The Price of Cash

by Ashley Bartlett

  “Okay.” She looked at the two inches of mint green boxers above the waistline of my pants. “Some of the guys wear it outside their underwear, but I think it’s too easily visible that way.”

  “So inside my underwear? That won’t be weird.”

  “If it helps, I wear it the same way.” She raised her arms. Her shirt lifted enough to reveal the wide band of elastic above her chinos.

  “It’s fine.”

  Laurel nodded and laid the transmitter on the bed. “This will just take a sec.” She started unpacking the magic bag. A tightly wrapped wire with a small microphone at one end joined the transmitter. Next was a roll of tape. Then a tube of adhesive. This shit was complicated.

  “Do I need to do anything?” I asked.

  “Umm, I need you to lose the bra too.” She carefully lined up her supplies.

  I looked down. The bra was practically a tank top. The base stretched halfway down my rib cage. It was cut high too. Almost to my collar bones. Which was, of course, why I’d bought it. It worked well under baggy tank tops.

  But Laurel wanted me to take it off.

  At least Nate wasn’t present for this.

  I stripped and tossed the bra on top of my shirt. It wasn’t a big deal. We had slept together. Half naked was not a big deal.

  “So umm, microphone first?”

  “Yeah.” Laurel carefully unwrapped the wire. The coil slowly dropped to the hardwood floor. She picked up the tube of adhesive and seemed to weigh the two items. “This only takes a moment to set. You just have to be still for a sec.”

  I nodded. Speaking wasn’t currently in my list of talents because Laurel had just stepped tentatively into my space. I shoved my hands in my pockets because I didn’t know what to do with them. She dabbed glue about halfway down my sternum. The backs of her fingers brushed against my skin. She made the mistake of looking at me. She stopped moving. I knew because my breathing sped up. With each deep inhale, her knuckles grazed me. And then we were kissing.

  Her lips pressed hard against mine. She shifted and opened her mouth. Her tongue pushed past my lips. I sucked on it. She flattened her palm against my chest, splayed her fingertips over my collarbone.

  I pulled my hands out of my pockets so I could put my arms around her waist. When I tightened my grip, she fell forward. Her T-shirt was rough and warm against my bare chest. I pushed my hands under the shirt, slid them up. Her skin was smooth, soft. I traced the planes of muscle and bone.

  It wasn’t until we hit the bed that I realized we had moved. I fell back and she landed on me. Her thigh slid between mine, pressed excruciatingly for a moment, then shifted. I tugged at her shirt. Together we wrestled her out of it. She stretched on top of me. Her skin against mine was exquisite. She kissed my neck, down to my chest, then back to my lips. I rolled until I was on top. She grabbed my ass and held me against her.

  The front door opened. The faint creak was enough to make us freeze, then jump away from each other. Laurel backed away from the bed.

  “Cash? Kallen?” Nate called.

  Why the fuck had I given him a key?

  Laurel grabbed her shirt and pulled it on. I found my bra and yanked it over my head.

  “Back here. I’m getting wired,” I called back.

  His footsteps stopped, then the sound shifted direction. I glanced at Laurel to make sure she wasn’t wearing a sign that said, hey, I almost just fucked Braddock. She wasn’t, but her shirt was inside out. I pointed at it.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “Inside out. Your shirt.” I stood to go intercept Nate.

  “Fuck,” she muttered. She tugged the shirt back over her head.

  I went into the hallway and almost ran into Nate.

  “Whoa, hey.” Nate grabbed my shoulder to stop us from colliding.

  “Sorry. I was just going to ask if you wanted a beer or something,” I said.

  “I’m good. So we’re getting wired?”

  “Yeah, it’s apparently quite the process.” We moved back into the bedroom.

  “Fun.” Nate looked at the array of supplies Laurel had spread on the bed. They weren’t in a neat little line like before, but he didn’t know that. “So why are we getting wired this time?”

  Laurel shrugged like a casual person because she was super casual. “This environment is hard to predict. We are going in at different times and can easily be separated.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “You mind unbuttoning your shirt?” Laurel asked.

