Wicked Business

CHAPTER TWELVE

We met Morty’s son in a South End parking lot and handed Morty over. The son seemed nice enough and genuinely relieved to have his dad back.

“No more stealing,” Diesel said to Morty.

“Hah,” Morty said. “You should talk about stealing.”

An hour later, Diesel dropped Glo and me off at the bakery so we could get our cars. “I have to check on Carl,” he said. “I’ll meet up with you later.”

I waved him off and searched in my bag for my keys. The bakery was closed and there were only two cars in the small lot. Clara was obviously off somewhere, probably having a glass of wine with a friend.

“That was really cool the way the writing appeared on the bell,” Glo said, unlocking her car. “But I don’t get the clue. The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails. The history often of Tichy persuades when pure innocence prevails. What the heck does that mean?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping we’d find the stone today, so I could get back to my nice safe life.”

Pbbblt.

“Did you do that?” I asked Glo.

“No.”

We stood still and listened.

Pbbblt.

“It smells like ham,” Glo said. “It must be Hatchet.”

Hatchet moved out from the shadows. “My intent was to capture and torture for information, but you have made my job easy. I now know the clue and can give this information to my master.”

“He’s not going to believe you,” Glo said. “You fart.”

Hatchet stood tall with one hand on his sword. “Everyone doth fart.”

“Not like you,” Glo said. “You’re a ham farter.”

Hatchet pressed his lips together. “’Tis a manly fart.”

“It would be best if Hatchet didn’t get to talk to Wulf,” I said to Glo.

Glo nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.” And she jumped at Hatchet. “Get him!”

Hatchet turned and ran flat-out down the street in the dark, with Glo and me on his heels.

Pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft.

Glo took a flying leap, tagged Hatchet, and they both went down to the ground.

BAROOOOMPH!

Hatchet was kicking and clawing, Glo was holding tight, there was a flash of light, and Wulf appeared.

“Enough,” Wulf said.

Glo and Hatchet went flat on their backs and looked up at Wulf.

“Master,” Hatchet said. “I have critical information.” He went to all fours in an effort to stand, he farted, and I heard Glo squelch a nervous giggle.

Wulf stood still and silent, his attention turned to me. “Tell my cousin he courts anarchy,” Wulf said, his voice soft, as always.

I felt a hot flush creep from deep inside me to the surface of my skin. Adrenaline, I told myself, pushing aside the possibility that it felt a teeny bit sexual.

Wulf and Hatchet slipped into a shadow and disappeared. Moments later, a car engine caught and roared down the street.

“That’s a ten on my Creep-O-Meter,” Glo said, getting to her feet. “How does he just appear and disappear? And what is he?”

“I think he’s a human.”

We walked back to the bakery, carefully got into our cars, locked the doors, and drove off. I reached my house and was relieved when Diesel drove up behind me two beats later.

“I have bad news and bad news,” I said to Diesel when we got inside and flipped the light on. “Which do you want to hear first?”

“Am I going to hate this?” Diesel asked. “Is it necessary to tell me?”

“Hatchet overheard Glo talking about the message on the bell, so we’re no longer the only ones with that information. And I ran into Wulf, and he said you were courting anarchy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I did a palms-up. “He didn’t explain it. He disappeared in a flash of light.”

“No smoke?”

“Didn’t see any, but it was dark.”

Cat 7143 rubbed against my leg. He was hungry. I was hungry, too, and I couldn’t stand the thought of another meat pie.

“I’m going to pull something together for dinner,” I said to Diesel. “I suppose you should do some research.” I handed him the brochure with the two sentences Glo copied off the bell. “You can use my computer.”

I started rice cooking, defrosted a chicken breast, chopped it up, and dumped it into my wok. I listened to the chicken sizzle in the hot oil and felt better. It was good to do something where I felt in control and had some level of competency. I tossed in diced vegetables, added chili pepper and soy sauce for kick. I would have liked to add cashews or peanuts, but my cupboard was bare. I needed to shop. I set the table for three, and yelled to Diesel that dinner was ready.

Carl got to the table first. He climbed onto his booster chair and sat with excited expectancy. I tied a napkin around his neck and brought him his dinner in a wide bowl. No fork. No spoon. No knife.

“Finger food,” I said to Carl.

“Eeeh?”

I picked a piece of chicken out of his bowl and held it out to him. “Eat it with your fingers.”

“That’s a disaster waiting to happen,” Diesel said, taking his seat.

“What do you feed him?”

“Hot dogs, peanut butter sandwiches, Cheerios, and mangoes.”

“No wonder he likes to eat here.”

“Yeah,” Diesel said. “For the same reason I like to eat here.”

I brought bowls of stir-fry for Diesel and me, and I sat down.

Carl looked at me and carefully selected a piece of chicken from his bowl. “Eeh?” Carl asked.

“Exactly,” I said. “Eat it.”

“I’m not cleaning up the mess,” Diesel said.

“There’s no mess. He’s being careful.”

“I bet you were a pushover in high school,” Diesel said. “A guy could probably tell you anything and you believed it.”

“I wasn’t a pushover until culinary school. I was a late bloomer.”

Carl picked out a peapod and ate it. He ate another chunk of chicken. He ate a single grain of rice. He stared into his bowl. He looked at me. He looked at Diesel. He looked back into his bowl. He swiped up a fistful of food and shoved it into his mouth. A few grains of rice fell out of Carl’s mouth onto the table. He fisted more food and lost half of it to the floor. He gave the floor the finger, smushed his face into the bowl, and licked it clean. He looked up at me and smacked his lips. “Cha, cha, cha.”

