About Artistic Decline (Added Content)

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Artistic Decline: A Novel

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Chapter 1: The Angel and the Caveman       

            Ben Billings pulled back the Sunday Dallas Morning News with a snap. He was seated at the breakfast table with a perfect line of sight to the front door. A quick look at the Rolex adorning his tanned wrist offered added ammunition. Scattering inky pages to the floor, he stood with bluster and leaned forward. “You have some nerve, woman. Maybe just move in with the guy!”

            “What time is it?” she asked, sliding down the thick mahogany door as it thumped shut. Her enormous handbag was close enough for enlistment into pillow service. She buried her sunglass-covered face in the cavernous opening, dreaming of a way to burrow out a little corner space inside. It’s like a small city in here, she thought.

            He was in the foyer now. “That’s all you have to say? It’s as if you don’t even care about my feelings. Don’t do this to me, Tabby.”

            “Are you done?” she mumbled, rolling off the purse and onto the carpet, flat, limbs sprawled out.

            “Ah,” he crooned, imperiously claiming a piece of the room in which to pose. “You’re like a person that makes a snow angel. Wouldn’t that be something, if you were the sort of person with a heart that made snow angels?”

            She answered with a middle finger from one of her wings. “Had enough fun, Benji? Am I in a Tennessee Williams play? Are you wearing shorts? Hairy legs. Sooo frigging hairy.”

            Ben was looming, arms akimbo. She held out her other wing for him to help her up, but he remained in place. “Take it back.”

            “The thing about your legs? Can’t. It’s like living with a caveman. The caveman. The super hairy one that scares all the other cavemen away.” After a pause and a short but grating fit of coughing, she continued. “Because of all the hair.”

            Her critique sent a psychosomatic urge through the air to scratch his itchy shins, but he fought the sensation, finally grabbing her outstretched hand. As he pulled her slender body vertical, her forehead came to rest on his shoulder. “Be gentle, Benji Bear.”

            “Benji Bear,” he whispered into her tousled blonde hair. “That’s insulting. Several levels insulting. Me and dogs everywhere, shocked and aghast.”

            “I’m sorry,” she said, drooling down his favorite fall brunch shirt, tight enough to make show of his muscles and loose enough to hide certain parts he’d recently left untended.  

            “Long one, huh?” he asked, thinking mostly about changing shirts. “Did you have to, you know?”

            “It was a job. You don’t get to ask about the nuts and bolts.”

            “Nuts and bolts? Seriously, Tabitha. You’re giving Benji Bear an upset stomach with these reckless descriptors. He may have to vomit.”

            “Speaking of that,” she said, slinging the capacious handbag over her shoulder, leaving half the contents strewn on the floor. “I’ve got good news.”

            He watched her struggle up the stairs in the previous night’s heels with a hand cupped over her mouth. “Vomit is good news?” he asked. “Suppose. Right circumstances...”    

            She stopped at the landing, gathering just enough of herself. “Golf club.”

            “I know. We’re going to be late.” He tapped the crystal face of his watch twice for added impact. “Their brunch is good enough to make me say brunch minus my customary ironic contempt.”

            Tabitha tried to expand on her statement, but the feeling of impending sickness drove her to the half-bath near the top of the stairs.

            Ben looked again at his shirt and hummed a song to drown out the sound of the retching. It sounded violent enough to initiate a bubble of concern in his soul parts. He brushed it aside. “Can’t get too caught up in your role, Tabby,” he whispered, strolling back to kitchen for another cup of coffee. By the sound of things, it was going to be a bit. “Can’t get too caught up,” he repeated, trying to remember who bequeathed to him that particular nugget of repackaged greeting card wisdom.

            Picking up the sports page to dive into the latest travails of the Cowboys, he felt vibrating in his shorts from an incoming call. Reading the screen, he let out a tension-filled breath and straightened his posture. “Hey, darling,” he whispered, looking up at the ceiling. “One second,” he said, pulling his head away from the phone to listen for Tabby. Good. Still puking. “What’s going on, Senna?” Ben asked, walking hurriedly to the kitchen backdoor.

            “Baby. I want you to come over so bad. The thought of you turns me on.”

            Stepping out into the cool fall air, Ben went a little weak in his hairy knees. Senna Lassiter was in her mid-twenties and hot as hell. She was from some of the oldest money in Texas, finishing up her law degree at SMU just a few miles down the road. That way she’d have a CV good enough to justify decent placement in her family’s corporation without too many cries of nepotism from the rank and file. Serving a year as a corporate functionary would just about do “the trick.” She’d meet a smart man from their business or one of an equal caliber. The smart man would be attractive and dutiful. “One who walks the path.” The smart man would work out in the mornings and have tepid sex with her once a month after the first year of marriage. She’d of course jettison her job as the kids came. Probably a boy and girl, with stupid names like Bristol or Bree or Birch or whatever bullshit was in fashion. This was the pre-determined story of her life, plotted in the time before time. She recited it almost line for line each time they met to “hang out.” Benjamin found her soliloquies tedious and self-indulgent, but there was something in the fact that the girl was smart enough to know the life-traps and smart enough to know she was too cowardly to avoid them. More than anything, she was hot. A standout even in and amongst the upper-crust of Dallas, notorious for people respectful of the Bible but far more deferential to their own appearance. Ben met Senna at a little concert in a pretentious bar with an oppressively low ceiling in Greenville, a section of town for rich kids in their twenties and forty-five-year-old sad sacks with long graying beards and vintage t-shirts of bands that were never cool and never, ever will be.

            “Sweetheart, I think I’m going to be a little tied up today. Really close to finishing the modifications to my boat. You know how transoms can be.”

            “My big strong adventurer. Does that mean the funding came in?”

            “Adventurer,” he answered, applying just enough self-deprecation to sound charming to the landlocked future lawyer. “The funding. Still trying to tie that last bit down.”

            “You think it’d be easier.”

            “Yeah,” he said, plopping down in a squishy deck chair, already tired of the ruse. The night they met he could tell by her jewelry and her clothes that she came from money. This appraisal prompted him into a story about sailing solo around the world to raise cash and awareness for some disease or another. Win her heart. Win some shekels from her trust fund.

            And maybe a few other things. Nothing that would leave a lasting impression.

            “People just don’t care about Leishmaniasis like they used to.”

            “I thought it was Crohn’s,” said young Senna.

            “Of course it’s Crohn’s,” he said, eyes wide and palm tapping his head. “That was a test. You passed. Such a great listener.”

            “So are—”

            “Hey, they’re telling me I’ve got to go. Something about a gaff or a bilge. Talk later, babe. Be ready for anything.”

            Ben ended the call during a goodbye that would’ve tried his calm and deleted it from the phone’s history. No need, probably. Just a reflex.

            “This damn thing sticks.” Tabby’s voice was muffled as she tried to push the backdoor open.

            “Give it a good shoulder!”

            She finally plunged out onto the patio of their smallish backyard. “Can’t you fix that?”

            He fired off a glare menacing enough not to be taken seriously. “Looking better already,” he said. She really did. It was almost disappointing, given his ever-present desire to take her down a peg. Tabitha Johns was nothing if not resilient. Most attractive women her age would’ve surrendered themselves over to two or three marriages or two or three plastic surgeries. Not her. She still had her dreams and wanted to enter into them unshorn. For a few more years, at least.

            “Thank you, Ben.”

            “Got all the puke out? How about down below? You make sure to go potty too?”

            “Yeah. And now I don’t have to purge on purpose.” Tabby smiled and pulled out a pair of jet-black oversized sunglasses from her purse.

            Ben smiled too, looking up at the sky. Complete cloud cover. “A capital start to the day. Every time I think you’ve finally done yourself in, you shine back up like a new penny.”

            “As always, too kind,” she added, throwing out a playful hand his way. “I’m sure I’ve told you. Sooo kind.”

            “Really. You’re like an easy to clean ashtray.”

            “That last one I’ll let go because I’m in a good mood.”

            “Brunch?” Ben asked.

            “No. I mean yes. But no. What I was saying earlier. The good news. I think we found the big one.”

            “That guy from last night? You’ve been working on him for weeks. Weirdo. And he’s got a few million liquid at best.”

            “Not him. Someone he’s working with. Or for. Something like that.”

            “You got a name?”

            “Dina Santorelli.”

            Ben took a sip of coffee, trying not to react. “The Dina Santorelli.”

            “Yes, Benji. The one you’re thinking of.”

            “She’s like in the top fifty richest people in the world.”

            “Number thirty, as of this month. And getting richer all the time.”

            “It’s too dangerous, TJ. Even if this mope you’ve been stringing along has the premium information, the profile is huge. We’d be targets the rest of our lives.”

            Tabitha looked at Ben as he sank into his lumpy seat. He was tapping the cell phone through the fabric of his shorts. “You talk to the college girl today?”

            “No. Maybe.”

            “You old sailor you.”

            “At least my play is realistic.”

            Tabby leaned forward and began speaking with her fists clenched up by her chin. “Yes, it could be dangerous. But our walkaway money isn’t going to come from some Lupus scam.”

            “Leishmaniasis. Or Crohn’s. That’s… it doesn’t matter.”

            “God. Listening to you right there made me sad. Think about it. You write up the playbook. We put on an epic performance. We’ll be in the Mediterranean in a few months, living the real life. In real life.”

            She was putting on a good show, and her nothing ventured nothing gained point had merit. Still. “Pulling a job on someone like this—we could die.”

            “What are we doing here?” she said, looking around at the dormant grass and the untended bushes.

            “Dying slowly.”

            “See? Your wit is coming back already.”

            Ben Billings was no stranger to moments like this. Someone coming at him with the full-court press, explaining how things were going to be better from now on. Dreams. Glory.

            “What are you thinking?” she asked, watching him puzzle through.

            “I’m thinking about step one. What is it?”

            “The golf club.”

            “Brunch?” he asked.

            “No. The golf—just put on some pants. We’ll talk in the car.”

            “Did you use Listerine? Because that was some serious yacking.”

            “Get those legs moving, simian.”

Chapter 2: Make Like Kang

            The ride to Evan Henk’s house was brief. Tabby Johns had a heavy foot, and they basically lived in the same neighborhood. Highland Park. One of richest zip codes in the country. Planting a flag in affluent habitats was usually a sound methodology for making inroads to even bigger money; Ben had found an older woman who spent most of her time living overseas, offering to take care of the house they were currently living in. It needed a lot of work and it was surprisingly cramped, though the location alone lent the property a value around four million. And they lived on the outskirts.

            Evan Henk’s place was palatial and immaculate, smack in the middle of the community, next door to asshole investment bankers and dodgy corporate lawyers at the top of their dirty games. “I don’t like this street,” Ben said, buttoning his sport coat as he stepped out of the car. “If Hitler wanted to live somewhere near downtown Dallas, he’d pick this exact spot.” Billings scanned the perfectly trimmed hedges and unnaturally perfect dispersion of colorful flora, fighting a nasty taste in his mouth.

            “Are we having a Hitler day? I think you skipped Mao day. Did I forget Pol Pot week? I’m such a dummy. Women. We’re the worst dumbest ever.”

“Okay, I get it.”

“No, I think it’s great how you regularly include despots in our repartee.” She rolled down the passenger side window and looked around her partner. “Seems dictatorial and inclusive at the same time. I just love it.”

            “Mock away.”

            “You’re either jealous or just an ass,” Tabitha said, checking her makeup before opening the door. “Oh yeah. Both. Sorry. Slipped my mind.”

            As they walked up the snakelike redbrick path, Ben shrugged in a particularly pouty way.

            “Don’t do the hurt child.”

            “What? Some of the stuff you say, it can get pretty nasty. Times I even think you mean it.”

            “I do mean it. You’re a criminal and extremely judgmental. How does that even work?”

            “You’ve lost me.”

            “That’s for damn sure,” Tabitha said, ringing the doorbell while waving at the camera angled down at them with overactive shoulders and a warm smile.

            A buzzing sound went off and the heavy door opened slow and steady. No greeter to be seen. “Yeah,” Ben muttered, “that’s not creepy at all.”

            “Come on in,” said a squelched voice from an intercom underneath the camera. “I’m toward the back of the house. Just go by the den and the library and make a right at the sitting room. Oh, and a left at the parlor.”

            Tabby slipped her arm through Ben’s as they stepped inside. Everything was polished and shiny, from the ceramic floors to the chandeliers. The taste was eclectic. It was the house of a man who’d taken decorating advice from at least four girlfriends from different countries. The entrance had a bright flair. The remnants of hooking up with a Latina. The dining room was functional and minimalistic, most likely on the advice from someone tall named Ingrid. The artwork was impressionistic. There was a real Manet in a place it didn’t belong and a fake Monet displayed under decent light. Either a French chick or a chick that wished she was. There was strange, plucky music coming from somewhere. It sounded Chinese to Ben.

            These were a few of the things he pondered as they made their way through Evan Henk’s mansion. “A parlor, a library and a sitting room,” Ben whispered, still scanning every inch of the cross-cultural hodgepodge. “Guy thinks he’s in BBC series, but lacks the class to pull it off.”

            The music got louder as they neared the back. Tabby raised her perfect light-brown eyebrows at the massive heated pool in the backyard before coming to a fretful stop. “Wait a second. Is that the score?”

            “What score?”

            Before the words could dissolve, he knew what she was talking about. His carefully-tanned face went white as a sheet. “Oh my God. This isn’t going to work. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

            “We can’t just go.”

            “He’s watching it. And the sound is like, on!”

            “Hey, you two!” said Evan Henk, bursting through a set of double doors in a brilliantly white karate gi. He bowed to Ben and gave a Tabitha a quick kiss on the cheek. His smile was full of commitment and as bright as the stupid outfit adorning his short, stocky body.

            “Are you watching Dynasty of Danger in there?” Ben asked hesitantly, looking over Evan Henk’s brown bald head toward the source of the sound. “In a karate outfit? That’s. Interesting.”

            “I’m not watching it,” Henk said, playfully stopping a punch short of Billings’ midsection. “I mean, I’ve seen it. Way in the way back of the day. Hahahmm.” His laugh was singularly strange. The first part was of it was fake. The second part sounded like he was moaning from some secret satisfaction. “The Kang and I were training in the media room and had it going in the background. Wow. What an astonishing piece of crap. Hahahmm.”

            Evan Henk was referring to the film that had served to sink the once burgeoning careers of Benjamin Billings and Tabitha Shaw. With the hottest writer and director in Hollywood, a massive budget, and two quickly beautiful and talented leads on their way to the top, what could possibly go wrong?

