by Martha Carr
“I said turn it off!” Yelling triggered another flare of pain through Johnny’s gut. “What I’m fixin’ to do next ain’t somethin’ anyone’s gonna get on camera.”
“Johnny, don’t.” Lisa shook her head.
“Oh, you mean like evidence?” Phil ruffled his unruly hair and nodded sagely as he gazed around the room. “We already have plenty of that.”
“What are you goin’ on about?”
The director gestured toward Cody and Dave. “We’ve been filming since you walked into the suite with breakfast. It looked like a big bag, too.”
“Sure is,” Luther said from the kitchen. “Johnny, did you bring all this for us?”
“Don’t ask, bro. Just eat.” Rex licked the spilled crumbs on the kitchen floor.
“Yeah, good thinking. Ooh. Is this jelly?”
Johnny turned stiffly to face Phil and the rest of the crew still filming for their damn show. “You listened in on the whole thing?”
“Sure.” The man smirked and spread his arms expansively. “We may be a small indie crew, but we don’t skimp on quality equipment. That mic could pick up sound in the bedroom from out in the hall if we wanted it to.”
Lisa shrugged. “They were crowded around the door when I got here with our…backup. And thanks for that, by the way.”
Yarren nodded. “I have to admit it was a little weird to get your call. But I’m glad I answered.”
“Yeah, so are we.”
The dwarf glowered at the unconscious Red Boar. “All right. This ain’t the day for killin’ this bastard. Maybe his cellmate in max can find a reason to do it instead.”
Lisa exhaled a small, relieved sigh. “I’ll call it in.”
“Uh-huh.” Johnny delivered a swift kick into the side of the gray magical’s head and elicited only a guttural wheeze from the Red Boar’s hulking form.
“Johnny.”
“That’s the least he deserves, darlin’. Go ahead and call. Does anyone have a spare weapon on ʼem?”
Yarren and his work buddies glanced at each other with vacant expressions. Lisa rolled her eyes and headed to the open door into the hall. “I’ll be right back.”
Johnny nodded at the Kilomeas and pulled his wallet from his back pocket. “If I hand you fellas a few bills, can one of y’all run out and grab somethin’ to tie this bastard up with? Rope’s fine. Heavy chains are better.”
“Sure, man. Yeah.” Evan stepped across the mess to take the few hundred dollars the dwarf held toward him. “Anything else?”
“Whatever looks like it’ll be fun to keep this big fucker down with while we wait for the FBI’s cleanup crew. I think you’ll know it when you see it.”
“Sure.”
“I wouldn’t mind one of y’all stickin’ around in case this shithead wakes up before we’re ready.”
“I’ll hang out.” Yarren crunched across the living area and grasped the overturned leather couch to haul it upright again. “It’s the least we can do.”
“I appreciate it.”
Lisa returned to the room, slipping between the film crew still rolling Johnny Walker’s latest catch. She slid a new magazine into her pistol and handed it to the dwarf. “Here you go.”
“Thanks, darlin’.”
“I hope all those rounds stay right where they are.”
“Don’t you worry yourself about it. I ain’t usin’ this unless it’s the last option. But I’m lookin’ forward to when this bastard opens his eyes and sees the wrong of end of this barrel first.”
“Right.” She watched him stagger toward the righted couch, and a fresh wave of blood seeped from the bullet wound in his gut. “Johnny, you’re still bleeding.”
“It ain’t nothin’ I can’t handle, darlin’. It’s fine.”
“Evan,” Yarren called over his shoulder as he sat beside the dwarf.
“Yeah?”
“Grab some gauze rolls while you’re out.”
“Sure thing. Call me if you need anything else.”
The half-wizard took another wide-eyed glance at the destroyed living area, then snuck past the film crew to slip into the hallway.
Percy stood on the far side of the living area with his huge, hairy arms folded. “Sorry about the mess in here. That’s gonna be one hell of a cleanup bill.”
“It ain’t on my dime.” Johnny snorted. “The FBI’s frontin’ the whole bill.”
