TAUT (41 page)
Authors: JA Huss
But it also feels awesome because it means I’m capable of feeling.
Love is a risk and I can live with it.
“Wow,” Ash says as she comes up to us on the beach, “that was my best time ever! Did you see me?”
“My eyes never left you, love. Never.” And I had a boat trailing her the entire time. Love might be a risk, but I’m all about risk-management.
She takes the towel I hand her and flops down in the sand. I sit next to her and place Kate in between my legs. Kate grabs the sand and immediately tries to eat it. Ashleigh freaks out, but I figure, it’s sand, right? She’ll figure out pretty quick sand is not yummy. It doesn’t take a genius.
I’m one of
those
parents. Calm and lenient.
I love parenting. I love everything about it. I play the peek-a-boo game and give Katie daily updates on the Itsy-Bitsy Spider. I live for her squealing laughter.
Ashleigh wraps her hands around my upper arm and leans into my neck. “I love you, Ford.”
“I love you too, Ash. More today than yesterday.”
“I’m so glad God sent you to save me.”
I smile at that. I thought she was talking about Tony, but she was talking about God. “Well, I have a confession about that day. When I told you he sent me to save you back at Tony’s grave, it was a lie.”
“No,” she whines.
“Yes,” I say back, looking down at her scowling face. I lean over and put my palm against her neck, feeling her life force rushing through her body. She thrills me. Everything about her thrills me. I kiss her forehead, then her nose, then her lips. We linger like that, and then both of my hands have her head and I hold her still so I can look directly into her soul as I tell her the truth.
“God never sent me to save you, Mrs. Aston. He sent you to save me.”
And then I kiss her thoroughly. With tongue and biting and a promise of very dirty things to come tonight.
BOMB - A Day in the Life of Spencer Shrike - Chapter One
“Spencer! Fuck, dude! Watch the fucking road!” Ronin grabs the wheel and I tap the brake to stop for the light at College and Laurel.
“Ronin, was that Ronnie back there?” I’m trying my best to check the side view to see, but it’s no use. The girl went into the restaurant. “I think that was Ronnie walking into Anna Ameci’s.”
“How unusual,” Ford replies dryly from the back of the surveillance van, “for a woman to be going into a restaurant at dinnertime.”
I check the rear view so I can talk shit to his image. “Well, that woman was with a man. A man who is not me, so uh, yeah, asshole, it’s pretty fucking unusual for Ronnie to be having dinner with someone who is not me.”
“Since when?” Ford asks as he types away on that stupid keyboard. “I see her out with men all the time.”
“
What
?”
“Ford, goddammit, what’d I tell you?” Ronin interjects.
“You know about this?” I ask Ronin.
“She’s not your girlfriend, Spencer. Rook says she’s got a few other good prospects.”
“A few other… what the fuck? Since when?”
“Since you ignore her and treat her like shit,” Ford says, still tapping away.
A horn honks behind me and I look back to the road. The light is green so I move forward with the rest of traffic and then turn left on Elizabeth. “Eye on the prize, Spence,” Ronin says from the passenger seat. “Just focus on what the hell we’re doing. You can figure out what’s going on with Ronnie later.”
Yeah, easy for him to say. Fuckass. He’s got Rook at home. And hell, even Ford has a fucking girl at home. And a baby for Christ’s sake. And my best booty call is out on the town with another fucking guy!
“Turn left, turn left, Spencer!” Ronin yells. “Fuck.”
“I was gonna turn left all along, calm down, Larue.”
He shoots me a dirty look at the nickname but I don’t give a shit. I love calling his whipped ass Larue.
“Spencer, you can go home if you want to act childish. Ronin and I can do this alone.”
“Fuck off, Ford. Get your toy ready, we’re almost there.”
“I’m ready,” he says, leaning up to the front cab. He’s holding the little robot that looks a lot like a two-pound dumbbell with antennae. “Where’s he now, Ronin?”
Ronin looks down at the tablet in his hand. “Same place. At the bar, just ordered another drink.”
“So we have a little buffer then, right?” I ask. “He’s gonna nurse that thing?”
“Dunno,” Ronin says with a huff. “He’s got a shot and a beer, which means it could just be a chaser. Better get it in quick, Ford. And I swear to God, Spencer, if we get busted for this stupid shit, I will have your ass.”
