.

  But not yet.

  "You aren't making your bones on this case. Not with this kind of money on the line."

  I sent him an apologetic look, watching the way his hands clenched hard, trying to keep his temper under control. "What are you still doing here?" Geoff growled at me, waving his hand out.

  "You're a real peach, Geoff. I'll be in touch. Try not to blow up my phone like the mother of a teen girl on her prom night when she's three hours past curfew
."

  With that, I took my file, walking out, moving to stand on the sidewalk out front, the salt crunching under my feet. Apparently, we were expecting snow. Legwork in a dusting wouldn't be a big deal. In eight inches to a foot? I was going to be one cranky camper.

  "So, are ya drivin' or am I?"

  My head swiveled, finding him standing beside me, shoulder close enough to brush, chest widening as he sucked in a deep breath.

  "You don't work with me," I reminded him. "Your job is to provide illegal guns to bad guys like my skips."

  "And to bad guys like yerself," he told me with a smirk.

  "Never bought from you," I assured him. "I have a less... complicated contact."

  "Oh yeah? In these parts?" he asked, the biker part of him perking up, wanting the intel.

  "Not getting dick from me. So get on your merry way. I have a scumbag to find, and a check to cash."

  "Right. Yep. Won't stand in your way," he agreed, tucking his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels.

  I should have known better than to take him at his word.

  But I did, getting in my car, shuffling the file into the glovebox, then scrolling through my iPod.

  It was just a second before the music started playing that the door opened and swung shut again.

  And there he was.

  Looking as pleased with himself as a kid who just scored his first goal.

  "No."

  "Aye."

  "I don't have time for this."

  "Then quit stalling, so we can get going. Bad music to listen to, bad guys to rough up. We have a lot on our plates."

  "My music isn't bad."

  "My guess is ya only think that because ya have never heard good music."

  Not sure why I did it, why I didn't have Graham come out and drag him out of my car, I reached over, yanked up the volume, and pulled out of my spot, hitting the highway heading toward Atlantic City.

  THREE

  Adler

  Swear to fuck, thought she'd have gotten shot of me somehow. Shocked the shite out of me when we hit the parkway, and she hadn't attempted to eject me from my seat.