Page 11 of To Kill a Badger (The Honey Badgers Chronicles #6)

“What is the point other than you are seriously uptight?”

“I am not uptight. This is my shoulder we are talking— stop taking my picture !”

“There’s this guy I’m attempting to ward off before he asks me out, and I have to hurt his feelings, and I’m convinced your constant terrifying glare should do the trick.”

Before the cat could complain more about Weng-Lee’s space, the door in the back of the shop opened, and a woman wearing a gold necklace, gold bracelet, and gold diamond earrings from a Cartier collection Nelle had her eye on walked out, Weng-Lee right behind her.

“Thank you so much, Dr. Lee,” the woman sighed out, moving her head from side to side.

“You are an absolute miracle worker. I’ve already put appointments on the books for my sister and two of my girlfriends.

I’ve told them all about you, and they can’t wait to see you. They’re in constant pain from yoga.”

Weng-Lee, silent, put his hands together like he was praying, closed his eyes, and bowed his head the tiniest bit.

It was a move that Nelle always enjoyed watching.

The client mimicked the praying hands before bowing to him like this was an old black-and-white movie about that “Chinese” detective that was never played by someone who was actually of Chinese descent.

Weng-Lee gestured to the front door. The woman brushed past Nelle like she wasn’t there and walked to the double-parked limo outside.

They all waited for the door to close before Nelle and Weng-Lee faced each other, put their hands in the praying position, and bowed to each other. When they were standing straight again, gazes locked, they both burst out laughing.

“She still does that?” Nelle asked.

“Every time. She must tell her friends to do it, too, because they all do,” he said with his trademark eye roll. “These Anglos love it,” he added, his true New York, private-school accent coming out. “So what’s going on, beautiful?”

“Wait,” Malone cut in. “I don’t under—”

“Weng-Lee is from here.”

“Bronx. Born and raised,” Weng-Lee bragged with his big smile.

“But these rich broads don’t want their Eastern medicine provided by a guy who got a full scholarship ride to the High School for Math, Science and Engineering at The City College of New York, as well as Stanford and Harvard, unless they also sound like they helped build the railroad in 1823. So I give ’em a little show.”

“You don’t find that demeaning?”

“Demeaning? That woman pays me fifteen-hundred an hour to help her with the migraines she gets from being in a loveless marriage. I mean, first I had her go to a neurologist to rule out a tumor, because you never know, but nope. Just a loveless marriage. So if she needs to believe the guy working out the kinks in her neck is just off the boat . . . how does it hurt me or the summer home I just bought out in the Hamptons for me, the wife, and the kids? Not only near the ocean, but also has a pool.”

“Did you get your daughter that pony yet?” Nelle teased.

“I am not getting her a pony. And stop telling her to ask me for one. Now”—he let out a breath—“what do ya need today, beautiful?”

“It’s him,” Nelle told Weng-Lee, pointing at the cat with a jab of her thumb.

“Wait one minute,” Malone quickly cut in, gaze searching the store as he spoke, lip curled in obvious disappointment. “I am not paying fifteen-hundred bucks for any of this weird shi—Oh, my God. You really do have tiger dong tea.”

Weng-Lee hand-waved away the cat’s concerns. “The fifteen hundred an hour isn’t for us. It’s for them. ”

“White people?” Malone asked solemnly.

“No. Full-humans. You guys get a discount. Nine hundred an hour.”

“I am not paying nine hundred—”

“But for a friend of my dear, sweet Nelle, it’s free.”

Nelle turned her head, lifted her chin, and grinned at the big cat.

“Don’t,” Malone sneered back.

* * *

The Himalayan wolf opened the door to his back office and gestured them in before asking the woman at the front, “When’s my next appointment, Layla?”

“Not until after two, doc.”

“Great.”

Once inside the shockingly white but much more medical office–like room, the wolf went to the sink to wash his hands. A move that made Keane feel eternally grateful.

“So what’s going on?” the wolf asked while he scrubbed away.

“Shoulder problems,” Nelle replied before Keane could say anything.

“I can speak for myself.”

“Can you?”

“I know you’re used to running the lives of your friends, but we’re not friends.”

“Oooh,” the wolf said, laughing. “Saucy!”

“I’m leaving,” Malone announced.

“Oh, come on. I was just joking.” His hands and arms washed and dried like he was going into surgery—again, Keane was quite happy about that—the wolf pulled on nitrile gloves and nodded at the medical table with a toss of his head. “Sit, sit. Let’s see what we have before you run away screaming.”

“I’d prefer to see a real doctor.”

“I am a real doctor,” the wolf lied.

“Right. A doctor that has his office out of a Chinatown storefront. And sells tiger dong tea.”

“You are really focusing on that,” Nelle noted.

“Do you have any idea how much rent is here?” Weng-Lee asked. “This isn’t the seventies. Some Arab prince just bought a condo up the street. I doubt he’ll ever live there, but he paid a fortune for it.”

“Look, I’m sure you worked hard for your PhD in . . . voodoo, but—”

“I have a PhD in Eastern medicine from Stanford, a second PhD in East Asian Studies from Princeton, my medical degree is from Harvard, and I did my medical residence at Mount Sinai, and have hospital privileges there and at New York Presbyterian as an orthopedic surgeon.”

Keane knew he was gawking, but he couldn’t help it.

“If any of that is true—”

“It’s all true.”

“—then why are you—”

“Here? Because I get fifteen hundred an hour treating some bored, rich housewife who gets stress-induced migraines. Now get up on the table and do me a favor for the next five minutes, would ya? Stop being a cat.”