“Oh, dear, I wish I could, but see, this is, like, federal property?” Stella improvised. She’d tried the ruse out a couple of times before when rousting was necessary, and as a rule she liked to use it only on her stupider victims; she doubted whether Walsingham would go for it. Damn—she’d have to find somewhere to hunker down until he came out and she could break in. “Leaving it unattended is a crime. I could lose my job. I could be prosecuted.”
A string of expletives was muttered, but to Stella’s happy surprise, the door jiggled and opened and a suspicious brown eye regarded her through the crack. She tucked the lockbox under her gun arm as a hand slipped out, fingers wiggling.
“Just let me have it, then,” the voice demanded.
Stella seized the door handle with her free hand and yanked as hard as she could, crunching the man’s fingers in the doorjamb. Then she plowed into the opening with her shoulder, ignoring the cursing and sounds of pain, taking advantage of the moment to send him staggering backwards into the apartment. The sweater and toolbox fell to the floor as Stella raised the gun and bumped the door closed with her butt.
“Just lay facedown on the floor with your arms out to the side,” she said calmly, “and we’ll get to collecting data.”
“Now, that’s just plain
rude,
” a voice said off to the side. Stella’s heart did a little skip as she swiveled her head slightly to see the source—an impossibly good-looking young man had leveled a pistol of his own in her direction.
“Well, shit,” she sighed, and took a closer look at the man she’d shoved out of the way.
If he was Addney Walsingham, he was the most remarkably preserved forty-something gent she’d ever laid eyes on. He looked a lot more like a sleek and polished twenty-five. As she was processing that, a third hot hunk stepped out of the kitchen, drying a glass on a dish towel, and scowled at her.
“What the hell do you want?” the first one asked.
Stella slowly and carefully lowered her gun to the nearest surface, a battered brown sofa table stacked with books and papers. Nearly every surface in the apartment, she now noticed, held piles of paperbacks and dusty hardbacks and papers and notebooks. Dish Towel Boy picked up her gun between a thumb and forefinger with an expression of distaste and carried it into the kitchen.
“So what have I walked into here, anyway—y’all shootin’ some kind of hard-luck beefcake calendar?”
The one with the gun grimaced. “We’re trying to save
lives
here.”
“Hah. Funny way of doing it, you ask me. What did you do to Walsingham?”
The three exchanged looks. “What do you want him for, anyway? And forget about that census bullshit—I don’t believe a bit of it.”
Stella rolled her eyes. “Darn, I guess my cover’s blown. What was your first clue, anyway?”
“Don’t be a smart-ass,” the tallest of the three said. His dark good looks were only slightly marred, in Stella’s opinion, by the ridiculous facial hair that he’d carefully sculpted into thin sideburns and a sort of chevron on his chin. “As for Addney, we’ve got him under control—don’t you worry about that.”
“Okay,” Stella said. She could hear muffled thumping and what sounded like moans from the back of the apartment. “Um, this is awkward. Are you sure? Did you tie him up or something?”
“Yeah, we— What do you care?”
Stella cracked her knuckles and rolled her shoulders. The tension of the last few moments had seized up her muscles, and she had learned in physical therapy that she thought best if she took a deep breath or two and relaxed. “Look, boys, I realize this might be hard for you to absorb, but I’m kind of a professional. I got a stake in keeping Walsingham in one piece, and if you ain’t tied him up right, he’s gonna come busting out of there and somebody’ll end up with a hole blown clear through him, and that’s not going to look good for any of us.”
She waited a moment for that to sink in, taking a more careful look at her three new friends while they cast all manner of anxious glances at one another. They truly were a fine-looking bunch, each with his own special look, kind of like the series of plastic suitors Noelle had for her Barbies when she was a little girl. There was the smooth-skinned Latino hottie with the odd and complicated facial hair … the densely built Nordic-looking fellow with the—
“Hey!” Stella exclaimed, realization dawning. “Y’all work for Priss, don’t you?”
More glances and frowning. “How do you know her? Look, I think it’s about time for us to ask questions.”