  Nate looked at my state of undress and shrugged. We were just bros being asked to strip. No big. He unbuttoned the shirt and shrugged it off in solidarity. It was a vintage polyester number straight out of grandpa’s closet. We sat side by side on the bed.

  Laurel repeated her explanation of wires. Nate nodded along. I was fine. Even when she asked me to take off my bra again, I was totally cool. It wasn’t until her fingertips were tracing over my skin again that I wasn’t cool. My heart rate sped up. I was convinced that she and Nate could see the rapid beats. But no, Nate just kept staring straight ahead, asking questions about who was stationed where. Because protocol was important. Yep, I was a big fan of protocol.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Laurel cranked her engine. I slid back a little farther in my seat to accommodate the not entirely comfortable plastic transmitter in my underwear. We had ten, twenty minutes tops before we arrived at the party. We’d given Nate a fifteen-minute head start so our arrivals would be staggered.

  “Did you turn on your wire yet?” Laurel asked.

  “No, I assumed you would tell me when to do so.”

  She nodded and took a deep breath. “I should apologize.”

  “Are the mics in here on?” I pointed at the ceiling.

  “No. This light shows when it’s active.” She pointed at a tiny little bulb next to one of the many defunct knobs on her dash.

  “Cool. So you were trying to apologize for our apparent lapse into teenage hormones?”

  “For crossing a slew of ethical lines.”

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for,” I said.

  “I literally just explained what I have to apologize for.” She tapped impatiently on the steering wheel.

  We crossed under the freeway. There was some foot traffic by the hospital, but otherwise this stretch of town was silent. The address we were going to was on the east side of the Fab Forties. It was close to Sac State, but far enough away that someone’s daddy wanted to make it clear that junior was better than living just off campus. We turned off Folsom Boulevard. We would be there soon.

  “Last time, I didn’t know all of the information. This time, I did. That matters,” I said.

  “But there’s a power imbalance.” She wasn’t wrong.

  “There is. But I have yet to feel like you’re exploiting that imbalance. If anything, I’m using your guilt to garner special treatment.”

  “So the real ethical violation is that, despite being susceptible to your influence, I haven’t asked someone else to take over working with you,” she said.

  “You could. Ionescu would want to know why. You’d have to tell him it’s because you want to fuck me again.” I grinned at her. She grinned back. We were downright dangerous. “And then I’d get some asshole who would probably break a whole bunch of different ethical violations—’cause, let’s be honest, your colleagues aren’t known for their impeccable ethics.”

  “Hey.”

  “You really wanna get into that one?”

  She shrugged. “No.”

  I resumed my litany. “So you would lose your credibility, your mother would be so pleased—”

  She laughed. “Low blow.”

  “And I’d still get taken advantage of.”

  “My parents would love you,” she said.

  “I feel like that wasn’t a compliment?”

  We turned onto the street where the party was being held. Cars lined the road. In a few hours, it would be open season o
n DUI arrests. Hopefully, those patrol cars knew they needed to stick around once we wrapped this mess up. Laurel slowed more than necessary. Guess we were finishing this talk.

  “It wasn’t. That took some argumentative gymnastics. And you made it relatively compelling. Juries would love you.”

  “Except I’m not wrong.” I was carefully glossing over the debate about sleeping with Laurel. There were a thousand reasons why we shouldn’t. So why did I still want her?

  “You’re not entirely right either. Your logic is flimsy. Charming, but flimsy.” She parked the car, though I got the impression she would have rather circled the block a few more times.

  “So we’re going to deal with this in our usual way?”

  “Having a discussion that resolves nothing, then ignoring the problem and hoping it will solve itself?”

  “With high fives.” I put my hand up.

  Laurel turned and looked at me hard. She lasted about ten seconds before she smiled, shook her head, and high-fived me. “This is going to be a disaster.”

  “This evening or our life decisions?”

  “Life decisions. Which, for the record, I used to be pretty good at.”

  I hadn’t ever been good at life decisions. But I was pretty fun and I gave great life advice to other people so I figured it was a wash. “I don’t know. I saw your haircut when you were fifteen so that’s debatable.”