“You have rice stuck in your fur,” I said.

Carl gave me the finger, jumped off his booster chair, walked into the living room, and turned the television on.

“Does he know that’s rude?” I asked Diesel.

Diesel forked into a piece of chicken. “It’s hard to tell what Carl knows.”

“Are you making any progress on the latest message?”

“We’re back to Shakespeare. The silence of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails is a quote from The Winter’s Tale. Basically, it means sometimes silence speaks louder than words. The second sentence references Tichy.”

Diesel got up and returned with a notepad.

“Peder Tichy was a Danish paleontologist, geologist, and engineer,” he read. “Born May 11, 1790. Died March 17, 1862. He grew up in Copenhagen and, after emigrating to the United States, became a professor of natural history at Harvard.”

“Interesting but not helpful.”

“He was a pretty influential guy. There are a bunch of landmarks around Boston named for him. There’s a neighborhood in Cambridge called Tichytown, a town in Northern Algeria named for him, and a dinosaur resembling Stegosaurus named Tichasaurus Armatus.”

“If the next clue is in Algeria, you’re on your own.”

“I thought we’d start with the landmarks. I have four, and they’re all in Cambridge.”

“Tonight?”

“No. Tomorrow. It’ll be easier in daylight. And I have a date tonight.”

This produced an instant sick feeling in my stomach. The guy who slept next to me naked last night had a date. And it wasn’t with me. Okay, so nothing actually happened between us, and he had every right to see other women, and it wasn’t like he was my boyfriend. So why did I feel like someone just stuck a fork in my heart?

He stared down at his empty plate. “Is there dessert?”

“No.”

“Jeez,” he said. “I was just asking.”

“Sorry. I guess that came out snappy. I have ice cream.”

“Ice cream would be great.”

I had vanilla, chocolate, and coffee ice cream. I knew chocolate was his favorite, so I brought him coffee. I wasn’t liking him a whole lot.

He finished his ice cream and checked his watch. “I have to run.” He pushed away from the table and kissed me on the top of my head. “I’m leaving Carl here.”

And he was gone.

“Scumbag!” I yelled at the closed door.

Carl turned the television up a notch.

“And you better watch your step,” I said to Carl, shaking my finger at him. “You’re on thin ice.”

I collected the dishes and huffed off to the kitchen. I was such a dope. I should never have brought him ice cream. Let him get his own dumb ice cream. And he wasn’t sleeping in my bed tonight, either. Let him sleep in her bed. Okay, that was unrealistic. I had no way of keeping him out of my bed. He just unlocked the door, dropped his boxers on the floor, and sneaked under the covers. Not to mention, I had no way of knowing if he was seeing other women. It wasn’t something we discussed. And it would be logical to assume a guy with that much testosterone would want to deposit it somewhere once in a while.

“Men!” I said, dumping the dishes into the dishwasher.

Cat 7143 was sitting on the counter with his half-tail curled around him.

“My life is confusing,” I said to Cat. “I can’t get a grip on it. And I’m ridiculously attracted to an idiot.”

Cat blinked and I took that as a suggestion to have a glass of wine. I cleaned the kitchen, had a second glass, and trudged upstairs. I shucked my clothes and dressed for bed in sweatpants, sweatshirt, and thick socks. I couldn’t keep him out of my bed, but I could insulate myself from him.

I was wide awake and sweating like a pig in my insulation when I heard Diesel come home. It was ten o’clock. Not an especially long date. He came into the dark room, kicked his shoes off, and disappeared into the bathroom. He returned in a couple minutes, and the rest of his clothes hit the floor. He slipped under the covers and went dead still for a couple beats.

“What the heck are you wearing?” he asked.

“Workout clothes. I was cold.”

“Well, you’re not cold now. You’re lying there in a pool of sweat.”

“I might be coming down with something.”

“Me, too. I’m coming down with a strong desire to relinquish my power and spend the rest of my days in the park, eating baloney sandwiches.”

“Did the date not go well?”

He covered his eyes with his hands and groaned. “Hideous. She gave me a migraine.”

“Why are you dating someone who gives you a migraine?”

“I’m not dating her. She called and wanted to see me.”

I was getting a strange feeling about this. “Are we talking about anyone I know?”

“Deirdre Early. I told you I was going into town to see her.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I yelled it to you when I got off the phone with her. You were in the kitchen.”

“I didn’t hear you.”

I wanted to get out of bed, take all my clothes off, and do a happy dance, but I restrained myself.

“What did she want?” I asked Diesel.

“Mostly information. She’s definitely after the stone. I don’t know if she’s always been after it, or if she learned about it from Reedy. She’s one of us, but she’s not in the registry, and I can’t pinpoint her power. She brushed it off when I mentioned it.”

“And she gives you a migraine.”

“Yeah. I have heightened senses, and that includes a sensitivity to power. She’s got a lot of it, and it’s all negative.” He wrapped an arm around me. “You have a lot of power, too, but it’s positive. You feel like sunshine.”

“Wow.”

He was pressed against me, his lips brushing my ear. “What do I feel like?”

“Um, solid.”

“I’m more solid than usual,” he said. “I get turned on by women in workout clothes.”

“I could take my clothes off, if that would help,”

“Not a good idea right now,” Diesel said.