Chapter 9
Abner Tookus sat in a traffic jam in the middle of Dupont Circle. He drummed his fingers in frustration on the steering wheel as he stared at the long line of cars ahead of him. He was just ten minutes away from the White House and five minutes away from prestigious Embassy Row. Too bad neither place was his destination. Behind him, cars blasted their horns. Ahead of him, cars blasted their horns. He felt like doing the same thing but resisted the impulse because he knew it wouldn’t get him anywhere. He could just imagine the curses being bellowed behind the closed windows of the cars. He looked into his rearview and side mirrors and saw dozens of raised middle fingers.
He’d just come from the area in the District called Foggy Bottom, where he had a midmorning meeting at the crown prince of the U.S. government—the Department of State—where he’d turned down a job that wasn’t to his liking. He was absolutely certain that his contact person would be back in touch and offer to sweeten the offer by the end of the day. It always happened that way. Today, he knew, would be no exception. He loved it when he could make big government sweat.
Ah, traffic was finally moving. Abner inched forward, then came to another stop as the light changed from green to yellow, then red. “Crap!” He slumped in the seat of his Hummer and stared out the side window. Nine miserable days of weather just like today: gray, ugly, and depressing. He could hardly wait to get to BOLO and the bright, fluorescent lighting.
Abner blinked, then squeezed his eyes shut and quickly opened them. Did he just see what he thought he just saw? What a stupid question. Of course he had. Nikki and Alexis were literally running toward Betty Lou’s Café. Right behind the running duo were Yoko and Kathryn, both of whom were sprinting to catch up. He frowned. “Hmmnn.” He eyed the traffic in front of him, which still wasn’t moving. Aha, Maggie, running solo, her flaming red hair billowing out behind her in the strong wind. He blinked again when he saw Annie de Silva holding the entrance door to Betty Lou’s Café for Maggie, which had to mean Myra was already in the building. “Hmmnn.” All present and accounted for except for Isabelle, who was probably already in the air heading across the ocean to her beloved job. Don’t go there, Abner. Thinking about Isabelle required complete solitude in his personal comfort zone. Translation: home. Concentrate. Think. What would cause all those women to be out and about at the same time on a day like today? Particularly since today was a workday. You didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that whatever it was, it had to do with him and the guys. He could feel it in his gut.
The light, probably the longest light in the District, finally changed, and he moved forward two car lengths, after which he had clear sailing. He stepped on the gas and, within minutes, was tearing down the alley that would take him to the back entrance of the BOLO Building. The moment he stopped, he sprinted from the Hummer to the door, then lowered his six-feet-four-inch frame to let the retina scanner search his eyeball. He heard Cyrus barking just as the pneumatic hiss of the door kicked in. A second later, he was inside, handing a treat to Cyrus, rubbing the dog’s belly, and shouting at the top of his lungs. The guys all came running.
“They were all there except Isabelle,” he said, winding down in his excitement.
“So they were going to lunch, so what? Women do that all the time,” Dennis said.
“No, Dennis, they don’t,” Jack said, a frown building on his face. “At least not our women. They take brief lunches or eat at their desks. They only meet up as a group when something is important or one of them has news that needs to be shared in person.”
“I agree with Jack,” Espinosa said. “Alexis told me time and again she only has time to gobble down a hard-boiled egg at her desk. I asked her hundreds of times to go to lunch, even volunteered to bring lunch to eat in the kitchen at the firm. She said she couldn’t take the time.”
“Espinosa’s right. Nikki said she doesn’t even take a lunch and sometimes inhales a yogurt if she has time. She’s lost seventeen pounds. She looks anorexic, and the last time I saw Alexis, she didn’t look any better,” Jack growled.
“Alexis has lost thirteen pounds,” Espinosa volunteered unhappily.
“Listen, guys,” Harry said, “I have to go. Yoko asked me to pick up Lily today. She said she had something to do. Guess we know what that was now, don’t we. By the way, guys, I think I had a tail coming here. I also think I lost him but can’t be sure. I’ll let you know if he or she picks me up when I leave here. See you at seven. Don’t be late because if you are late, you’re going to work an extra hour.”
Cyrus let loose with a howl that made everyone in the room shiver. He calmed down and walked Harry to the door, got his treat, and waited until the door closed behind Harry to trot back to the conference room, where he nudged Jack’s leg to let him know everything was okay before he dropped down to chew on his treat.
“Guess we need to be a little more alert,” Ted said. “If Maggie, and I’m sure it’s Maggie, has a tail on us, she’s doing it with Annie’s approval. And that, gentlemen, is the reason for this lunch meeting today. I’d bet my Pulitzer on it. Any takers?”
There were none.
“To what end?” Dennis asked. “I don’t like the idea of someone shadowing me. Why?”
