Strange Bedfellows

by Rob Byrnes

  “It’s the thought that counts.” Constance logged off and gazed lovingly as Angelina poured herself a glass of red wine. Neither of them was as young as they’d once been, but she admired the way Angelina had eased into middle age. Her face showed only the finest lines; the hair that had once been lustrous and black was now gray and cropped short. That those were the only visible signs of a life that hadn’t always been easy was nothing short of amazing.

  If only her own face and body had held up half as well…Not that Angelina ever complained.

  Angelina carried her wineglass to the couch and sat. “So how was your day?”

  “Fairly profitable.” She joined her partner on the couch. “I had to waste some time with Grant and Chase, but otherwise I had a good day.”

  “What did Grant and Chase want?” They might not have known her name, but she certainly knew theirs. Even though Angelina Ortiz wasn’t a practitioner, she knew everything about Constance’s career. “Did they have a job for you?”

  “They got screwed by a client, so they’re looking for help getting revenge.” Constance chuckled. “Dumbasses.”

  Angelina curled one leg beneath her. “So are you gonna help them?”

  “Hell. No.”

  “But they’re your friends.”

  Constance leaned back against a throw pillow. “Calling them friends is stretching it. We’re business associates, and business is business. They took a bad job and got burned, so why should I volunteer my time to help them?”

  Angelina shook her head disapprovingly. “Hope nothing like that ever happens to you. If you won’t help your friends when they’re in a jam, nobody’s gonna be around to help you in the same situation.”

  “The difference is, I would never put myself in the same situation. If a fool like Jamie Brock brought me a job retrieving pictures of a penis, I’d kick his ass down the front steps.”

  “Wait…pictures of a penis?”

  “You heard me.” Constance laughed. “Some guy running for Congress—Pebbles or Peebles; something like that—took a picture of his junk and…”

  Angelina jerked upright, almost spilling her wine in the process. “Peebles? Austin Peebles?”

  Constance raised an eyebrow. “You’ve heard of him?”

  “He’s adorable!”

  “Yeah, well, that adorable man got himself into trouble taking pictures of his—”

  Angelina bounced on the couch. “You’ve got to take that job!”

  Now it was Constance’s turn to jerk upright. “I certainly do not.”

  “Come on! It’ll be fun. You’ll be helping a friend and helping Austin Peebles at the same time!”

  “I’m not—” Constance paused mid-objection. “And why the hell should I give a damn about Austin Peebles’s penis?”

  In her enthusiasm, Angelina ignored the objection. “I’ll even help!”

  That stopped Constance cold. In all the years they’d been together, Angelina Ortiz had never shown any interest in working with her. “You will?” It didn’t seem right. “What’s so special about this Peebles guy that’s got you so boy-crazy?”

  “He’s just…I don’t know, I guess ‘adorable’ is the word.”

  “It’s certainly the word you keep using.”

  “I’ve been reading about him in The Daily News. He looks like such a heartbreaker, but he’s such a nice boy. He even reads to blind orphaned puppies!”

  Constance eyed Angelina. “You’re a little too excited about this guy. Are you sure you’re a lesbian?”

  Grant sat, depressed and alone, at his kitchen table. Chase was working a late shift at The Gross, which cut him off from the world. He supposed he could pick up his phone and try to round out the gang, but…nah. Jamie was now on board—for all the good that would do—and Nick would be getting back to them. That was a start, if not quite the manpower he’d need.

  He stared at his cell phone resting on the counter next to the sink. He was definitely not a phone-aphobe—no matter what an increasing number of people seemed to think—but saw no need to actually pick it up and talk to someone. Whatever thoughts he had could wait until Chase came home from work and—

  The phone buzzed, startling him. He gripped the edge of the table and stared at it again, watching it move a half inch with the vibration. When the noise and movement stopped, Grant finally took a breath.

  And then it happened again.