“Well, that’s helpful.”
“Sometimes, yeah.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lisa called Agent Nelson three different times in the next fifteen minutes, but the man didn’t answer. “What is he doing?”
“What’s goin’ on, darlin’?” Johnny turned his head toward her but kept his gaze firmly fixed on the unconscious Red Boar.
“Tommy won’t answer his phone. I have no idea why. He knows we’re out here on a case.”
“Sure. He knows about both of ʼem too. Do you think the Department got wind of what we were doin’ out here with the show?”
“I have no idea.”
“Johnny, how about a little Q&A now,” Phil said. “While the fight’s still fresh in your mind?”
“I let y’all stick around to catch whatever you want of this, pal. But I ain’t takin’ my attention off this scarred lump of meat until I’ve got him bagged up and shipped out in a SWAT van. Understand?”
“Sure.” The man inched toward Johnny with a hesitant smile. “But you can watch him and talk at the same time, can’t you?”
“Not gonna happen.”
The elevator doors opened at the end of the hall, and Howie demanded, “What the hell is going on here?”
“He got ambushed,” Evan said and hurried past the old man with the cane. Yards of rope and a few thick, looped feet of chains dangled around the half-wizard’s arm. “And then we…ambushed the ambusher, I guess.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, son. And what are you doing here in the first place? You were at that senator’s house, weren’t you? With the Kilomeas?”
“Yeah…”
Howie stopped in front of Johnny’s suite and blinked at the damaged front door and what little wreckage he could see down the hall. “Johnny?”
“We’re in here, Howie. All’s good.”
Evan moved clear of the old man and hurried into the living area. “I got as much as I could. Rope. Chains. Zip-ties. Duct tape.”
The plastic bag and coils of rope and chains thumped to the floor at Johnny’s feet.
“Thanks, Evan.”
“Sure. Here’s your change too.”
Johnny looked up at him and shook his head. “Naw, you can keep that.”
“What? It’s like…two hundred dollars.”
“Don’t make no difference to me.”
“But—”
“Hell, Ev. If you won’t take it, I will.” Percy reached toward the bill’s in his friend’s hand with a low chuckle.
“Well, hold on. I didn’t say that.” Evan pocketed the cash and darted his friend a warning glance.
Howie’s cane thumped down the hallway. “This wasn’t part of the plan, Johnny.”
“Plans change.” The dwarf turned slowly to look at his old friend hobbling through the destroyed living area. “You know that.”
“Yeah, and I know you look like shit too. What happened?”
“I got shot.”
“Jesus Christ. And who the hell’s the big guy?”
Johnny scowled at the Red Boar again and only had to say, “This is for Dawn.”
“Oh, shit.”
Luther walked sluggishly out of the kitchen and paused to sniff at the old man’s cane. “Oof. You got some kinda stink on you, two-legs.”
“I think that’s just what old smells like, bro.” Rex licked his muzzle and sat in the kitchen. “I don’t know. All I smell is doughnuts.”
“Boys!” Johnny snapped his fingers, and both hounds waddled toward him. The dwarf shook his head when he saw the powdered sugar c
oating Rex’s muzzle and paws and the jelly filling that somehow made its way up the side of Luther’s face. “Y’all had your breakfast, I see.”
“And it was delicious.”
“Best breakfast you’ve ever brought us, Johnny.”
Luther uttered a low whine and sat. “It doesn’t sit well for very long, though. My belly hurts.”
“’Cause you ate the whole damn bag, didn’t you?”
Neither hound said a word.
A loud knock came at the destroyed open door. “Baltimore PD. Anyone inside?”
“Great.” Lisa rolled her eyes and hurried toward the front of the suite. “I’ll take care of this. And then Tommy better answer his damn phone.”
When she reached the front door, she couldn’t hide a wry chuckle at the sight of Officers Brently and McCormick standing there with their hands on their holstered service weapons. “Officers.”