            Turns out, quite a bit.

            Riding the success of their previous projects, the vaunted writer/director duo spent most of preproduction, production, and postproduction drunk and high. The script included a treasure hunt in Manchuria, an incessantly helpful monkey, and a blind Buddhist guide. The studio’s blank check only worsened the stacking problems, adding fuel to a conflagration of epic proportions. The rough cut was racially and artistically offensive in every way possible. The final edits made it even worse. The distributor sent it straight to video and wrote off the loss, only releasing it in Canada. The few copies that got out mostly ended up in Alberta truck stop bins, purchased by the occasional drunk mistaking it for an adult film of one sort or another.

            After Dynasty, Ben and Tabby’s careers in showbiz well and truly dried up. Her agent ran for the hills. She lost her record deal within a year. Ben’s father, who was also his agent, died six months after the movie flopped, mostly from guilt over his son’s botched prospects. The song publishing deal he was signed to was bought out and three other scripts in development were shown the scrap heap like so many others.

            And so they stuck together, two dejected casualties of the Hollywood thresher. They found some solace on the stage. Off Broadway, in the way that Neptune is Off Earth. After a few years and a few more crushed hopes, they chucked it when a new character entered their lives. Someone who taught them other ways of converting talent to money.

            “So, for inspiration or something?” Tabby asked, pointing at the screen.  

            Dynasty did have some fight scenes.

            “Inspiration, hahahmm?”

            “Oh,” she said, put off by the way Evan Henk could ask a question and do his stunted laugh thing at the same time. “I was wondering why you had the film playing.”

            “Not for inspiration, my dear. I only wanted to study up on my new partners during the workout. Two birds. Hahahmm. Two birds. That’s funny.”

            “New partners?” Ben asked, looking sternly at Tabitha.

            “She didn’t tell you much, did she?” asked Evan Henk, dabbing his right eye with the lapel of his gi while daintily poking Ben in the chest.

            “We really didn’t have much time, Evan. Mostly, Benjamin has been complaining about brunch.”

            “I’m starving,” Ben said, trying to forget about the poking.

            “We’ll be off to the club in a few shakes. First, let’s go back. I don’t want to sweat on this rug. It’s precious to me.”

            As they followed their squatty host into his media room, they saw their own youthful faces on the backside screen, bigger than life.

            Ben put on his sunglasses and closed his eyes. 

            Tabby looked down at the floor.

            In the middle of the room stood a stiff-faced Japanese man standing on a large training mat. “This is Kang,” said Evan Henk.

            “Hello,” Kang grunted, bowing in an inhumanly fast manner. “You two. Movie. Interesting.” Ben almost opened his eyes out of sheer wonderment. Kang spoke perfect English. Breaking his thoughts into little staccato bursts was a bit. A transparent, strangely self-degrading bit.  

            “That’s enough, Kang. Training session’s over today. Pack it up.”

            Another bow and the sensei was moving like divine wind. His shit was packed and he was out the back door with the quietude of an expert in B&E.

            “He’s quick,” Tabby said, truly impressed, tamping down the urge to use the word ninja.  

            “Oh yeah, hahahmm. Quigley is a force of nature. He also has other skills.” Henk was standing in the spot just occupied by Kang, holding the remote up to his deeply dimpled chin.

            “Wait a minute,” Ben interjected, squinting as he pulled down his aviators. His posture was indicative of a man longing for death. “Kang’s first name is Quigley? And can you turn off the damn movie?”

            “Boy, Tabitha. He’s surlier than you let on. Handsome enough. But just a real firebrand.”

            “I think we’re done here.” Billings tapped Tabby on the arm and did a motion to make like Kang.

            “You’ve been done a long time, cowboy,” said Henk, hitting the pause button. The image of a monkey sitting on Billings’ shoulders as Ben rode an elephant was frozen in the background behind their host. “A long time.”

            “All right, Evan. Is this you trying to get me riled up? Not going to work, pal. I’m a professional.”

            Tabby put a hand over her eyes. It was hard to hear a grown man talk about professionalism with a scene like that paused on the screen.

            “Tell me, Benjamin. Did you do many of the stunts for this film? Any stunts at all?”

            “What’s the difference?”

            “Just looked like you might have some training. Think you can take me?”

            “I don’t know much, Henk, but I know I don’t want to take you anywhere.”

            “Afraid there’s no choice, my boy. I want to fight the hero of Dynasty of Danger. It’s been a burning desire of mine since I saw it for thirty cents on hotel pay-per-view in the late 90s. Hahahmm.”

            “We’re gonna go, thinking. Have fun playing with yourself, Cobra Kai.”

            “Shame. The payment will have to come from our lovely Tabby. Maybe a toe. Perhaps a whole foot. What do you think, hun?”

            Billings sank into himself, fully apprehending the quick turn into seriousness. Tabitha must’ve tried some sort of short con on Henk and gotten caught. This was a penance call. The compulsory kind. That said, he couldn’t appear to acquiesce. He needed more information. A look at Tabby’s frightened face told him just about what he needed to know, but the boundaries needed another shove. This wasn’t their first tight spot. There was a process.

            “Sorry, Benji.” Tabitha was clutching her purse like it was a stuffed animal that could protect her from life’s evils. If he hadn’t been furious, Ben might’ve found it endearing.

            “You’re not talking to me. The time to talk would’ve been an hour ago.”

            “Enough,” said Evan Henk, snapping his fingers above his head. Two large men in lose suits and half-turtlenecks filled up the doorway to the media room. They looked exactly like men a guy like Henk would hire. Desperate and on enough steroids to pretty much roll with anything. Ben had seen them on shitty security details during his career; the types that always asked if there was any “stunt work” available.

            Eh.

            Ben stepped inches away from Henk’s bare feet and pointed at his eye, trying to explain without words that their host’s condition was rearing its head. “You want to fight, that’s fine. But afterward, we’re gone. Whatever Tabitha took, price of—”

            The next thing to come out of Billings’ mouth was a hideous moan. Evan Henk delivered a straight, stiff punch to his gut, causing him to double over. Ben found himself with an arm wrapped around his pitched-over neck. The pressure was unbearable.

            As he flailed his arms in a pathetic attempt to wrest himself free, the world began to fog over. He could hear Tabby faintly in the background, apologizing for getting him into this.

            “I—hate—you—Tabitha,” he managed, now on the precipice of Charon and the River Styx. He’d played Charon in a tonally schizophrenic musical comedy about the underworld of Greek mythology. His last two acts in life: expressing exasperated contempt for Tabby and thinking about another project that he never should’ve been involved in. Seemed just about right.

            “He’ll do it, Evan,” Tabby cried, beating on the two bodyguards with balled fists. “If you kill him, I won’t give it back. You hear me! If Ben dies, you can go ahead and kill me!”

            Henk kept Ben’s neck cinched in the crook of his arm and looked over at Tabby. He wore the face of a man making a decision of ultimate unimportance. The kind of mug a person pulls while looking at a drive-thru menu.

            “Good good,” he chirped, releasing Ben and allowing him to collapse to the floor. The short man grabbed the remote and turned off the television before helping Billings to his feet. “You’ll get your breath. It may hurt to talk for a few days, but you’ll be fine.”

            “Thanks for the concern,” Ben whispered in the grating tones of a throat cancer patient.

            “I wanted you both to understand that I’m not to be trifled with. And that you are now firmly in my debt.”

            “Here,” Tabby said, pulling a simple gold necklace with a single small diamond from her purse. “I don’t know what all the fuss is about. It’s probably not even worth that much.”

            Evan put an arm on Ben’s shoulder and gave it a few pats, as if that would help restore his breathing to normal. “She’s quite something, your Tabitha.”

            “She’s not mine.”

            “She says the same about you. Funny arrangement you two have.”

            “Yeah. Frigging hilarious,” Ben offered, rubbing his neck while walking over to his partner. He didn’t like how close the two bodyguards were hovering over her. Billings took the necklace and tossed it at Henk. “There you go. Something sentimental?” Ben asked, nodding at the jewelry now dangling in its owners hand.

            “I told her this belonged to my departed mother,” Henk said, letting the piece swing in the fashion of a hypnotist. “And with no compunction, she took it. The fake she made wasn’t the caliber that could fool.”

            “He showed it to me at a party last week. He leaves it out. I made the copy and swapped them out yesterday. Apparently it didn’t go unnoticed.”

            Ben spent a moment giving her a caustic look, but no more. “Tell us what we’re really doing here.”
            “It’s not enough to want recompense for my lost possessions?”

            “That necklace wasn’t your mother’s,” Tabby said. “The second you showed it to me, I knew that story was a lie.”

            “Is that so?”

            “It’s so. And I figured if you were a liar, I might as well take the stupid little thing.”

            “Wow. Hahahmm—amazing the way your mind works. Is there a hint a logic in your line, my dear?”

            “She thought you were a joke,” Ben brayed, wanting more than anything to scrape their way to the bottom of the matter. “And I don’t blame her.”

            “I need smart people. That’s what I told Tabitha. Smart people don’t steal from each other on the verge of a job.”

            “Honor,” Ben whispered. “Thieves…”

            “Hahahmm. Let’s be off to the club. Once you two get it for me, they’ll be no hard feelings. We can go forward as partners.”

            The giant bodyguards made a little space for them to squeeze through as Ben asked, “Get what for him?”

            “The club.”

            “I don’t know what that means. That’s where we’re going.”

            “No, Benji. That silly old pitching wedge that sits in the middle of the trophy case. The one in the main hall. He wants us to steal it.”

            “It’s the middle of the frigging day. That thing is surrounded by rich bastards. It’s like Excalibur for the unimaginative.”

            Henk was following close behind as they weaved their way back to the foyer through the aesthetic dissonance. “That’s not my problem. You’ve got two hours to get me that wedge—if not, Karl and Ken will find a nice housing development to bury you under. They’re experts with a backhoe.”

            Tabitha came close to slipping as her heel caught in the grout between two Spanish tiles. Ben hooked her arm and the pair walked carefully to the car. “We’ll meet you there,” Billings said, stretching his throbbing neck and opening the door for Tabitha.

            “Tell them to seat you at my regular table. I just need to change.”

            “Really?” Ben croaked, waving with all the ostentation he could summon. “Not gonna roll up like Karate Kid?”

Chapter 3: Club

            “I hate hanging around these people,” Billings said. They were seated at a corner table. An overproduction of flowers was impinging their place settings. The room was large with a white ornamental ceiling that was impractically and imposingly high. It did something to the acoustics; seemed as though Ben and Tabitha were privy to pieces of every conversation in the room.

            “You hang around these people for a living,” Tabby said, taking in the menu.

            “Thus the hatred. Joint smells like inbreeding and over-perfumed matriarchs.”

            “But you love the brunch.”

            “And now that’s even ruined,” he said, angrier than he intended. Tabby shutting down was the signal of his transgression. “I’m sorry, Tabs.”

            “Then just accept that I was baiting him,” she whispered into his ear. “And it worked.”    

            Billings turned from the pictures he was examining on his cell phone, snapped surreptitiously while taking a few lazy laps in the trophy room. “This thing looks old as shit. I don’t know how you’re gonna find a copy. Should’ve stopped at an antique store or something.”

            “I’ve got my tools. And I’m sure we’ll make do. There’s bound to be a million wedges laying around this place. Just make sure you’ve got your end.”

            “Yeah,” Ben said, returning to the images. “And he was baiting you.”

            Tabby smacked the end of the linen covered table with the end of her fingers. It was the strongest form of protest she could apply in the stuffy environment without drawing onlookers. The argument had gone back and forth and no progress had been made. The theft of the necklace was simply a test, according to Tabitha. A way to discern the skill level and criminal aptitude of Evan Henk, once she’d sniffed him out as a thief. According to Ben, she had sniffed nothing and had simply got caught stealing by someone she never suspected of being anything other than a rich douche with criminal aspirations. Billings based this on Henk’s ability to spot Tabby’s fake necklace. She was no slouch at copies and forgeries—the little maniac was talented or had someone in his employ with a top-notch eye.

            “I don’t think I want you to join me in the Mediterranean,” she said. “I can’t be made to countenance your attitude any longer.”

            “Fine with me. While you’re living the good life, I’ll be happy to spend my time not getting choked out by hairy-armed bowling balls.”

            “Serves you right for not taking care of yourself.”

            “Says the aristocrat who spent half the morning yacking out her guts and the other half not giving me all the facts.”

            The truth was somewhere between them, but Tabby knew they weren’t about to get their arms around it. She had been making a play with Evan Henk, but perhaps proper research hadn’t been done. She had moved too quickly to the mark. Amateurish work at best—at worst, something to earn a quick death. Tabby and Ben didn’t have many rules, but running games on each other was verboten. If they had a prime directive, she had skirted the edge. Perhaps stepped over. Tabitha blamed her lack of caution on a lack of practice more than anything else, but that wouldn’t sound any better to her partner. Simpler just to move on. Get done what needed doing. “Here he comes,” she said, peering over her menu at the figure of Evan Henk. He was taller now but not enough to matter, wearing shiny shoes with huge heels. Tabby had a fleeting memory of the time she hung out with Tom Cruise. “Text me those pictures. Ten minutes.” She held out two fingers for Ben to see. He nodded and stood up from the table in unison with her.

            “Am I that revolting?” Henk asked, holding out his hands for a hug that wasn’t coming. Tabitha walked around him and out of the dining area, graceful but loaded with purpose.

            “Probably better she didn’t answer you,” Billings said, hand covering his mouth as he retook his chair. Henk followed, sitting directly across. “And she’s working.”

            “This is exciting, hahahmm.”

            Ben smacked his lips like he’d swallowed something unsavory. “A few quick things. Then I’m off.”

            “Go ahead.”

            “Who’s your inside guy here, and why do you want this thing so bad?”

            “To answer your question—”

            “You got thirty seconds to answer both questions,” Ben said, checking his watch. “No speeches.”

            “I play a lot,” Henk said, leaving the playfulness out of his voice and demeanor. “Being a fan of the game, I asked two of the trustees if I could have a look at the club. They wouldn’t let me.”

            “Doesn’t seem like a big deal.”

            “Later that day I heard them laughing about the presumptuous little blackie as they chomped on their cigars. Seems they didn’t know I was in the next row of lockers.”

            “Okay,” Billings nodded, looking again at his watch and then up at Henk’s leaky eye. “Sorry that kind of shit still goes on.”

            “Well, redress should help balm my heart.”

