“And if Hugo gets us both, who raises Sam? Your elderly mother, who just had a dozen strokes?”
Jack’s concern morphed into a glare. I glared back.
“We had this same conversation before getting on the plane,” Jack said. “Except it was reversed. You insisted on coming with me. You refused to leave my side.”
“A couple things, Jack. First, you’re hardly in the best shape of your life. Second, we’re here to help Harry. The bad guys are a plastic surgeon who makes people ugly, and a scarred old whackadoodle who can’t walk any faster than you can.”
“And you still insisted on being here.”
“Hugo isn’t Plastic or Erinyes. Hugo is one of the most dangerous people to ever live. Would you want me to come along if you found out the Cowboy was after you?”
That shut Jack up. I knew how much she feared the Cowboy.
“Answer the question, Jack. Would you want me to help you take on the Cowboy?”
“No,” she answered, soft.
“Why not?”
“Because the Cowboy would kill you, Phin.”
“And Hugo would kill you, Jack.”
Jack reached out, held my hand again. “I know you. I know you have to go.” Her eyes got glassy. “But I don’t want you to.”
“He’ll make her talk. And he’ll kill her. And then he’ll come for us. It’s a better move to get to Pasha before that happens.”
“I should go with you?”
“You and Sam need to go someplace safe. And…” Shit, this next part was going to be hard. “And you can’t let me know where you are.”
Jack gave me a small nod, and Harry came back.
“Police are sending out cars. I also called up Herb.”
“Benedict?” Jack’s voice was harsh. “You didn’t drag him into this.”
Herb Benedict, Jack’s ex-partner and best friend, has had an even more horrible retirement than Jack, plagued by bad guys.
“Ease up, Jackie. Herb owes me a favor. He said he and Tequila would check it out.”
Jack gave me dead-eyes. “Now I’m going with for sure. I can’t hang Herb out to dry again.”
I kept up the stare and spoke to Harry. “When is that exosuit coming, McGlade?”
“Soon.”
“And Jack will be able to walk with it?”
“Walk? She’ll be able to cabbage patch, bro.”
“Sorry,” I told Jack.
My eyes must have telegraphed the move, because she was beginning to back away when I snatched away her left crutch. After making sure Sam wasn’t in the room, I bent the aluminum over my knee and tossed it aside.
Jack threw a punch, tagging me on the chin.
Not bad. Maybe she was stronger than I realized.
But she wasn’t stronger than Hugo.
I caught her wrist, reached down, and took her other crutch.
“Goddammit, Phin. Please don’t do this.”
“If you can stop me, I’ll let you go with.”
Jack swung, and if she connected with her target it would have broken my nose.
I was proud of her. Call it confrontational, but our relationship worked exactly because we were equals, we were physical, and neither of us took violence personally. This was on par with other arguments we’d had.
But in other arguments, we came out even. Now we weren’t even close. I easily slipped her punch, gave her a soft push, and Jack fell onto the kitchen floor, breaking the fall with her hands.
After snapping her other cane in half, I headed for the bedroom.
“Phineas!”
I turned to glare at my wife, expecting her to be furious.
Instead, her face was a picture of loving concern.
“Please don’t get hurt,” Jack told me. “I’ll never forgive you.”
“Take care of Sam. I’ll text anonymously from the burner phone.”
“You’re going to find Pasha, right? That’s it. You’re not going after Hugo.”
I didn’t know what to say. I hated lying to Jack.
But I lied. To make her feel better.
“That’s all I’m doing. Once I’m sure Pasha is safe, I’ll come back here.”
Her eyes got glassy. “I know you’re full of shit, but I’m going to act like that’s true. Because I trust you. And I love you.”
I walked back to the bedroom, stared at my wife’s leg braces.
Would Jack still try to follow me?
Would I follow her?
Yep.
I bent the hinges on one leg and quickly packed up my shit.
Then I got on my phone.
