It had been a week and a half since I’d seen Kimberly. Each passing day had been filled with thoughts of her – but my fear of becoming dependent on a woman prevented me from acting on my desires.

Aggravated that I couldn’t simply get a blowjob without being drawn into the eye of a life altering hurricane, I sat in Baker’s upstairs office at the far side of his desk, drinking a yogurt smoothie.

Amazed at the flavor of the low-cal chocolate beverage, I lifted the plastic bottle and studied it. “Ever try one of these fuckers?” I asked. “I’m thinking they’re going to be my new go-to breakfast. They’re cheap, easy, and taste good as a motherfucker. Might be able to get back down to two hundred if I stick to drinking ‘em for a month or so.”

“I don’t drink anything that uses aspartame as a sweetener. You might get down to two hundred, but you’ll be dead by the time your fifty.”

I studied the ingredients and found aspartame as being one of them. Puzzled as to why they’d use it if it wasn’t healthy, I cocked my head to the side and narrowed my eyes. “Why do you always have to piss on my parade?”

“Aspartame is arguably the most dangerous substance added to foods today,” Tito said from behind me. “It’s been linked to headaches, dizziness, problems with one’s digestive system, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, attention deficit disorders, Parkinson disease, and lupus.”

I turned around. “Quit sneaking up behind me, you little midget. I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to Baker.”

“I agree with everything he said,” Baker said. “Aspartame is terrible shit.”

Puzzled, I looked at the half-full bottle, and then met Baker’s gaze. “Why would they put it in here?”

“Because if they didn’t, it’d taste like shit,” he responded.

“I don’t believe it causes all those fucking problems,” I said. “They couldn’t sell it if it did.”

Tito sat down beside me and placed his computer on the edge of Baker’s desk. “If you want to be an overweight diabetic who can’t seem to focus and has trouble remembering where your bike is parked, keep drinking them.”

It aggravated me that Tito was as intelligent as he was. There were some things I simply wished I didn’t know. Stumbling through life ignorant of the horrors associated with chocolate yogurt smoothies wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I glared at Tito for ruining my new breakfast plan. If I had simply met him on the street, I would guess his age at no more than twenty-one. He hadn’t aged since high school, and although he was muscular and had a sleeve of tattoos, he seemed harmless to most who met him.

At five feet ten, he was the shortest member of the club. Nevertheless, women found him irresistible. They often approached him in the bar under the belief he wasn’t with the five “thugs” that surrounded him. His repeated successes at bagging women had been a matter of contention with me since we were kids. Although he was a lifelong friend and club brother, he spent a good period of his time irritating the fuck out of me.

I always walked away prior to our arguments becoming physical. If there was one man in the club that could come close to whipping me in a fight, it was Tito. He’d been raised by parents who owned martial arts training facilities and had studied Jiu-Jitsu since he could walk.

Knowing so didn’t keep me from antagonizing him.

“What about that fucking berry-flavored water you always drink?” I snapped back. “That shit probably has something in it that’ll make you shit like a goose and grow hairy moles on your nut sack.”

“It’s water with the essence of fruit added. It’s healthy.”

I gave him a crazy-eyed look. “What the fuck is ‘essence of fruit’?”

“When fruit is cooked to make juice, the vapor that evaporates is captured. It condenses, forming water droplets that have a highly concentrated flavor of the fruit. Those droplets are the ‘essence of fruit’. A few drops of that concentrate are added to water, giving it the flavor of the fruit. It’s chemical and sweetener free.”

“Well, la-tee-da,” I said mockingly.

Baker chuckled. “Good comeback, Cash.”

Reluctantly, I screwed the lid on the yogurt bottle and waved my hand in Tito’s direction. “Fuck this little know-it-all. I’ll drink these fuckers if I want to.”

Baker looked at Tito and raised his eyebrows. “What did you find out?”

Tito reached for his opened his fancy little laptop, traced his finger across the screen, and then looked up. “He’s got a smart home system that connects to wi-fi and can be controlled by Alexa, Google Home, or Siri. He can watch any of the twenty or so cameras on his cell phone in real time from wherever he might be at any time of the night or day. Open and close garage doors remotely, that kind of stuff.”

I let out a laugh. “You can recite the dangers of aspartame without looking at a book, but you had to look at your fancy little laptop to tell us that?”

He turned the laptop to face me. A hand-drawn sketch of the drug dealer’s compound, complete with dimensions of the walls, locations of cameras, bushes, trees, and anything else that could be imagined was on the screen. It appeared that an architect had drafted it.

“I don’t need this ‘fancy little computer’ to explain his security system, no,” he said in a shitty tone. “But I thought it might come in useful to show what we’d be dealing with.”

He handed Baker the computer. “Take a look. He’s gone a little overboard with camera placement, but I’d expect nothing less from a drug dealer. They’re always paranoid.”

Baker looked at the sketch and then at Tito. “What are the half-moon shapes?”

“Motion activated lights.”

After a lengthy study, Baker handed the laptop to Tito. “Bottom line? Can we get in there?”