            “You talk weird. Text me the number of your man. It’s going to get busy around here. He needs to be at the ready.”

                                                _____________________________

            Tabitha made the handoff to Ben five minutes later near the stairs leading to the trophy room. He watched as she made the long walk across the ornate carpet, swaying her hips just in case anybody’s attention hadn’t been captured. He leaned against the wall and smiled. She ordered a mimosa and sat down with the piano player on his bench. A whisper in his ear and he changed the tune to a mid-tempo version of “Blue Skies,” Ella Fitzgerald style. Heads turned when she hit the first note. The three or four conversations taking place in the trophy room came to a halt as everyone not near the bar area migrated. Billings rolled his eyes and smiled a wry smile—Tabby was damn good, but she could be a little showy. He made a note to criticize her for scatting too much during the first instrumental break while he glided to the metal door next to the trophy case. With the swipe of a keycard he was inside a long hallway as fluorescently white as a psychiatric ward. Access panels to the display went down the length of the corridor, but he’d counted the amount of panels from out front in order to know where to access wedge. With his little lock-picking kit it was only a matter of seconds before the backside was open. He took a quick look at Tabitha’s fake and said a silent prayer, exchanging it by setting it gently in little felt holsters where the original had been.

            “Ben!”

            Billings almost had a heart attack as he turned toward the door. The blood rushed from his face and he almost dropped the antique.

            “How’s it going back here?”

            Closing the case, he walked toward the questioner. Senna Lassiter was standing by the door with a mischievous little look on her unspeakably gorgeous face.

            “Senna!” Ben whisper-screamed. “What’s up with the cameras?! And why are you standing there?!”

            “Mr. Billings,” she said, strutting forward as he put an oversized putter cover on the wedge, “you are way too tense. I thought this was your milieu.” The young law student took the clip from her dirty blonde hair and let it fan out and dance over her slender shoulders. “Shouldn’t there be a coolness vibe going on here? Sort of a James Bond thing?”

            Ben checked his watch and held up his keycard. “Thanks for this. Now, one more time. The cameras?”

            “They’ve been off for twenty minutes. Paul—the head of security—he faked some sort of computer thing that started to really get boring—I thought he was going to get fresh there for a second.”

            “Didn’t you promise him sex?” Ben asked, finishing up with the club by sticking it down the side of his pants. Senna moved closer and put both her hands on his chest. She smelled good enough to make him dizzy. Between her beauty and an oscillating blood sugar level brought on by the delayed brunch, his calm had all but left.

            “You obviously haven’t met Paul. He’s sweet and all, but it’s not like I’m going to do it. You on the other hand.”

            “I need you out of here. Henk could be watching. You can’t be seen. This is dangerous stuff.”

            “I know.”

            “You don’t know shit. This is a job. You talked your way into it. See it through.”

            “Don’t have to get nasty.”

            “I’m not mommy or daddy. People get killed in this line. Now go quiet and keep your head down. We’ll meet up later.”

            She pushed him where her hands had been resting. “Your girlfriend’s putting on quite a show out here. She’s pretty I guess—if you like old.”

            “Yeah,” Ben said, pushing the club’s grip down into the outside of his shoe. His walk to the parking lot would be awkward and robotic. That’s what the cane was for. Tabitha had brought it along with the fake wedge. No one would question a guy walking funny with a cane, no matter how strange the gait.

            He put his ear up to the door. Tabitha was doing an Alicia Keys tune now. He imagined her out there, leaning on the piano man’s shoulder, enrapturing all the blue bloods with her warm voice and relaxed posture. She could make it look easy. A trait of all really good performers. Song or stage, just another kind of con—the lie was in hiding all the work.

            He sent a text to the number Henk had sent him: It’s time. Go ahead.

            Nothing to do but wait. He listened to little hints of the song as the seconds rolled by like hours, making sure the club was secure against his leg and in his shoe.

            Finally, the little lights near the corridor’s ceiling starting flashing. A voice came over the intercom instructing everyone that there was a fire in the kitchen and to exit the building as soon as possible.

            A text from Tabby: Outside.

            She was holding the sides of her jacket out as he slipped out the door. The people walking by didn’t notice a thing. He took her left hand with his right so she would be near his “bad leg” and started forward, using the cane on his unencumbered side. They were slower than most people, but the crowd being mostly older and mostly liquored, the pace of the group wasn’t exactly breakneck. “Everything okay?” he asked, leaning close as he adjusted to the metal trying to punch a hole through his pant leg.

            “So far so good,” she said, helping him down the stairs and through the foyer, out past the covered valet area. Turning back toward the building she asked, “Is that real smoke?”

            Tabby would receive an answer. Evan Henk’s two thugs were blocking their way, as they did when she tried leaving Henk’s media room. “We’ll take the item,” said the one named Karl. Of the pair, he had less gray hair and a slightly thicker neck. He held out his fat hand and made a motion with his sausage fingers to give the wedge over.

            “We were just on the way to meet him,” Tabby said, trying to inch away from the burning building. “And you guys didn’t have to actually light the joint on fire. An alarm would’ve sufficed. We really liked to brunch there.”

            “The club.”

            “Fine,” Ben said, reaching into his pants. Karl and Ken got red-faced and jumpy, reaching down by their waists. “Easy. You want the damn thing, here you go.” Ben handed the wedge to Ken. He ripped off the leather cover and examined it. “Hey, chief. How about you hold up our stolen merchandise to the sun. Just in case the exterior cameras don’t get a clear shot of your conspicuously square head.”

            “It really is quite square,” Tabby added.

            Karl gave his partner an elbow and the two were off into the crowd, no doubt pleased with their contribution.

            “I’m going to get the car.”

            “Thanks, Johnsy. I’d come along but you know.”

            “Don’t utter another word,” she said, moving toward the parking lot. “I’m willing to wait a few ticks for a cripple.”

            “Your goodness knows no bounds,” he said, fairly unsure it went unheard. Old rich people were bustling and distraught, now that it was clear that their precious meeting place was turning to ash. Billings put his head down, limping after his partner.

            A beep came from the car. He saw Tabitha’s hand shoot out from the window, waving him on. He got in with the slow deliberation of a man in chronic pain. “Where’d you get this?” he asked, gripping his tight leather seat.

            “I think his name was Ted. He left the keys next to his bag on the driving range.”

            “Poor Ted.”

            “I complimented his swing.”

            “My apologies. Lucky Ted.”

            She fired up the sporty Mercedes coupe and checked the rearview camera. The lot was clearing out, minus a few men in sweaters and women with runny makeup. “Come here,” she said, pulling Ben by the back of the head. The kiss was hard and wet, including a lot of unnecessary head movement. The timing caught Ben off. It had a hint of that awkward demonstrability mastered back in the days of black and white. Tabby always got excited after a score. “I hope that wasn’t premature,” she said, releasing him with a sultry breath. “You got it?” Her eyes moved down as the question escaped her messy lips.

            Billings patted the cane. None of the trust-funders had noticed its unusual shape and size. Who looks at a cane? About as many people who want to deal with a guy who limps. That’s why it was the perfect hiding place for the real wedge. During the handoff, Tabitha had given him two fakes. One for the display case, and one for Henk and his henchmen.

            “Much fun as this is.”

             “I know,” she said, dropping the transmission into reverse. “We celebrate when living’s a sure bet.”

            “I don’t always say the same thing,” Billings mumbled, once more patting the cane.

            “Simmer. But seriously. You do need to write some new lines.”

Chapter 4: Talents and Problems

            Only ten minutes later, the hype of the job had flaked off. Their fifteen-minute ride to an eastside body shop had Ben feeling less than ecstatic. He leaned against the passenger door, talking furtively into the phone wedged between his face and right shoulder. “Davy, he’s not backing out. Don’t tell me the guy’s backing out.”

            Tabitha checked her rearview and switched lanes like she was on the circuit. “Are you hoping I can’t hear you?” she asked, purposely too loud for the little cabin of the luxury coupe. “Because I can hear you. Really well. Hello, Davy,” she announced, tilting her head toward Ben. “What’s the problem? You two morons figuring out another way to screw things up?”

            Ben put a hand over the phone and whispered, “Don’t be a jerk.”

            “Because I didn’t think that was possible,” she continued, louder now. “After all these years, it didn’t seem like a feasible scenario—supposed professionals finding new creative methods to sabotage a deal. Uncanny. Completely take back that kiss, by the way.”

            “She kissed you, bro dog?” Davy asked Ben, confirming that the old hand over the phone thing lacked its intended efficacy.

            “Don’t worry about it,” Ben mumbled, going full fetal in the bucket seat.

            After a strange period of quiet from Davy: “Anyway, hustle sauce. The buyer’s totally backing out. I put in calls to my competition—none of them want anything to do with it. I’m offering mad commish and these jabrones still won’t play. I’ll keep plowing fields. Maybe get the extract on what’s the h is going on.”

            “Okay. I’ll call you back after we hunker down a bit. We’re on the way to Lars. There in—” Billings cut himself off, looking over at Tabitha. She held out three fingers from the hand-stitched steering wheel cover. “Three minutes, Davy. Call you after.”

            Tabitha made another lane adjustment and kept silent. A time-tested way of soliciting information from Ben during a bout of emasculation and failure. “There goes our market,” he muttered.

            “We needed that,” she said, calmly exiting I-30 to turn south.

            “Yeah, but a preset buyer’s a luxury.”

            “A luxury that we needed. So not really a luxury. Definitions, Benji.”

            “There’s got to be someone we can unload the thing on. Davy must be off his meds. He was acting strangely normal.”

            “I’m going to talk,” Tabby said, adopting an ironically lighthearted tone. “We just stole a three-million-dollar golf club, contested over by Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, known to reside in the same exact place for over half a century.”

            “Look,” Ben started.

            “And the only way the club is worth three million is if there’s an asshole out there willing to pay for it and keep it to himself, just so he can.” Tabby was almost laughing now. “So, after a month of setting up this score, we have a club that neither of us give a shit about, worth nothing—excuse—worth the years we get if we’re caught.” Her grip was tight on the wheel. As she slowed and willfully shifted into a lower gear, Ben thought of ways to avoid her mounting ire.

            Tabitha glided off the road into what looked like an abandoned car repair shop.

            Ben gathered himself what little he could and said, “We’ll figure something out.”

            “Heard it before,” she said, slowly pulling into one of the carports as a tall corrugated metal door rolled up. A short man with olive skin and a slight build dressed in greasy gray overalls waved them on, smiling warmly underneath a thick mustache.

            Ben rolled down his window and waved back. “Hey there, Lars.”

            “Hello my friends,” he answered, almost bouncing as he spoke. “This car. It’s very nice. The Germans make beautiful things. Almost as good as Italians.”

            As they exited the vehicle, the door came back down. The garage was as spacious as it was grimy. There were no other cars inside. Wooden tables were everywhere, cluttered with little pieces of metal and wiring. “Lars,” Tabby said, making a face one makes when looking at a new puppy. “My beautiful man. How are things here?” They embraced with a kiss on each cheek and a cautious hug to avoid getting grease on Tabitha’s finery.

            “You look most lovely in silk. And I—I am good. Many projects. Every single table in here is another project. Exciting things.”

            Ben watched the exchange of pleasantries from the hood of the car, arms crossed. He didn’t mind the familiarity his partner displayed with their old friend, but he wasn’t in a good mood. “Are you trying to imitate a Mario Brother?” he asked, loud enough to be unmistakably rude. “The mustache?”

            “Why with the tone and the attitude and the comments and the face?” Lars asked, managing to maintain a lighthearted aspect.

            Ben caught a chiding expression from Tabby and hung his head. “I’m sorry, my friend. That wasn’t cool.” He walked toward Lars, arms opened. “The tone and attitude and the whatever else I was doing, nothing but apologies.” Tabitha backed away and allowed the men to shake hands. “Not good enough,” he said, pulling the smaller man in for a hearty embrace. “Never mind the grease,” he said, rubbing his cheek on Lars’ oily hair while throwing a sarcastic gaze at Tabitha. He was showing off for her, ostentatious about his affection for their friend. All bullshit aside, though, he loved the guy. It was hard not to.

            Lars Ramona had been an unwavering companion over the years. Born poor as dirt in a corner of Italy they don’t put in postcards, he somehow managed to find his way to Hollywood around the time Ben and Tabitha were making their initial foray into the fetid fold. Before he could speak a word of English, he was working for major studios, designing props for movies and any sort of gadget a stunt might require. If a snot-nosed director needed an effect or some other brand of “movie magic,” he’d explain it to someone who knew Italian and that guy would explain it to Lars. After all that song and dance, Lars would design something better than the snot-nose could’ve ever conceived. After all that song and dance, the director would be hailed as a visionary by some snot-nosed critic or snot-nose geriatric with a trophy. Ramona didn’t care about trophies, except maybe for the World Cup. He was getting paid well enough to live in Hollywood; the place that churned out everything he’d ever seen with subtitles back in Italy. He found his love for films after resurrecting a decaying and discarded TV using only a few rusty tools. When it first came back to life, a dubbed version of Die Hard was playing. The young man’s life was decided right there, using his skills to call down a magical signal into an abandoned box, watching men shooting at each other while finding the time to remain pithy and charismatic. His calling had been forged with no less drama than anything his town of destiny could produce.

            Things were good for a long time. A few years after Tabby and Ben had been cast away, he was still at the top of his game. He had a pool and a place in the Hills. Two steady girlfriends and an actress on the side that did everything they could to make his life miserable.

            Living the dream.

            That all came to a close rather suddenly. If Billings and Johns went out with a metaphorical whimper, Lars Ramona exited with a literal bang. A visionary snot-nosed director (who will remain nameless) demanded the biggest explosion in film history for his final action sequence, set in downtown Cleveland. Lars refused to do it, sighting engineering, physics, safety, and the fact that Cleveland already looked something akin to a war zone.

            He was fired immediately. Blacklisted. Dalton Trumbo without the politics. No matter how good Lars was, the snot-nose was a partner in one of the biggest production companies in the business. For anyone else in showbiz, dealing with Ramona would mean guilt by association.

            For a time Lars was sad. The girlfriends left. Took his cars, which were both Italian. Months went by, and he found himself surrounded by stacks of bills and crumpled packs of cigarettes.

            Ben Billings was the only one to visit the bereft little immigrant. The discarded actor walked around Ramona’s house, shaking his head slowly at the dust and the piled up takeout and generally pathetic state of things. Eventually he stood over Lars. The little genius was in a stained silk robe and some sort of underwear too small for any American man to consider wearing.