No messages from Pasha.
I booked the next flight to Chicago.
JACK
Funny the difference a day can make.
I went from committed to helping McGlade, to committed to abandoning self-loathing and getting the hell away from McGlade and focusing on my family, to committed to helping McGlade again and keeping the self-hate bandwagon rolling along, to watching one-third of my family break my crutches and leave me for his super-sexy ex-girlfriend, who was much younger than me, had a doctorate in medicine, and could do things like walking and running and screwing without metal braces or an exosuit.
So… not a good twenty-four hours.
Phin did not give me a passionate kiss before he left. He didn’t say goodbye. He didn’t even look at me.
Understandable. I would have acted exactly the same way, roles reversed.
So both of us were assholes.
Or maybe both of us were strong.
Probably both.
Phin also bent one of my leg braces, and when Harry tried to bend it back, he snapped it in half with his robotic hand.
“Sorry, Jackie. Want me to rent one of those Stephen Hawking wheelchairs with the suck-and-blow straw?”
“Just get me a cane.”
McGlade did not have any canes, but he had one of those walking sticks for people who hiked through the wilderness, which was something Harry definitely didn’t do, but according to him, “I dig The North Face® green hipster douchebag fashion aesthetic.”
And when he said it, he actually pronounced the circle-R as “registered trademark.”
So, yeah. Douchebag.
With Phin on his way to Chicago to pornstar jackhammer Pasha in the butter churn position (possibly not, but my self-esteem was low), I made sure Sam was with Consuela. She was, having a tea party with Waddlebutt and Big Dick.
Sam wore a pink bonnet.
So did the animals.
Adorbs.
“Love you, Sam.”
“Love you, too.”
I couldn’t let her father die. No way.
I met Harry in his office, where he was staring at his pile of notes, picking his nose.
“Don’t you have tissues?”
“Are you serious? It’s my house. And everybody picks their nose. If God didn’t want us picking our noses, he wouldn’t have made fingers the perfect size to fit.”
“We need help.”
“I got this. Nose-picking is a one-man job.”
“I meant with the situation.”
“I hired three mercs. They’ll be here tonight, with your exosuit.”
Did he seriously need to me to spell it out?
“I’m talking about my husband. Do you remember Phin’s brother?”
“Yeah. Scary as hell. He’s like Tequila, but about twice as big.”
“Phin is tough. Tequila is probably tougher. And Herb is smart. But Hugo… he’s a different level.”
“You want more help.”
“The only way to win a war is to have more guns than the other guy.”
“You want to call Chandler.”
I nodded.
I only knew Chandler by her codename. But she was probably the most component bitch to ever walk the earth. Lethal in a thousand different ways. She’d helped me a few times, but I didn’t know if she’d help me once again. We weren’t exactly friends.
“We
’d have to pay her,” Harry said. “She was pretty clear after last time that she didn’t owe us any more favors.”
I waited.
McGlade shrugged. “Fine. I’ll pay her. But I bet when I call she won’t pick up.”
Harry dug his cell phone from his pocket and fussed with his screen, then put it on speakerphone.
“I’m sure she won’t pick up,” he repeated.
She picked up.
“What?” Chandler wasn’t much for small talk.
“It’s Harry McGlade.”
“I know who it is.”
“That’s sweet. But holster your crush on me until we meet again. We need your help.”
“Who’s we?”
“You remember Jack?”
“Yeah.” Chandler didn’t seem happy about it.
“She’s on speaker with me.”
“Good to talk to you, Chandler,” I said.
Chandler didn’t answer.
“Are you, uh, in the lower forty-eight? We’d like to purchase your services.”
“You have ten seconds.”
“Or what?” Harry asked. “My house explodes?” He glanced at me and whispered, “Can she do that?”
I ignored McGlade, which is useful advice for most situations. “A very dangerous man escaped from prison. We think he’s going to go after my husband’s ex-girlfriend, Dr. Bipasha Kapoor, to lure him out of hiding.”