  He stood and cautiously approached, transfixed as the phone danced along the countertop. From a yard away he tried to read the screen to see who was calling. That didn’t work, so he took another step closer.

  The screen read Constance Price.

  Grant took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and reached for the now-silent phone, hoping she’d hung up.

  “That you, Lambert?” Constance’s voice asked the dead air.

  “Yeah.”

  “Look at you, answering your phone! I’m so proud of you!”

  He sighed. “Is this important?”

  “You think I’d waste my time on bullshit?” He didn’t say anything, so she continued. “I’m calling to tell you we’re in.”

  “You’re in what?”

  “Christ, Lambert, why do you have to make this harder on me than it already is? We’re in on your revenge job. But let me tell you—”

  “You’re in? That’s great.” He felt more enthusiastic than he sounded until his head rewound her words. “Wait—who’s ‘we’?”

  “Me and Angelina.”

  “Who’s…?” He thought for a moment until something buried far back in his memory glimmered. “Angelina? Isn’t she your girlfriend?”

  “We prefer ‘partner,’ but yes, that’s the one.”

  Grant didn’t like that idea. “But she’s not in our business. She’s never pulled a job before, has she?”

  “No.”

  “Ever helped you on a scam?”

  “No, and that’s why I’m not happy about this. She wants to do the job because of this Austin Peebles. I don’t understand it, but she’s infatuated with him.”

  “There’s a lot of that going on. My partner was flirting with him, and even Mary Beth seems ready to switch teams.”

  It was Constance’s turn to be surprised. “Mary Beth? Mary Beth Reuss? She hates everyone!”

  “Everyone except Austin Peebles. Go figure.” He tapped a finger on the countertop. “I met the guy. Nothing special.”

  “I’m going to have to see him for myself,” Constance said. “I don’t think I like the effect he’s having on my lesbian community.”

  “I don’t like the effect he’s having on anyone. Especially if that effect is bringing rookies in on the job.”

  “Don’t worry about Angelina. If she wants to come along I can’t stop her, but I’ll make sure she stays out of the way. Anyway, another pair of hands—and eyes—are a good thing, right?”

  “If those hands know what they’re doing and those eyes know what they’re looking for.”

  “Don’t worry, Lambert. I’ll keep Angelina out of the way.”

  “You’d better,” Grant grumbled.

  He didn’t need a five-bar cellular connection to hear indignation from the next borough due west. “Is that any way to show appreciation to me for saying yes?”

  He mumbled an apology and was grateful a few minutes later to be able to put the phone back on the counter.

  Then he thought better of it and stowed the phone in the silverware drawer.

  The next time a phone rang in the apartment, it was morning again and the phone belonged to Chase.

  “It’s Nick,” he announced to Grant, who was once again at the kitchen table, this time with a tube of Bengay in hand. “Want to take the call?” Grant’s response was a cold stare, which didn’t surprise Chase at all. “He can’t come to the phone right now, Nick. So what can I do for you?”

  The kid spoke for a few seconds, and then Chase informed Grant, “He’s in.”

  “Okay, tell him—”

&nb
sp; “But he wants to know if he’s a villain or a hero?”

  “Oh, jeez.” Grant rubbed some ointment on his shoulder. “Tell him it’s the same deal as before.”

  Chase spoke to Nick, and Nick spoke back.

  “He says he’d rather think of himself as a supervillain.”

  “Ugh.” They didn’t make crooks like they used to. “Okay, fine, tell him whatever he wants to hear. If he wants to think of himself as a villain—”

  “Supervillain.”

  “Supervillain, then. If that’s what he wants, tell him it’s okay. Whatever it takes to seal the deal.”

  So Chase did. It was only after he hung up that he thought to ask Grant, “Do you think that was wise?”

  “Whatever. We need him. He already knows the layout of June’s office, and he’s the only one who can fit through the transom.”

  “Hey, I fit through it!”