            “Mr. Ben?” he asked, trying to see through weeks of drinking and drugs.

            For a minute or two Billings didn’t say anything. He took a few slow steps back from the couch, trying to act unaffected by Lars’ body odor. A minute or two was all that could be afforded. The smell was too offensive, and Ben wasn’t that great of an actor.

            “Yeah, buddy. Ben Billings.”

            “It was said you died.”

            “Not quite. Well. Manner of speaking.”

            “Non capicsco. Cosa vuoi dire con questo?”

            “That’s beautiful,” Billings said, walking over to a sliding glass door to let some air in. “Anyway, I’ve been through this stage. It doesn’t get any better. You’re either going to kill yourself, or you’re going to find another way to make it down the line.”

            “It’s incorrect. What they’ve done to me. I come from nothing. Now back to nothing.”

            “That’s a proverb, my friend.” Billings tried not to breathe as he placed a card with his number in one of Lars’ delicate, clammy hands. “Call me. We’ll make some money.” Ben pulled down the lapels of his sport jacket and straightened out his sleeves. “I’ve been on that couch, Ramona. It’s no good, letting talent go to waste. I don’t think the universe likes it.”

            Before Lars could answer, Billings was out the door. He sat there for a few more days, doing the last of the drugs, drinking the last of the booze. After all that, he figured he’d try to explore that thing Ben said about the l’universo.

            One phone call. They’d been working together on and off ever since.

            “So you tell me now,” Ramona said. “This face. Maybe the job didn’t go as all was planned?” He pulled a small wand-like object from a waist pocket and starting waving it up and down Ben’s body. Nodding with satisfaction, he moved over to Tabby and gave her a similar treatment. “The purse,” he said. She handed it over without a word. It was wider than his waist and half his height. He waved the wand over every surface, finally proclaiming a satisfied, “Yes!”

            Tabitha took back her bag and pulled out a device similar to the one he’d just used from her back pocket. “I already checked.”

            “Yes I know,” he said. “But these are delicate devices of my own mind. No one else makes them.”

            “Well, they worked perfectly. We knew exactly when Henk planted the bug. Your little gadget here started buzzing in my pants. It was thrilling.” Tabby gave Lars a few mock elbows. Ramona blushed. Billings frowned, walking back over to the hood of the Mercedes. 

            “So this is when you begin the acting and the pretending.”

            “This morning,” Tabby said. “I’m assuming he had one of his lackeys drop it in my purse last night, after I took the necklace.”

            “The thing did fine, Lars,” added Billings, rather abruptly. “What is all this stuff?” he asked, scanning the separate messes around the shop, trying to differentiate one from the next. It was like being in modern art gallery, only Ben had a feeling that each pile of junk he was looking at actually had a purpose. “Many movies call me. The TV now, with the budgets bigger than before. I can’t say no.”

            “So they’re outsourcing their effects?” Tabby asked.

            “Let me guess,” Ben went on, “they get to slap their name on your work.”

            “I think the money is what is the important thing,” Lars said. He looked hurt. Almost scared. Billings had been his friend. His savior, even. Now it seemed the con artist was determined to be angry. “Why is the face?” Ramona whispered to Tabby, turning away from Billings and his brooding.

            “The job went well,” Ben said. “Everyone did a great job, but Davy and I are running into some problems on the buyer side.”

            “Did you use Mr. Arab?” asked Lars. He bent down and held out his hands, like he’d been carrying around a heavy platter and was now serving it up to some magistrate.

            “Tried,” said, Billings.

            “Mr. German?”

            “No go.”

            “Mr. Argentina then you should call.”

            “Before you run the atlas, just assume we’ve already thought of it. If there’s a stone, Davy knows to turn it.”

            Ben could see that another fence’s name was on his lips and was grateful when the talented tinkerer stopped short. Moving pilfered goods was not in Ramona’s wheelhouse. That would require knowing names and putting them with faces, skills hard to sharpen with a soldering gun in a workshop eighteen hours a day. For instance, Mr. Arab was a man named Alessandro. He was from Puerto Rico. Mr. German was actually a Swede. Mr. Argentina was a heavyset woman from Tunisia.

            “Maybe we go back,” Ben said. The words were hardly audible. His mouth was over his hand. Tabby didn’t register what he said. She took a few steps to ensure she could hear him over the generator in the basement and the fluorescent lights swinging from cheap metal chains.

            “What was that?” she asked.

            “We go back to Henk. Try to make a deal.”

            “Now you’ve officially lost it.”

            “I don’t know what else to do. We’re running low on funds. I’m sick of staring at middle age with nothing to show for it. I’m sick of the nothingness and the nowhere of everything. I see the void, Tabs. I see it wrapping me up like a dreadful cocoon. It’s not good when the vacuum starts to make sense.”

            Tabitha was ready to fire back, but she tempered her keenness to shout Ben down. His face was turning from tan to a hot red. It looked particularly odd in the unevenly lit garage. “Lars, be a love and hand me my purse.”

            She held an arm out until the effects specialist placed the bag’s handle around it. She started digging. Ben’s color wasn’t returning to normal. He wasn’t speaking. The sound of jewelry and keys and makeup clattering together didn’t help, but the bottle of pills she finally mined would. “Here you go,” she said, handing Billings two 0.5 Klonopin tablets. He threw them down without hesitation or discussion. He placed one hand on Tabby’s shoulder and another on the hood of the Mercedes. Lars ran up with a bottle of water. She thanked their dutiful friend and helped Ben take a few short sips.

            It wasn’t often, but Billings was prone to these little breaks. Whenever he started talking about nothingness or an abyss or anonymity, she knew to have the pills on standby.

            “Thanks,” he managed, rolling around the hood of the car, looking ridiculous and not caring, trying to catch his breath.

            “You know, this is the thought I had.”

            “What, love?” Tabby said, averting her eyes from Ben to listen to their diminutive companion.

            “The best might be to call Mr. Philadelphia. He’s very good at the buying and selling.”

            Tabitha smiled sadly. Ben continued to struggle for normalcy under his skin, swearing at Lars between tiny, strangled breaths.  

Chapter 5: The Place You’re In

            Evan Henk ended another attempted call to Tabitha, all the while understanding the pointlessness. He smacked his lips and tried in vain to ignore his dripping eye. He’d been played all the way through. They were in the wind—an expression he hated for several reasons. Pretend cops were always using it in TV shows and movies after someone got away and it was time for a snippet of music and a scene change. He didn’t notice the trend at first, but when they’re in the wind drifted down to the unwatchable network shows, he couldn’t help but wince at its hearing. Also, and more importantly, it perfectly described his knowledge of the two failed entertainers’ whereabouts. He was trying to think of a more suitable phrase, but in the wind was just about perfect. Far as he knew, they could be anywhere. The trackers and bugs had all been ditched following the heist at the club. Their cell phones and SIM cards were obviously destroyed. He had a guy trying to find the slippery pair, but he held out no hope.

            As a hustler and thief, being fooled by other criminals left an especially raw wound. He’d overcome so much; to get fleeced was a slight that was embarrassing.

            Wholly embarrassing. Unequivocally embarrassing.  

            Ben Billings and Tabitha Johns were outside his sphere of his influence; the famous Hogan-Nelson wedge was out of his hands. The fake, however, was gripped firmly in his left. The stocky businessman-criminal looked at the worthless club and then at a newly opened pack of cigarettes calling out to him on side table to his right. No, he thought, but it didn’t do much to hold back his urge. Soon he was lighting up, taking a drag that generated equal portions of self-loathing and relief.

            If one was to stumble on the scene having no prior knowledge of the players, it might stupefy. Henk, five and a half feet tall on a good day, was exercising mental and physical control over two men of enormous weight and stature, muscles and aggressiveness amplified by myriad powders and injections ranging from the latest synthetics to Chinese cat urine.

            Karl and Ken sat on little stools like eye doctors before an examination. They were in the absolute center of the basement, surrounded on all sides by concrete walls. The floor was also concrete, though it was treated and smooth. Karl leaned over and glanced at his feet, but grew tense when he saw the drain near the wheels of his little stool.

            “You just took the club?” Henk asked, smoking with one hand and running his thumbnail inside the grooves of the wedge.

            Ken straightened his giant back. “I did, sir.”

            “After examining it? Even after all the study we did on the actual piece?”

            “It was chaotic,” Ken said. “People everywhere rushing to their cars. Billings mentioned the cameras pointing outside from the country club. We didn’t want anything leading back to you.”

            “You didn’t think back to the plan! The cameras were turned off, you simple fool! This whole thing was foolproof.”

            Obviously not. He stood up with marked deliberation and looked over his large-bodied minions. “What do you have to say?” he asked Karl.

            “I thought it seemed off.”

            “Oh you did?”

            “But Ken had the club, and I try to respect my elders.”

            “Your elders? My God.”

            “We can get it back,” Karl pleaded. “I know some buyers in the area they might’ve gone to.”

            “Is that right?”

            Henk swelling rage wouldn’t allow another response. Using every sinew and all the frustration and hate coursing through his veins, he buried the blade of the club into the top of Karl’s head. The giant’s eyes went shifty as his blonde scalp turned red. One of his arms was twitching violently, slapping the stunned Ken in the leg over and over.

            “Help me with this,” barked the boss, summoning his remaining employee to action. He’d done too good a job; the club was proving troublesome to free from Karl’s head.

            Ken wasn’t much good. He was leaning away, crying what he could logically assume were his final tears.

            Henk abandoned his attempts at extraction and leaned down to meet Ken’s watery eyes. He wiped a few flecks of blood from the bodyguard’s face and pressed a large portion of the giant man to his chest. “It’s all right, now,” he whispered. Karl’s body had stopped gyrating. The strange electrical convulsions immediately following death had run their course.

            “Please don’t kill me,” Ken wailed.

            Henk pressed him tighter. “I’d never hurt you.”

            As soon as he finished this statement of reassurance, Karl’s body toppled over backwards onto the floor with a disturbing thud.

            After a lingering kiss to his bodyguard’s forehead, the boss stood up and surveyed the scene. “Loyalty,” he said, announcing the word as if it was the beginning of a speech he was making to a room full of onlookers. “Our journey is fraught by vicissitudes that can’t be seen or accounted for—unpredictable landmines and turns of chance. Finding things to rely on in this perilous struggle—it’s the key to life. One of them, anyway.”           

            Evan Henk was calm now. In his mind, the proper sentence had been passed. Karl wasn’t anything but a symbol of unreliability; a landmine diffused.

            His seemingly sociopathic reaction didn’t come out of nothing. Despite wealth, reputation, and the big house that served as his current seat of power, Mr. Henk’s “journey” was one in which he’d seen an unyielding series of betrayals. His father was a scoundrel, more than once telling him to clean his room when he wasn’t in the mood. The torture was only just beginning. Raised by a Christian mother, young Evan was forced into caring for the poor twice a month at a local soup kitchen. The sights and smells suffered in the service of the broken and meek became stains on his memory. He once was forced into hugging a man with one arm who hadn’t shaved or bathed in over a week. As one might guess, his parents’ fire and brimstone approach to childcare made for a palpably unpleasant home life. Beset on all sides by the obdurate middle class lifestyle of idyllic Fayetteville, Arkansas, Mr. and Mrs. Henk managed a perverse form of mental gymnastics, asking Evan more than once why he was so unhappy. It would’ve been an insult to mention the horrific private school education he was forced to endure. Bravely, he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

            The drudgery of his early years was broken up only by the friendship with a boy named Terrell Smoke. Terrell didn’t seem to mind Henk’s perpetual scowl. They became what some might call friends. In truth, however, the relationship was one-sided. Young Evan would engage Smoke as protector while stealing from the other children. An insurance policy, if he was ever to get caught. Smoke was beaten bloody and removed from the school after Evan convinced him that the larger boys were attacking him for being black and different. Terrell wouldn’t truck with such bewildering injustice, and thus was plunged into a fight where he was permanently scarred and almost lost his life. Through the entirety of this bloody encounter, Henk was down the hall, purloining what he hadn’t already taken from the older boys. He never saw his friend again, and only thought of him when wondering who he could conscript into his next scheme.

             Terrell Smoke would be his first and last friend. The noble child protector was sentenced to a life of eating through a straw, surrounded by overweight and underpaid health care providers somewhere near Little Rock.

            Evan was again alone. It felt right and good. The first time he read “No Man is an Island,” he couldn’t stop laughing at the unmitigated stupidity of its writer. John Donne was some sort of weirdo, obviously…

            Henk used his isolation to study others from a remove. His only interactions were used to help bolster whatever manipulations he was currently working on. He blackmailed teachers and principals. Used girls and boys for lascivious and financial ends. They obviously deserved whatever they got. Like his parents, they didn’t even try to understand him. He wanted so fervently to be loved and for that love to be reciprocated. He couldn’t understand why his luck had never panned out.  

            “Ken. Pull the club from Karl’s head. Come, now. Get it together. Go upstairs, tell Kang to get down here. Oh. Make sure he brings his swords.”

            Despite feeling something akin to seasickness, the giant leapt off the stool and ran up the basement stairs with an escapee’s fervency.

            Henk rolled his eyes. Looked at his hands. They were bloody, but not bloody enough. He had fresh betrayers to dispatch.

            It seemed time for another cigarette. He felt a slight sense of peace. If he couldn’t before, he could certainly rely on Ken. As for Kang, there was no more loyal servant. He sat back and breathed in a fresh helping of smoke to mask the rising scent of new death. Maybe they don’t love me, but blind allegiance is a start. Is that so much different than love?

            Seeing that his phone was buzzing, he put out the cigarette and tried to clear his throat. He needed water. Smoking, reminiscing and murder was thirsty work. “This is Henk.”

            “Evan, my boy.”

            “Hi.”

            “Do we have a bad connection, or are you being intentionally terse?”

            “I’m sorry. How are you, ma’am?”

            “I’m quite well. Calling to say they’ll be coming back with the club. I think the best thing, and this is your decision of course, the best thing might be to pay them a fair price and let bygones be.”

            “I’m not sure.”

            “You sound a little off. You haven’t done anything, have you?”

            “What does that mean?”

            “We all get loose once in a while. Nobody sees all the angles all the time. Hubris to think otherwise.”

            “Everything’s fine.”

            “Tabitha Johns and Ben Billings were trained by the best. They’ve beaten the best.”

            “Yes, I know.” The admission felt like poison in his throat.

            “Well, let’s not stand over smoking remnants of wounded pride. I think a meeting is in order.”

            “How do you know they haven’t unloaded the club?” Henk asked.

