by Janey Mack
Coles shrugged off the jacket, wadded it up in a ball, and threw it on the floor. “I’m gonna burn your house to the ground!” He drove a black Bruno Magli into Ferret’s belly. “And piss on your goddamn ashes!” Coles planted his foot and drew back for Ferret’s head.
“Enough already.” I grabbed Coles by the back of his shirt and yanked him back hard. He stumbled backwards and landed on his can, sweating and swearing and shaking.
The puddle of blood beneath Ferret’s head was spreading at an alarming rate.
Oh my God, oh my God.
I got the iPhone out of my bag. “I’m calling an ambulance.” And Flynn.
“Stop!” Sterling raised a finger. “I need a minute.” He walked in circles, talking to himself.
I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Of course they’re going to want to “handle” this.
Coles got to his feet and leaned against the parking meter box, breathing heavily. Still pacing, Sterling pressed his fingertips to his eyes. “Christ, I need a drink.”
“I’m buying,” Coles said.
“Hello?” I waved my hand in front of their faces. “No cops, no ambulance? What do you want to do here, guys? You got some secret magical band of cleanup elves waiting in the wings?”
“Right,” Sterling said, and dragged a hand over his face. “We gotta get him out of here. On the QT.”
Both men looked at me expectantly.
Why? I had no idea. “Uh . . .” Think, Maisie. “Coles, is your limo driver here?”
He nodded.
I ran out the open garage doors. At the far end of the Negative Werks parking lot sat the black Lincoln stretch limo in all its rescue glory. I sprinted across the lot and skidded to a stop in front of the driver’s-side window. I rapped on it.
Poppa Dozen flinched, closed his copy of Penthouse, and rolled down the window.
“Yo! Bluebird.” He leaned way out and took me in slowly from top to toe. “Why ain’t you wearing that fine outfit from TV?”
“You looking for a little time and a half?” I asked. “The Tallywacker stepped in something.”
“Talbott Tallywacker Coles!” He gave a whinnying laugh and smacked his gloved hands on the steering wheel. “You’ve gone and proper-named the motherfucker.”
“Yeah, well, time is of the essence, as they say.”
He popped the locks, and I slid into the passenger’s side. I filled him in as we backed up to the open bay doors.
Dozen shook his head. “I told the Tallywacker not to hire them mail-order bodyguards.” He puckered his lips and made a weird sucking noise. “I also told him selling off the union to aspiring terrorist assholes is a good way to get killed.” He gagged slightly.
“You okay?” I asked as he put the car in Park.
“Yeah. It’s these goddamn Crest whitening strips.”
We got out and went into the bay. Coles was in the makeup chair drinking bottled water and practicing his smiles. Sterling, percolating with anxiety, paced around the Ferret—still facedown and out cold.
At our approach, Sterling gave a shaky smile and stepped back.
“Damn, girl. You chunked his ass. Remind me not to piss you off.” Poppa Dozen rolled Ferret over with his foot to inspect the damage. The wiry guy had a giant egg on the side of his head and his face was covered in dark red, congealing blood.
“He got most of that finding the floor,” I said.
“Yeah?” Dozen said. “Then where’s his ear?”
Well, that explains the blood.
Ferret’s right ear, or at least the upper half of it, lay a few feet away.
Eeewwrrgh.
I hustled over to the makeup station, grabbed a washcloth, and gingerly picked up the piece of ear. I folded it up and wedged the washcloth in Ferret’s shirt pocket. So utterly awful, it didn’t bother me at all.
“Ain’t you sweet.” Poppa Dozen fingered his soul patch. He looked at Sterling. “You got a blanket or somethin’ for the trunk?”
“This isn’t Goodfellas,” Sterling said.
Sure feels like it to me. “I’ll find something.”
“You cannot put an injured man in the trunk!” Sterling shouted.
Dozen pointed at Ferret. “If you think I’m letting this janky-ass fool anywhere near the inside of this ride, you crazier than he is.”
Even Sterling saw the logic there.
“I also ain’t letting him leave no CSI trail behind, neither.”