“I can get video samples from each camera, then loop them into the system remotely. It’ll be a pain in the ass, but it’s possible, yes.”

“What’s our biggest risk?” Baker asked.

“Two things. One, that he comes home when we’re in there,” Tito said.

“What’s the second thing?” Baker asked.

“That he tries to pan the cameras while they system is in an altered state. If he does, it won’t work, and he might get worried. There will be video images, but they’ll be fixed video. If he tried to pan the cameras, he’ll realize it.”

“This is one of those systems that you can control from your cell phone?” I asked.

Tito nodded. “Correct.”

“And he can move the cameras back and forth and shit from his phone?”

“He won’t be able to on that night, no.”

I chuckled. “Fuckers like him sit in the bar and just stare at their phones, wondering if someone’s coming to steal their stash. You know he’ll figure it out sooner or later.”

Tito offered a half-assed shrug. “There’s only one way to manipulate a system like that, and it isn’t easy. If we want to get in, our only option is to send him a false video signal.”

“What else do we know about him?” Baker asked. “Anything noteworthy?”

Tito traced his finger over the screen, flipped through some pages, and then stopped on a screen that was covered in typed notes.

“He lives on Encino Verde Place. It’s a remote area in the city built into the side of a mountain. His home is a ten thousand square foot mansion. His net worth is unknown. He has a car collection that’d put Jay Leno’s to shame. The vehicles are registered in his name, so, he’s either bold, pretentious, or a little of both. I’m guessing value of his cars is north of thirty million. County appraisal has his home valued at five point two million. If it was in Malibu, it’d be a hundred million. I haven’t got to his claimed income yet, but I will. Not sure it’s necessary, though.”

Baker shook his head. “We don’t need it. If he’s got thirty million in cars, he’s got something in that house of value.”

“Agreed,” Tito said. “Showing up in court in a two-and-a-half-million-dollar car tells me all I need to know about how he flaunts his wealth.”

“We’ll need to find out what his schedule is like, and when he might be out of town next. Any bright ideas?” Baker asked.

Tito always had bright ideas, but he never volunteered them. He was the type of person that had to be asked to take every step along the way. He did nothing – and offered nothing – without being asked.

“I could tap into his system fairly easily and listen to his conversations,” Tito said. “Depending on what he says and when he says it, it might take a while to learn anything. I suspect sooner or later, he’ll say something.”

“Let’s do that,” Baker said.

I tossed my remaining yogurt shake into Baker’s trash can. “Little fucker should have done that before he came in here. He always does that: comes in here armed with half the information we need to make a move on someone. Then, you’ve got to ask him for more. He knows what we want, and he knows what’s needed to do a job.” I looked at Tito. “Stop being a lazy little prick.”

He set his laptop on the floor at the side of his chair. When he looked up, his eyes were thin, and he wore a stern look. “Fuck you, Cash.”

“Fuck you, Tito. You like getting your ego stroked.”

He extended his arm and raised his middle finger. “I don’t have an ego,” he said dryly.

“You’re going to have a broken finger if you don’t put that thing up,” I seethed.

“Alright, you two,” Baker said. “Enough. I don’t need to be mopping blood off this floor. Give it a rest.”

Tito broke my gaze and looked at Baker. “I’ll hack into his system tonight and start listening where I can. I’m guessing all the interior cameras have sound. If so, I’ll be able to hear everything. It will come down to what he says and when.”

“Keep me posted,” Baker said.

Tito picked up his computer. “Will do.”

Baker looked at Tito and then at me. “Either of you two got any big plans today?”

“I need to get something to eat,” I said. “And I’ve got to stop by Mission Beach and top off the chemicals.”

Tito raised his laptop. “All I’ve got is this. Why?”

“Goose called. He’s got a water leak between the meter and his house, and he can’t get a piece of equipment rented until tomorrow to dig it up. He might use some help. Reno’s got the tranny out of his Shovel, and Ghost’s trying to get his Mustang finished. You two mind giving Brother Goose a hand?” Baker looked at me. “Hell, Cash, you can stop at the blowjob queen’s place and get a hummer after you’re finished.”

“I’m done with that chick.” I glanced at Tito. “I’ll go give him a hand. I don’t need this little fucker tagging along, though.”

“Cash can go get breakfast,” Tito said. “I doubt he’d be able to keep up with my Dyna after I put that big bore kit in it, anyway.”

I glared at Tito. “Fuck you. Your Dyna’s a turd.”

He looked at me and raised both eyebrows. “Faster than that Bagger of yours.”

I stood and crossed my arms. “Ready to find out?”

He stood and crossed his. “I’m ready if you are.”

“I’ll have Goose tell me which one of you gets there first,” Baker said with a laugh. “Loser buys the beer for tomorrow night’s meeting. We’re running low.”

After the installation of a big-inch kit on the bike, I had no doubt Tito’s bike would be faster than mine. Our riding talent was equal, so if I intended on winning, I needed a competitive edge.

I turned toward the door and slapped the laptop out of his hand. When he bent down to pick it up, I planted the heel of my boot against the center of his ass and toppled him over onto the floor.

Then, I took off in a dead run toward the door.