            “Because I made sure every decent fence in the world won’t do business with them. He’s got a good boy for that, but a little light on experience. A lot of favors accrued over the years.”

            “Good. Set it up.”

            “The prize is Dina Santorelli, Evan. Don’t let hurt feelings get in the way of that.”

            “You’re right.”

            “Good. Just don’t go lashing out. That temper of yours.”

            “Set it up.” Henk said, ending the call.

            Telling me what to do. How to behave. I’m in control.

            Kang stopped abruptly behind him after descending the stairs. A tight, constipated little bow. “Sir.”

            “Did you bring swords?”

            “Two swords.”

            “Good. We need to make Karl smaller.”

            “Smaller.”

            “The last body barely fit in the incinerator.”

            “Bigger incinerator.”

            “Thank you, Kang. But for now, smaller Karl.”

Chapter 6: Extended Stay

            Ben and Tabby weren’t interacting with their usual rapidity and spirit. The listlessness hovering between them was the result of their ultimate failure to fence the antique, followed by an attempt to make up for the tension with sex in an extended-stay hotel. It had been a long time since they’d yielded to each other’s bodies; the fact that the dam burst as a type of emotional Band-Aid made their rapport stranger. Billings sat on the end of the bed, naked, sweaty and cold. The noisy little climate control unit had two modes: frozen tundra and off.

            “I’m sorry,” Ben said. He was staring at a nonsensical picture on the wall, trying to make sense of a square in the midst of a few other oblong shapes set against a pale brown canvas. “If it was weird—I’m sorry.”

            Tabitha was sitting up against the headboard, covering her breasts with the rough sheets. She wanted Ben to feel sorry about the stalled job, but not for the sex. Weird as the before and after tended to be, he always managed to give her more pleasure than anyone else. It all went back to talents. She possessed an ability to shut out the world when making love, and Ben was a tender lover. She watched as he stared at the mass-produced piece of modern art crap on the wall and knew where his mind was. She stopped short of saying you don’t need to be sorry. He was wandering mentally and still completely aware of the present; one of his talents. She’d let him wander a bit more.

            Johns tried to turn off the little lamp next to the bed but the switch was ineffectual. The room remained bathed in a ridiculous amount of light, shooting across from multiple sources. It reminded her of an independent film set—some experimental director with holes in his pants and ideas of being Orson Wells and avant-garde. The type that never took the time to realize art was work more than vision. “Place like this, you think they’d want to keep people in the dark.” Tabby was referring to the bad bedding and fraying carpet but considering herself as well. She remembered the days (not so long ago) when covering up didn’t enter into her thinking—now though, no matter how many heads she turned, it wasn’t as many as before. Her body was starting to sag. Inevitability didn’t make it any less depressing. Tabby equated decline with failure, no matter the rate. Stop with the thinking. Try getting laid again.

            “You’re more beautiful than ever,” Billings offered, unmoved except for a few shivers, still staring at the picture. “More beautiful than ever.” He was whispering facts, almost like he had no choice. For Tabby, it made it matter more.

            How does he do that? He’s not even looking. Damn his sensitivity.

            He turned his head but not enough to look at her. “My mother had a painting just like this.”

            “Oh yeah?”

            “It had a poetic name. Some Upper East Side moneychanger bought it for a hundred grand. Probably worth a couple million now.”

            “Must’ve been pretty good.” Tabitha knew what not to say. She’d continue with insipid retorts until the ground shook loose.

            “That’s the thing. It looked just like this one. I never could tell the difference. It was all crap. Lines and circles. Random variations of color. And yet—the Great Rhonda Billings was the toast. The must-have at any benefit or party.”

            If they were going to get back to work, Tabby would have to pick up the ball. Ben was in a cage with his mother’s success as a modern artist and his own failure as an (actual artist). This was a dangerous space, considering most if not all art employed some level of fakery, and their current line of work required lying about pretty much everything.

            The ironies were sort of piled on top of one other.

            Billings shook his head and slid back down the bed, wanting to stare at her in the afterglow; a picture far lovelier. It seemed cavalier to let the moment slip. He chided himself for his wanderings. There was no good life. Only good moments. Currently, he was being wasteful.

            She ran her hand along the top of his head. He had the haircut of a younger man, close-cropped on the sides and back with plenty of length above. She thought it was a little too hipster, saved only by his effortlessly handsome features.  

            “You recharged?” Tabitha asked, nodding down his body. “Maybe another round?”

            “Maybe,” he said, trying to bite down on a smile. Their lips met and they became tangled up in each other’s bodies. Billings said something about the sheets sucking ass between kisses. Tabitha laughed quietly and they carried on until three sharp knocks on the door railroaded the process.

            “No thanks,” Ben said. “We’ve got plenty of everything.” He was on top, covering Tabby’s mouth gently with his hand while she playfully smacked him on the chest and neck.

            “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist. Things are in motion, beautiful children. Plus, I can imagine how desperate you are for a reunion.”

            Billings and Johns looked at each other underneath the bright lights and mouthed shit in unison.

Chapter 7: All Heart

            They weren’t given time to put on any clothes. In seconds they were sitting on a coarse little sofa on the far side of the room. Tabby was wrapped up in a messy heap of the rough sheets. Ben was using an absurdly small decorative pillow to cover up what he could. “Can we at least make this a bit dignified?” he asked, looking up and holding out his hands. As he did so, the stiff little cushion slipped down from his lap. He made no effort at recovery. An extremely stupid and inglorious attempt at defiance.  

            “I think that would take more time than I have.” She didn’t look down. Or maybe she did. It was hard to tell behind the sunglasses. They were Gucci, as was her dress. It was an elegant and understated green, almost shiny but not quite, almost ridiculous but not quite, with large amounts of material in the shoulders. It fell elegantly just above her knees. Ben looked at her heels and necklace. The whole ensemble would’ve been comically opulent on anyone else, but not her. Not even in an economy hotel room. That was one of her creepy gifts. Never out of place but always noticeable. Distinguished and dignified. The sort of dignity that Billings and Johns were miles from.

            “It’s nice to know there’s consistency in the world,” she said, taking stock of the humble surroundings.

            Tabby bore a straight posture and a stolid expression. “What are you doing here, Remi?” she asked.

            Her question went unanswered. “My children, still leaning on each other for—moral support. It gives me heart.”

            “Heart,” Ben said, grabbing awkwardly for his fallen pillow. “That must be a novel sensation.”

            “My poor Benjamin. Never the performer you fancied yourself. Blood flushing those lovely cheeks red. The lessons didn’t quite take.”

            “How many lackeys do you have out there?” he asked, trying in vain not to betray the defeat running roughshod through his insides.

            “Just the one.”

            “Talk about consistency. How long have you had that little psycho watching your back? She must be losing a step.”

            “Not at all. Fact is, Lizzie is better than ever. But I’ll make sure she hears of your concern.”

            “Great. That gives me heart.”

            Clapping her hands with Victorian gentility, she sat down on the bed and crossed her smooth, freshly-tanned legs, adopting a teatime posture. “There’s that pedestrian wit. I won’t lie. I’ve missed it. Now—what have you figured out? And TJ my sweet—there’s no need to keep acting.”

            Billings dropped his head and placed his hands on the pillow, a signal to let his partner take center stage.

            “It must be a grand plan,” Tabitha said. “You obviously froze out all our fences and buyers. Engineering it so we’d have to go back to Henk. Allowing it go this far, so all the players are beholden to you. I wouldn’t call it wizardry, Remi.”

            “Whatever the end game, we’re not playing.” Tabitha adjusted her sheets and held her head up with a tightened jaw, refusing to look directly at the surprise guest.

            “I understand your feelings. Even so, there’s so many reasons to play.”

            “Is this where you start rattling them off?” Ben seethed. He wanted to jump up and use his power to smother the woman to death with his little pillow. It would be a wonderful turn, watching as all that dignity was stripped away. He could think of no better instrument than a dingy cushion used to cover his sweaty balls. Pure fantasy, of course. Violence wasn’t in his repertoire—besides, Remi’s little angel of death wouldn’t stand idle. Lizzie Halsey was the sort that took pleasure in bloody unpleasantness. The epilogue would be horrifying.  

            “I could list the particulars,” she said, still the perfect picture of refined equanimity. “But what’s that writer’s rule? You know the one—show, don’t tell.”

            She pulled out a silver handgun and a cellphone from the tight suede handbag still slung around her neck. Ben and Tabitha stiffened as the door to the room opened.

            “Dammit,” Billings said, rising from the sofa. Bryce Creighton was standing weak-kneed on the other side of the bed, face stained with mascara. Lizzie Halsey was behind her, holding a Ka-Bar combat knife to the girl’s delicate throat.

            “This one cries a lot, Ms. Dryer,” Halsey said.

            “What the hell, Ben?” Bryce whimpered. She said something else but it didn’t register through the shaking and tears.

            Billings was frozen, standing there naked. Completely helpless.

            “She’s got nothing to do with this. You need to let her go. That’s an innocent kid, Remi. Way out of bounds.”

            “Ms. Creighton is more than that. Always underestimating women,” said Dryer. “Something else I tried teaching out of you. I mean, take a look around. Nothing but women.”

            “Take that knife off her,” he said, pure pleading. “For God’s sake.”

            Remi Dryer stood up from the bed, tapping the silver pistol against her leg, addressing Billings but fixing on Tabitha. “You slept with her how many times, Benjamin?”

            For the first time, Tabitha met her gaze. “Let her go, Remi. Let her go and we’ll do whatever it is you want. I imagine it’s Dina Santorelli you’re after. You obviously want us for the job or you wouldn’t go through this show.”

            “Of course,” Dryer said, snapping her fingers. Lizzie pushed the law student to the floor. “Did you really think I’d resort to murder?” She adopted the tone of a chastising schoolmarm. “I hate that our reunion had to play out like this. Given what the two of you did to me—well, let’s just move past it for now. Remember what I always said. Dwelling doesn’t do.” She looked down and saw Ben’s pants crumpled by the foot of the bed. “You can put these on, now. We have work. Plans to make. I hope this was a wakeup call.”

            “What’s next?” Tabby asked, slowly moving to comfort the hysterical young woman curled up against the wall. “Santorelli, no doubt.”

            “Call Mr. Henk. He’ll compensate you for the pinched piece. Fair price. I worked it all out for you. Think of it as an olive branch.”

            Ben snapped his pants straight before pulling them on. “Yeah, Remi. You’re all heart.”

Chapter 8: Soldier

            There were several locales in Dallas-Fort Worth for legitimate fight training. Al’s House was not on that list. It was a licensed business where people worked out, true enough, but the membership wasn’t comprised of the UFC’s elite or burgeoning boxers. The fighters that of Al’s made their money in underground clubs and impromptu gatherings; venues where stingy overweening rules and regulations of the cage and ring didn’t apply. Al’s went by a few other names. The House. The Roadhouse. It served as a last stop for those who enjoyed having their noses broke like most people enjoy a foot rub.

            A haven for the type that had either given up any semblance of normality or were never born with it at all.

            “I’ve heard bad things about this place,” Ben said, pulling into the gravel parking lot. The Audi was the only car. It was surrounded by thirty or so giant pickup trucks and the odd SUV.

            Davy Lucas was sitting next to him in the passenger seat, drinking sloppy from a bottle of cheap vodka. “Oh yeah,” he said, wiping his thick lips dry with the back of his free hand. “This scene goes for lunatics. You have to be all spectrum to even go in there.” He opened the door with his foot, smacking it into the truck parked beside the Audi.

            “Come on,” Billings admonished his companion, looking around for any witnesses like a malfunctioning periscope.

            “Nothing. Not a scratch. No worries, stud brother.”

            “No worries. That’s ironic,” Ben answered, stuffing his hands into an old denim jacket. It was the most threadbare thing he owned—he didn’t want to be walking into Al’s looking like anything but another anonymous loser.

            “What’s ironic, big sauce?” Lucas asked, turning the bottle up and finishing it with three protracted gulps.

            “You telling me not to worry. Davy, you got on a plane the second you heard Dryer was cutting off your contacts. I don’t know how coming here’s going to help, anyway.”

            “Trust, bubba. Gotta roll with peeps you trust. Cards gonna fall all the which ways.”

            “I guess I’ll take that for a compliment. Though—and don’t take this the wrong way—most of the time I have no idea what you’re saying. There’s something medically wrong with your brain.”

            “Yeah. Well. It’s my network. The world is my network. Lots taking in and putting out.”

            Billings was stiff. Blank-faced. “That right there. Frigging glyphs.”

            Standing in front of Al’s graffiti-littered door, Ben rolled his eyes at Davy. “Just be quiet and point out when you see him. It’s been years.”

            “It’ll play cool, B-dog.”

            “You should’ve worn something else,” Billings said as they stepped through Al’s threshold.

            “My brain, now the duds. Beefing my vestments?”

            “You’re wearing a leather motorcycle jacket worth more than most people make in a month. Anybody that rides motorcycles knows that’s not a jacket worn by motorcycle people.”

            “How?” Davy asked, randomly tugging at one of the jacket’s superfluous zippers.

            “It’s my job to know things other people are going to know.”

            “Now you’re the deficient.”

            Billings smiled, thinking he actually understood Davy. The expression was ill-timed. A scarred man in his 50s big enough to fill two telephone booths was staring down at them from behind the front counter. He too was wearing a leather jacket. The real kind.  The white light of a cloudy late morning layered everything, flattening out the tones of Al’s Roadhouse.

            “What are you smiling at, asshole?”

            “Nothing at all,” answered Ben, standing at attention. “We’re looking for Fowler Dane. Is he here, by chance?”

            The sound of gloves pounding bags provided a tense soundtrack for the interaction. The scarred man seemed to grow taller as the seconds ticked. Billings could feel the fear coming off little Davy. “We don’t let just anybody in the gym. Not without a membership.”

            “Sure,” Billings said, pulling out his wallet. He needed to get proceedings moving. “Can I do a monthly thing, or is it more of a commitment? Either way, no problem.”

            Without speaking, the giant snatched Ben’s bank card and ran it through a little white scanner plugged into his phone. It was incongruous, watching an extra from Easy Rider utilizing dainty, modern technology. “Get gloved,” he growled, pointing at a sign just above his hairy head that read First Day You Fight.

            “Let me just talk to Al. Is he around? This is a little unnecessary, don’t you think?”

