Page 14 of The Most Wanted (The Kinky Bank Robbers #4)

Chapter Eight

I leaned sideways against Thor in the back seat of the car, feeling languid and liquid and brain-dead.

“I love you in this wig so much,” Thor said. “And this coat.”

And mostly the underwear , I was thinking.

Dimly I became aware of clicks coming from the front seat—the sound of guns being checked and loaded. Odin handed Thor back a Glock as Zeus started up the vehicle. “What’s going on?” I asked. “What are you doing?”

“We gotta go question some guys who aren’t going to want to cooperate. Manny James and his crew. We’re not on the best terms.”

“The James Gang,” I said.

“Don’t call them that, goddess,” Zeus said. “Our relationship with them is shitty enough.”

“The James guys did the wig store stickup,” Odin said. “I can’t believe even the cops didn’t put that together. It’s so clearly their style. They always cut the lights first. They always threaten the pets at home.”

“They threaten the pets ?” I said.

Thor nodded. “That’s a Kenny James thing. He thinks that’s even more effective than threatening the children.”

“Who would think that?”

“Kenny James.” Thor snorted. “Kenny James is not the brightest bulb on the string. You don’t need really strong observation skills to know people will always do more for their kids than their pets given a choice, but Kenny James has these turtles?—”

“Failure of empathy,” Odin spat. “Kenny James cannot imagine how other people feel.”

Thor said, “Odin doesn’t think highly of Kenny James.”

“Nothing worse than a stupid man with a failure of empathy,” Odin said.

The level of bitterness in his voice told me he’d had experience with a stupid man with no empathy.

He rarely talked about his past, but he’d had some big stuff happen to him.

A man doesn’t become as hyperperceptive as Odin unless it was how he had to survive.

I said, “You know, the James Gang hating on you guys disproves what Don Galvano said. Like that bit about you guys being stupid as far as the investigation thing? The James gang dislikes you, but they haven’t turned you in. You’re enemies…”

“We’re more frenemies,” Zeus said, shoving in a magazine. “Still. One of the wigs stolen in the heist was a B-160 22-inch model, just the one we’re looking for. Unlikely they’ll cooperate.”

“We need that wig ASAP,” Odin said. “We need to get it and examine it and see if we can find something. Fibers on it that match the car, that sort of thing. They’re not going to like this…”

“Isn’t that a little dangerous?

“The James brothers won’t snitch to ZOX,” Zeus said. “They got a problem, they’ll take it up directly with us.”

“No, I mean, bursting into the home of heavily armed thugs.”

“It’ll be fine.” Thor smirked and took the safety off his favorite pistol.

Zeus pulled the truck over and had me get into the driver’s seat. He got into the passenger side.

Maybe it was the weird tension between Zeus and Odin—I didn’t know—but I had a bad feeling. “I don’t like this,” I said. “Usually we prepare for one of these.”

“It’s not a bank,” Thor said.

“I feel like it’s more dangerous. It’s not like bank security guards are going to put up much of a fight. But armed guys in their own home…”

“It’s not like they sit around watching basketball games with loaded guns next to them.”

“How do you know?” I asked. “Not everybody is as balanced and mentally healthy as we are.”

“They’re sports junkies—I guarantee that’s what they’re doing,” Thor said. “Odin and Zeus will pin them down while I grab the wig and we test it. It’s a point and snatch.”

“Yeah, things could never go wrong with a point and snatch,” I said.

“We got this,” Zeus said. “Things going wrong is what we’re trained for. You just sit tight.”

Sit tight. Wait. Probably for the best, considering my outfit. “What are these guys into these days?”

“Meth sales and some shipping dock rip-offs,” Zeus said.

“They’ve been moving into trailer truck piracy,” Odin added. “All-around bad guys.”

“The James Gang,” I repeated glumly. “All-around bad guys.”

Zeus must’ve heard something in my voice, because he looked over just then. “You good, baby?”

“Fine,” I said, but everything felt different.

“I’ve been itching for a takeover,” Odin added.

Zeus had me slow the vehicle on a road full of miniature-looking houses with postage stamp lawns, one of those 1950s developments where they didn’t bother trying to make the homes look different, though people had personalized them since then.

“Stop,” Zeus said. “The Jameses’ house is two up from here— number 2321.”

I shoved the thing into park in front of a yellow home with a garden that had a gnome and fawn fairyland theme going.

The next home was green. Viva la shrubberies!

would be their theme. Meanwhile, the James Gang had gone for a We don’t give a fuck theme with their lawn.

