Strange Bedfellows

by Rob Byrnes

She didn’t like this at all. It was bad enough to have an office full of hooligans; it was worse to have an office full of hooligans who knew she’d ordered Kevin Wunder to hire them to commit a crime. But she’d deal with the ramifications later. Right now it was important to clear things up and get them out of her office.

  She folded her hands on her desk. “Go on, Kevin.”

  He wiped his brow. “So I hired them, but they didn’t get every copy of the picture. And you know that’s true, because June Forteene started blackmailing us again.” She nodded. “That’s why I refused to pay them.” He paused to wipe his brow again and took the opportunity to review his story and make sure it was more or less consistent. “They mugged me this morning and stole my phone and laptop, and now they’re threatening us and insisting we pay up.”

  The room fell silent while everyone waited for her to speak.

  “Thank you, Kevin.” She looked at Grant, who seemed to lead the criminals. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

  “Just that Wunder is full of shit. Uh, pardon my language.”

  She wasn’t inclined to believe a common criminal over her loyal, longtime aide, but Catherine was a fair woman. She’d let him have his say. “And what is your version of this story?”

  “My version of the story is what really happened. We did what we were supposed to get paid to do. You want to know how June Forteene kept getting copies of the cock shot?” Triple-C reddened slightly. “Uh, sorry ma’am. Anyway, she kept getting them ’cause Wunder kept sending them to her.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Why would Kevin—”

  “’Cause he wants to be the congressman.” Grant held up the flash drive. “Wunder figures if Austin has to drop out of the campaign, he’ll become the candidate.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” She stared at Grant. “Kevin is never going to be the candidate.”

  “What?” Wunder sputtered.

  “No offense, Kevin. You’re just not very dynamic.”

  Austin added his two cents. “Not to mention he’s been working with June Forteene.”

  Wunder had worked himself into another red-faced rage. “I’m not working with June Forteene!”

  Grant ignored him. “So in order to protect Austin, we had to go back and steal all the computers and cell phones that might have the picture of the, uh…you know…on them.”

  She remained skeptical. “And where are they now?”

  “Gone forever.”

  “So no one will ever see that image?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then what’s that in your hand?”

  He looked at the flash drive. “This is my guarantee that once this job is over, it’s over. I don’t want to see or hear from Kevin Wunder or anyone else.”

  Wunder snorted. “He’s going to blackmail Austin! Don’t you understand?”

  The congresswoman did understand, and looked at Grant with a steely expression on her face. “I’ll make a deal with you. If you give me that flash drive, I’ll give you a check for thirty thousand dollars.”

  “I don’t take checks.”

  She sighed. “I suppose I should have assumed you didn’t. In that case, you’ll have to give me some time to get the cash together.”

  Grant didn’t want to repeat this episode again in days or weeks. They were already pressing their luck. “Time is something we don’t have a lot of.”

  “Not even forty minutes? I’m afraid I don’t keep that kind of cash in the office.”

  He reconsidered but didn’t want to let her know it was no longer an imposition. “I suppose we can wait another forty minutes.”

  Triple-C’s word was good. Forty-two minutes later he had thirty thousand dollars in his pocket.

  And she had the flash drive.

  As they walked out the door, Chase called out over his shoulder. “Good night, Wunder. Don’t let the Argentine Leaping Bedbugs bite!”

  “Why, you…!!”

  The door closed between them, and they could only hear faint traces of his screams.

  Because there were a lot of people and there wasn’t a lot of space in the elevator, they had to make two trips. When they regrouped in the lobby, Grant approached Margaret Campbell.

  “Told you I could pull this off.”

  Her expression conveyed boredom. “Not the way I would have done it, but congratulations.”

  “Thanks. Hopefully we’ll never see each other again.”

  He began to walk away but she stopped him. “One question!”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why’d you leave them with the flash drive?”

  “They paid for a penis. Well…I gave them what they paid for.”

  Catherine Cooper Concannon never believed the criminal when he claimed Kevin was associating with the loathsome blogger June Forteene and knew that Austin could be easily misled. If she had believed him, she would have fired Kevin on the spot. And she certainly wouldn’t have left her desk unlocked that evening.

  The criminals deserved the money, and she had no doubt Kevin had tried to cheat them, but she’d made everything all right. And now Austin no longer had that X-rated image burdening him, and their lives could get back to normal, so it was worth every nickel of that thirty thousand dollars she’d paid out.

  But because that desk was unlocked, Kevin could help himself to something he considered a lot more valuable than money.

  He’d been taken aback when Triple-C announced he would never be the candidate, but when he calmed down he dismissed that as meaningless. He was dynamic and he was congressional material, and when Austin Peebles was out of the picture, he’d prove it.

  Too bad the thumb drive he took from the unlocked desk contained only a gay porn video, which he didn’t realize until he triumphantly played it for June Forteene and Edward Hepplewhite a few hours later.

  As Grant had said, they wanted a penis and they got what they paid for.

  They got seven times what they paid for, as a matter of fact.

  June curled into a fetal position on the floor.

  Chapter Twenty

  Grant went over the numbers again and again, muttering to himself as his pencil scratched a pad.

