Sleeping with the Fishes (18 page)

"We'll keep trying," Thomas said, white-faced with exhaustion. They had been in the water for hours. Fred was sort of ready for a nap herself.

"Perhaps I will go back later, now that I know the locations under suspicion."
Artur
, annoyingly, looked like he'd just jumped out of bed after fourteen hours of sleep.
Stupid full-blooded mermen.

Fred yawned. "Now who's got a commendable devotion to duty?"

"I do not wish to cause you more distress—which the trip on the boat seemed to. And although he annoys me sometimes—I do not wish to see harm
come
to this one." He pointed to Thomas. "It would not be honorable."

"Yeah, okay, whatever."

"Whatever is right," said Thomas. "I'm going back to the room so I can fall on my face and die for a few hours."

"The room?"
Fred halted midway down the ramp. Behind her, the first mate groaned. She flapped a hand at him in a "don't worry" motion and reached for her cell phone.
"The room.
Right.
Let me just see if Jonas wants to come. I mean join us."

"Join us taking a nap?"

"Just let me call him.
Right now."

Barb was cuddling into his side and all was right with the world. "I swear,"
she
murmured, "I haven't had that much fun since my divorce.
Actually, since about a year before my divorce."

Jonas yawned. "Right… didn't you say he was cheating on you the whole last year?"

"Mm-hmm."

"
Dumbass
."

"Mm-hmm."

"Not that I'm complaining, but I can't believe someone didn't swoop down on you after you got rid of the idiot."

She giggled. "Someone did. It just took them a few years to get their act together."

"Off my case.
Keeping Fred out of trouble is a full-time job, and I already
have
one of those."

She was tracing circles around his left nipple, which his entire body thought was fine. "That's my ex, too. He's always taking on new projects, extra jobs. He built a hotel just a couple blocks away from here—would you believe he had the nerve to send me an invitation to the grand opening last month?"

"Should have told him to stick it where the sun never ever shines." He ruffled her newly short hair—shoulder length, layered around the face.
Just as he had suggested.
"I love your hair like this. God, it's like silk, it's—your husband did what?"

Barb's eyes were closed as she luxuriated in his touch, but now they popped open. "I didn't quite catch that."

He could hardly hear her. He was trying hard to remember what Fred had said about their little harbor problem. Literal shit into the water.
Likely from a new building.
One built in the last year. And then there was the personal angle, something he bet neither Thomas nor the prince had considered.

What if someone was fucking up
Boston
Harbor
to wreck things for the NEA?
Tough to get tourists down to
shitville
.
Tough to do much of anything when the entire harbor smelled like a
Porta
Potti
.

"Your ex.
What's his name?"

"Phillip King."

"So you've always had your own name."

"Jonas, what's the matter?"

He ignored the question. "Think this one over before you answer, Barb. Did you guys really part amicably?"

"Yes. Although—it's quite funny you should bring this up, because a year ago he started trying to, I guess woo me would be the word. But I wasn't going down that road again, and I told him so. There were some pretty hard feelings that time, and he left a few nasty messages on my machine, but I had my lawyer tell
him
to cease and desist and that was really the end of—Jonas, what's the matter? You look like you're going to faint."

He could hear his cell phone ringing from somewhere and sat up, gently pushing Barb away. "Help me find my pants," he said urgently.

"But what's the—"

"My pants, woman!"

She hopped off the bed and they both looked in the bedroom and the sitting area. On the third ring he found them hanging from the front doorknob. He lunged for them, found his phone, fumbled with it, dropped it, bent, picked it up,
clawed
it open.

"Fred, don't hang up!"

"That's not your
midorgasm
voice, is it?"

He slid to the floor, relieved. "No, but I did just give your boss the banging of a lifetime."

"Oh, Jonas!" she shrieked. "Stop that! I have to work with the woman, you know."

"
Ow
!"

"What? Did you bruise a testicle?"

"No, she pinched me. Guess she didn't care for my confession either." She went in for another pinch and he batted her away. "Listen, you guys have any luck?"

"No we did not,
dammit
, and everybody's pooped—except the King of the Ocean, here, who looks ready to take on the Chicago Bulls—so we're all coming back to the room for a nap and you'd by God better be finished and
fully
dressed when we get there because one more shock my heart
cannot
take and if you had any sensitivity at all you wouldn't have had sex with my boss in the water fellow's—"

"Fred,
shut the hell up and listen,
goddammit
!"

Barb, bending over to shake out her skirt, froze.

"Did you have an aneurysm for lunch?" Fred demanded. "Because—"

"Barb's ex-husband is really pissed at her. And he just built a new hotel. Guess where?"

"Oh, no."

"Right on the harbor."

"Oh, fuck."

"Yup."

"Oh, jeez."

"Yeah.
Sic '
em
."

"You mean we've been up to our eyeballs in paperwork and
Artur
and I have been breathing shit—literally breathing shit—and all that we needed to do to crack the case was stand back and let you bone my boss?"

He took the skirt from Barb and tossed it on the dining room table. Then he lifted Barb to the same table. "Looks like.
Listen,
take your time coming back, will you?"

