by Gina LaManna
“But they’re gonna have to come into this estate first, and that won’t happen,” Nora said with a pout. “Carlos will protect me. He always protects me.”
Carlos looked relatively proud, and again, I didn’t have the heart to burst their happiness bubble. But if Clay could steal money from the Prince of India, the government could trace a measly little fireworks purchase from a credit card that was all over the Internet.
“Nora, could we please have a moment?” Carlos asked his wife. “I need to speak with Lacey about something in private.”
“We shouldn’t keep secrets in this house.” Nora jutted her chin out. “I told you I wanted some illegal fireworks, why can’t you say whatever you’re going to say in front of me?”
Carlos sighed. “It’s business.”
“Well, I’m family.” Nora stuck a hand on her hip.
I stayed as far out of the conversation as I could – physically, mentally, and spiritually.
“I was hoping to make it a surprise,” Carlos said, opening his hands as if asking forgiveness. “I wish you didn’t ask...”
Nora gasped, and her eyes filled with excitement in the fastest emotional switch I’d ever seen. “Ohh, Carlos! You’re buying me the fireworks, aren’t you? You just didn’t want to help me because you wanted it to be a surprise. What a dear.”
I gave a half-smile as Nora bustled over to her husband, wiping her hands on her apron and planting the biggest of smooches on his cheeks. “Thank you, darling. I’m sorry I raised my voice. Lacey, you watch now – this is true love. Take notes.”
I nodded. “You two are the perfect picture of love. Nothing says love more than...illegal Mexican fireworks.”
Nora clasped her hands, taking turns catching Carlos and me in her gaze. “Lacey, I mean it. Get a pen and start taking notes right now. Very quickly. You’re nearing the ripe old age of—”
“I know, I know,” I said. “Please don’t remind me.”
Ugh, thirty. The number loomed before me like a giant, steaming—
“Lacey, darling, you’re not writing anything down.” Nora looked quite concerned. “I mean it. If you don’t find a man, your ovaries will shrivel up like raisins.”
I winced. “That’s gross.”
“Well...” Nora tsked once or twice, but Carlos shot her a gaze that looked kind of like: Get the heck out of here. But really, was probably more along the lines of: Loving wife of mine, please give us a moment of privacy. Carlos was just a bit rough around the edges, even if he meant well.
“Yes, yes, of course. I’ll just go fetch more wine.” Nora gave us a wink. “Have fun, you two.”
“Will do.” I gave a small wave as she walked through the door.
“Lacey—” Carlos started, but didn’t get the chance to finish.
Nora popped her head right back in the door. “I like the whirly twirlies in red, darling,” she said. “Just to be clear. And chandeliers in gold.”
I gave her the thumbs up, a smile frozen on my face until we heard her footsteps clicking down the hall. Way down the hall.
Carlos tilted his head in the direction of the door, seemingly listening for a sign his wife might pop back in the kitchen. When enough time had passed, he cleared his throat.
“You’re not buying her fireworks, are you?” I asked.
“No, quite the opposite.” Carlos took a sip of his limoncello. “I need your help.”
I gave a wry smile. “Great. Just in time for the Fourth of July barbecue.”
“Perfect,” Carlos said, missing any hint of underlying sarcasm in my voice. “Because this one is a challenging task.”
“Oh, great.”
“I believe you can complete it, however, with a bit of help and guidance.”
“Guidance from who?” I asked. Carlos had never directly asked me to work with anyone before. Sure, he’d assigned people (Anthony) to babysit me, and he’d used me to get at Clay during the period of time when the two weren’t speaking. Aside from those instances, I’d been left to fend for myself out in the wild.
“Anthony will be working with you on this case. Directly,” Carlos said. “And that is an order.”
I narrowed my eyes. “He’s not babysitting me again, is he? If so, I’m not doing it. I don’t need the money that bad.”
“Yes, you do need the money that badly,” Carlos said.
“True. But I won’t be happy about it if he’s around just to micromanage.”