            These were the last words Billings was able to speak. The large man told him that he was Al and that there no exceptions to the ridiculous arbitrary rule about fighting. As Ben was pushed and yanked toward the largest ring in the gym, he tried to understand what was happening. Do they think I’m a narc? Is this the equivalent of having to do drugs to prove to the other drug people that you’re cool? Do these meatheads understand that working out is not a crime? I don’t think they do. I think I’m going to die. This better work.       

            He looked up while punches and kicks directed him through a feral crowd and under the bottom ropes of the ring. A metal walkway made a square above, serving as a gallery. Billings thought of Beyond Thunderdome, then realized that he’d never actually seen the whole movie. He’d probably lied about seeing it at one point or another, because he was a liar. He was a stupid person who was about to die. A pretty boy with mommy issues who was about to be beaten by a monster as a battalion of savages watched on, glee amplified by human growth hormone and old-fashioned steroids.

            He turned to see his opponent and took a measure of heart. It was a short skinny man with fledgling facial hair. Then shirtless man with a disturbing scar across his forehead ripped off Ben’s jacket and threw it on the turnbuckle before starting on the con man’s hands. “I don’t need gloves,” Billings whimpered.

            “You need to fight. So you need gloves.”

            “I just came to find someone. Fowler Dane around?”

            “Yeah,” the stranger said, negotiating Ben’s fingers through the little finger holes of the MMA gloves. “Wait. What time is it?”

            “Around ten.”

            “Well, he’s either sleeping one off, or he’s here. It’s not like we do roll call. It’s come and go as you please.”

            “Ah,” Billings said, on the verge of tears as he scanned the room, feeling assaulted by the dirty smells and dirty men. “It’s a regular free-spirit’s paradise. In and out as you like, forced combat—”

            “It’s just the first day. An initiation. Al likes it.”

            The ring was being buffeted on all sides as the fighters snapped and snarled like a pack of starving junkyard dogs. A single tear leaked down Ben’s face. “Al’s a sadist. Tell me about this guy I’m fighting. He looks young.”

            “He is,” said the stranger, slapping a final piece of tape across Billings’ wrist before exiting the ring.

            “Thanks for the advice.”

            No bell rang, but apparently the fight was underway. The wiry little man came bouncing toward Ben, angling one way and then another with his shoulders hunched up. Billings stayed flatfooted, circling the outskirts of the ring while the animals snatched at his ankles in an attempt to spur him on. “Listen,” he whispered, moving gingerly toward his opponent. “This isn’t my deal. Just make it look good, but nothing permanent.”

            The young fighter smiled and turned his hips, snapping a kick against the meat of Ben’s thigh. The pain wasn’t instantaneous, but once it registered, Billings was overcome. He threw up on the young man’s bare feet and starting writhing on the bloodstained canvas. “I’ve been shot. Oh God! It’s broken. Broken! Noooo!”

            It was a sad scene. The junkyard dogs had their cellphones out, recording the display. None of them had ever witnessed a grown man react so poorly to pain. The cries and pleas only grew more intense as the agony spread through every fiber of his body. “What the hell did you do? Why? What’s the point?”

            “If you’d been this dramatic back in the day, you might’ve made it.”

            “Who’s there?” Ben asked, holding one arm up.

            “Open your eyes. Increases your chances of making a positive ID.”

            Ben’s eyes were cloudy and wet, but they began to clear. Still clinging to his leg, he managed “Fowler” before resuming with his whinging.

            “C’mon up now, Hollywood. Let’s go outside.”

            Billings continued to sputter and gasp as he was lifted to his good leg. He felt the leather of Davy’s ridiculous jacket on his right side and Fowler Dane’s bulging back muscles to his left. “Hold on a sec,” said Dane, clapping his hands, transferring most of Ben’s weight to the struggling Davy. “If I find anyone sends that video out, I’ll be meeting them in the ring. You got me!?”

            The dogs seemed to whimper and fade off into the mist. Even in a place like Al’s, no one was going to argue with Fowler Dane. The man was a warrior in every sense. After sailing through three tours in the Iraq and Afghanistan, he came home a vaunted hero of the Special Forces. When his missions became declassified in the subsequent years, it became common knowledge that he was the owner of 197 confirmed kills, most in close-quarter situations. Dane wasn’t a great long range shot and therefore couldn’t rack up numbers from a distance. If asked, he’d sigh and say he did what he had to do, just like any soldier.

            Once outside, the former Army man threw Billings over his shoulder and carried him to the bed of his GMC pickup truck. It was one of the only ones in the parking lot without some sort tire or lift embellishment.

            “Oh my God,” Ben said, clenching his eyes closed. “It’s broken. That fucker split my femur. What did I pay him for? I need the hospital. Son of a bitch.”

            Davy hopped up on the pickup’s tailgate and yanked back on his flask. “This probably would take some of that wackness away, bro jam.”

            Billings grabbed it and muscled down the remaining contents, doing his best not to throw up again. “This is what happens hiring outsiders. Cracked bones.”

            “Didn’t crack anything. Just a lot of nerves in that part of the leg. It hurts like hell for most people.”

            “That’s great. Where is the little bastard? And why didn’t you step in earlier? The whole thing was unnecessary.”

            “Could of. Didn’t feel like it. Don’t play dumb.”

            “You’re still mad about that? I didn’t know she was yours. How long with that girl? She was crazy. I did you a favor. End of story. You said you were over it.”

            “I was. I am. But when you reached out. Old wounds. You obviously anticipated it, hiring the kid.”

            Davy nodded his head and listened intently with his feet dangling free, in awe of Dane’s presence. “So you guys are rocking some stories. That’s what’s the deal.”

            “What?” Fowler scowled.

            “This is Davy Lucas. He’s good people.”

            “He’s weird.”

            “Well, judge away I guess. Are you sure it’s not broken?” Billings hoisted himself up. He wasn’t playing up the pain. It really was intense.

            “I’m sure. I could put my hands on it and check.”

            “No don’t!”

            “Yeah. Didn’t think so. It’s not broken, because I’ve seen a guy break one. More accurate, I’ve broken a few legs. Your color’s coming back. There’s didn’t.”

            “Dude,” said Davy, nodding his head. “I knew hopping back to hang with you bros was the schooled move.”

             “Shut up for a second, Davy,” Ben winced, seeing the wiry youngster walking their way with a satisfied bounce in his step.

            “You got my money?”

            “Whacked my guy a tad hard, huh kid?” Fowler towered over the younger fighter. The bounce was dead and buried.

            “Sorry, Mr. Dane. He said not to hurt his face. Maybe I got amped up. You know how many guys I had to fight off to get a crack at him. The whole place wanted a piece.”

            “That makes sense,” said the veteran.

            “Makes sense?” Billings followed.

            “Go ahead and pay him. He did okay.”

            Ben started to protest, but a look at Fowler stalled him out. He dug into his pocket and thrust a healthy roll of hundreds into the hands of the fighter.

            “I’ll be going,” he said, nodding politely at Dane. “Hit me up if you need anything else.”

            “Oh yeah,” Billings said, making a feeble attempt at putting weight on the injury. “Frigging speed dial.”

            “Can we go eat?” asked Dane, pulling out his keys. “There’s good barbeque, place just east of the Trinity River. I’m starving.”

            “Sure,” Ben said. He’d be there until forever if he was looking for sympathy. “Lead the way.”

            As they followed Fowler’s truck west toward the heart of Fort Worth, Davy asked if he could “resume riffing.”

            “I’m not your boss. Go ahead.”

            “That play was straight about getting your grace numbers back with big dude, wasn’t it?”

            “Yep. Hoped it wouldn’t come to getting my ass handed to me, but the possibility loomed. I need him.”

            “We, homie. We. That should be your drift. I’m on ship.”

            “Got it. On ship.”

            “Soldiering hard is the way to roll?” Lucas asked, examining his pockets for any extra mini bottles of alcohol he’d purchased on the plane.

            “Hopefully not, but Dane is a guy you want on your side. I don’t work violent. You know that.”

            “That’s real soldiering. Why BB is known as the man.”

            “Let BB finish, Davy. This might go there before it’s all wrapped. Fowler’s adaptable and smart. If he suits up on our team, that’s an asset hard to match.”

            “And if down payment is pride and pain, you go there. That and getting him off the board, in case the other grandmasters go shopping for rooks and knights.”

            Billings nodded quietly as he exited I-30. Davy was an eccentric alcoholic, but after all the bullshit, the twenty-four-year old possessed sneaky levels of clever. He’d won a national chess championship at thirteen. Game theory was certainly his specialty, but he was just at the beginning. He’d hardly begun to discover all the profitable ways he could misuse his youth and talent.

            It was good for Ben. Him being there.

            “BB, just roll with me for a second.”

            “Rolling.” Billings rubbed his leg. Maybe it wasn’t broken.

            “Who’s the soldier? Like, for the reals?”

            “You know about Fowler. Everyone has.”

            “About Fowler. But the true shiz stuff. Shiz you flow with.”

            “Shiz is shit, correct?”

            “I’m trying to speak more professional. Less swears.”

            The idea of Davy trying to speak professional was deeply odd, but Ben let it go for the time. “He was a military hero. Sneak attack, covert stuff. People I’ve talked to said he was the go-to for planning the shiz that needed an extra layer of slick.”

            “Yeah, I’m hip street on that. But slick and body piles don’t add up.”

            “Huh. Never thought of that.” He honestly hadn’t. “But what the hell do we know about war? Low impact might mean bad guys stacked to the ceiling.”

            “Word. But how’d you guys get the connect?”

            “He was a military consultant for a couple years. Everybody wanted him. Made a name teaching actors how to look like soldiers until the next jump cut.”

            “Sounds pimp town.”

            “It was. But then an A-list asshole said the wrong thing on a set. One of those method nutcases. He put the guy in the hospital with a prop gun. Sued. Wife left. Usual proceedings.”

            “Dude.”

            “Yeah. Though, always thought the prop gun thing was pretty funny. I knew the big shot he whacked when the guy was a nobody. Total jerkoff. Sure fame and fortune didn’t make him a reformed humanitarian.”

            “Straight up. So...”

            “What?”

            “The soldier dog. You slipped it to his old lady?”

            “Essentially. It’s a little more complicated than that. Don’t talk about it around him. Or anyone else. Do me a favor.”

            “Bro,” Davy said. He was motionless in his seat for the first time. The quest for the missing bottle had been abandoned.

            “What?”

            “Getting criminal ain’t the staircase to the cloudy gates, but it’s pretty mom and pop next to showbiz.”

            The kid was touching it with a needle, but Ben didn’t feel like doling credit. As they pulled into yet another rocky parking lot full of pickups, Billings said, “You’ll love this place. They’ve got giant beers in those mugs that’ll give you frostbite.”

            “Righteous tequila?”

            “Tequila for days, young man.”

            “BB. Straight baller.”

Chapter 9: Dina and Ego

            “The goal is simple. To get the most out of life and to transfer my success to as many other people as possible. Winning isn’t something to be maligned, but it shouldn’t be the end all. It’s the lives you can change. The connections that you make. They’re more important than a mountain of gold. Value can be measured however one chooses, but I believe that the value of a man or woman is measured best by how they help and lift up those around them.”

            Tabitha was at the kitchen table watching a promotional video for TrajanCorp on her laptop. She sighed as floating rock music served as the audio outro. Picture after picture of the petite Dina Santorelli doing something noble and taxing in perfect makeup. In one, she appeared to be digging a trench in Africa, surrounded by jubilant, starving children. In another, she was reading to a group of kids somewhere in Southeast Asia. They were also jubilant and starving. The final image featured a hundred or so jubilant and starving children expending their few remaining calories to hold up a cumbersome TrajanCorp banner in the midst of a what looked like a bombed-out village in the middle east.

            She heard the Ben coming down the stairs and closed the computer. The sun wasn’t up yet and he was already on his feet. It gave her comfort to know he was as anxious as her.

            “You hanging in?” he yawned, blinking his way toward the coffee pot.

            “I’m not so sure the ego play is our best move.”

            “But it was your idea,” Ben whispered, almost pouring coffee on his hand. “And it was a good idea.”

            “Stop talking so soft.” Tabby hated having to whisper in her own house. Especially for the sake of Senna Lassiter. The girl had been staying with them for the last few days, ever since her abduction by Remi Dryer. There was no better way to keep an eye on her, but it didn’t make the situation any more comfortable. Ben appeared undisturbed by the current housing situation, but Tabby could only guess what that meant.

            As he sat down opposite her, she tapped on the computer. “The more and more I look into Santorelli, the less sure I get about any kind of read. What do we know about someone like this?”

            “We know what we’ve heard.”

            “Which is shockingly little.” 

            We know what we’ve researched.”

            Tabby pointed at the computer. “Which is blatantly contrived.”

            “And we’ve got what Henk has told us.”

            “Which we can’t trust.”

            “So we do the ego play. Snip away some variables.”

            She dropped her head. “Yeah.” They’d already had this conversation at least four times.

            “It’s just a start. Most important, room to breathe.”

            “I know.”

            “All the things we’ve picked up along the way, the ego play is still the most solid  entry move.”

            Billings knew Tabby didn’t want to hear him drone on, so he kept shut and watched her thinking, remembering the first time they’d met. The night the producers informed them that they were going to the be the leads in Hollywood’s biggest new adventure franchise. The pair floated from one seedy bar to another, hour after hour, buying lonely drunken regulars free rounds as they talked broadly about how wonderful life was, unable to go into the specifics due to disclosure clauses in their contracts. At the last stop, Ben looked into her dancing eyes and asked what had really sold the big shots on her being the one for the part.

            “It wasn’t my talent.”

            “I’m sure that’s not true.”

            “Do you want me to answer the question?”

            “Sorry.” Ben leaned away and smiled. This was the greatest night of his life. She was the greatest woman he’d ever met. Dreams came true. Everyone that told him it was all bullshit was all bullshit. He’d be happy and let her talk. God. What a girl. He was drunk but holding on and she was the reason. He hiccupped and silently convinced himself not to ask for her hand in marriage right there. He could wait a week or two. “Go ahead.”

            “I was running through a scene, and I stopped.” Tabby held up a shot of whisky and stared at it so she wouldn’t fall victim to Ben’s beautifully simple good looks and voracious appetite for life, then continued. “I stopped because the script was terrible. The dialogue didn’t match what was happening in the scene.”

            “Oh no.”

            “Exactly. That should’ve been it. Not like these people have time to let some nobody stumble through a reading.”

            “What happened?”

            “I’ll tell you,” she said, closing one eye and taking down the whisky. “I started crying.”

            “Was there crying in the scene?”

            “Not at all. It was the part where I save a street urchin and his ferret from a river of lava.”