  “I still can’t figure out how we cleared less than two thousand dollars on a thirty-thousand-dollar job.”

  Chase, who’d been going over those same numbers with Grant through three hours and four pencils, could now repeat his lines by rote. “Twenty percent to Jamie as a finder’s fee. That’s six Gs off the top.”

  “Hate him.”

  “I know. Four grand to Nick; another four to Farraday. Then subtract five thousand to Lisa and Mary Beth, five thousand to Constance and Angelina…” He was forgetting someone. “Oh, and four thousand to Chrissy.”

  “How’d she earn four thousand again? Didn’t we tell her three?”

  “She took care of both June Forteene and Kevin Wunder, so she got a raise and we got a bargain. We should use her again.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Chase ignored him. “That leaves two thousand dollars. Factor in expenses, and there’s your reason why we only cleared eighteen hundred dollars.”

  Grant sighed and tapped his pencil on the pad before setting it down. “It just don’t seem right.”

  “I know. Maybe the next job…”

  The pencil rolled off the table and clicked on the scuffed linoleum. “If there is a next job. Maybe this is a sign I should retire.”

  “Oh, Grant!” Chase laughed and threw his arms around his partner. “There’s always gonna be a next job.” He took a glance at the pad. “And how are you going to afford to retire on eighteen hundred dollars?”

  “Nicholas DuFour Donovan, get your ass out here!” Kelly Marinelli Dennison DuFour O’Rourke Donovan DuFour Bell Spencer DuFour Capobianco stood outside her son’s bedroom door with her hands firmly planted on her hips.

  “Why?” he yelled back from behind the locked door. “I’m playing video games.”

&nbs
p; “I’m counting to five and you’d better be out here, or I’m coming in. One!”

  “But I’m in the middle—”

  “Two!”

  The door opened a crack, and Nick’s dark eyes and full head of hair showed through the opening.

  “That’s not outside. Three!”

  He got the message. The door swung open and he stepped into the hallway. Only then did he see she was holding an envelope.

  “You wanna explain this?”

  “What is that?”

  “Your bank statement, you little—” She was so angry it had taken her a few moments to even notice. “What the hell are you wearing?”

  She asked because she’d realized her son was wearing a silver bodysuit and dark blue cape. Nick looked down at his outfit, appraising it. “This? Just trying out a new look.”

  Kelly shook her head. “Another superhero?”

  “No.” He scoffed at his mother’s ignorance. “Not another superhero. The best superhero ever!” He lifted his arms and the dark blue cape spread. “The Silver Menace!”

  She wondered if maybe she should have quit drinking the moment she learned she was pregnant, but it was twenty-one years too late for regrets.

  “Wanna see a real menace, kid? Then lie to me when you tell me how four grand ended up in your checking account just a few days after I spotted Grant Lambert and Chase LaMarca trying to hide from me in the corner deli.” She folded her arms across her chest. “You have an answer for me yet?”

  The Silver Menace hung his head. “No.”

  “You pulled a job with them, didn’t you?”

  “A little bit.”

  That was too much. It was bad enough that she had been in the business, but there was no way she was going to let Grant and Chase drag her innocent boy into a life of crime. “I’m gonna kill them. But first…” Nick steeled himself for whatever was coming. “But first you’re gonna give me half.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “But—”

  “And you’re gonna promise me you’ll stay away from Grant and Chase. They’re bad influences. I raised you to be better than that.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  He figured it was the right thing to say. Also, technically the words came from The Silver Menace, and therefore Nick Donovan was under no such obligation.

  Lisa Cochrane’s book—Celebrity Boudoirs I’ve Known (And the Walk-in Closets, Too!)—quickly became one of Palmer / Midkiff / Carlyle’s strongest-selling titles during the holiday season, and for at least a few months she acquired a reputation as a celebrity real estate professional. Both the book and reputation played off each other, although she never really saw the extra cash that was being generated.

  Mary Beth saw it—and therefore Bergdorf Goodman and Saks saw it—but Lisa didn’t see it.

  But she could always make more money—more legitimate money—so that wasn’t a problem. Lisa was pushing sixty, and money hadn’t been a problem for decades. If Mary Beth was happy, she was happy.

  Although there was that little outstanding matter of the two thousand dollars she was still owed for an Austin Peebles fund-raiser ticket.

  Lisa was willing to forgive, but not forget, a lot of things. Those things did not include that debt.

  “Okay, try it again. Softer this time. I don’t want to even feel it.”

  “How was that?’

  “I’m ready.”

  “I’m done!”

  Constance wheeled around and looked at Angelina, who stood in the middle of their living room proudly holding a wallet that seconds earlier had been in Constance’s pocket.

  “Pretty good.” Constance coughed into her hand. “I barely felt that.”

  Angelina smiled. “Don’t lie to me. You didn’t feel it at all. I knew that, but then you did your fake cough thing, so I really know it now.”

  Constance laughed. “You know me, don’t you?” Her lips met Angelina’s, and the kiss lingered for a long time. When it broke, she added, “And you’re pretty damn good at picking pockets.”

