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"Mimi appears quite healthy to me," said the lawyer in a tone loud enough to be heard above the racket.
"But that can't be Mimi!" Esme cried, trying to hide behind Jonathon at the same time he was trying to hide behind her.
Plan B was being screwed up as thoroughly as Plan A had been yesterday, but, Vince suspected, with similarly successful results. Deciding he liked watching Jonathon and Esme suffer for their crimes, he didn't call off Sir Galahad.
Besides, Sophie's temper was simmering, and she looked like a combination sex goddess and avenging angel standing there, so he decided to let her take this scene wherever it led her and settled back to enjoy himself.
"Of course it's Mimi," Sophie cried. "No thanks to you. Yes, that's right, Sir Galahad. Hold them there. Good dog."
And she ran into the princess bedroom only to return with a torn piece of badly tooth-marked denim.
Oh, damn it, she was good, his Sophie. Holding the piece of denim aloft, she said to Jonathon, "Do you recognize this?"
She glanced from the lawyer to the cop, who seemed to be enjoying the drama as much as Vince himself was.
Jonathon yelled, "Get this dog off me. Somebody do something."
"He recognizes your scent," Sophie said in a tone that could only be called smug. "If I gave him this piece of your jeans—they are yours, aren't they? You were wearing them when you assaulted us—and told him to attack, I wonder what he'd do ..." She cast a glance at Vince from under her lashes, and he nearly laughed aloud. God, he loved this woman.
"Don't you dare. I'll sue you if that bastard bites me."
"Or me," Esme put in.
"What do you think, Vince?" Sophie asked.
"I think Sir Galahad could do some serious damage to Jonathon if that hunk of blue jeans has his scent
on it."
Slowly, she lowered the torn fabric. The Doberman was pacing in front of the couch, still growling low in his throat, hackles up in warning. He made it clear to all that he was only waiting for the word and he'd sink the very sharp teeth he'd bared into Jonathon.
The temptation to let the dog at his murderous cousin was almost irresistible.
Sweat dampened Jonathon's pale brow as she brought the cloth closer to the big dog. "I know he will attack if I tell him to, but, Vince, do we know for sure he can be called off?"
"Never tried it," Vince answered truthfully.
Sir Galahad had caught the scent of the denim, and his growls became louder. Frankly, Vince wasn't sure how well trained he was anyway. They were playing with fire here. Just as he was about to call a halt, Jonathon shouted, "All right. It was me. Now get that fucking dog out of here."
"Here, Sir Galahad." Vince called him, and after giving one very low,don't think this is over growl, the Doberman stalked to Vince's side and sat, still tense and alert.
"Good boy."
"I really think someone had best explain what this is all about," said the lawyer once again.
"I'm going to tell you a little story," Vince said. "And then we'll watch a movie. What you'll understand
by the end of it is that my precious cousins here have been trying to murder Mimi to get their hands on Aunt Marjorie's fourteen million bucks."
"That's ridiculous," Esme snapped, her tears forgotten.
But, by the time he and Sophie had told their story, and everyone present had watched the video recording of Esme getting the two of them out of the room while Jonathon fed Mimi the cookies he'd believed were poisoned, his claims didn't seem ridiculous. After he'd provided copies of the toxicology report on the original cookies from the original tin, and the lab reports on the Doberman, the cousins had pretty much shut up and glared sullenly at the floor.
He gave copies of everything to the lawyer, who said, "Jonathon and Esme, if it were in my power to revoke the money your great-aunt left you, I'd do it. Sadly it isn't, but I can promise that no matter what happens to Mimi, you two will never get another cent from your aunt's estate." Then he rose, patted Mimi perfunctorily on the head, shook Vince's hand, nodded to Sophie and the police officer, then left.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. "Ma'am," said the cop. "Do you want to press charges against these two? They shot at you."
She looked at Jonathon and Esme, at Mimi and Sir Galahad, and finally at Vince. "No," she said softly.
"I don't."
"I'm opening a case file on this anyway," his buddy, Ed the cop, said, staring down at the cousins. "I find out you two are so much as jaywalking and your asses are mine. Got it?"
Miserable nods. "You'd better go before they change their minds."
Without another word, and only a backward glance at the Doberman, they scuttled out the door. Sir Galahad, denied his pound of flesh, gave a bark/snarl combo that speeded them on their way.
"Thanks for doing this, Ed," Vince said, shaking his old friend's hand.
"Anytime, Bulldog. After you warned me they'd probably go to the cops, I made sure their call got routed to me." He chuckled suddenly. "I don't think they'll be bothering you again."
After he left, Vince found Sophie on the floor, hugging both dogs to her. What the hell, he thought as he joined them there.
"You know," he said as the Doberman knocked into one of the tables, and Mimi leaped out of the way catching her paw in a lamp cord, "we're going to have to get a bigger place."
