'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy (19 page)

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Authors: Leslie Langtry

BOOK: 'Scuse Me While I Kill This Guy
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“Brilliant!” I opened another beer. “Then the Council will see that I did what I was asked. And don’t forget, you know nothing about this.”
She nodded. “But, Gin, two weeks isn’t enough time to investigate one hit, let alone six men. Maybe they’ll give you more time?”
I shook my head. “Sorry. The mole squeals in a Starbucks to two different governments in two weeks. I have to have him hog-tied and bleeding before then.” Why did I sound like an extra from Deliverance?
Liv opened another beer. “I guess we’ll just have to get started immediately. How are we going to do this, by the way?”
I gaped. “I thought you knew! Hell, that’s why I brought you into this mess!”
She shook her head. “I’ve had too much to drink and apologizing for the last two hours has given me a migraine. Let’s work on it tomorrow.”
“Another great idea! I knew filling you in was the right thing to do!” I slurred rather drunkenly. Yes! We would think about it tomorrow!
After all ... tomorrow is another day!
And we don’t even have to make clothes out of the drapes! Woo-hoo!
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Death is life’s way of telling you you’re fired.”
—Author Unknown
 
 
You know, I was getting pretty drunk on this stupid island. But can you blame me? I had been “rescued” by the one person I loathed more than Vivian Marcy, given an impossible job by the Council (but they did give me a good evaluation, so I guess that counts for something), and watched my baby take the blood oath that would bind her to the Bombay merchant o’ death machine and begin her training as an assassin.
It’s funny how many people I met in college who were going into the “family business” after school. Some were proud to—others dreaded it. I never realized how much I was like them before now. Romi had just started her education last night, and I was going to be killing off one of my cousins soon.
Hell, I couldn’t even get relationships right! I seriously doubted that anyone had killed off her lover’s client and managed to make the relationship work. I hadn’t heard from Diego. I didn’t even know whether he had found out about his boss. For all I knew, he could’ve been on a flight back to Australia as I was thinking this!
Liv was in the shower and the girls were putting on their swimsuits. I slipped out of the bungalow and pulled out my cell phone.
“Diego Jones speaking.” His voice was as rough and warm as good scotch.
“Gin?” asked the voice, “is that you?” Shit. He had caller ID. “Um, hey, Diego. How’s things?”
“I’ve been trying to call you.” His voice sounded urgent, “The shit’s hit the fan here. I lost my client.” There was an awful pause. I knew it wasn’t easy for him to admit that.
“Diego, I’m so sorry. What happened?” Like I didn’t know.
“I’ll tell you when you get back. We have a lot to talk about.”
Uh oh. What did
that
mean? “Um, good. I’ll be home tomorrow night. Why don’t you come over the next day at nine, after I take Romi to school?”
So we can have sex and I can make you forget your terrorist-funding client, who, by the way, I happened to have killed.
Liv stepped out onto the porch, her arms crossed over her chest, smiling at me.
“Sounds good,” Diego said. “And Gin? I really miss you,” he said before hanging up.
He missed me!
I leaned against the doorway to keep from swooning.
“Lover Boy from Down Under doesn’t connect you to the hit, does he?” Liv teased.
“God, I hope not. That might negatively impact our romance.”
“Riiiiiiight.”
The girls bounced out the door and down the steps to the beach. Liv and I scooped up the cooler and lounge chairs and followed their tiny footprints in the sand.
The girls, we discovered, were way more interested in chasing fiddler crabs and wading into the surf than in hearing from us about their future careers. Liv and I found an isolated shady spot and set up our stuff.
“So,” I started, “I investigate our brothers first.”
Liv looked at me over her sunglasses. “Actually, you should investigate Dak first”
I nodded. “Right. So how do I do that?”
Liv peered at the lame dossier Dela had given me. “I don’t know.”
“I could check on his whereabouts on the dates the mole met with the two agencies. How hard could that be? He never goes anywhere without telling me or Mom.”
She nodded. “And he has no motive, really. Dak loves his playboy-with-a-trust-fund lifestyle. In fact, I’m curious what the motivation is at all.”
“I’ll check with him about those dates first. Then I’ll hack into the bank’s computer and confirm that his accounts haven’t suddenly become larger. Do you think that will do?”
“I guess,” she replied absently. “I mean, what else is there? You only have two weeks.”
“You check out your brother. Gather the same evidence. That will save us some time. Oh! And we should search their homes too. That way, we can prove we had nothing to go on.”
Liv sipped her margarita. “So who do you think it is?”
I leaned back. “I hope it’s Richie. But it could be Lon and Phil. I’m sure it’s not Coney.”
“How can you know that?” Liv asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ve always gotten along, and I just don’t see him doing that. Lon and Phil are weird, though.”
“Yes they are, but that doesn’t mean they would turn the whole family in.”
“Well, why not?” I argued. “After all, they don’t have wives or kids to worry about. If they get some kind of deal, it’s only their mom who goes to prison.”
“And their father, grandmother, and so on. I don’t think we can count on that. Whoever the mole is, he obviously has selfish motives.”
We sat there quietly for a moment, turning the idea over in our heads. And while I appreciated a good mind-bender like anyone else, I hated this.