Stella nodded and took a step toward the boy with the gun. “Yeah, okay, but how about if you hand me that thing so nobody gets hurt. It ain’t any kind of toy.…”
She was counting on Pretty Boy being like so many other young men with their first gun, which was to say, barely aware of which was the business end. Stella herself had been in that position not so long ago, but her first year in the justice business, she had made a serious study of firearms. Not to mention the fact that she had the twin advantages of being a female—unhindered by any machismo action-hero urges—and middle aged, which meant old enough to know better.
She was about to close her hand on the barrel, when the boy tipped it a fraction of an inch to the side and took a shot. Stella whipped around and saw that he’d nailed the wooden base of a lamp across the room dead center.
Huh.
She swallowed hard. “Okay, then. So you can handle a gun. Well, I’m still gonna go check on what you done to Walsingham, so you might as well shoot me if you got any objections.”
She walked slowly down the hall, legs trembling until she arrived at the end of the hall unshot.
“Oh, fine,” Pretty Boy said. He followed her down the hall and pushed the door open ahead of her, keeping his gun trained on her the whole time.
They both gaped: a sweating, balding middle-aged man with a fairly nice physique had got himself into an uncomfortable-looking pretzel, the leg of a desk chair hooked between his bound hands behind his back, his legs kicking furiously, lengths of electrical tape trailing on the ground. What appeared to be a handkerchief was stuffed in his mouth and secured with tape, but it, too, was loose and flapping free.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Stella said. “You call this any kind of restraint? Honestly, ain’t you ever seen
MacGyver
?”
“Mac-who?”
Stella glanced at him incredulously. Oh, youth today. “Look, just give me the tape and some rope, if you got any.”
She plucked a corner of the tape from Walsingham’s mouth and prepared to rip. “Don’t you get to squawkin’,” she warned him. “I ain’t exactly here to rescue you or anything of that nature, despite any appearances to the contrary.”
Then she pulled.
The exclamation of pain Walsingham blurted out quickly turned to the sort of yelling that was so unhelpful in these circumstances, so Stella gave him a quick and precise jab to the voice box that she had learned watching martial arts videos on YouTube, and the yelling turned to a gargling gasp for breath.
“Now, unless you especially enjoyed that, how about you tell me where you keep the rope,” she suggested.
It took a bit of pantomiming and, once Walsingham got his voice partway back, strained whispering, but Stella found a length of nylon clothesline and a rubber ball of the sort used by weight lifters, as well as a few neckties and a handful of carabiners. Within ten minutes, Stella had Walsingham tied up nice and tight, sitting more or less comfortably on the living room couch. She sat next to him, and the eye candy trio moved enough books and papers off the kitchen chairs that they were able to form a ring around the couch, Pretty Boy in the middle with his gun and an expression that was getting more sour by the moment.
“Okeydoke,” Stella said cheerfully. It was true what they said, a little good hard work could really lift your spirits. “I know you’re kind of the party host here and all, but how about if I take the lead, and you can, you know, wave your little gun around if you don’t like how it’s going.”
That got her nothing but a skeptical snort, but Stella barged ahead. She’d learned that—particularly if you were a middle-aged lady in this country—your best course was often to just keep on going until someone made you stop, rather than waiting around for anyone’s approval.
“So how about if we start with introductions. I’m Stella, I’m pretty sure this here’s Addney Walsingham, and—hey, are any of you by any chance Turk Hardpole?”
That got her a reaction: All three of them exchanged disgusted looks. “Hell no,” the Nordic one said. “I got principles.”
“Oh,” Stella said, a little disappointed. Despite lecturing Chrissy, she was mighty curious about the mystery feat herself.
“I’m Rock,” the boy with the gun said. He stuck a thumb out at the other two. “That’s Maverick, and Jett.”
“I suppose those are all your professional names,” Stella said. Nobody disagreed. “Uh-huh. I don’t guess it matters much to me. Well, tell you what. I don’t suppose any of us is exactly squeaky clean from the law’s point of view, so I guess we can drop any kind of holier-than-thou business. Why don’t you all tell me why you’re bothering this gentleman?”
“Hell no!” Maverick protested. “I don’t see where we ought to tell you anything. What are you, some sort of union buster?”
“Do I
look
like a fuckin’ union buster?” Stella demanded, incredulous. “And just how dumb do y’all breed around here, anyway? I just had to explain this to your buddy Beau Mandrake—what y’all do is
illegal,
so you can’t
organize.