A spattered canvas tarp lay behind some trash cans. I dragged it over to the limo.
Dozen clicked the remote. The trunk opened. “Hold up.” He got out the spare tire, toolbox, and tire iron and set them inside the bay. “I’ll pick up this shit when I return for His Honor.”
I spread the tarp in the Lincoln’s spacious trunk.
Dozen picked up the unconscious Ferret and stowed him inside. “Where to, boss?” he called to Coles, still primping at the makeup station.
“The Local #56.” Coles caught my eye in the mirror. “Where else?”
Surreal.
Poppa Dozen shut the trunk muttering, “Bus-drivin’ muther-fuckers ain’t never gonna learn.”
“Okay then,” Sterling said, swinging his arms. “Time’s money.” He glanced down at the puddle of blood. “I’m going to get someone in here to clean this up.” He started toward the stage doors.
“Yo. Bluebird.” Dozen pointed at the serrated survival knife on the ground, a few feet away from where Ferret had lain. “This his?”
“Yup,” I said.
“Anybody touch it?”
“Doubt it.”
He picked up the blade between his two gloved fingers. “Bitch might come in handy some hifee morning, know what I mean?”
A jolt of electricity zipped up my spine. I think I did know. Exactly.
I rushed after him. He opened the driver’s-side door and reached across the seat for the Penthouse.
“Like the hifee morning you merked Nawisko?” I said.
Dozen stilled for a two-count. Then he slipped the knife between two pages of the magazine, jammed it under the seat, and turned to me slowly. “Where’d a nice girl like you learn a word like that?”
He did it.
I tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn’t move.
“You want to get up close and personal with me, Bluebird, all you had to do is ask.” Dozen smiled, the plastic from the whitening strip shimmering across his teeth.
I step-tripped backwards, bumping up against the rear of the limo.
He moved in with a menacing chortle. “Your heart’s thumpin’ now, ain’t it?” He slid his tongue over his plastic-covered teeth. “You payin’ attention?”
I nodded.
“I was with the mayor. Whenever it happened. Plenty of staff around to co-rrobor-ate.”
I stepped away from the limo with an injured man in the trunk and a killer behind the wheel.
Dozen started the car. The window slid down. “Be seein’ you, girl.” He threw me a two-fingered salute from the brim of his cap. “Fo-sho.”
Chapter 38
The photo shoot passed in a miasma of lights, pop music, posing, fake compliments, and crocodile smiles. Coles, getting off on his near-death escape, spread a thick layer of overcharged libidinous charm on every female in proximity.
I am a worm on a hot plate.
“How about you take five and walk Talbott to his car, Maisie?” Sterling said after Coles’s portion of the shoot had finished.
“Okay.”
Coles and I fell in step as we walked toward the opened bay doors where Poppa Dozen had parked and was supervising Coles’s chastened bodyguards as they reloaded his trunk. “You brought a blackjack to my photo shoot, Ms. McGrane.”
Uh-oh.
“No, sir.” It’s a sap, actually.
Talbott stepped in front of me and gave me a slow skin-crawly once-over. “They’re illegal in Illinois.”
Duh. “It’s a book weight,” I lied.
“Of course
it isn’t,” he said smugly. “I’d say we’re Dutch.”
Oh yeah? I save your emaciated ass from Ferret and his Ginsu and we’re square because I used a sap to do it?
He pretended to frown, muscles warping around his Botoxed forehead. “Now, why do I think the last thing you want is a felony arrest and the media circus that’d accompany it?”
Because you don’t want it, either? I bit the insides of my cheeks. Hank’s Law Number Ten: Keep your mouth shut.
This was not a pissing contest I could win. With a cross between a chuckle and a snort, Talbott Cottle Coles turned on his heel and walked to the limo. Dozen, in his ludicrous uniform, held the passenger door open.
Coles got in. Dozen closed the door behind him, tipped his aviators down, and winked at me. As the limo drove away, I jammed my hands in my pockets to keep from flipping them off.
Finally alone inside the Super Bee, I started panting. My hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t get the key in the ignition. The keys slipped from my fingers, and I bent over to retrieve them, honking the horn with my head.