“To find out what we’re doing. What else? Use your head, kid,” Ted barked. “Women need to know everything. I know this because Mr. Jack Emery, who is an authority on all things woman, told me so a long time ago. When women don’t know everything, they become very unhappy. So they then take steps to find out what it is they think they need to know. That’s why they hire private detectives. I bet we all have tails and none of us has picked up on it.”
“Cyrus would have picked up on it, don’t you think?” Jack said, the frown still in place.
At the mention of his name, Cyrus rose to his magnificent height and looked around the room as much as to say, I did not detect anything. So there. His point made, at least to Jack, he flopped back down and resumed chewing on his treat.
“I have to assume this just took place in the last day or so. Maybe all the operatives aren’t in place yet. If that’s the case, stay alert and stay in touch,” Jack said. “Private dicks, at least the good ones, charge outrageous fees. To tail all of us has to cost a bundle, and the only persons I know who could afford something like that are Myra and Annie.”
Jack’s cell phone pinged. He looked down, and said, “It’s Bert.”
“Hey, buddy, how’s it going out there in fantasy land? The guys are here except for Harry. What’s up? I’m going to put you on speaker, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Sparrow is here, too. Look, I don’t know if this means anything or not, but Kathryn just called about fifteen minutes ago and said she’s going to stay on in D.C. for a few days after she drops off a load of Christmas trees in Delaware. She’s going to be staying at her house there in the District. For whatever this is worth, she sounded . . . I don’t know . . . off somehow. We had plans for when she got back for the weekend. Now that’s been scuttled. As a rule, Kathryn never does anything at the last minute. She’s a planner, and the good thing is that she sticks to the plan. Is anything going on there Sparrow and I need to know about?”
“Oh, yeah,” Jack drawled. He quickly filled Bert and Sparrow in on what had just transpired.
“You’re right, those girls are up to something. Looks like my employer is up to her eyeballs in this. Okay, keep us in the loop. Gotta go, time is money.”
Jack returned the cell phone to his pocket and looked around at the guys. “Any thoughts here?”
“Just one. Why didn’t Isabelle stay and attend the luncheon? Those women are tight. She might shove me under the bus, but not her sisters,” Abner observed unhappily.
“How do you know she didn’t? You said Annie was holding the door for Maggie, which means Myra was already inside. If Isabelle went to the farm, like we think she did, then it’s a good chance she was inside with Myra. At least, we can’t rule it out,” Ted observed.
“She said she was leaving this morning to return to England.”
“And you believed her!” Ted glared in disbelief at the computer hacker like he’d sprouted a second head. “Haven’t you learned anything hanging around us? Those women stick together, no matter what.”
Abner hung his head the way Cyrus did when Jack chastised him for something or other. “She is my wife. Husbands tend to believe their wives, at least this husband does. I’ll make sure I don’t make that mistake again, Ted.”
“Now what?” Dennis demanded.
Jack shrugged. “What do you mean, now what?”
“I had an idea, and I wanted to run it by everyone.”
“Spit it out, kid. We can always call Harry and tell him your idea. And Bert, too. Why waste time?”
“I was thinking last night because I couldn’t sleep. This case with the lieutenant governor is important. Children died, and he has to be held accountable, but where does it say we can’t work on two cases? Nowhere, right? So, Jack, why don’t we take on those people your wife’s law firm is going after in the class-action suits? You did say one suit was about a drug given to children for leukemia that ended up killing hundreds of little kids. Hundreds. That is just not acceptable to me. And the case Alexis is heading up, the one you said was the biggest dog-food-processing plant, where all those poor animals died. If we went after them, then Nikki and Alexis would have more free time and could just be normal lawyers again, and you and Espinosa will get them back in your arms. To me, that makes sense.”
When no one said anything, Dennis flushed. “Stop looking at me like I’m an idiot. It makes sense. Call Bert and Harry and ask them what they think. I’m not backing down, either,” the young reporter said, defiance ringing in his voice.
Ted banged his fist on the shiny conference table before he leaped across it to land in Dennis’s lap. “Kid, you make me proud to know you! I mean that. You are so on the money, you scare me.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Jack said, his expression filled with awe.
“And if we play our cards right, no one has to know it’s us making life easy for Nikki and Alexis and taking care of the greedy badass guys at the same time. You have my vote, Dennis. Now, get that agile brain of yours working on Isabelle for me, will you?” Abner begged.
“Oh, you bet I will. I really will. So are we going to . . . you know . . . plot this out? I can’t wait for my assignment. Boy, this is a great day, guys,” Dennis shouted exuberantly as he smacked his hands together.
“Then let’s get to it, boys. Once we make some inroads, I’ll call Harry.” Jack looked at his watch. “He’s probably on his way back home after picking up Lily as we speak. By the way, kid, I like that you think outside the box.” Cyrus wiggled under the table and nipped at Dennis’s ankle, his show of approval, too. Dennis laughed out loud, a sound of pure joy. His reporter’s gut instinct told him he really did belong to this group. He really did.