“Has Anthony ever micromanaged you?”
I wiggled a bit in my chair. “No.”
“Have you ever not enjoyed working with Anthony?”
Was this a loaded question? I paused. Sometimes Anthony annoyed me, yes. Sometimes he teased me ‘til I wanted to punch him in the face or take him to bed – one or the other. Sometimes he protected me when I didn’t need protecting at all. But if I was being truly honest with myself and Carlos, then no, I didn’t mind working with him. Anthony was a professional; he was skilled and capable at oh-so-many things. Some things I knew about, and others, well – the other things I’d only dreamt about.
“I take that as a no,” Carlos said, with a knowing glance at my silence.
“He’s, uh, professional. And good – er, at his job.” I blushed a bit, but thankfully Carlos was too distracted pouring himself a refill of the bright yellow liquid to notice. I suddenly wanted a glass of limoncello. However, one hadn’t been offered and, quite frankly, I didn’t dare ask.
“Wonderful. Then you will receive more detailed instructions from Anthony,” Carlos said.
“Is that it?” I glanced around. “Would you like me to go now?”
“Sit,” Carlos said. “I’m not finished. I’ll give you a quick overview of the case.”
“May I?” I scrounged up the courage to gesture to the bottle of limoncello sitting on the table.
“No,” Carlos said. “I make this liqueur from scratch. When you get married, I will make you and your husband a bottle.”
“What if I don’t want to get married right away?” I asked. “I’m still young.”
“You’re how old?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I grumbled. “Why do you care so much about when I get married, anyway?”
“I don’t much care,” Carlos said. “However, Nora does. And my happiness depends directly on hers.”
I gave an understanding nod. “Ah.”
“So. I must speak with you now about fireworks.” Carlos said, steepling his fingers in front of his lips.
“You are buying her illegal fireworks,” I said. “Aha! That actually is pretty cute.”
“No.” Carlos shook his head. “The case is regarding illegal fireworks.”
“What?” My mouth hung open a bit. “Was that what all this was about with Nora? Does she know anything about it?”
“Absolutely not,” Carlos said. “And she won’t find out about it, do you hear me?”
I nodded. “What about fireworks, then?”
“There is an infusion of them in the Cities,” Carlos said. “Shipments are arriving by the masses. I need you to find out who is bringing them here and where they are being kept.”
“Oh, uh. All right then.” I paused, waiting to see if there was more explanation.
“This needs to happen before the barbecue,” Carlos said. “It is of the utmost importance and safety to our Family.”
I leaned an elbow on the table. “I have a question.”
“Good for you.” Carlos stared deadpanned at me.
I ignored his – was that even a real attempt at humor? “Why? Why do you care about fireworks?”
Carlos gave the subtlest nod, and I took it to mean his approval. “That is a good question to be asking. Why do you think?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “No offense, but I don’t quite see why the most powerful man in the Cities would care, let alone bother dealing with the issue. It’s not the breaking of the law that bothers you, clearly.” I clasped a hand over my mouth, but Carlos didn’
t seem fazed at my slip of the tongue. “It also doesn’t seem like it’s enough money to get you involved. Usually you don’t step in until the million dollar price tag hits.”
“Good.” Carlos sipped his drink and gave no signs he’d take over the reins of the conversation.
“So, it has to be a different reason. A personal reason, or a threat to the Family,” I concluded.
“Very good,” Carlos said. “It is the latter. I have a trusted source who has informed me that the influx of fireworks is not, as one might think, a simple childish prank or just someone looking to sell illegal fireworks at a markup and turn a quick profit. If that were the case, I would not be involved.”
I mentally patted myself on the back. Maybe I was getting better at this investigating business after all.
“What concerns me is my informant’s claims that the fireworks are being used for the materials with which they’re built. Broken down and reassembled correctly, a person with the right know-how could disassemble these fireworks and create a bomb that could level the Twin Cities area.”
“Do you think it’s the Russians?” I asked.