Real smooth.
I laughed until tears leaked from my eyes, which helped. When the stitch in my side eased, I picked up the keys and started the muscle car, sure of two things. One, I had no intention of telling Hank what happened, and two, my brothers were going to join Hank in the inky black darkness of my None-the-Wiser cave.
Hank’s house was empty. I went to the wet bar and poured a generous Stoli on ice. I finished it and poured another.
Dozen killed Nawisko.
Even if I could explain it, telling Flynn and Rory would be an exercise in futility. The case belonged to the BOC. If Hank was right and they knew who did it, maybe they were going to squeeze Dozen to rat out Coles.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
I undid the button on my cargo pants pocket and took out the black sap. It looked clean enough at arm’s length.
I tossed back a big slug of my drink.
Please please please don’t have some stringy-bit of ear goo attached.
Closer inspection revealed nothing, which didn’t mean there wasn’t trace DNA left behind. How exactly did one clean a leather sap?
I opened the cupboard under the sink. I’d start with detergent and go from there. I plugged the sink, filled it with scalding water, and added the drops of dish soap. In a sort of daze I watched them sink to the bottom. After a bit I put my hands in the sink, swishing them around in the hot, soapy water.
I cut off a man’s ear today.
“Wrist rolled?” Hank said from behind me.
My hands flew up, splashing water and suds all over the counter, the floor, and me. “Jaysus criminey.” A few tiny soap bubbles floated down between us.
“Want to tell me about it?”
“No.” Color crept up my neck. “Not really.”
“Sit down.”
I didn’t dare not to. He followed me over to the dining table, and everything that had happened that afternoon poured out of my mouth like sand through a sieve.
His expression never changed. Not even during the almost-funny bits. “Have you told your brothers?”
“No. I was . . . um . . . kind of freaked.” I gave a breathy half laugh he didn’t return. “If I can ID the ferrety-looking guy, I might tell them some of it. But if the BOC is going after Coles, I don’t want anyone, including my brothers, to get in their way.”
He dragged a slow hand over his face. “You’re planning to go to work tomorrow?”
“Ferret was there for Coles, not me.”
“You sure about that?”
That sounded like a trick question. “Uh . . . yes?”
I had the feeling he was going to say something else. Instead, he pinched the bridge of his nose, then smiled a not-happy smile at me. “Let’s go to bed.”
Niecy and I had been out on patrol for a couple of luckless hours when I was summoned to Jennifer Lince’s office. We putt-putted over to the Dhu West building. Niecy, God help her, wriggled in her seat with delight at the prospect of an uninterrupted hour of talk radio.
Lince’s surly secretary showed me in. Jennifer, texting, didn’t look up. I sat down on one of the red fabric chairs and waited.
And waited. Trying not to freak as my workday vaporized before my eyes.
She set her phone aside and rolled her chair up to the desk. “My-my. Aren’t you just the lucky one? Sterling gets you on Good Day USA, your performance is, frankly, less than adequate, and still he chooses you as the face of the new Traffic Enforcement Bureau campaign.” Jennifer blinked in disbelief. “Unbelievable good fortune.”
“Yeah, I’m a regular lil’ amputated rabbit’s foot.”
Jennifer trilled a pointed miniature laugh. “I’d be a bit careful of how I say things, Maisie. Not everyone has your acrid sense of humor.”
“I appreciate your input.”
“You’re welcome.” She folded her hands on the desk. “On another note, your short absence had a noticeable impact on Ms. Peat.”
“Oh?” Oh shit, more like.
“Agent Peat failed to write a proportional share of tickets on the days you were absent.” Jennifer shrugged her pale pink–suited shoulders, and tsk-tsked. “Odd because the single day of your return she did relatively well. Now, why is that?”
“I’m a great motivator?”
“It’s no matter,” Jennifer said. “There’s no possible way for her to achieve the requisite number of violation vouchers. The month will end in her termination, and I couldn’t be happier.” She smiled. “What can I say, Maisie? You’re the gift that just keeps on giving.”
Just call me Maisie McClaus.