“So you need a hit.”
I said no at the same time Harry said yes.
“Phin needs back-up. He just flew to Chicago to get to Pasha before he does.”
“So Phin’s brother wants to lure him out of hiding, and the first thing Phin did was come out of hiding?”
“That’s pretty much it,” I admitted.
“And you let him go. You can’t control your own man.”
“Jack’s still all crippled up,” Harry said. “She needs a sponge on a stick to wipe her ass.”
I gave him the finger. He gave me the finger back.
“You’re lucky I’m not far from the Midwest,” Chandler told us. “Fifty grand to babysit Phin while he runs his errands. Double if I have to kill anyone.”
“Done,” I said.
Harry mouthed WTF?
I told Chandler, “The man who escaped is named Hugo Troutt. He’s as bad as they come.”
“I’ll have Fleming give me his history.”
Fleming was one of Chandler’s twin sisters. A brilliant hacker, wheelchair-bound, whip smart.
They also had another twin, named Hammett. On the Scale of Awful, Hammett might be even worse than Hugo.
“How is Fleming?” Harry asked. “Does she miss me?”
“No.”
“Is that because she dreams about me every night?”
“What’s Phin’s number?” Chandler asked.
I gave her the number of his burner cell. “I’ll tell him you’re coming.”
“You do that. And if he tries to shoot me again, I’ll knock out his teeth.”
She hung up before I could thank her.
“Embarrassing how she crushes on me like that,” Harry said.
I called Phin and left him a quick voicemail.
“Love you!” Harry said before I hung up.
I felt like I’d lost all control, and I hated the feeling.
“I appreciate you paying for this, McGlade.”
“My ass I’m paying. That’s coming out of your fee. It’s not like I have piles of money lying around.”
I pointed to the table, at a pile of money.
“I told Consuela to put that in the safe. It’s impossible to find good help these days.”
“We need to get moving,” I told him. We had Plastic victims to question.
“Hey, I need to tell you what happened.”
He caught me up with the Tom situation, with Cissick paying him and Joan a visit.
“So they’re on his boat?”
“That’s what Roy told me.”
“Won’t Cissick be able to just find it at the harbor? They run a charter business. I’m sure Cissick knows about it.”
“Tom thought of that. He left his slip and is renting a spot at a different marina. Paying cash.”
Seemed reasonable.
“I also had a virtual encounter with Plastic last night.”
I waited for him to continue without any prompts from me. Asking Harry “what happened?” was like squirting gas on a campfire.
“So I’m doing my immensely popular podcast, Private Dick Live And Streaming In Your Face®—”
He said “registered trademark” again.
“—and we’re playing Would I Tap That. That’s a game where my legions of fans ask me about people and things I’d have sex with.”
“Stick to the highlights, Harry.”
“Sure. A sub sandwich, yes, but not if it had spicy peppers. The capsaicin gets in your dickhole. I won’t ever do that again. The Founding Fathers, my first pick would be John Hancock. Mostly because I like saying Hancock. Sounds dirty. A cowboy boot, I’m not into the foot thing, but if it was a good-looking boot and well-oiled—”
I cut him off. “Stick to Plastic.”
“Do you want to hear if I’d tap a boot?”
“Do you want me to kidney punch you until you bleed to death out of your aforementioned dickhole?”
“So Plastic interrupts the ribald exchange of ideas and says he’s in LA, closer than I think, and has something special planned for me. Soon.”
“You sure it was him?”
“It was him. Or her. Or they. Or ze. You think ze will catch on? I’m cool with gender neutral pronouns and the evolving English language, but when you say it and people look at you like you’re crazy I think it hurts communication more than helps. But it was definitely ze.”
“This is the first time he contacted you?”
“Ze. Yeah.”
I frowned. There was a good chance Plastic knew about Harry’s investigation. Especially since McGlade had been crowing about it publicly. But reaching out to Harry was an escalation move.