“No, not necessarily,” Carlos said. “I don’t have much information to go on this time, which is why you’ll be teaming up with Anthony. You have two days to get me the information, or one of Minneapolis’ fireworks displays will most likely be turning out horribly wrong.”
I gulped. “That’s a lot of pressure.”
“Yes, which is also why Anthony is involved.”
“Because you don’t trust me to figure it out on my own in time?” My relief at having Anthony involved outweighed my peevishness at Carlos’s distrust, but he didn’t need to know that. When dealing with the Family, I had to put up a tough outer face – even if we both knew it was a lie.
Carlos didn’t justify my outburst with a response.
Rightly so, Lacey, I told myself. The lives of innocent people were in my hands, and I needed all the help I could get. I stood up, sliding my phone out of my pocket. I needed to get Clay and Meg on this ASAP. The more the merrier when it came to mob work.
“Lacey, one last thing,” Carlos said.
“Yes?” I looked up from my phone, where I’d already pulled up The Google’s hangout app.
“I also need you to find a bottle of Dave’s Special Grilling Sauce for the barbecue.” Carlos’s face looked serious, despite the seemingly easy request.
I wrinkled my nose. “Uh, um, okay. Which is higher priority – the fireworks or the sauce?”
“I trust you’ll find both,” Carlos said, leaving no room for negotiation.
“Great,” I said. “Awesome. Do you have any information on where I can get this special sauce?”
“No.”
“Perfect.” I smiled. “Anything else?”
Carlos paused, and I took a few steps towards the door. Maybe if I could just sneak out before he had a chance to respond...
“Get married, please. Nora needs a wedding to plan. She’s been chatting my ear off, and it’s only getting worse.”
I smiled at my grandfather. “I’ll definitely consider it. After all, my grandmother’s boredom is an excellent reason to get married.”
Chapter 2
MY CAR PUTTERED UP to the curb outside of a rather droopy building. It was the building I called home. After a recent experiment entitled Becoming an Adult, a brief period of time when I’d attempted to live by myself, I realized that living with Clay in the middle of a neighborhood frequented by muggings and carjackings wasn’t so bad. There was something to be said for having someone to chat with during the late night hours when loneliness set in.
Clay wasn’t always the best company, though. My favorite cousin could bounce money around the world in seconds, but for some reason, he took more pleasure in turning our tea kettle into an alarm system or wiring my sparkly dresses into bombs. That sort of thing got old after a while, and was typically quite dangerous. I had to admit though, that since Clay paid more than half the rent, I could deal with these experiments. In fact, I’d learned to consider his extra portion of rent as hazard pay; he set alarms and set up our phones to yodel instead of ring, while I scrimped by paying between twenty and forty percent of the rent check and keeping a few leftover bucks for my sugar bomb coffees. It all evened out.
I parked just behind the green curb in my favorite spot. My shabby little Lumina was a great choice of car for the neighborhood. I couldn’t pay someone to steal it. Plus, it held the coveted parking spot behind Clay’s creep van, and nobody in their right mind would step near that thing. The irony was, that van could fly to the moon and jump over other cars – almost. Oddly enough, it didn’t have heat. Clay was sometimes too smart for his own good. Still, I’d bet members of the CIA were jealous of the van’s capabilities, and it had helped us out on assignments more than once.
Jumping from my car, I realized the green paint that Clay had swiped over the curb in order to confuse people into not parking there had started to chip. We couldn’t have that happen. I added that to my list of notes to speak with Clay about, right behind getting revenge on an Indian Prince and setting up parental blocks on Nora’s Internet.
While the paint on the curb was faded like crazy, the artwork on my front steps refused to peel off. The offensive word had grown on me a bit recently; somehow it had nestled cozily into a fond little spot in my heart. I was probably just happy to be living back at home with Clay and the word represented familiarity. I wondered once in a while if it’d be nice to have a front staircase that didn’t swear foul four-letter words at people. Then again, it did kind of child proof the place, and it made for a great reason not to bring the evil twins over here. I used the word twins lightly – Marissa and Clarissa were related only through their father, my Uncle Nicky. Despite being only a week apart, they had different mothers.