“Stupid shit? This asshole stole seven fucking bikes out of my showroom! That’s like eighty grand! It’s not some stupid shit.”
“Allegedly stole. You have no proof. And eighty grand is not worth the attention this close to the trials,” Ford replies back. “But I’m clean on this.”
Ronin laughs. “Ford, we’re using a military-grade robot to spy on Spencer’s competitor, you really think if we get caught we’re clean? Please. We’re the first people they’ll pick up.”
“Anyway… we’re here. This close enough, Ford?” I pull up a few blocks down from the warehouse that Drake Cikes calls home base. “Cikes Bikes. What the fuck is that?” I ask, pointing up to the sign near the entrance to his part of the complex. “And he just has to open up shop in Fort Collins? You know what he’s doing, don’t you? Trying to confuse people. Cikes Bikes and Shrike Bikes sound the same, and if you look us up online, he comes up Fort Collins and I come up Bellvue. People think his stupid bikes are mine! He’s getting my business and now he stole from me! Hell, I bet you anything he’s chopped up those bikes and has my fucking parts on his custom shit right now!”
“Calm down, Spencer,” Ronin says. “We don’t know any of that yet. And there’s no way anyone can mistake you for him, so just relax.”
Well, that is true. Because I’m all tatted up in black and red. I’ve got the body of a Greek god, and I own this fucking town. Drake is one of those rockabilly types, with his skinny-ass body, thick black glasses, and white t-shirts. “Thinks he’s Fonzie or something.”
“What?” Ronin asks with a weird look.
“Drake. Thinks he’s Fonzie with those white t-shirts. And him stealing my bikes is his version of jumping the shark. He’s desperate, so he’s gotta steal my shit.”
“You’re crazy, Spencer.” Ronin goes back to his tablet.
“Crazy enough to come up with this plan,
yo
.”
I might’ve gone too far became they’re ignoring me now.
“OK,” Ford says, “I’m gonna drop it.” He opens the back door of the van and tosses the robot out. Ronin switches feeds so he has the bot cam on one side of his tablet and Ashleigh manning the Drake cam on the other. She’s new in town and no one really knows her yet, so she was the only one who could keep an eye on the guy while we tapped his shit.
The bot’s all-terrain tires start to roll and it travels down the alley to the warehouse. The bay door is closed. We’ve been watching this place all week and it’s the same routine. Drake takes off about four-thirty and heads over to the Cat Call for dunch and a few brewskies. Then he comes back and locks the place up tight. We’ve looked at every possible way to get in here without resorting to the stealth and stalk we’re doing now, but the place is tight. Ford even hacked the blueprints of the building from the city, and no dice. The place was remodeled before he moved in last month and it’s like these guys are stashing guns and gold in there.
But Drake always pulls into the bay when he comes home, he likes to work on his bike in the evenings or something because he stays late every night. So the bay will open to let the bike in and that will be our window to drive that bot right into his lair, the mechanical hum of the tiny motor covered up by the roaring of the motorcycle.
He’s got quite the setup for a man who came out of nowhere. Warehouse, employees, production schedule, advertising. It’s like he’s got a backer or something. But Ford checked him out. There are no obvious ties and no covert ones either. None Ford can see without taking risks that are not warranted for this particular annoyance.
At least as far as Ronin is concerned. And since Ronin’s the one who has to dig us out if we fuck up, he always gets the final say on shit like that.
The radio in back crackles and then Ashleigh’s voice come in. “This is Mama Likes a Spankin’, come back good, buddies.”
I look at Ronin. He shakes his head. “You don’t want to know,” he says.
“Go ahead, Red Cheeks,” Ford replies.
“Playtime’s over, time to get busy. ETA”—her voice is drowned out by a loud motorcycle starting up and driving away—“five. Mama out.”
“Someone’s been watching a little too much
Dukes of Hazzard
.”