"Oh, that is just
disgus
—"

He hung up on her.

"What's this about my ex?" Barb asked
,
leaning back and stretching out on the table, which was plenty big enough for four more Barbs.

"Oh. That. He's the bad guy."

"Oh. I'll likely be much more concerned about this." Jonas began to nibble her cleavage. "Later," she sighed.

"
Ummmm
," he agreed.

Then, after a long moment: "Is Dr.
Bimm
angry?"

"Only because she didn't get laid.
And that's
her own
damn fault, believe me."

She arched beneath his hands and wrapped her legs around his waist. "That's nice," she sighed, kissing him back.

He came up for air. "Wait, wait! I've always wanted to try this." He went to the small credenza at the other end of the dining room table, opened it, and withdrew a pack of cards.

"Oh, oh," Barb said, but she was smiling.

Jonas shuffled the cards. "Okay, check this. We'll play poker to get our fantasy."

"We'll do what?"

"We're going to role play. If I win, you're a damsel in distress and I have to save you, blah-blah. If you win, you're a Catholic school teacher and I've just been caught putting a smoke bomb in the boy's room."

Dr. Barb started to laugh, then choked it off and looked grave. "You feel the need, to play cards to bring this about?"

"Hey, I'm a traditionalist." He did a fast box shuffle,
then
dealt them each five cards. He picked up his hand and observed the three aces. "Okay,
whatcha
got?"

"I have two twos," she said triumphantly.

He tossed his hand down and grabbed her. "You win, teacher."

"Are you sure you're not too tired?" Fred asked as the three of them charged into the
Sleepytime
Hotel. It was a twelve story building built right up to the harbor. From the outside it looked like a perfectly respectable, almost luxury hotel. Not at all the den of evil they now knew it to be.

"Now?
No way. As soon as you told me, I got a massive adrenaline surge. Let's kick some ass and then turn him over to the EPA."

"After we snap his spine,"
Artur
added.

"You just keep your hands to yourself, buster, until we figure out what we're going to—Phillip King, please," she told the receptionist. In a moment that would haunt her nightmares for eternity, she'd blanked out and had to call Jonas back to get the guy's name. And her friend was so out of breath he could hardly spit it out. And there was an odd thumping noise in the background—not like they were on a bed, but maybe—

"Remind me not to eat anywhere in your suite until I figure this out," she muttered, shrugging when Thomas gave her a mystified look.

"I'm sorry," the receptionist said, "but Mr. King is in a meeting right now and can't be—"

"Tell him," she said, "it's about his ex-wife. I bet he'll see us."

"I bet he will, too," the receptionist muttered. Then she pushed a couple of buttons on her console, gestured to the elevator, and said, more graciously, "Top floor."

"Remember," Fred said as they marched into the elevator, "nobody
use
the bathrooms while we're here."

"Oh, Fred, that's gross!"

"Just
sayin
'.
Artur
, what the hell's the matter with you?"
For he had suddenly thrown himself against her and was clutching her hard enough to hurt.

"This little metal box—moving—up?"

"Yeah, it's an elevator, it's perfectly normal, now
leggo
." She tried to pry his fingers off her arm.
"
Artur
, calm down."

"But what is to prevent the box from shooting right out of the top of the building?"

"Nothing," Thomas said cheerfully.
"Happens at least once a week in this city."

"
Owwwww
," Fred bitched. "
Artur
, you're cutting off the
circulation
. Thomas, cut the shit."

"I just think he should prepare himself."

"
Owwwww
!"

There was a
ding
and then the elevator slowed to a stop and the doors hummed open.
Artur
lost no time in getting out. Thomas went sailing after him, thanks to Fred's helpful shove. He stumbled into
Artur
, sending them both sprawling in the elevator.

"I
swear,
the trouble you two cause me on a minute-by-minute basis…" She stomped past them and resisted the urge to kick Thomas in the ribs. At least they were helping each other up like gentlemen.

"You have to admit, I gotcha good," Thomas said.

"Indeed you did. I shall remember your deviousness and address it another time."

"Bring it, you redheaded overgrown—"

"Dr.
Bimm
, Dr. Pearson, and Prince
Artur
of the Black Sea," Fred announced, walking into the conference room the receptionist had directed them to.
Artur
had made it clear he wanted his true name and affiliation when they finally confronted the bad guy.

Bad
guys
.

Fourteen men were staring back at her, and they were all shifty-eyed, shiny-suited, and wore suspicious bulges under their armpits. Even the guy at the head of the table, a balding, cadaverously thin man with eyes the color of dust and the longest fingers she'd ever seen. And her mom taught piano.

Of course, on their date, he hadn't been packing. But otherwise she recognized him immediately.

"You said this was about my ex?" Phillip King asked, standing at the head of the table.

"No, it's about what you're
doing
to your ex.
Specifically
, pumping all the shit from your hotel into her harbor. Well.
Boston
Harbor
.
But we know why you're doing it."

That ought to fix him, she thought, folding her bony arms across her chest. And right in front of his partners, too!

One of the shiny-suited men looked at King and said, "I thought you said there was no way to get caught."