"I beg your pardon?"
Vince grinned at her, this woman he'd been waiting for all his life. "Two of us, two dogs, and four kids
on the way." He looked around his two-bedroom apartment. "We're going to need a bigger place."
"Oh, but, Vince," she said, her voice catching and her eyes shining. "I didn't mean—"
"I did." He kissed her. Then Mimi kissed her. Then Sir Galahad slobbered all over them both. And they were laughing, and hugging, and he knew that nothing was ever going to be the same again.
"I love you," he said.
"I love you, too." She laughed and threw herself at him. "And you'll really learn French?"
"I have a feeling that's going to be the easy part. .. Come on," he said, hauling her to her feet.
"Where are you taking me?"
"To bed."
At the door to his room he stopped and turned to confront two canines eager to continue the game they'd started on the floor. "And you two are not invited."
With a tiny yap of disappointment, his fourteen million dollar poodle minced off to leap onto his favorite chair. The Doberman made a grumbling sound and followed Mimi, bypassing the chair to take the couch.
"Are we really going to have four children?" Sophie asked once they were alone.
He slipped his hand under her sweater and palmed her breasts just the way she liked.
"Honey," he said, "everything's negotiable."
For everyone who wanted to be the star of their own movie.
The World
Is
Too Darned Big
MaryJanice Davidson
Acknowledgments
Writing a novel is a lot like running a marathon. But the novella is more like a forty-yard dash: you've got to get your ass in gear right away. I love this shorter length and am grateful to Alex Kendall, of Red Sage Publishing, for being the first to give me the chance to show readers that I could dash reasonably well. And to Kate Duffy, of Brava, for letting me run wherever I want.
Prologue
"You know, bad guys trying to blow my head off isn't as much fun as I thought it would be," Benjamin commented. "It's more stressful than anything else."
"Typical," Tara said. "Felony assault—it's all hype."
"Any bright ideas on how to get out of this?"
"Ben, I am so not the brains of this team. Besides, it's your fault we're even here."
"The hell! You're the one who wanted to steal the world."
"I didn't want to steal theworld, just a few key pieces of it, not that it's any of your business.You're the one who insisted we save humanity." Tara invested the p
hrase with heavy sarcasm. "Could there be a bigger waste of time? No? Ask the guy with the gun if you don't believe me."
"Fine. Anyway, we'd better get out of here before bullets start exploring our temporal lobes. This hallway isn't going to provide cover much longer."
"So? Think of something, gadget man." Tara stretched out her long, long legs and closed her eyes. "Let me know what you come up with."
He watched, dumbfounded, as she went to sleep. She could always do that. It was unbelievably aggravating.
He leaned over and shouted into her gorgeous, still face, "And I did not get us into this!" In the distance, the firing pop of the silencer accentuated his statement.
"Did, too," Tara said without opening her eyes.
"Did not!"
"Don't you remember?"
As a matter of fact, he did.
One
Earlier that day ...
Bored, Benjamin Dyson put the finishing touches on his Universal remote—atrue Universal remote, thank you very much—one that would work on any television set in the world, provided it had been
built since 1992 . .. which was to say, 92.56% of them.
It also doubled as a cell phone.
Well, super. Another gadget, completed well before deadline. The rep from the CIA would be here any minute—or was this one for Honeywell? The Secret Service? It was getting hard to keep them all straight. He could look it up in the log, but frankly, didn't care enough. If he wasn't going to get to use the gadgetdu jour in the field, he didn't much care who did.
He yawned and scribbled an invoice, picking a number out of the air—seventeen hundred? Thirty-three hundred? What did he care? He had more money than he'd ever be able to spend. Not that the government was exactly known for paying Net 30. Or even Net 150. Well, it was his patriotic duty. He supposed.
He heard the car pull in and hit the garage door button clipped to his desk. The sun had come up just an hour or so ago, and the fresh-faced agent in thede rigueur unmarked sedan looked entirely too perky for this time of the day as he popped out of his car and practically trotted into the garage.
"Hey, Dr. Dyson! How you doing today?"
"Fine, Tom." Bored, Ben started to hand over the remote and the paperwork. After a moment's thought, he stuffed it all into a used grocery bag from Piggly Wiggly.
"Thanks for the phone call. My supervisor couldn't believe it. A week ahead of schedule!" Agent Tom Carradine shook his head admiringly. "Unreal! You're worth all of our lab weenies put together."
"Is that what I am?" he asked, amused. "A lab weenie?"
"Uh, no offense, Ben. Without you guys, we wouldn't last very long out in The World, you know?"
"Yeah, yeah." Ben yawned again.
"And I must say," Tom said, looking around, "this is the most sterile garage I have ever been in. You could eat off the floor in here."