            “Oh yeah. That part is a little weird.”

            “Exactly. So I start crying, because I know I’ve blown it. Another chance gone, and another day older. Swear to God it felt like there was a ticking clock was in my head.”

            “But you got it.”

            “Yeah. The director is sitting there behind the table with the writer, and they ask me what’s going on. I say that I’m crying because the scene brought it out of me, and because the piece is so well done.”

            “No.”

            “Best acting I ever did.”

            “No.”

            “Oh yeah. They start whispering, then tell me to read a few more scenes. Two hours later, touchdown.”

            “That’s crazy. Actual acting.”

            “You see, Ben Billings,” she continued, wobbling with one eye closed, “I appealed to their vanity. Those two assholes have money and respect, but their egos are just as delicate as ours. When we get rejected, at least we expect it. For a minute I showed them what idiots they were, and then I took away the nightmare.”

            “But it wasn’t planned.”

            “No. Still. Worked.”

            They floated on through the perfect night a little longer, at once a torture and a mercy before the floating stopped and their careers in entertainment evaporated.

            “I didn’t know anything back then,” Tabby said, tapping on the computer. Ben seemed to be lost and she had a good idea where.

            “You’ve never given yourself enough credit, TJ.”

            “Just being honest. You realize we were younger back then the jailbait upstairs?”

            “OK.”

            She took a breath. “Sorry. I mean. Maybe I’m sorry.”

            “I already know what you’re going to say, but I’ll say it anyway. The ego play got you that gig.”

            “The one that ultimately ruined the prospect of me living the life I put everything into having?”

            “And,” he coughed, “I walked into that obvious rejoinder because the logic is still sound. Extenuating circumstances, far as back then goes. We couldn’t see the end of that shitty road. Like you said, we were kids.” 

            Tabitha leaned back in her chair and tried to limit herself to the moment. “What about your ego? Is it even there anymore?”

            He didn’t answer.

            “Back against the wall, living in an old woman’s house, fawning law student upstairs, criminal allies and enemies. Middle years, if you make it a ways.”

            Ben took a final sip before rising to his feet. “Better get going. Thanks for putting on the coffee.”

            She’d apologize later. The shots to his ego were unnecessary, whatever truth they held. And of course, he could say basically the same thing right back to her.

            But he didn’t. Despite everything, he was trying to save their asses. Ego? I don’t even know what I was going for.

            Of course Ben had an ego. His made him get up from the kitchen table. Hers was making her cringe, thinking about the apology later. Dina Santorelli had one, and they’d put it under a microscope tonight.

Chapter 10: Cinque Minuti

            “Mr. Ben. I’m at the place across the street. We are all prepared for the plan and the rest of the things that you have made ready and in store for the evening.”

            Billings had a finger in one ear as he listened to Lars Ramona’s tenth status report of the hour. He nodded hello to a group of strangers in formal wear and moved through the bustling crowd, trying his best not to collide with any champagne glasses. Finding sanctuary behind a small bar, he did what he could not to express frustration. “Lars. Can this be the last time you check in? Like I said, I’ll tell you when it’s time.”

            “I’m sorry, Mr. Ben. The nerves get to me. Maybe a drink to calm me down.”

            “No. No drink. You have to be sharp, Lars.”

            “It’s dark down here. I get lonely and then I start losing the track of things. I’m sorry, Mr. Ben. I will watch the movie on my IPad until it is time.”

            “Just hang in there, pal. You’re a genius. Don’t forget it. Nobody better. I got to go.”

            Ben took a deep breath and rubbed his eyebrows, trying to calm his nerves. The tall kid behind the bar with the hipster beard gave him a strange look before a foursome of polished big shots came over and drew him back to his job serving high end spirits.

            “Everything all right?” Tabby asked. She slipped her arm through his and looked down at her purse. It was small and ridiculously overpriced, like her low-cut dress. “You need a pill?”

            “I probably need the bottle. Three days to throw something like this together. It’s not enough.”

            “It’ll be enough. Was that Lars again?”

            “We need to give him something more complicated next time. He can’t handle basic. Gets fidgety.”

            “He’s always been like that. Remember Montreal?”

            “Electroshock couldn’t make me forget.”

            “But he came through. And look on the bright side. You don’t even have to speak French.”

            “My French is good.”

            “Of course it is.”

            “You’re a real peach.”

            “Well, I don’t lie about everything. For instance, believe me when I say you look rather good tonight. It’s been a stretch since you’ve donned a tux.”

            Ben rubbed a lapel with one of his sweaty hands. “I shouldn’t have gone with the white. I feel like Bogart and any minute the Nazis are going to shut us down.”

            “So dramatic.”

            “That’s,” he started, shaking his head before lowering it. “That’s true.”

            “How do I look?”

            “Better than Bergman.”

            “Now who’s the liar.”

            Billings gave her a wink. She really did look like a classic. The off-white dress stopped just above her knees and was tight enough to go with every curve. “Okay,” he said with another wink. “Play me a song, Sam.”

            Tabby returned the gesture and raised a glass of champagne, whistling “As Time Goes By” as she cut a path through the crowd toward the stage. Men stopped their conversations and women mumbled jealous under their breaths while a spotlight followed her up the steps to a vintage mic set in front of a shiny eight-piece band. The overhead lights illuminating the large ballroom dropped as she turned and gave the musicians a mid-tempo four count. The song was something modern, arranged to sound like a cut off a Sinatra album. She gave the drummer a wink as his sticks danced on the Hi hat. The symbols sizzled together while the rest of the instruments met up. The opening lyrics were a well-controlled explosion. Anyone that hadn’t been looking now was. Everyone except Ben. He was headed to the back stairs and the office that overlooked the venue. As he locked the door behind, he nodded at Fowler Dane spoke into his lapels. “Lars. You read me?”
            “This basement is very dark. I think maybe also there is a small animal that ran across my foot. I’m not liking this, Mr. Ben.”

            “Five minutes. Starting now. Then you’re out of there.”

            “Cinque minuti.”

Chapter 11: Inside Man

            Across the street from Ben and Tabitha and upstairs from Lars, Evan Henk dabbed his leaky eye and shrugged his husky shoulders. The formal setting made him more on edge than normal. He preferred relaxed settings. Places like the golf club.

Having to burn it down was unfortunate, though he was still living off some of the satisfaction.

            It was all part of a maelstrom of feelings that he’d been forced to endure. Coming to terms with his defeat to Billings and Johns was bad enough, but then being forced to pay them for the Hogan-Nelson wedge, even at a discounted rate, felt like acid in his little paunch. Not to mention the murder and dismemberment of one of his employees. Body disposal was interesting but tedious work.

            And yet, here he was, sitting next to Dina Santorelli and some of the richest people on the planet. Evan Henk, the inside man. That’s what Remi Dryer called him. Inside Man. A rather pedestrian appellation, but he endured it, considering the source. Dryer was a legend. His work with her over the last few years had gained him healthy portions of wealth and knowledge. Reserves of conjurable charm and confidence the world had spent years convincing him didn’t exist.

            And yet, he was sweating. Only one job for the night, but it was the most important. Without it, they’d never even get off the ground.

            “Is something not to your liking?” Santorelli asked, poking him gently in the side. He was seated next to her at small circular table, one of five. A thick-haired man in his forties with a Mandarin accent named Mr. Yang was making an impromptu speech in the middle of the room, facing each small table in no particular order. He was ranging over a litany of topics, exchange rates and international corporate hegemony, paying homage to the fruitful partnership his firm had forged with Dina’s TrajanCorp, etc.

            “What’s that?” he asked, not realizing that perspiration was dripping from his spherical head onto the tablecloth.

            She smiled at the speaker and continued to pay attention while she tapped her own forehead and leaned a little in Henk’s direction to help him understand the nature of her inquiry.

            “I’m wonderful,” he answered, using a napkin to wipe away the sweat as nonchalantly as possible. “Perhaps it’s the formidable company you keep. Thank you again for including me in this.”

            Yang made his final remarks and the group of eighteen businessmen and politicians began to clap until the lights went off. Outside the opulent restaurant, they could hear a series of loud cracking sounds

            The sudden darkness and indecipherable noises were enough to yield responses from many in the group as their eyes adjusted to the meager candlelight spread across the dining room:

            What is going on?

            I knew we shouldn’t have come to Texas. Who does a big meeting in Texas?

            Calm down. I’m sure it’s just a power surge.

            Light some more candles.

            Your foot is touching my foot. Get your foot off my foot.

            Should we go outside?

            Maybe we should go outside?

            The manager, an attractive short-haired woman walked over and whispered to Dina Santorelli, handing her several flashlights. “Okay everyone,” said the CEO of TrajanCorp, I’ve got a few more lights here. We all just make our way out to the front. The bulk of our business was to be conducted tomorrow, so perhaps it’s best we call it a night. Evan and Lisa the manager will direct you out to the front.  

            It was a more dramatic spectacle than one might’ve anticipated. The years of pomp and prominence had hard-wired the elites to the ultra-complicated tasks required of world leadership, but something as pedestrian as a power outage had them sprawling out limbs like frightened children wearing unjustifiably expensive clothing. After a line was finally formed and they’d nearly gained the door, two men with flashlights of their own came in. A commanding male voice took over the room: “We’ve had a rupture off some kind in the water lines. Nothing to be alarmed about, but the road’s flooded until we can shut off hydrants up and down the street. Looks like whatever burst took out all the lights as well. Best you hang tight. Frankly, there’s nothing else you can do.”

            “You can’t be serious,” whined Yang. “We aren’t going to just sit here in the dark. We aren’t animals.”

            The man with the hefty voice lowered his flashlight, allowing Dina and Evan to see he was one of two cops occupying the entranceway to the restaurant. “Sir. I don’t know what hanging with your pals by candlelight has to do with being an animal, but me and my partner are going to let you work that out on your own.”

            “You’re leaving us?” Yang pleaded.

            “Yeah. When you see the road barriers clear, you’ll be free to go. We’re off to check if anyone actually needs help. Hell, maybe y’all try across the street.”

            The cops were out the door before further inquiries could be made.

            “What did he mean?” Santorelli asked Henk. He said he’d find out, squeezing his way by the agitated members of the group and outside. As the door closed behind, he felt the cool fall air laced with the water from shooting out from the hydrants. The gleaming cars that had brought all the dignitaries to the dinner were all bunched together in front of the restaurant, forced into overlapping at funny angles by the barriers set up on either side. 

            Henk wiped the sweat and damp from his brow with the sleeve of his tailored dinner jacket. “Unbelievable,” he whispered, looking up and down the premier block of clubs and restaurants in the Dallas nightlife scene. Across the street, a beautiful beacon of sound and fury. In all the surrounding chaos, Henk was feeling proud to be a piece of something bigger than himself. His eye dripped from positive emotions as he tugged down on the lapels of his jacket. He took out a pocket flashlight and turned it on and off three times in the direction of the glowing building across the cordoned-off road. He wanted badly to turn back to Dina and the rest of the apoplectic bigwigs in the restaurant, but he rooted his feet to the wet concrete, repeating the advice from Benjamin Billings like a mantra: Let her wonder what you’re up to. Let her wonder why you aren’t rushing back. The prestigious don’t like to wonder. They like to know. It’s an ego thing.

Chapter 12: Neighborly/Rubicon

            “That’s the signal, BB. Crazy bald bro tripled down on the torch.”

            “Thanks, Davy,” he said into his cuff mic. “Stick to your post. Look like a proper door guy.”

            “No probs on the jobs. I’m out the police garb, switched into Dapper Dan at the Door.”

            Ben decided to let Davy’s last phrasing choice go. He was standing next to the stage, waiting to catch Tabby’s eyes. When her gaze finally made it back to his, he flashed her a smile and nod as she continued to play to the crowd. She looked and sounded too good; for a moment he forgot about the game and felt a little bit sorry for the rest of the world, not having his view.

            “You better get moving, Billings.” It was Fowler Dane, sounding more agitated than normal. Hard to blame him. He was out there in the soggy air, pretending to be a cop amongst other cops, getting honked at and cursed at by frustrated pedestrians. “I put on a pretty good show in there, but they’ll need some more coaxing if you’re wanting to get them to your shindig.”

            “On it,” Billings answered, grabbing two bottles of chilled Dom Pérignon. “Plan’s a go. Let’s stay quick, ready for anything.”

            Ben glided through the foyer and nodded as he passed Davy at the door, walking down the steps to the street. When he reached Evan Henk, he kept walking, telling him to hold back a little.

            “Billings!”

            “Not now,” Ben said, waving his overzealous “compatriot” away as he neared the door with a heavy breath. With a smile fixed and a little hair down amongst his eyes, he entered and offered a cheery hello. He was met with blasting lights and a fusillade of questions. It reminded him of his fourteen minutes of fame leading up to Dynasty and the fourteen weeks of infamy that followed. Everywhere he went with Tabby, they hounded them. Until they were desiccated, nothing left to feed on. In those days, Billings had little to say. Now, at least, he had a rough outline. “I don’t mean to intrude, but it seemed neighborly to come over and see if y’all were getting along okay.”

            “Who are you?” The question came from a woman with a frazzled Eastern European accent. Billings thought of a Bond girl. Or a Bond villain. Someone from Bond.

            “My name’s Tony. Tony Zetland. From across the street.”

            “We don’t know you,” declared a man in pointy Germanic tones.

            “Okay. So y’all are a bunch strung mighty tight. Mind turning those lights down. I’m not going to bite. Even brought Champagne. Pretty good stuff.”

            Billings felt a hand on his chest before he could see it. “Do as he asks.”

            When his vision returned true, he saw a group of finely-dressed folks looking pretty ordinary, packed together in the little space the entranceway afforded. He also saw Dina Santorelli. It was her doing the speaking. Her hand still on his chest. “Mr. Zetland, you said?”

            “I did,” he answered, blinking away the remaining spots clouding his eyes. “Funny old name, but that’s another conversation. How’s about you folks come over and join us at our party?”

            “How is it you’re so festive, sir? All this madness.” It was the German again, grumbling. Billings, even as affable Mr. Zetland, was beginning to form stereotypical thoughts.

