Anthology - Bad Boys With Expensive Toys

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  "I guess I could stick my gun in your ear and ask again," she mused.

  "I don't think the CIA would like that."

  "CIA?"

  "Well, maybe Honeywell. Halliburton. Hell's Angels. Somebody wouldn't like it. I'm almost positive.

  And I don't work for the bad guys. Although, if I was going to break that rule, I sure would in your case. You're six feet tall, right?"

  "Six-one," she said absently. "Dr. Dyson, you dope, youalready work for the bad guys. Who did you think wanted the skeleton key card?"

  "The CIA."

  She raised her eyebrows at him again.

  "Oh, fuck," he said. "But they had all the IDs. And the PO. It was even signed by their head buyer!"

  "Oh, so they weren'tsloppy bad guys."

  "God dammit," he cursed.

  "Anyway, I want one, too."

  "One what?"

  "I thought you were some kind of genius."

  "Some kind of idiot is more like it," he muttered, and she laughed. It seemed to startle the rat, who froze in her arms. "Of course, this is assuming you're telling the truth about the good guys really being bad guys."

  "Why would I lie about that?" she asked reasonably. "What do I get out of it?"

  "How the hell should I know? And FYI, this is the most surreal conversation I've had this week."

  "Yeah, well, it's not really working for me, either. Look, don't beat yourself up. I mean it—put that board down," she ordered. "With all the stuff you crank out, you were bound to trip up eventually."

  "They fooled me. Theyfooled me.Me ." He remembered the card well; an actual challenge, for a change, and good money, which he expected. The go-between had shown up about twenty minutes before Agent Tom. And he'd never suspected a thing.

  "Take it easy," she said. "So, I take it you're not going to—"

  "Dammit!"

  "Well, crud. If you're not going to make me one, and if I'm not going tomake you make me one, I guess I'll go steal it from the bad guys, then. See ya."

  "Wait!" He was frantically digging through his desk, the file cabinets, the hidden compartment in the back of his mini-fridge. He grabbed a blackberry yogurt, peeked at the label, and stuffed it into his satchel. "I'm coming with you," he said over his shoulder. "They can get into any building in the world with that card."

  "I thought you were on vacation."

  "Well," he said, exasperated, "now I'm doingthis. "

  "So they should be stopped before they wreak havoc?" she asked, sounding bored.

  "They should be stopped because they tricked me.Me! I was top of my class at MIT!"

  "I never would have guessed," she said, eyeing his tie, which was four inches wide at its broadest point. "So, you're tagging along—"

  "Actually, I'm letting you tag along."

  "Oh, please. And when you get this back, you'll give it to me?"

  "Umm," he said, then darted out the garage door. "Come on, come on!"

  She trudged after him. "I knew I should have gone back to bed when my semiauto jammed before breakfast."

  "Can I drive?" He was circling her banana yellow convertible and caressing the leather seats.

  "Forget it, Dr. Dork."

  "It's Ben."

  "Tara. Tara Marx."

  "Of course it is," he said, and grinned at her. "Did anyone ever tell you, you're sort of like a Bond villain, except with great legs?"

  "Christ," she muttered.

  "Come to think of it, we should definitely take my car."

  "Christ."

  Three

  Tara Marx tried to sneak looks at Dr. Dyson without being obvious. She couldn't believe it, but she'd let him talk her into taking his car. His dark green Dodge Neon. The geek-mobile. There was barely enough room for Katya, who was currently grooming herself in the backseat, never mind the two of them.

  "I still don't understand why we couldn't take my Alfa Romeo."

  "And I don't understand why the rat had to come with us."

  "Don't talk about Katya like that. She's not 'the rat.' "

  "Jeez, sorry, what is she, 'the duck'? Anyway, this baby is loaded with extras." Dyson actually patted the steering wheel, just in case she hadn't tumbled to what a gigantic geek he was. "You won't be sorry."

  "I'm already sorry." She snuck another peek. It was the eyes; it wasn't her fault. Well, the eyes and the hair. The mussed dark red hair, which stood straight up as if he spent the day running his fingers through it. He needed a haircut; that's why he was so distracting and shaggy. She'd never seen hair that color before ... so dark a red it was like mahogany.

  No, the eye. The vivid, whiskey-colored eye (the other one was blue). No, the stubble, blooming along his chin, that whole too-busy-to-shave thing was really sexy. No, the height, all rangy power—who would have thought a redheaded lab geek would have a swimmer's shoulders and a weight-lifter's legs?

  She'd heard tales ofthe Dr. Dyson for years, and he certainly wasn't anything like she'd pictured him. Of course, you shouldn't put stock in stereotypes, but he was so far the opposite of one it was a joke, or a crime. He looked like an escapee from aHunky Men of Love calendar, not a lab drone. And he'd been so outraged when she told him about Krueger & Co., he'd demanded hecome with her . Most people would have called the cops. Or shrugged and gone back to work. Now she had a partner.