  “Yeah, but you’re running out of underwear. Anyway, the kid has already been educated on how to dress and conduct himself. Which his mother shoulda done, but that’s what happens when you go legit.” He was reminded how he could have used Kelly whatever-her-most-recent-married-name-was right now, but that ship had sailed. “I figure we shouldn’t have any problems with him this time.”

  One of Chase’s eyebrows inched up. “You’re sure?”

  Grant heaved a sigh. “If I have the chance, I’ll talk to him again when we get the gang together to go over plans. If we get a gang together, that is. Right now, we’re not where we need to be.”

  He figured they needed two more people: someone to drive and someone with the fast hands of an expert pickpocket or shoplifter.

  And he had no idea where he was going to find those people.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Grant and Chase might have been stalled on their end, but the same was not true for Mary Beth Reuss.

  She had an assignment and was determined to carry it out. True, on those rare occasions she’d been drawn into past schemes, she’d been a reluctant participant. But this was different.

  On past jobs, she’d only become involved for her beloved Lisa. Lisa gave her everything and asked for little in return except Mary Beth’s indulgence in the kicks she got committing crimes alongside Lambert and LaMarca. It had to be the kicks, because she didn’t need the cash, and when Grant Lambert came up with a plan, you could guarantee any payoff would be small change.

  Mary Beth got that, even if she didn’t share Lisa’s apparent faith in Lambert and his idiotic schemes.

  She’d been born into money and cultivated expensive tastes until Dr. Gerhard Reuss—once known to her as “Daddy”—offered her a “be my daughter or be a lesbian” ultimatum, and she felt the temporary thrill of being her own woman. Daddy—no, it was “Dr. Reuss” now, and he was only a podiatrist, not the guy who was going to cure cancer—lost his “Princess” that day.

  That should have been devastating for Mary Beth, but she found it thrilling.

  Or it was for maybe forty-eight hours. Until the moment she realized she’d never be able to survive on hand-me-down clothes or figure out how to turn on a stove burner without singeing her hair.

  It was a fortunate circumstance when she met Lisa Cochrane a short time later. Lisa offered her those thrills she thought were gone forever, and that was before Mary Beth realized Lisa was rich. That they were still together was a matter of love, not money, but Mary Beth was not above settling for both if she could.

  So Mary Beth indulged Lisa’s thrill crimes—there was really no other way to describe them—because she had experienced her own thrills of loss and discovery. Not that a wallet full of credit cards hurt.

  She knew everyone considered her a pampered bitch, and she agreed with them. She saw it as self-protection but was comfortable enough in her own skin to let other people think what they wanted to think. Lisa got her, and that was what was important.

  Maybe that was what attracted her to Austin Peebles.

  From watching him on the occasional newscast, she got the same sense about his background. Maybe he hadn’t been disowned by his family—or maybe he had; she never got that far into his life story—but Mary Beth sensed damage beneath his charming façade. Somehow this poor lost puppy had been thrown to the sharks and was flailing in open seas.

  Wait…puppies? That reminded her: Any man who would read to blind orphaned puppies melted her heart.

  She knew Lisa would object, so Mary Beth waited a full half hour after her girlfriend left for the office before showering, dressing, and making her way to the Austin Peebles campaign headquarters to volunteer…or whatever she’d improvise to get close to the candidate.

  No, Grant had not yet authorized her to put the plan in motion.

  No, she didn’t care.

  When she walked into the campaign headquarters on Lexington Avenue, every male—and a few of the females—turned to look. She couldn’t blame them.

  For a woman of fairly small stature, Mary Beth had very large breasts…and knew how to use them to her advantage. The dress she’d selected for this foray to the campaign headquarters was cut to emphasize breasts and curves. It wasn’t the sort of outfit one would wear to church, but she wasn’t going to church.

  She was going hunting.

  “Can…can…?” stammered the first young man she encountered.

  “Can you help me? Yes, you can. I’m looking for Austin Peebles.”