  Laurel rolled her eyes. “Turn on your wire. Let’s get this party started.”

  We both stuck our hands in our underwear. “This certainly is a party.”

  “Shut up. Reyes, can you hear us?” Her phone buzzed with a text. She checked it. “Cash, you talk.”

  “My name is Cash and I love pedicures.”

  Laurel shot me a look. Her phone vibrated again. “Reyes says you’re a damn liar. I don’t even want to know, do I?”

  “Nope.”

  We got out and approached the house. It was a small bungalow. Looked like a cheery yellow, but between the darkness and warm glow of streetlights, I couldn’t really tell. Voices and music carried over from the backyard. The front door was open. Two straight kids were making out on the stoop. Damn heteronormativity. It was pervasive.

  The interior of the bungalow was beautifully restored. A fireplace took up most of the outer wall. The Spanish tile glimmered in the low romantic lighting. To really finish out the ambiance, a frat boy was playing bartender behind a bar made out of cinderblocks and a scarred piece of plywood. It looked like his repertoire mostly consisted of opening beer bottles and pouring from a legit tower of boxed wine.

  Laurel shook her head. “Do we know where the guys are?”

  “Nate said they were out back.”

  “Good. I can’t watch this.”

  The frat boy was juggling beer caps. I did a final check, but couldn’t see a single bottle of booze. He really had set up a bar for beer and boxed wine. I decided that I would challenge Dawson to order a martini just to see what would happen.

  The backyard had a fountain. That was neat. California was in a constant drought so a fountain had absolutely been a good idea. And it was on. Not wasteful at all.

  Nate and Dawson had commandeered a table. They lounged around it with five other guys. All of them looked roughly the same. One kid was Asian—Jimmy, I thought. Or James. But they had all clearly been made from similar molds. As we approached, Laurel slowed.

  “What’s up?”

  “See the kid behind Dawson, about fifteen feet to the left? He’s wearing the Navajo patterned short shorts and striped T-shirt.”

  “You just described two different guys.” It was true. There were two dudes wearing cultivated, clashing patterns. I had a feeling I could predict the contents of the most recent Urban Outfitters catalogue with disturbing accuracy.

  Laurel sighed. “The Latino one. Baby face. Awkward facial hair.”

  “Yeah. I see him.”

  “That’s Duarte.”

  I nodded. He did have a baby face, but I was betting that was mostly a result of being a baby. He would only be able to pull off this particular undercover beat for a few years. I realized Laurel could get away with playing young while undercover because she looked like a pretty boy. What was it about androgynous and masc of center chicks that made them read younger?

  “Does he know who Nate and I are?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  We stopped in front of the boys’ table and waited for their conversation to slow. Dawson saw us first.

  “Cash, Laurel!” Dawson jumped up. We both got one-armed bro hugs. “Guys, Cash is here.” As if they hadn’t noticed. “And Laurel. Have you guys met Laurel?” The guys all shook their heads. “Okay, so, Laurel, meet Raleigh.” Ironic mustache. “Brando.” Ironic name? “Mike.” Nothing ironic there. “And James and Jimmy, of course.” They nodded simultaneously.

  Laurel shook each of their hands in turn. They all looked pretty similar to the last time I’d seen them except Jimmy and James. At the beginning of summer, James had shoulder length, dirty blond hair. But he had cut it to his ears and parted it down the center like a nineties heartthrob. Jimmy had grown his hair out. It was parted on the side also like a nineties heartthrob.

  Dawson dragged over a couple more chairs for us. Nate and Laurel sat next to each other. Their body language was open, engaging. They were damn good actors for people who didn’t particularly get along. Dawson sat next to me. We were buddies now.

  “So when’s our guy get here?” I asked.

  “He’s inside,” Dawson said. I hadn’t seen any Aryan Nations types inside, but maybe I’d missed him. “I didn’t know how you wanted to do this. I mean, this is your territory, so like you and Nate are in charge.”

  I nodded very seriously because we were taking this very seriously. “Thanks, man.”