  She did not play well with others.

  "It's just," she tried again, "my car gets better gas mileage, among other things."

  "Urn," he said, or something like it. He was stabbing buttons on the dashboard—turning on the air conditioner?— and then the entire right-hand side of the windshield went opaque. Fortunately, his side stayed clear, or she would have been deeply, deeply concerned. Then the shield divided into grids and then resolved itself into a map. She could see two dots steadily moving and heard the light "ping-ping"

  of a radar system.

  "Excellent," she managed. Dr. Dyson was years ahead of American technology, which wasn't so impressive, but he was also years ahead of the Germans, which was. "That'll work."

  "Gotcha," he muttered, and stomped on the accelerator.

  "Easy, big guy," she said, which was nothing but the truth—she was big, and almost never ran into taller men, but he had three inches on her, easily. Maybe that was it. It was so weird—and nice—to be with a guy who had some height on her. "I want to get them, too, but getting a ticket will slow you down. And be a major inconvenience to me, not that you care."

  "Um," he said. Then he elaborated. "This car can see every radar gun in a five-mile radius." He pressed

  a button, and two orange blips appeared on the screen, far below their marked position. "We'll never get caught in a speed trap, if that's what you're worried about."

  "That's not the only thing I'm worried about," she said under her breath, sneaking another peek. God,

  she had to get laid. It was the only explanation for why she was sitting in the passenger's side—thepassenger's side!—of a Dodge Neon, lusting after a lab puke. A tall, handsome, stubbly, stubborn,

  antirat lab puke. "Where are we going?"

  "After the bad guys," he responded, as if she was mildly retarded.

  "I knowthat, Dyson. And then what?"

  "Then, I take back what they tricked me out of."

  "With what, the yogurt?" Maybe he'd run over them with his car. Dyson was built, sure, but those weren't field abs; that was a Bally's Swim and Fitness rack. Did he think March and Webber and Johanssen were going to hand it over if he asked nicely?

  Well, fine. If rough stuff was coming up, she could handle it. Dyson was the brains; she'd be the muscle. Being able to quit The Biz would be infinitely easier if she got her hands on that card.

  "They'll be sorry they ever showed me a fake Purchase Order," Dyson was yakking.

  "You're acting like you didn't get paid."

  "I did so get paid, and that's not the point. They lied. Like you said, everybody knows I don't make anything for the bad guys. They'll be sorr
y," he vowed again.

  "Sure they will. How are we going to find them? Are you tracking them right now?"

  "Uh-huh. I build STDs into all my gadgets."

  "You infected all your gadgets with sexually transmitted diseases?"

  "Grow up. Satellite Tracking Devices."

  "Oh,really? "

  "Well, sure."

  "All of them."

  "Umm."

  "What an excellent way," she commented, "to get your head blown off. The first time anyone realizes you're tracking-"

  "I've been doing this since high school—"

  "Surprise, surprise."

  "—and nobody's found one yet."

  She smiled to herself.

  "And now that I've told you," he joked, cutting the wheel to the right, "I'll have to kill you."

  "That's probably best," she replied.

  "Uh. I was only kidding."

  "Then you're as dumb as you look." A rather large lie, but who cared? Lying was her best thing.

  Well, second-best.

  Four

  "We've got them now," Ben chortled, turning into the parking lot. All right! The lair of the bad guys! Excellent, just excellent. They'd crash the den of evil and get his card back, and maybe bust a few bad guy skulls along the way. Yeah!

  "Jenny's Flowers," Tara observed, reading the sign.

  "The lair is a flower shop?"

  "Maybe one of them has a girlfriend and wants to pick up a little something on the way home from thieving."

  He snorted, which made Tara laugh again. "Cut that out, Dr. Dyson. It makes my stomach hurt."

  "It's Ben. And it's not my fault you're an easy mark."

  "Actually, I'm not. But speaking of easy marks, what's the plan?"

  "What, you're asking me? You're the one with experience in this ... stuff." He was dying to ask the statuesque beauty just how much of a villain she was. Robbing banks via the Internet villain, or pistol whipping while relieving the elderly of their social security check villain? Because he could live with one, but not the other. "You know, this sort of thing."

  "Before you ask—and what a clumsily phrased question it would be, I'm sure—I'm Switzerland."

  Yeah, probably. She certainly looked like she could come from Switzerland. She looked like a badass milkmaid. "Okay."

  "So, sometimes I work for the good guys and sometimes I work for the bad guys, but mostly I work for myself—and try to keep my head down."

  Oh, she wasneutral like Switzerland. Right. Hmm, he was definitely a little off today. Usually . . .

  "I'm usually much quicker," he told her, which was stupid, because it was way too late to try to make

  a favorable first impression. "Honest."