Taking the steps two at a time, I was proud that when I reached the top, my level of windedness was only moderately high; which was still in “asthmatic grandpa” territory, but still. I popped open the door, surprised to hear two male voices, one of which I didn’t recognize.
“Clay?” I called. “Are you here?”
“In the living room,” my cousin replied.
I exhaled a sigh of relief. I’d been slowly getting used to random people lying in wait in my apartment building – Meg and Anthony in particular had habits of “letting themselves in,” key or not. I grabbed a juice box from the fridge and purposely didn’t check the expiration date. I hadn’t bought Capri Suns recently, and Clay never grocery shopped. Still, I was willing to take my chances. Who knew? Maybe we had a friendly fridge ghost that restocked my sugary supplies.
Heading into the living room, I realized the chatter of the other voice sounded like a real human being; I’d assumed that Clay had turned the television on or was watching cat videos on the Internet. Historically, Clay wasn’t big on hosting friends.
“Tupac?” I called before leaving the kitchen. “Tupac the Cat, where are you?”
Normally our fuzzy, fat cat growled at me when I came in, mistaking himself for a dog. The silly guy hated to cuddle and was an absolute grump, but we still fed him. I think by that point, Clay, Tupac, and I all had a mutual understanding that we each needed our space – especially the fuzz ball. And no, I didn’t mean Clay.
I strolled into the living room, struggling to poke the straw into my juice pouch. I looked up at my cousin. “Have you seen Tupac?”
Clay smiled, and so did the man standing next to him.
“Oh, hey,” I said, sticking out my non-juice-boxed hand for a shake. “I’m Lacey.”
“I’m Horatio,” the man said, squeezing my hand in a squishy, very fleshy palm. He smiled, looking nothing like a “Horatio.” His skin color matched that of my butt during the coldest winter months. He stroked a beard that was a sad attempt at an “evil genius“ style goatee when, really, the beard’s only success was making me gag a bit in the back of my throat.
“Horatio, huh
?” I asked. “Nice.”
“Technically, it’s Henry,” he said. “But I go by Horatio.”
“Logical,” I said with a bit of sarcasm. I noted the beach-ball-sized stomach attached to his figure, the wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and the bright red track pants that showed enough booty crack to make Horatio – Henry – whoever he was, an exceptional plumber. “Whatcha got there?”
Horatio turned to follow my nod. Behind him stood a contraption that looked like a cross between Nazi torture equipment and a machine that could be found at the gym. When I thought about it, they were really almost the same thing.
“Oh, this?” Horatio asked. “It’s something Clay and I invented.”
“Mmm. What does it do?” I walked closer towards a seat that looked like a dentist’s chair. Except, where the light would normally hang over the patient’s throat, there was a huge computer screen. Using a variety of lifts, pulleys, and strange metal rods, Clay and friend had somehow managed to attach a keyboard below the screen.
“It’s a laying desk,” Horatio said. “Genius, right?”
“What is it used for?” I asked.
“Uh, it’s in the name,” Clay said. “A desk you can work at from a laying position.”
“What’s wrong with a sitting desk?” I asked.
“It’s in protest to the treadmill desk,” Horatio said. “We figured that since there’s a weird health nut crowd that wants to walk and work at the same time, there’s probably a much bigger American crowd—”
“Literally bigger,” Clay said, and fist-bumped his friend.
Horatio grinned, returned the fist-bump, and then continued. “There’s a much larger crowd that prefers to be lazy. So, there you have it!”
“You made a desk that will make someone even unhealthier than they’d be if they just sat at a desk all day. Brilliant.” I flattened my lips in a straight line. “Really excellent. Exactly what America needs.”
Clay beamed. “I thought so, too.”
“That was sarcasm,” I said.
“Try it out,” Horatio said. “You’ll like it.”