Escalation with psychos never ended well.
“Are Tom and Roy still interviewing witnesses?”
“As far as I know. You up for it?”
I nodded.
“Can you do this with just one leg brace and a walking stick?”
“Yes.”
“Do you need any meth to help with the pain?”
“No.”
“You need any meth to get king kong krunked?”
“Stop offering me meth, Harry.”
“Sorry. Weed? I work better when I’m blazed shiny.”
“No getting blazed shiny. I want you to stay frosty in case Plastic is around.”
“Too late. I bonged up with my morning pancakes. It’s a sativa high, though. Very alert and self-aware. Want to see me do the Cha Cha Slide?”
“Sure.”
“Really?”
Maybe it would cheer me up. “Go ahead.”
McGlade picked up his phone, played with the screen, and music came up.
He began to line dance.
It didn’t cheer me up.
“How can you not be loving this?” he wheezed, shaking his butt. “If I recorded this it would go viral.”
“And it makes me feel viral. But not in the way you want. Let’s get going.”
“I hear you. Not really furthering the story here. Maybe we can go back and cut it since that last part wasn’t necessary.”
The older he got, the more meta he got. “Let’s try to stay focused.”
“Focused. Got that. I’ll be laser-focused from now on. Do you think I look old?”
“How is that focused?”
“Someone online said my wrinkles were bad.”
“I’ll meet you outside in ten.”
I painfully and unsteadily hobbled back to the bedroom, then managed to dress into one of the cheap outfits I picked up before flying west; black flats, black bootcut yoga pants, grey sweater
snug enough to throw a punch without getting my fist caught on fabric.
I strapped on the one leg brace and accidentally caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
“You’re a long way from your Yves Saint Laurent days.”
My reflection agreed. If Yves had been there, he would have as well.
And if Yves had been there, my outfit would have killed him again.
I leaned in closer, wiped some sleep crud from the corners of my eyes, and wondered about the last time I wore make-up.
Been a while.
So much about me had changed in the past few years.
Did that make me confident? Or lazy?
I used the walking stick and leg brace to hobble Elephant Man-style through Harry’s house to find Sam, who was on the sofa in the great room, sitting next to the capybara, playing the GameMaster 2.
Sam was playing. Not Big Dick. The rodent was gnawing on a large pile of pancakes.
“Are you sure he can eat pancakes?”
“He’s just eating the blueberries.”
“How was your tea party? Did you drink too much?”
“We weren’t really drinking tea, Mommy. We were pretending. Wanna play Zombie Sugar Jackers?”
“I thought that was a cell phone game.”
“It’s on all platforms, Mom. Uncle Harry is the number seven player in the world because he spends fat stacks. Can I spend fat stacks on my cell phone?”
“No. I gotta go do some work with Uncle Harry.”
Sam paused the game and turned to look at me. “Do I need to come?”
“No, honey. You can stay here.”
“Daddy said he’s gonna be gone for a few days and told me to look after you.”
“Harry will look after me. You can look after Waddlebutt and Big Dick.”
“Waddlebutt pooped and it was like a squirt gun. Consuela is cleaning it up. Why don’t we have a maid?”
“Because we don’t make fat stacks.” I kissed her head. “Love you.”
“Love you.”
She went back to jacking sugar zombies, and I made my way to the driveway, where Harry had pulled up his 2019 Corvette 3ZR, which was black and waxed and slightly lower to the ground than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
I was less than graceful trying to get into the deep leather passenger seat.
“What do you think of my new car?”
“I thought you stopped being fiscally irresponsible.”
“I tried that. Wasn’t any fun. Buckle up.”
He peeled out, tires shrieking, and we Tokyo-drifted out of his circular driveway, got up to eighty miles an hour in three seconds, and then had to immediately slow down when we hit LA’s unbearable stop-and-go traffic.
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