Brently pressed his lips together and tried to peer into the suite. “Agent Breyer. We got a disturbance call—”
“Yeah, I bet you did, although I already knew there would be an attack here in this room.”
“Yeah.” McCormick scratched the back of his bald head. “We had to take our due diligence with that. You understand.”
“I understand. It almost cost a few lives, but I get it. You were doing your jobs.”
“Is everything all right in there?”
“It’s taken care of, Officers. Thank you. Now I need you both to let me do my job and take care of this situation. Federal jurisdiction. You understand.”
The officers exchanged a dubious glance. “Sure. But…take my card in case you need anything. And sorry about the trouble,” Brently said.
“Well, I appreciate it.” Lisa took his card and nodded. “Thanks for the concern.”
McCormick tried to peer past her into the suite. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt for the FBI to reach out to the precinct when your people have an ongoing federal case in the city. It saves us all considerable time trying to run you through the system in a situation like before.”
“Sure. I’ll bring it to my superiors’ attention. Have a good day.” Lisa took hold of the outside of the broken door and tried to swing it shut, but the hinges were bent and broken and it only moved an inch before it wobbled in its frame. Brently sniggered until his partner elbowed him in the side. Lisa gritted her teeth. “Now if you don’t mind, I need to get back to handling my case.”
“Yeah, okay.” The officers tried one more time to peer inside. Brently pointed past Agent Breyer. “You turning this into another one of those YouTube videos?”
“What?” She turned and saw Todd with his smaller camera capturing the entire exchange. “Todd, get back in the living room. Now.”
He peered around his camera at her with wide eyes, then nodded and did as he was told.
“It’s part of the case,” Lisa added grudgingly. “Feel free to see yourselves out.”
The officers frowned at the inside of the suite but eventually turned and headed back down the hall, casting her suspicious glances over their shoulders. Lisa stayed in the doorway and watched them to make sure they got on the elevators.
That’s the first and last time I take a two-day-old alias. I never thought I’d be in the back seat of a cop car in cuffs. Again.
When she stepped into the living area again, Percy and Yarren were on the floor on either side of the Red Boar, shifting the hulking magical’s massive weight between them to get the guy tied up with the rope and the chains. “Don’t you think that might be a little excessive?”
Johnny leaned forward over his lap, her service weapon still clenched in his hand. “Not for this piece of shit. I ain’t fixin’ to let him slip away again.”
“Okay. Well, you do have him unconscious…”
“I don’t know for how much longer, darlin’, so we’re workin’ with what we got. It should hold until cleanup gets here.”
“Yeah, as soon as I can get hold of Tommy.” Right on cue, her phone buzzed in her back pocket. She yanked it out and immediately answered the call as she negotiated the wreckage-strewn room gingerly toward the bedroom. “Why the hell haven’t you answered my calls, Tommy?”
“I was in a meeting, okay? Why did you have to blow up my phone so many times?”
Lisa stepped into the bedroom and closed the door with a bang when she saw Cody turning to catch her on film. Fortunately, the door handle had a lock, so she used it. “We got him.”
“The Kilomea? Great.”
“No, not Brork. Okay, we did find him, but that’s a whole different story we’ll have to go over when there’s more time. I’m talking about the Red Boar.” There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Tommy?”
“No shit.” Nelson sighed into the phone. “How’d you get that done?”
“Well, the ‘filming a new season’ part of the plan worked out the way we wanted.” She sat on the bed, frowned, and pulled Johnny’s stupid voice-recording pedal out from under her thigh. “And he came for Johnny too, although sooner than we expected.”
“But you have him now.”
“Yeah. Johnny’s tying him up in the living room right now.”
“Who’s living room?”
She took a deep breath. “He showed up in Johnny’s hotel suite. Drugged the dogs—”
Tommy snorted.
“That’s not funny.”
“No, I know. Sorry. You’re right. Are they…are they okay?”
“The dogs are fine. Johnny got shot.”
“And you let him tie up the bastard on his own with a bullet wound?”
“No, we have…help. Everything’s under control right now, Tommy, okay? What we need from you is a cleanup crew to collect this asshole and take him in.”