  “He’s…uh…” The man took his eyes off her chest and managed to control himself. “He’s not here.”

  She looked at him and shook her head. It was more than pathetic the way most straight men turned into idiots at the sight of a rack, but that was their problem.

  Repositioning her body back into his line of vision, she asked, “Do you know where I can find him?”

  “He’s…uh…” The young man shifted his eyes until he was looking at a wall. “He’s campaigning at a senior center.”

  She moved again, this time giving her upper body a little jiggle. “When will he be back?”

  “He won’t be back today.” The young man focused both eyes on his stapler. “He has events on his schedule all day, and a fund-raiser tonight.”

  By the time he looked back up he only caught a rear view of the woman as she walked away.

  One year earlier, Chase had pulled a few jobs with a shoplifter from Staten Island who came off like a hockey mom, not a criminal. He’d been impressed with her fast fingers and introduced her to Grant, just in case they needed someone with her talents one day.

  This was that day.

  When she heard Chase’s voice on the other end of the phone line, Chrissy Alton’s first impulse was to say no before she knew what he was proposing. Because she actually was a hockey mom, and the boys had practices and games lined up on an almost daily basis for the next ten years or so. Since Staten Island had limited mass transit—no subway; just buses and a train with tracks running nowhere near where she’d needed to be—and her husband the dentist was too busy to drive them everywhere, the burden fell on Chrissy.

  But she was a sport, and decided to hear Chase out. She could always turn him down later.

  Chase started with the blow to his and Grant’s honor inflicted by Wunder’s double-cross. Surely any criminal would understand their need to avenge a thirty-thousand-dollar slap in the face.

  She was unmoved.

  So he promised her cash if the job was successful and the Peebles campaign paid up.

  She laughed. “Three thousand dollars? Seriously?”

  “Hey, that’s ten percent of the take.”

  “No offense, Chase, but I can make more than that in four minutes just by shoplifting from Walgreens.”

  So Chase went back to “honor,” and she remained unmoved.

  The conversation had almost drawn to a close when one last thought popped into Chase’s head. “Too bad I won’t have this opportunity to show Grant what you can do.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe someday—”

&nbs
p; He interrupted. “We pull big heists from time to time, and I figured if he saw you in action he might bring you into a gang. But…”

  After the briefest silence she asked, “How big are these heists?”

  “Couple of hundred thou…sometimes a few million.” That information was true, although Chase left unsaid that the money they tried to get and the money they counted at the end of a big heist didn’t necessarily correspond.

  “A few…” She swallowed. “Million?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me think about it.” Chrissy hung up and a few minutes later her husband Karl walked through the front door.

  “Hey, babe,” he said, by way of greeting. “What’s for dinner?”

  She’d been thinking of millions of dollars and his question brought her out of it. “I hadn’t planned anything…”

  “That’s okay. I’ll order a pizza.”

  She looked around her very pleasant middle-class house in her very pleasant middle-class neighborhood, and then at her very pleasant middle-class husband—the dentist—who worked hard and left her to drive the boys to an endless number of ice rinks.

  Then she looked down at the Manolo Blahniks she’d swiped the week before.

  Which was the moment Chrissy Alton decided it might be a good idea to show Grant Lambert just how good she was at her craft. Because hockey and pizza and Walgreens didn’t seem to cut it anymore.

  There was nothing wrong with being a hockey mom married to a good provider. There was also nothing wrong with wanting more excitement and disposal income.

  June Forteene stood in the middle of her office, paralyzed into inaction by, well…everything.

  To the best of her knowledge, Edward was probably still in jail. Her only other paid help—a researcher named Gretchen who seldom worked out of the office but could be called in a pinch—had told her just minutes earlier she was pregnant and taking a job with benefits, effective immediately. Her office had been broken into by some pervert who had left his underwear behind. And a scruffy man in a UPS uniform was following her.