  “So do we just jump him? I can get him to go outside if you want.” He was so helpful.

  “We will probably talk to him first, you know? What if he’s the wrong dude?” Or what if the police want to speak to him?

  “But he’s dealing pills and shit. That’s your thing. Don’t you want to kick his ass for that?” Dawson was so sweet and innocent.

  “I’m not usually an ass kicking type of dealer, you feel me?”

  “But—”

  “You remember last spring when you guys had that party and you and Raleigh took all that Vicodin and painted each other into animals?”

  Dawson laughed. “I was a lion. Rawr.” He flexed. “I won all of the wrestling matches. King of the jungle.”

  Raleigh looked up. “King of the jungle.” He pointed at Dawson and laughed.

  “Yeah, but you didn’t pay us. You just snagged it from Nate’s messenger bag,” I said.

  “But we had the money. You knew we had the money,” Dawson said.

  “We did. So when we went to collect and found you guys asleep, we just let it go. Nate came back the next morning.”

  “And we paid him.”

  “Bro, that’s not the point. We know you guys are cool,” I said. He was really focused on the wrong part of this story. “A lot of other dealers would have woken you up or taken photos of you snuggling while in your underwear painted like cats or kicked your asses. We just let you sleep it off and came back in the a.m.”

  “Yeah, that was dope. You guys are the best.”

  “I know, man. But you get it, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah, yeah. You’re a pacifist.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But if it’s him, we’re gonna fuck his shit up massive,” Dawson said.

  “Totally. Way going to fuck his shit up.” I couldn’t take myself remotely seriously.

  “So you guys want me to point him out?”

  “Yeah, we can go in and get a beer or something.”

  “Why?” Dawson asked.

  “Because he’s inside.”

  “He came outside like five minutes ago. He’s over there.” Dawson nodded across the patio.

  I took a deep
breath. I’d known going into this that Dawson wasn’t bright. It wasn’t okay to get frustrated with him for something he couldn’t help. Like being an idiot. “Which guy is it?” I looked for white-blond hair, but didn’t see any.

  “He’s got the kinda round glasses and he’s real skinny.”

  That eliminated half the guys. I kept studying faces, wondering if he was sitting or wearing a hat, anything to make it harder for me to spot. “Identifying features? Clothing?”

  “Dark hair, curly. He’s wearing the cutoffs and gray button up with the pink bow tie.”

  I would have led with pink bow tie, but that was just me. “Got it.” I leaned over to Laurel. “Pink bow tie, glasses, dark hair.” I tried to swallow my disappointment that he clearly wasn’t the guy from the lab. There were a lot of potential ramifications there. Maybe the guy making the pills wasn’t the guy selling the pills. Maybe this was the wrong kid. “Should we approach?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Give me a minute.” Laurel leaned her head on my shoulder like we just needed to be touching at all times. Really, I think it just gave her an unobtrusive view of bow tie boy. She smelled really good. Which wasn’t important right then. “Nate should talk to him.”

  “Okay. Why Nate?”

  “He just sold to a straight couple. Completely ignored the girl even though she had the money.”

  “Solid. It’s a man’s world. Hey, Nate.” I reached over Laurel to poke him. He turned away from what had to be stimulating conversation with Mike. “You’re up.”

  “I’m going solo?”

  I nodded. “Pink bow tie.” I looked in his direction so Nate could follow my gaze.

  Nate looked back, his lips pressed in a tight line. He had also noticed that this kid did not scream white nationalist. “I’ll be back.”

  If Aryan was distributing through this kid, he might have a whole network of clueless nineteen-year-old bow tie wearing guys. Tracking them all down would be a nightmare. Plus, we would just look like assholes rounding up rosy-cheeked boys.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Laurel and I went back to our covert watching slash cuddling in public. Neither of us was the public type, but there was something subversive in acting against our basic instincts in order to serve the man, yet getting to make out with a hot chick I wasn’t supposed to be into in the process. I listened to the college bros’ conversation. Dawson wasn’t speaking at all. I spared him a glance. He was blatantly watching Nate.