"Thanks for the visual. Listen, see if you can get Accounts Payable to cough it up a little sooner this
time, willya?"
"Not my department," Tom said with irritating cheer. He smoothed back his shiny black hair—Tom needed to lay off the styling products—and clicked the remote at Ben in a friendly way. Behind him, inside the house, Ben could hear his television turning on. "Thanks again. Catch you later."
"Buh," he grunted, taking a swallow of his hot chocolate. He could see Tom was washing his hands of
the whole Accounts Payable situation—the typical action of anyone not in Accounts Payable—but was too filled with ennui to stop the process.
Tom trotted back to his sedan, and Ben watched him go, then hit the garage door switch until the street slid from sight.
Now what? Take a month off? The Cape was nice this time of year. He supposed he could think about Thanksgiving . . . His parents were still touring the state park system in their RV, but his sister and her new husband would be glad to have him over for dinner. That sounded nice and homey and traditional and ...
He yawned again.
For the millionth time, he thought about applying at one of the academies, or giving his guy at Langley
a call. Sure! He could go through the training patch and be in the field by springtime ... summer at the latest. He could ... could ...
Get his head blown off. He was thirty-four ... not exactly prime recruiting age for field agents. He had played it safe and stayed in the lab, and made himself indispensable, and rich. Now it was too late for adventures.
There is plenty of adventure to be had on the other end of a microscope,his physics teacher had been fond of saying. His physics teacher had been as round as he was tall and felt the worst thing to happen
to an invention was to have people use it. Dr. Thorson was all theory. Had a heart attack in his very
own lab, as a matter of fact. One supposed you could say he died with his boots on. Died with his slide rule in his pocket? Was that even—
For God's sake,he grumbled, dumping another packet of Swiss Miss into his mug.Stop complaining,
you morbid fuck! You've got a great life. A great, safe life. You get paid to tinker, to think shit up.
Right.
Damn right.
"Oh, fuck," he said, and rested his head on his forearms.
Two
How could he have let this happen? How could he become a supporting actor in someone else's movie? He'd always fantasized about being Bond, but the plain truth was, he wasn't Bond and never had been and never would be, and that was that, amen and forever. He was Q. He was... What had Tom called him? A lab weenie?
He heard a car pull up, one with a powerful engine under the hood—cripes, had they strapped a wild animal in there?— and shrugged. Secret service? No, they didn't like the flashy cars. Private dick? No, they couldn't afford the flashy cars. Local law enforcement? No, they couldn't catch the flashy cars.
Field agent? Maybe. Whoever it was, he was officially on vacation.
As if in response to the garage door not going up, the car's engine roared, sounding exactly like a pissed-off Bengal in heat. Ben clapped his hands over his ears, then decided it would be easier to tell double-oh fuckhead face-to-face that he was on vacation. He hit the button to raise the door.
The engine cut off abruptly, and a door slammed shut. Then he saw a pair of shoes walk around and
wait by the door.
The left shoe—a red sneaker with black laces and a black skull and crossbones inked on the toe—started tapping impatiently as the door continued to rise, revealing black leggings, a hip-skimming cherry red baby tee—and what hips!—firm-looking, perfectly rounded breasts, a swanlike neck, sharp chin, Angelina Jolie lips (colored to match her T-shirt), tip-tilted nose (pierced with a tiny silver skull), greenish gray eyes, and close-cropped white-blond hair.
"Whoa," was the best he could do.
"Dr. Dyson," the vision said. She was tall—her head passed a bare six inches from the top of his garage door as she entered. "Make me wait alittle longer next time."
"Okay. Nice mouse."
"Thank you." She stroked the rat, which was as long as her forearm and as white as freshly fallen snow. "It's a Norway Black."
"But it's white."
"Yes."
"Okay." He tried to stop staring at her. The rat didn't help. She was larger than life, and that voice! So husky and low, the woman made Kathleen Turner sound as though she was breathing helium. "What
can I do for you?"Please, please let it be something involving nudity and raspberries ...
"I need you to make something for me."
"Oh, I can't."
She arched blond brows. The rat sneered in his general direction. "You can't? That'll be a first. You're sort of famous, you know, in certain circles."
Nowthere was a nerve-wracking idea. "I mean, I'm on vacation."
"You're hanging out in your garage on vacation? Although, I have to say, this is the nicest, cleanest garage I've ever—"
"It's my lab," he snapped. "And yes."
"Terrific," s
he said, and stroked the rat some more, looking around. She strolled over to a wall of cell phones and almost touched one, then seemed to think better of it.
He was weirdly reminded of a Bond villain, and half expected her to say something like, "More tea,
Mr. Bond? Mwah-hah-hah!"
"So, thanks for stopping by and all, but, see, I'm on vacation now, and—"