And whereas garden gnomeland and Viva la shrubberies had nice curtains covering their identical picture windows, the James Gang had crooked curtains over a window that glowed TV blue in the middle of the day.

“Goddess, you’ll wait here. You see that dead plant in the front window?”

“Yeah, I see it.”

“We’ll shoot it out if we want you to drive off, okay? Shooting the dead plant will tell you to drive back to the safehouse, grab some cash, and check into the Radford Inn.”

My guys always had to do that—have a safety net for me. It was psychological for them. I nodded my head, as usual. But did they really think I’d just leave them? Luckily it had never come to that.

Odin pulled out his phone. “What date is today?”

“February 13th,” Zeus said.

Thor said, “It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow.”

“Yeah, and we have reservations at La Belle for six-thirty,” Zeus said.

“What’s La Belle?” Odin asked.

“Seriously? It is the most amazing place. They make a really delicious prix fixe meal—” Zeus turned to me here—”Ice, you are going to love this place. It is really special. It’s…” He had this intense look in his eyes, but all he finished with was, “It’s just really special.”

Meanwhile, Odin announced that the Jameses were probably watching the Knicks. “Let’s do it—go, go, go,” he said .

Three doors opened and shut, and my guys moved up the sidewalk with such steady speed, they looked almost like they were floating, right up to the moment they split up and melted into the shadows.

I kept my eyes on the picture window, wondering whether their hearts were beating as fast as mine was.

This felt so different from a bank robbery.

It wasn’t just the danger or the fact that it was on a home.

It was something else, and when I really thought about it, I realized the motivation was different—more pure, strange as it seemed.

For once my men weren’t working for the money or even for the vengeance against ZOX. They were helping Herk.

It made me love them all the more.

It fit them more, too. Helping people was probably why Zeus and Odin got into the field agent game.

And Thor, training to be a doctor—that helped people, too.

Was that what Zeus hadn’t wanted to reveal when he claimed boredom was his reason for wanting to be a P.I.

? Was his motivation that he wanted to help people, and he just didn’t want to say that?

I just wished they didn’t have to run through a house full of all-around bad guys to help Herk.

A dog barked, and it sounded like it was coming from the shrubberies house. The dog obviously heard something—it was really going crazy.

Fuck. That would cut the surprise.

It was then that I heard a gunshot. Shit!

The dog went even crazier. I squeezed the steering wheel with sweaty palms. Probably just a warning. And nobody had shot the plant.

The neighborhood was eerily still.

Bang.

I sat up straight on high alert .

Bang.

The dog barked some more, and that’s when the plant exploded. Somebody had shot it.

Fuck!

I put the truck into gear; I was supposed to leave. But how could I? I eased my foot off the brake and rolled, driving toward the house, praying I’d see my guys running out of there with the wig.

The TV continued to flicker and glow. The dog’s barks went on.

I stopped just to the side of the house, watching the door hopefully.

They weren’t coming. Three shots. Were they hurt? Worse?

Fuck it.

With dreamlike speed, I leaned over to find the Glock Zeus liked to keep taped under the passenger seat. I yanked it out and sat up. That’s when I saw the cop car rolling up behind me—no lights and no siren. A cat in the dark.

I stared down at the gun in my hand and quickly shoved it back under the seat. I pulled my jacket more snugly together. Fuck!

The car rolled up slowly. I prayed they wouldn’t stop. I smiled sweetly through my panic. Go , I thought.

One of the cops eyed me, but they kept going. I watched the cop car roll up to the corner. It stopped, then took a right.

I grabbed the Glock again. My guys would be mad, but I needed to get in there.

What are they going to do, fire you? I said to myself.

Nerves zinging, I snuck up to the porch—it creaked like crazy, but luckily the dog next door hadn’t stopped barking his head off.

There was a long vertical window set into the door. I crouched down and looked through at knee level—this was a trick my guys had taught me. My blood ran cold at what I saw: Zeus—with a gun to his head.

He had a gun to the other guy’s head, but that didn’t make me feel much better. Everybody else was kind of standing around, hands half up, half ready to fight.

The guy holding the weapon on Zeus was Manny James, the James Gang leader. Not good.

I turned and crouched, back against the wall, and tried to think.

I knew that any kind of interruption tended to help break a standoff, but would it be a good break for my guys? Or would it fuck them up to have me burst in? They traditionally freaked out when my safety was at stake.

Still, I had to do something. I inspected the door. You could tell it wasn’t quite flush to the frame. Unlocked.