“Huh…” Nelson sighed heavily and cleared his throat. “I’m not sure I can make that happen for you this time.”
“What?”
“Sorry.”
Lisa leapt from the bed, hurried into the bathroom, and shut the door behind her. “We have the Red Boar tied up in a hotel suite, Tommy. That’s part of the job you agreed to help us with when we started this whole thing, and now we need you to come through. The same as every other case.”
“Yeah, but this isn’t like every other case.”
“Why the hell isn’t it?”
Nelson cleared his throat again. “Because you and Johnny aren’t officially on a case for the Red Boar. You’re there for Yarren Brork. And by the way, I’ve heard some very strange things about a few calls Senator Hugh made to his contact in the Bureau.”
“Yeah, we can go over that later. Right now, we need a way to get this asshole out of Baltimore and behind bars.”
“Lisa, I’m sorry. I can’t send anyone out right now. There’s no record of going after the Red Boar. We all agreed to not make one. I can send something up the line that says otherwise, but it’ll take me a few days.”
“We don’t have a few days.” She slapped a hand on the counter at the sink and stared at her reflection in the mirror. “Honestly, I don’t think Johnny will be able to hold back for much longer. I barely managed to keep him from slitting the guy’s throat in front of me.”
“Don’t you have a rental out there?”
Lisa scoffed. “Oh, sure. Throw a five-hundred-pound magical into the bed of a rental truck and drive him to DC. What could possibly go wrong in that scenario?”
“You’ll think of something, Lisa. Sorry.”
“How did you not think far enough ahead so we had this covered?”
Nelson paused for another long moment, then sighed. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure this Dwarf the Bounty Hunter scheme would work.”
“You funded the entire thing on the Department’s dime assuming it was a dud operation?”
“Yeah. Basically. Look, I can try to put something together in twenty-four hours, but that’s the best I can—”
“Forget it.” She hung up on him and thunked her phone on the counter. He was pandering t
o Johnny’s revenge quest. I can’t believe he let us think he was all the way on board.
Staring into her own eyes in the mirror, Lisa took a deep breath. Pull it together. If the Department doesn’t have our backs, at least we have each other’s. We’ll think of something.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Johnny’s tranquilizer darts were starting to wear off by the time Lisa unlocked the bedroom door and stepped into the living area. The Red Boar grunted and tried to push himself up. He took a few groggy seconds to try to determine why he couldn’t move his arms from where they’d been bound tightly against his heaving sides.
“What the…fuck is this?” He growled in annoyance.
“This is what happens when assholes like you try to fuck with me.” Johnny lifted Lisa’s pistol toward the Red Boar. His hand didn’t shake, but he didn’t look like he could keep a firm hold on it for much longer, either.
“You tied me up?” The gray-skinned magical bucked against the chains and rope and grimaced as the knife wounds in his thick flesh cracked open again. A low chuckle escaped him, accompanied by a long wheeze. “You’re pathetic.”
“Yeah, say it again from behind bars, fuckface.”
“Johnny.” Lisa walked behind the leather couch and leaned down to whisper in the dwarf’s ear. “We have a problem.”
“I ain’t lettin’ this one outta my sight darlin’. Whatever it is, go on and say it now.”
She glanced at Yarren on the couch beside Johnny. The Kilomea’s gaze was fixed firmly on the sneering Red Boar and the thick line of saliva dribbling from the corner of their prisoner’s mouth. “We don’t have a cleanup crew,” she whispered.
“What?” Johnny kept the pistol trained on their prisoner and twisted to look over his shoulder to look at Agent Breyer with a grimace. “Did you talk to Nelson?”
“Yeah, he’s the one who told me.”
“Well, did you tell him to get his head out of his ass and do his fuckin’ job?”
“Of course I did but this wasn’t an official case so he doesn’t have a crew to send out.” She shook her head. “I knew there was way too much bureaucratic bullshit to sift through, but I had no idea it went this far.”