A shave-and-a-haircut rap sounded at the door.
“Come in,” Jennifer said in a gooey voice.
I got up, started toward the door, and almost fell over.
My brother Cash walked in, a pasted-on smile on his face and eyes as hard as black ice.
“Hi-eee!” Jennifer’s voice hit the shrill happy of a middle-school tween. She jumped up, ran on tiptoe in her heels, and threw her arms around my brother’s neck. Cash screwed up his face at me over her shoulder, then patted her rump to let her know cling time was over.
She stepped back. “You’re early!”
“Jennikins, can you give us a few minutes?” Cash said.
Jennikins?
“But I thought we were going to have lunch and talk about the Gala and Maisie’s date and the limo and—”
My brother held up a finger. “No.”
“But, Caiseal—”
“I need a little alone time with my sister, darlin’.”
Western accent, aka the kiss of death.
“I suppose I can forgive you . . .” Jennifer’s lower lip pooched out in a pout. “If you take me out for Starbucks.”
“You bet. Now scoot.”
Cash should have been an actor. Or an escort.
She left, closing the door behind her. Cash none-too-gently jostled me with his shoulder as he passed to take a seat behind Jennifer’s desk. “Where you been?”
“Hank’s.”
“Jaysus, Snap! Did you take a wallop to the melon or what? I thought Flynn was kidding. You moved in with the fucking mercenary?”
“Back off.”
“Cripes! Way to follow Mom’s rules,” he said. “You’re doomed.”
I adjusted my PEA ball cap. “Hank’s different.”
“Sure he is.” Cash snorted. “The ones we fuck up the rules for always are.” He picked up a pen and rapped it on the desktop. “What about Lee?”
“What about him?” I asked.
“News flash, Galileo. The universe doesn’t revolve around you. It revolves around me.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Two months of Jennifer Lince equals some serious quid pro quo.” His chin jutted forward. “You’re going to go to this goddamn gala and you’re going to give Lee Sharpe the fecking night of his life. Are we clear?”
“Crystal,” I said, bri
dling. Which was wrong. I owed him. Big-time. But that didn’t make it any easier to take.
“Call him.”
I fished my phone out of my cargo pocket and scrolled through the directory to find Lee’s number.
Cash caught sight of his own face grinning from the eight-by-ten frame at the side of Jennifer’s desk. “Shite,” he muttered and snapped his fingers. “Hustle up.”
I hit Call and left the phone on speaker, holding it a good two feet away from my face like those arguing reality show slatterns do.
Ringing.
Please please please, message machine.
“Lee Sharpe. Leave a message.”
The picture of innocence, I lifted my hands in helplessness. Oh no, what should I do? Cash glared and jabbed a finger at the phone.
“Hey, Lee, this is Maisie. I’m back in town and was wondering how you want me to sign my head shot. To Lee, The Sharpest Tack in the Box?” I paused. “Maybe not. Talk to you soon.”
My brother dragged a hand through his dark hair. “Jaysus. Why does any guy like you?”
After promising Jennikins he’d come right back, Cash and I rode down the elevator together. “I’ll tell Mom and Dad you’ll be home for dinner tonight,” he said.
“Not happening.”
“Don’t go against the clan, Snap. C’mon.” He hit me in the arm. “We’re a family.
“Not right now we’re not.”
He didn’t like that. Not one bit. We walked out of the lobby to the Interceptor. He opened my door, leaned in, and smiled at my partner. “You must be Niecy.” He stretched out a hand. “Cash McGrane, Maisie’s brother.”
Niecy grasped it in her pale little claw. “Niecy Peat.”
“From the brat’s description, I’m a little surprised to see you don’t have two heads,” he said.
Thanks a lot, drongo.
Niecy screeched with laughter. “Back atcha, boy.”
The next six hours Niecy and I did what we do best. Sniping tickets and pre-filling guns. We barely hit the low end of quota.
A dull throbbing started behind my eyes. Niecy’s benefits were slipping through her fingers and she didn’t even know it. Fuck.
I turned the Interceptor around to take us back to the lot.