Both my partners in crime ignore me now. Figures. I’m always the bored one on these jobs. I never have anything to do unless someone needs to be roughed up. And this guy can’t be roughed up. He’s too close to me. But that guy with Ronnie back at Anna Ameci’s can. I crack my knuckles and pat my leather jacket until I find the outline of my little Smith and Wesson Bodyguard. Love this little gun. It fits everywhere. In a pocket, in a boot—and shit, my hands are so big, I can probably conceal it in my palm. It’s always there, inside left pocket of the leather, ready to go when I am.
A motorcycle roars by and the van shakes a little from the wind and the rumble.
We watch the bike on the bot cam, then it inches forward into the bay with the bike. “We’re in. Now all I gotta do is find a place to park it.”
“Find that place now, Ford. Else we’re fucking busted.” Ronin says with urgency.
I lean over and watch the feed as Ford tries to maneuver the bot under a tool bench. The little cam picks up the bike and Ford backs the bot up and does a neat little three-point turn until it’s concealed. “One and done,” he says. “Let’s go. I can come back later when the place is locked up to reposition.”
He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I start the van and pull out, taking the long way around the block, and then head up towards Mulberry. Ronin’s car is parked on Laurel, but I drop Ford off first. Ashleigh is waiting for him at the FoCo Cinema where Rook was watching their kid until her job was done. Rook’s already walking down the road towards the prearranged meeting place for Ronin to pick her up.
After I ditch everyone I park the van in the alley behind Big City Burrito and head back up towards Anna Ameci’s. I enter through the back door where the bathrooms are and sneak up towards the dining room. It’s not a fancy place, just a family restaurant, but that sure the fuck is Veronica having dinner with a dude. And they are both dressed like they work on Wall Street.
I let out a long breath and wait it out, because the waiter just dropped off the check. They get up and the guy puts his hand at the small of her back, guiding her away from a large group who are jostling everyone near the door.
What a player. That’s my move.
I can’t see them after they go through the door, so I slip back out the way I came and walk the wall down the alley that takes me back out to College Ave.
I’m just rounding the corner when the guy slams into me. He backs off, apologizing, then keeps walking. I peek around the corner and catch Veronica getting into her little Mini Cooper parked in front of Sick Boyz Inc., the tattoo shop she runs with her father and brothers. I turn back to the scumbag trying to bag my girl and walk silently down the alley. He’s looking at his phone, standing next to a dark-colored sedan. I slip the gun out of my pocket and walk up behind him and place it against his head.
“Do not move,” I whisper.
He freezes and I pat him down until I find his wallet, and then slip it out. I want to ask him so many questions, but I can’t. Not without risking my identity. I clock him on the head and he crumples against the car and then folds until he’s on the ground. I take his ID and throw the wallet down as he moans and starts checking his head for damage. I walk off, calmly. He never comes after me, but even if he did, he wouldn’t find me. I know this downtown well enough to make it back to the alley behind Big City Burrito without being on the street.
I don’t loiter when I get to the van, just start it up and head back to the shop up in Bellvue.
Fuck, what a night. I palm the guy’s ID and wonder what the hell he’s doing with my Ronnie.
He’s not her type, but she sure didn’t look like my type tonight. Not in that tan skirt-suit and trench coat.
This throws me. Ronnie has never looked the part of tattoo artist. She’s wild and she’s got big hair and bigger boobs, but she has no tats. Not even one. She’s got a severe blood aversion and I’ve always been surprised that she can put up with the little pinpricks of blood that bubble up when she’s working. So maybe a businessman
is
her type.
I chew on this the whole ride back to Shrike Bikes, my thoughts as twisted and unsettled as the Poudre River that’s raging with an early spring thaw right alongside the road. And when I get home and park the van in a locked building at the back of the property, I come to the conclusion that Ronnie’s type just might be a businessman after all.
But I’m a businessman too. I might not look like one, but I am
all
fucking business.
And if she wants to play a game to see if I’m serious, well, I can play as well as anyone.
In fact, I’m a damn good player.
I’m the best fucking player this town has ever seen.
So game on.
End of Book Shit
What’s next?
BOMB – the Spencer Shrike Novella (2-17-14)
GUNS – the Spencer Shrike Novel (3-31-14)
I’m sorta sad that Ford is pretty much done. I want to write more stories about him and Ashleigh and Kate, I really do. But I’m not going to unless I have a really good reason. Yes, they are all going to be in Spencer’s book, but only as secondary characters.