  "You could hardly be slower," was her heartless comment.

  He was momentarily crushed, but quickly rallied. "You'll just have to take my word for it. So, do we

  just charge in there and start knocking skulls?"

  "Dr. Dyson. Have you ever been in a fist fight?"

  "Well, there was this one time in graduate school... My lab partner was late for the wet lab and the prof said it would affect both our grades ... I got a little hot under the collar ..."

  "So, no."

  "I fell down the stairs once and got a black eye," he confessed. "Does that count?"

  She was rubbing her forehead as though she'd gotten a sudden migraine. "Should've stayed in bed ... should've just stayed in bed ..."

  "Let's not talk about you being in bed; it's distracting."

  "Pig," she commented, rolling her eyes.

  "All that's changed now," he declared. He opened his car door and jumped out. "I'm not Q anymore,

  I'm James!"

  "What?"

  "For example, in my old life, I'd never have dared make that bed comment. But no longer!"

  "What?"

  "Never mind. Let's go kick some ass. They'll be sorry they messed with Benjamin Everett Dyson!"

  "I'm sure they're shaking in their Doc Martens." Then, "Everett?"

  He ignored the slur on his mother's maiden name and stomped up to the door of the flower shop,

  paused, then kicked it. It wheezed open a foot, then slowly shut.

  "It's business hours," Tara pointed out. "They're open. See?" She eased the door open.

  He darted inside, looking around wildly for a bad guy, any bad guy. "Everybody freeze!"

  "For God's sake," Tara muttered, pushing past him.

  "You," he said to the startled teenaged girl behind the counter. "Where is it?"

  "Well, we have a special on roses. A baker's dozen for twenty-five ninety-nine."

  "Don't play dumb," he sneered. "We know what you've been up to."

  "For God's sake," Tara said again. "She's the front. She doesn't know anything."

  "I am not," the girl said automatically. Then, "What's a front?" This was really good, because it saved Ben from having to ask the question and looking, well, stupid.

  "This shop is a front. You're a front," Tara told her. "The guys you work for have to have some legitimate businesses to hide their money in."

  "But I work for a woman. Katie Webber."

  "Yeah, Webber bought this place as a present for his wife, but he didn't tell her he was gonna use it to launder money."

  "How do you know all this?" Ben asked.

  "There's a bad guy newsletter," she replied straight-faced.

  "You guys are crazy," the girl declared.

  Ben asked, "Why not a strip club or something a little more ... I dunno ... villainous?"

  "Too much heat in the boob trade," Tara replied.

  It was just fascinating how she knew all this cool stuff. Maybe there really was a newsletter. He had a million questions for her. Later. "Okay," he said to the kid behind the counter, who was looking increasingly freaked out, "did some guys come through here a while ago?"

  "There's a back entrance," Tara said—okay, now it was getting downright spooky how she knew all this stuff. "This kid wouldn't have any idea if they were here or not, unless she went in the back and saw them."

  "I'm not a kid," the girl corrected her. "I'm nineteen."

  "How do you know all this?" Ben couldn't resist asking again.

  "Every business establishment has a back door. Hello? Fire code?" She shook her head and looked at

  him as if his nose had dropped off.

  "Why didn't you say anythingthen ?" he said, exasperated.

  "You didn't give me a chance, Dr. Charge In Without Looking."

  "Look, we're just gonna go in the back and look around," he told the kid.

  "Maybe I should call the police," she said doubtfully.

  Ben looked at Tara, who shrugged. "What? I don't know from the police. That's not really my area."

  "Maybe you should call them," he said.

  "Sure, go ahead and call. But if they get the card before we do, it'll sit in the evidence room for a year

  and be called Exhibit A."

  "Don't call the police," he told the girl.

  "Look, are you guys going to buy roses or what?"

  "That's a pretty good price," he said. "Sure, I'll take a bunch."

  "Do you have Attention Deficit Disorder by any chance?" Tara asked. "You can tell me. I won't get mad or anything. I just want to know."

  "Only since you showed up," he muttered, handing the kid two twenties.

  Amazingly, Tara blushed . .. her pale cheeks bloomed with color, and her eyes seemed to get darker. "That's not true. Is it? Of course not. Is it?"

  "Who do you think I'm buying the stupid flowers for?"

  "So we're going to run after the bad guys while I lug around a dozen flowers?"

  "A baker's dozen," the girl said brightly, wrapping them up.

  "For God's sake." Tara tried to scowl, but couldn't help a small smile when the girl handed her the dark red flowers. "Can we get back on track now, do you think?"

  "I'm just gonna go over here and clean up the cooler," the girl said, pointing t
o the large glass case in the front of the store. "So I wouldn't know if you guys went into the back or anything. I mean, I still think you're nuts, but you can't do much damage in the back, unless you're arsonists."