“Well, let’s just start on Paris and Dak and figure it out as we go,” Liv finally said.
“Fine.”
The day went very well as we sat there, watching the girls playing while we made small talk. Liv suggested I keep Diego at a distance ... at least until this mole issue was taken care of.
And maybe she was right. Diego and I had issues that would take years of therapy to work out. And I wasn’t so sure he was ready to become Diego Bombay. And at this point, I wasn’t so sure I still wanted to be a Bombay. The girls were avoiding any conversation on last night’s fiasco, and I had a sticky job to do.
I outlined in my head (while Liv napped in her chaise beside me) what I needed to do to get Dak off the hook when we got home. That made me feel a little better. Well, that and the fact that I would see Diego soon.
Later that afternoon, we went back to the manse. Liv and I had given up talking to the kids about the family. They formed a tiny but impenetrable wall of defiance we couldn’t breach. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t relieved to be failures.
After dinner, Liv and Dak took the kids to the pool while I slipped out to visit Missi again. I couldn’t tell her what was up, but I had to see if she had any good surveillance stuff. And maybe I could get a little intel on her cousins Lon and Phil.
I came bearing kiwi daiquiris (Missi’s favorite), and she seemed pleased to see me. I felt like I should whisper “I’m in” to some electronic device on my person.
“Surveillance equipment, eh?” Missi chewed on her lip. She turned and led me to a corner of her workshop. “I have the usual stuff, X-ray binoculars, mini-cameras hidden inside souvenir snow globes, Chia Pets with supersonic listening devices and ...”
“Chia Pets?” I interrupted.
She shrugged. “Weird as it may sound, nearly everyone gets one as a gift at some point in their lives. Works really well too.” She pointed at the photo on the box with the plants forming an Afro on the terra cotta head. “I’ve created plants where half the leaves are fiber optic microphones.”
I wondered if my cousins would throw them away the minute I gave them out. What reason would I have to send these guys Chia Pets anyway? I’d have Liv think about that one. She’d come up with some good reason.
“I’ll take six.” I said.
Missi grabbed a basket. “Any preferences? I’ve got everything from human heads, to hedgehogs, to Scooby Doo.”
“Just give me one of everything.” I had no idea what I was doing. When in doubt, always go with an assortment. That’s what I always said. At least starting right now, that’s what I always said.
“Oh! I’ve got a new phone tap that’s really cool!” She grinned. I loved her enthusiasm.
“Has anyone else been by to utilize your talents? I mean, you are such an asset to the family, I can’t imagine that no one else has raided your stash.” I had to know that if I sent someone a Chia Pet, he wouldn’t already have one.
“Not this trip. You’re it. I think the others only come to me when they’re stuck.”
“Tell me about the phone taps.” I held out my basket.
“It’s some of my best work, really!” She handed me a small machine that looked suspiciously like an iPod. “You type in the phone numbers you want—up to six—and hit ‘record.’ Plug the thing that looks like a charger into your phone jack. The device works through the phone line and holds up to forty-eight hours for each phone. And it’s a ten-gigabyte MP3 player too.”
That was funny. I had six numbers to tap and it held six. What a coincidence. Missi showed me how to program the tap and threw in a purple ostrich-skin case and fifty free music downloads.
We were halfway through the cocktails when I decided to ask about her cousins.
“How’s the family?” I hoped that sounded natural. The squeak in my voice might have given me away.
“Okay. Nothin’ much going on.” She ran down her immediate family. Ordinary stuff, but nothing about her cousins.
“I saw Lon and Phil this morning. I still can’t tell them apart.”
Missi laughed. “Yeah, those two are strange. Most twins want to be individuals. But those two try to find ways to look even more like each other.”
“I’m close to my cousins Paris and Liv. Are you guys close?” Did that sound too obvious?”
She shook her head, “I don’t see them very much. And they keep to themselves. They even live together, if you can believe that.”
That was weird. But it would make my phone tap a lot easier.
“Any sign of girlfriends ... or maybe boyfriends?” I was on eggshells here.
Missi cocked an eyebrow. “Nothing that I can see. They’re probably androgynous.” She shook her head. “No, I never really knew them. Even as kids they were a pair of loners. I think that’s why they like living in New York City. Pretty anonymous there, I would think.”
I sensed the conversation was over, so I thanked her for the gadgets and left. We were heading back tomorrow and I had to pack, pick up the latest edition of the family directory, get my complimentary family reunion photo and fill in Liv on my progress. But first, I had to download some killer tunes to my new toy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.”
—P. J. O’Rourke
 
 
In every family, there’s a black sheep. Someone who doesn’t quite fit in. You might think that would be everyone in my family, but you’d be wrong. Other than having The Grim Reaper as a job title, most of us are fairly normal.
Well, not everyone. Our family’s black sheep was Coney Bombay. I was always drawn to the stranger relatives. I didn’t know why. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we all had the same job—every last one of us. Not much interesting conversation when you were in a room full of people with the same occupation. Granted, this was the only place I could talk shop with a bunch of people. But dull nonetheless. Anyway, Coney, named for that trashy little island of thrills in New York, is a carnival entertainment technician.

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