            “We happened to have a generator that can keep up, is all,” he answered, holding out the champagne bottles as wide as the little entrance would allow. Rolling out a welcome mat with a sophisticated posture was hard in a space not much bigger than a phone booth, but he was giving it a whirl. “If you’re asking why you, come out and take a look. We can’t get to anyone else. Otherwise, we’d ask the whole block.” Billings looked down at Santorelli, impressed with her calm, curious look. He was turned on a little, big brown eyes aimed up at him, the way she wore her hair short because it was obvious her face could take the weight of proceedings. Easy, Zetland. You damned devilish rogue. Back off a piece. “Or maybe I just came in like a freight train. Apologies, really, and do have a good,” he stopped, looking over the group and the quiet chasm of the restaurant, “night.”

            Billings set the bottles of Dom on the entranceway runner and gave a nod, making sure Santorelli was the prime beneficiary of the gesture. He was out in the cool air before anyone could make more inquiries, stridently walking through the gauntlet of trapped cars and concrete depressions filled with the still subsiding water. Passing Henk, he said, “Don’t blow it, douchebag,” smiling the whole time with a raised chin and one hand covering his tux buttons, just like a proper gent.

            Henk felt like launching himself into Billings’ back, permanently crippling him with a move imparted by faithful Kang, but before his thoughts could turn to total darkness, he heard Dina calling his name. Don’t blow it douchebag. He stood as tall as his frame would allow and walked through puddles on the path back to the restaurant.

            “Do you know that guy?” she asked, watching Billings and his white jacket ascend the stairs back to his party without a care in the world. “He seems familiar.”

            “I’ve seen him around town, this club or that,” Henk answered. The task was to sound nonchalant, but it was almost impossible with the honking and intermittent cop sirens breeching his concentration. “Inherited money. Mostly does causes and that sort of thing.”

            “He’s handsome.”

            Henk agreed but didn’t want to. “Yes. Yes, he is.”

            “Maybe we should take up his offer.”

            “I don’t know. We don’t anything about their security. With this bunch…”

            Before she had a chance to shoot down his worries, the fire alarm inside the restaurant went off. A little much, thought the diminutive crook as the other bigwigs streamed outside.

            The bellicose German almost stumbled against them. “Our dealings are not off to an auspicious start, Ms. Santorelli. What are we to do about this situation?”

            She held out her phone for him to take. “If you look at this map, you’ll see that it’s a five mile walk to the nearest helipad.”

            He pursed his lips and nodded, appreciating that she’d done more than just complain about their predicament. “I see.”

            “Now I’m willing to make that walk, but I’m not so sure we’ll be of one mind.”

            “It is unlikely.”

            “Mr. Sauer, the bulk of our business is to be conducted tomorrow, isn’t that right?”

            “I suppose.”

            “Then,” Santorelli said, putting on her best smile and motioning with her head across the street. “I hear music. Perhaps for one evening, our only option is to have a good time. It could be good. Build more trust and understanding with one another.”

            Henk watched as Mr. Sauer and Mr. Yang began to mull it over with the group. Dina took him by the arm and said they were going.

            “What about the rest?”

            “Don’t bother turning. They’ll follow along. Ducks in a row.”

            Evan Henk couldn’t help but smile as they passed through flashing lights and potholes, thinking about influence and manipulation. Far as he knew, it was the only way to get on in the world. Dina had used it to set up this meeting of international powerbrokers. Now she was using it to get them to cross the street.

            Of course, he had manipulated her to cross the street, the result of Billings’ and Remi Dwyer’s manipulation and influence.

            And on and on.

            When they reached the walkway leading up to the stately old white building, the smile faded. The water and shit-stained street they’d just stepped off was the Rubicon. If things didn’t pan out, there’d be no forgiveness from Dina Santorelli and no place on the planet he could hide.

Chapter 13: Wake

            She hadn’t woken up to a hangover since college, and that was nearly thirty years ago. It was easy to remember; the scolding Mrs. Kern was giving her sounded word-for-word with the one back then. Hard to forget being a freshman at fourteen. Oh, the fun she never had. Thanks Papa. Normal human development be damned. Normal human development for the normal.

            “You need to have me around you at all times. These are not your people. This Texas isn’t safe. What’s the point of family if you don’t lean on it?”

            “Get the girl who dresses me,” Dina moaned. “And the one that bathes me. And…”

            “I’m not your servant,” Mrs. Kern said, ripping the last pillow from Santorelli’s achy clutches.

            “No,” Dina seethed, “you’re an old bitch who never had a life.” Despite the headache and the turning stomach, she threw off her covers and stood before Mrs. Kern, wobbly but defiant, growing more so by the second. “The next time you give me advice, I’ll beat you. Snap those brittle bones. God, I wish you’d die already.”

            “That’s better.” Pola Kern ignored Dina’s nakedness and applied a weathered hand to her face before having it slapped away. “Much better.”

            “Stop talking. What happened last night?”

            “Would you like me to stop talking or tell you what happened last night? You can’t have both things, child.”

            “Call me child again and I’ll slap you until your mouth fills with blood. God! My head hurts.”

            “A strange man drove you home. He smiled far too much for my liking. Considering our various levels of security, you must’ve been quite adamant about having him bring you to the door.”

            “Blinds closed,” Dina said, looking up at small sensor in the ceiling, “and set lights to dim.” The entire estate was rigged to her specific voice. She was still getting used to it, not sure if it was her style. Santorelli was old-fashioned that way. There was dignity in having people attend on your every need; talking to inanimate objects, however efficient, seemed less than noble. “So, did he come up, this guy?” She was remembering, but only pieces.

            “You don’t recall his name?” asked Mrs. Kern, a hint of satisfaction in her deep voice.

            Dina wanted to say something clever, but straight ahead would have to do for the moment. She was cold, sick of standing there naked in front of the woman who had been there almost every morning of her life. “Of course, I remember. Tony Zetland. Anthony. He was hosting a charity gala last night. Not my usual type.”

            “I see.”

“I doubt it, and before you lodge some withered, unwanted opinion, that was the point.”

“What was the point?”

“He wasn’t usual. We had what I’ll assume normal people call a good time. Everyone from the partnership went.”

            “Strange.”

            “What’s strange?”

            “A few things.”

            “Please expand,” she yawned. “I’m brimming with anticipation over here.”

            “It’s strange to imagine that bunch at anything charitable, let alone having a good time.”

            Dina tried not to smile. The old woman was right about that.

            “And it’s strange that a man that took the trouble to drive all the way out here and escort you through three levels of security didn’t take you to bed.”

            “Guess I wasn’t in the mood.”

            “He kissed you on the cheek. You watched him drive away like a teenager, pouting at door.”

            “You’re at death’s door.”

            “I’m very healthy, actually. The doctor here on the estate told me yesterday I have the constitution of someone twenty years younger.”

            “You’re at death’s door, and you still have the time and inclination to wait up spying. Like this is the high school prom.”

            “Now you’re being ridiculous, Bella Medina. I was very much asleep when you got home. It was the camera footage that told me the rest. I’ll send it to your bathroom screen if you’d like to review it, though it might be best not to.”

            “Tell me.”

            “He was quite the gentleman, Mr. Zetland. Quite so.”

            “Which is your way grim Polish way of saying I was rebuffed after offering up myself up like a dirty whore.”

            “I need to get ready. There’s a partnership meeting at ten.”

            “I’m glad to see you setting your mind to proper priorities.”

            “Get out. Send in the morning crew. You disgust me.”

            “My sweet Bella. You never could be sweet in the mornings.”

            “Did it ever occur that you might be the cause of my foul moods? What kind of saint would I have to be to look up at you looking down on me and smile?”

            “You’ve said that one before, Bella Medina.”

            “Some things merit reiteration, hag. Now go.”

                                       __________________________________

“That’s some harsh smack sauce she’s laying down. Old lady’s getting brushed back more than a breeze.”

            “What is the problem where it is you cannot speak like a normal person from the United States?”

            “Y’all need to shut up before I start snapping necks.”

            On a hill two miles from Santorelli’s estate, Davy Lucas, Lars Ramona and Fowler Dane were sitting in a parked maintenance van, listening through headphones and watching a bank of screens. It was a warm day for October and the air conditioning wasn’t all that effective in the back where they were sitting. It wasn’t nervy work, but it wasn’t comfortable, either.

Lars could’ve hacked into the estate’s security network with time, but Billings had saved him the trouble by cloning Santorelli’s phone before dropping her off the night before. It contained a treasure trove of encryption and password information.

            “Is there a way for them down there to know we’re listening and watching up here?” Fowler asked, eyes locked on the feed to Santorelli’s bathroom with understandable interest. There were three young women in there with her, all gorgeous. One was drawing a bath. Another was rubbing her toned back with some sort of pre-wash oil. Yet another was using a variety of instruments to get rid of any imperfections in her nails.

            “A trace is not possible, Mr. Fowler, unless they had the exact code for this program. Mr. Davy says it’s unique for each customer, so it couldn’t be so.”

            “My homie’s the best techno in the game. Designed this premium to do us the deeds. Fifteen-years-old and he’s already got two-yacht mad money.”

            “Three yachts maybe,” Lars said, clicking away a keyboard on his lap to double check that everything was recording. “After what Mr. Ben paid for you to enlist his services. Just about all the monies left from their baseball bat take.”

            “Nah, brother Lars. That rake was product of a golf club.”

            “Ah, yes. They should’ve stolen one of Andrea Pirlo’s boots from the World Cup. This would have gotten much more.”

            “Faggotry. Nobody cares about soccer, Lars.” The ex-soldier rubbed his gray eyes, trying not to blow a gasket. Ramona had his respect, having earned it years back on a stunt for some piece of crap action flick. The little Italian had built a specialized suit for a car crash sequence, against budget and against the producer’s explicit instructions. Fowler still broke his back, but afterward the doctors said it could’ve been much worse. He did his best to keep their history in mind as he listened to the nonstop prattle between Davy and the technical specialist.

“Mr. Fowler. It is the beautiful game. Yes. A Goalkeeper.”

“What’s that?”

“A man as you, strong and big, so powerful. You would’ve scared the ball away.”

“Okay. So Lucas, you’ve met this computer punk?” he asked Davy, not even half interested. The majority of his attention was fixed back on the screen.

            “We hooked it up on the interwebs, Super Hoss. The deep and dark part. Shaking skin ain’t how it rolls these days when it comes to connects.”

            Fowler kept his focus on the bathroom scene. All but one of the girls had left Santorelli to her giant oval bath and was now disrobing to get inside. “Damn,” he said, placing one of his scared hands over his mouth. “That there’s more than your average bath.”

            Davy and Lars looked over and crammed themselves against Dane’s giant frame to get a better look. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

            It was the first thing Lucas said that Fowler didn’t want to punch holes through.

            “This is not appropriate,” Lars muttered.

            Davy and Dane answered in unison: “Shut up.”

            As they sat in silence, a cell phone began buzzing next to the monitors. When Lars put it on speaker, they each pulled one ear away from their headphones.

            “How’s it going there, gentleman?” It was Ben, sounding like he was just getting up.

            “Things are solid sauce,” Davy answered.

            “The… the software is working as it should, Mr. Ben. Their own security imaging has been converted to a complete thermal layout of the structure. Security measures. All the necessary. It is very good, this.”

            “That’s great, fellas. How’s the mark? She having a tough morning?”        

            “She was,” Fowler said.

            “Yeah, Bella Medina woke straight brittle with a mad hangover, BB. You showed the good times, left her wanting more like a straight stud.”

            “Bella Median, huh… I’m going to text her,” Ben said. “Observe if and how she reacts. I know it’s early, but let’s see if she blows it off.”

            “Maybe you should wait,” Dane said. “You know. She’s getting ready and everything.”

            “Nah, gut tells me strong moves. We can’t afford to sit back and watch. Hold on.”

            A collective sigh filled the back of the van.

            The big screen across the bathroom lit up, displaying a short text from Tony Zetland. Santorelli slapped the girl away and pulled herself from the trance she’d slipped into. Lars switched angles and they saw a youthful smile reform the tycoon’s features. She reached for a tablet sitting on a wooden stool next to the tub and sent a message back.

            “You get that?” Fowler asked Ben.

            “Yep. She wants to know when we get together again. That could come in handy.”

            They threw up their hands as she rose from the water and put on a robe.

            “You guys get everything you needed?”

            Almost, Dane thought. He looked over and saw Davy’s mouth sagging open.

            “We did, Mr. Ben.”

            “Okay, Lars. Great work all of you. Get some rest, we’ll do a meet early evening. See where we go from here.”

            After the call ended, Fowler couldn’t help letting it out. “That son of a bitch. What is it with him and women?”

            “He is Mr. Ben,” Lars said, smiling. “He is a charming one for the ladies. Always this way since I’ve known him.”

            Davy put a hand on the little Italian’s shoulder, thinking of the story Billings had told him concerning Dane’s ex. “Cool going, Inspector G. But best leave it in the barrel.”

            Fowler gave them both a hard look, waiting for the one dumb enough to say something else. After a heavy, awkward half minute, he slowed his breathing and climbed through to the front seat. “Get your shit packed and racked,” he barked. “Train’s leaving.”

Chapter 14: Business Meeting

            “It was good work last night,” said Remi Dryer, turning off a large flat screen and turning to face everyone sitting at the conference table. If anyone had been in the mood for comedy, it would’ve been worth laugh. One side was filled with bodies: Ben and Tabby, Lars, Bryce Creighton, Davy and Fowler. On the other: Lizzie Halsey and Evan Henk.

            “I get that we’ve got our differences,” Remi said, lighting a pretentiously thin cigarette, “but a genial atmosphere might serve us best.”

            “Collegial might be pushing it,” Billings said. “Genial, more like a pipedream.”

            “I think there’s some things even this group of bullshitters can’t fake,” Tabby followed. She was sitting tightly next to Fowler and all his bulk. It was the only place she felt safe. Lizzie Halsey wasn’t someone you circled up with before a big game. Johns knew the bloody things Remi’s junkyard dog had done. Worse yet, she’d seen them firsthand.

            “After last night’s multiple successes,” Dryer went on, “it seems blackmail might be the simplest way to maximize our profits. No muss, no fuss. Nothing with too many moving and parts.” She smiled at Billings and tapped a space on the shiny table equidistant between her and her protégé, watching him as he tried not to cringe. “I know how you like your plot twists, Benny. They’re cute, but sometimes rather pointless.”

            “What do you think, Mr. Henk?” Tabby asked, deciding to break up the tension before her partner said something ill-advised. “Don’t you think it’s a little premature, considering we don’t even know what deal these people are getting together for?”

            Henk sat back in his chair and started playing with knot of his tie, finally looking over to Dryer.

            “She’s got you by the balls, pal.” It was Fowler. He leaned forward and put his elbows on the table as a signal that he was afraid of absolutely nobody looking back his way…