  Angelina loved the praise but was impatient. “Thanks, but now can you explain to me one more time how that credit card scam works?”

  Constance almost squealed. She couldn’t have been happier.

  Paul Farraday was also perfecting his skills.

  In fact, he’d just had a smooth trip from Far Rockaway to Inwood and back down to 125th Street before he started to notice MTA employees giving the subway train a second look. That’s why he made himself a passenger after he opened the doors, which he figured was a good thing as blue uniforms started to enter from the platform.

  The cars sat in the station for ten minutes with no announcements, so passengers began cursing and filing out. Farraday joined them, walking past the confused cops and muttering about MTA inefficiency like any true New Yorker.

  Up on 125th, he boosted a livery cab and drove himself home.

  Most of the way, he whistled “Take the A Train.”

  Sure, he had six thousand dollars in his pocket that he hadn’t had before, but Jamie Brock still felt disappointed. He had hoped his work cultivating Triple-C and Boy Wunder would have paid off at a higher level. He was thinking more sixty than six.

  But he’d been hustling long enough to know a man had to roll with the punches. Down today, up tomorrow, and all that.

  And six thousand dollars wasn’t exactly nothing. It was certainly filling his glass that night at the Penthouse, his favorite East Side bar, and if he budgeted wisely it would continue to do so for…

  He tried to do the math, but he wasn’t good at math. Or budgeting. So he stopped.

  An older, well-dressed man waved in his direction, and he thought, Why not?

  He was brought to a stop halfway to his target when a kid half his age ran up to the codger, planted a kiss on his forehead, and said, “Helloooo, Daddy!”

  Jamie had been in denial for years, but suddenly felt the decades cascade over him.

  And he know only one thing could make him feel better about himself.

  More Botox.

  The world of political blogging expressed shock when June Forteene’s site abruptly went dark. One day she was promising A PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS; the next day visitors landed on an error page.

  Many were shocked. No one was especially saddened.

  Rumors swirled. Depending on the source, she had been killed by jihadists, killed by the Obamas, killed by the Trilateral Commission, or raptured.

  It never occurred to anyone to track down a woman named Hillary Morris. A lot of bloggers knew her birth name, but no one cared enough to do the research. Her disappearance fed hyperbole, which increased readership and upped the price of blog ads. That was what they cared about.

  She would have been easy to find. Even three months after June Forteene disappeared and the story faded into a non-story, Hillary Morris had barely moved off the couch in her mother’s studio apartment on Long Island.

  Every now and then she’d have a clear thought and vow to return. Then she’d pop another pill and realize life was nicer on the comfortable couch…

  Some people weren’t made for New York City. Edward Hepplewhite was one of them.

  He didn’t even last a full ten days.

  In those less-than-ten days, he’d been drugged and fired, and experienced political corruption, Live! Nude! Girls!, Naked! Dangling! Burglars!, prison, and Tasers.

  It took most people at least a full month to experience the best New York had to offer.

  This was one Christian college graduate who didn’t need another sign from God. Pennsylvania was calling him home, and he was only too eager to obey the command.

  It was home in Pennsylvania where he would finally spread his wings and flourish.

  Three years later, Edward Hepplewhite would be crowned Mr. Leather Daddy Philadelphia.

  After Catherine Cooper Concannon retired and Austin Peebles replaced her, Kevin Wunder moved on.

&nbs
p; He was never going to be an elected official. He wasn’t going to be on the New York City Council, he wasn’t going to be a state legislator, he wasn’t going to be in Congress, and he certainly would never be president.

  Those were disappointing realizations, even though they’d been creeping up on him for years.

  So Kevin decided to move to Washington and become a lobbyist. The money was better, the hours were better, and the only downside was an occasional awkward encounter with United States Representative Austin Peebles (D-NY), who didn’t trust him for understandable reasons. If that was as bad as it would ever get, he could live with it.

  And, in fact, that was as bad as it would ever get. Kevin Wunder would live with it for a long, lucrative time.

  Margaret Campbell wasn’t surprised when her name was announced as the winner of a Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award. In fact, she’d bought a special gown for the evening, instead of dressing in the dowdy clothes she usually wore to these events. She didn’t mind spilling bourbon on dowdy clothes, but tonight demanded a higher standard.

  The gown was Versace. It brought out the color of her eyes.

  When her name was called, she stood and let the applause well up around her. David Carlyle was sitting next to her in a tuxedo—tie and cummerbund matching her gown—and rose to peck her on the cheek before she made her way to the podium.

  “I am…awestruck,” she lied, and the crowd roared its approval. She returned their applause with a throaty laugh. “If any of you told me a year ago that I’d write a crime caper novel, let alone that a crime caper would become an international best seller, I would have had you locked up! Hell, I always told Westlake he was crazy.”

  Her fellow mystery writers laughed along with her.

  “And now that book has not only won an Edgar, but it’s about to become a major motion picture starring Jason St. Clair and Matt Damon. Unbelievable!”

  This time, the other writers in the room cheered. She was living a dream that almost none of them would ever realize. Bestseller status! Jason St. Clair and Matt Damon! Credit for reinventing the crime caper genre!