”
“You saw Beau?” Jett demanded. “Was he still alive?”
That caught Stella up short a bit. “Um … yeah,” she said slowly. “Any particular reason he wouldn’t be?”
“He didn’t return our calls since yesterday,” Maverick said.
“So you automatically assume he’s
dead
?”
“What sort of business did
you
have with him, anyway?” Rock said, getting a little agitated with the gun again.
Stella gave the question a quick thought and came to a decision—she couldn’t see any reason it would hurt to tell these boys what was going on, at least in broad strokes. “Priss has a flash drive I would dearly like to get my hands on.”
“Oh
ho,
” Rock said, comprehension flooding his broad, handsome features. “You’re on one of them tapes of Turk’s.”
“I didn’t say—”
“How many of you did they get to anyway?” Maverick said, shaking his head sadly. “How many will be made to suffer? How many times are we going to let that bastard get away with that?”
“I’m not—”
“Lady, what I don’t understand is why y’all line up to pay for that. It’s not—not—well, it’s not what nature intended,” Maverick said, his face flushing a deep red, while his friends shuffled their feet and looked off in opposite directions.
They were just overcome with envy, Stella realized with astonishment. Whatever it was that Turk could do—and took video of to prove it—it was rare enough that none of his colleagues—trained professionals, every one—was up to the job.
She’d meant it when she told Chrissy she didn’t need to know, but now her curiosity was starting to wear on her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said carefully, “but maybe, in the interest of full disclosure, you could, um,
describe
—”
Rock raised the gun a few inches off his thigh, where he’d been resting it, and Stella was afraid he was going to put on another marksmanship display.
“Right,” she said quickly, “forget I asked.”
“Quit playing games here,” Rock ordered. “Our friends are being killed.
Slaughtered.
Now, I’m sorry that there’s embarrassing footage out there, but we have bigger things to worry about, like if we’re gonna wake up dead tomorrow.”
“Are you by any chance referring to a dead guy Priss might have been hauling around in her trunk?” Stella guessed. “Was he, uh, one of you?”
“Keller McManus—God rest his soul,” Jett said, his voice breaking with emotion. “One of the
best.
”
“And you think Priss killed him.”
“Priss? Why would she kill him?” Maverick demanded. “She
loved
him—as much as that coldhearted woman could love anyone.”
“Moved him in with her,” Jett agreed.
“Kicked Walsy out,” Rock sighed. “Which is why
he
killed him.”
Stella’s head was starting to spin. “Wait up here. You’re saying Priss wasn’t seeing Addney here anymore.”
“Not in six months or so. And he never did get over it—did you, Walsy,” Rock muttered, giving the man a sharp kick in the shin, which produced a sort of shriek, though it was considerably muffled due to the rubber ball in his mouth.
“Only where’s it going to get you to come after us?” Jett demanded, sounding genuinely aggrieved. He shook his head sorrowfully. “Bloodshed ain’t the answer to bloodshed.”
“His daddy’s a preacher,” Maverick confided.
“Oh, Christ,” Stella said. “I’ve just about had it with all of you. Look here, I’m gonna undo the man a little. You just hang on to that gun there, Junior. You can shoot me in half an hour if you’re still itchy, but I think I can get things moving here a little quicker than the three of you.”
She undid the knots holding the makeshift gag in place, but before she popped it out of Walsingham’s mouth, she grabbed his hair and gave it a yank, forcing him to look at her. “You ain’t gonna make any trouble now, are you?”
He shook his head as much as he could, given her grip on him.
“You’re just going to answer my questions calmly and quietly.”
Vigorous nodding.
“You got my permission to shoot him somewhere if he yells,” Stella told Rock. “Somewhere nondeadly.”
Rock assented grudgingly.
Stella hooked a little finger in Walsingham’s mouth, grimacing at touching his saliva. She’d mastered removing gags without any danger of getting bitten, but she surely hated getting drooled on.
The ball popped free and rolled on the floor. As promised, Walsingham stayed mostly silent, except for a faint mewling.
“Here’s what I got to ask,” Stella said. “I mean, I want to know who-all you been killing and all, but before we get to that, what the hell is all this union shit about?”