When a Man Loves a Weapon (7 page)

“I can’t scry for Trevor,” Ce Ce said, grabbing her attention back to the moment, “because he’s not a demon or a zombie.”

Bobbie Faye looked in askance at her boss. “That’s one of those ‘good news/bad news’ things all rolled into one, isn’t it? Wait. Do I want to know why you started scrying for demons?”

“Probably not, hon. Luckily, I’ve only found three since I’ve been trying.” Ce Ce gathered up the potions that she’d rummaged through. She and Bobbie Faye were in Ce Ce’s storage room while Riles terrorized the customers.

“Yeah, but she’s found seven zombies,” Monique said, tagging along behind Ce Ce, catching vials as they fell from
the crooks of Ce Ce’s arms. Monique was Ce Ce’s best friend, a pudgy, redheaded, freckled mom of four who had a wobbly sense of morality and a firm belief that mimosas were not just for breakfast anymore.

Bobbie Faye glanced from Monique, who always seemed earnest, even when she was trying to convince Ce Ce that she should add a stripper club to the store, back to Ce Ce, who carefully placed vials back in their unlabeled boxes. Only Ce Ce knew which vial contained what potion—a little anti-theft plan she’d devised because people were too afraid to experiment.

“Seven zombies? Seriously?”

“Only six.” Ce Ce pursed her lips together, her black braids shimmying as she shook her head.

“I still think the governor cheated somehow,” Monique added, pouting. “One little zap. Wouldn’t have hurt much.”

Bobbie Faye wasn’t about to ask how they’d gotten in to see the governor, or why they weren’t already sitting in jail. Some things were just better left vague.

“Here,” Ce Ce said, holding a measuring cup to Bobbie Faye’s lips, “spit in this.”

There was something . . . gangrenous . . . about the inch-thick icky gel hunched in the bottom of that container. “You’re kidding, right?” And when Ce Ce pressed the cup forward, Bobbie Faye leaned away a little and asked, “I’m not going to have to smear this on anyplace embarrassing, am I?”

“Trust me,” Ce Ce said.

Bobbie Faye scowled, suspicious. The last time she’d trusted Ce Ce, she’d wound up painted
blue
.

“Hey, it protected you, don’t argue with the juju.”

Bobbie Faye spit into the cup, wherein the gel turned a nasty shade of orange. “Is that a bad sign?”

“Oh, hush. I’ll be out there in a minute. I think you need to rescue Riles.”

Bobbie Faye glanced back out at the gun counter, where the Ladies Auxiliary had just shown up in full force—thirty
more women, all ranging from the ages of twenty-three to ninety-six—vying for Riles to frisk them.

It was the only thing getting Bobbie Faye through the worry about Trevor.

“Hon,” Ce Ce said, waddling over to the gun counter, “wear this.” Ce Ce snapped a stretchy bracelet around Bobbie Faye’s wrist faster than she could say “ewwww” and Bobbie Faye gaped—there was a chicken foot attached. It was light yellow with an orangey tinge and smelled like the awful gel. “This is a bad juju detector,” Ce Ce explained, showing her the match to it on her own wrist. “It’ll turn black when you’re in deep trouble.”

“So, it’s like a mood ring for the Criminally Stupid?” Riles asked, and Bobbie Faye zinged a gun safety pamphlet at his head. He ducked and she missed. Damned asshole had great reflexes.

Ce Ce frowned. “I know Trevor meant well, keeping you all protected with Riles, but this is going to work
much
better.” She glared at Riles, who pretended to be mortally wounded and staggered around, clutching at his heart.

“I’ll be fine. In fact,” she nodded toward Riles, “he’s probably the only one here who’d really like to see me dead or maimed.”

“
Here
being the operative word in that sentence.”

Monique plopped a bunch of fabric sample cases on the glass gun countertop and made flirty googly eyes at Riles. Of course, Monique was probably four flasks to the wind at that point, so no accounting for taste. “Can you wait to maim her ’til after the wedding?”

Ce Ce immediately shushed her best friend, scooped up the sample cases, and led Monique away with, “So, how are we on supplies?” and Bobbie Faye knew Trouble had just handed her a special delivery.

“What wedding?” she called after their retreating figures.

“Oh, nothing, nothing, hon,” Ce Ce said, and Monique slapped her hand over her mouth (Monique had Compulsive
Disclosure Syndrome), and Bobbie Faye knew Something Bad Was Up.

“Monique? Spill.”

“Hon,” Ce Ce said, “remember that time in eighth grade when you were just absolutely positively sure you wanted to know whether or not Mark had been out behind the school kissing Emmy Lou? This is like that. You’d rather not know. Monique and I will just . . . go over here,” she waved toward the other side of the store, “and, uh, sort. Merchandise. Got a lot that needs sorting.”

They tried scurrying off, but Bobbie Faye asked, “Monique? Wedding?”

Monique squeezed her pudgy fingers over her mouth, and all Bobbie Faye had to do was lean forward as if she were going to ask again when the woman blurted, “Marcel says he’s driving you to his and Lori Ann’s wedding!”

“What? Lori Ann and Marcel? What the
hell
is she thinking?” Bobbie Faye didn’t even know her sister was
dating
Marcel. The (supposedly) former right-hand man to Bobbie Faye’s gunrunning ex, Alex. Alex, the original Boyfriend from Hell. Marcel had started tricking out monster trucks—he’d said it didn’t pay as well as being a gunrunner, but not quite as many people shot at him anymore.

“He’s having one of the trucks specially painted to deliver you to the church. Something about a white Godzilla.” Ce Ce smacked her arm. “Or something, I maybe got that part wrong,” Monique amended.

“I am
not
riding in a truck with Marcel.” Fuck. Fuck fuck shit fuckity
fuck
. Because right, let’s focus on the important part, the truck. Geez. Lori Ann was engaged? “How in the hell had this happened?”

“He’s a lot better than the rodeo clown,” Ce Ce offered, trying to help put a positive spin on the notion.

“That one was annulled,” Bobbie Faye said.

Ce Ce kept going with the helpful reminders. “Her second husband—that encyclopedia salesman—was a lot worse than Marcel.”

“When Marcel caught the flu and couldn’t buy ammo for
a couple of weeks, the bullet manufacturers sent ‘get-well’ hookers,” Bobbie Faye reminded them. “Not exactly brother-in-law material, there.”

“True, hon, but at least he doesn’t think aliens are using non-dairy products to take over the world.”

“Yeah,” Monique agreed, “that second husband was a real firm believer in butter. I think I still have some he gave out. He wasn’t that good of an encyclopedia salesman, but he had real good butter.”

“I’ll bet they just hand out incompetency hearings like candy around here,” Riles said, not really under his breath. He still hadn’t given her ten feet of breathing space.

“But Marcel quit,” Ce Ce continued, trying to argue Lori Ann’s case. Bobbie Faye had a sneaking suspicion that Lori Ann had promised Ce Ce she could do the decorations if Ceece could convince Bobbie Faye not to go ballistic over the news. “He’s not a gunrunner anymore.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s a huge plus for the guy who might be helping to raise my niece: not having a stash of automatic weapons in the back of the minivan is everyone’s idea of a good stepdad. Not to mention that being a former gunrunner means he’s
entirely safe
from all of those pesky other gunrunner competitors who wouldn’t possibly hold a grudge because they’re all so kind and loving and hug-the-world types. At least his school excuses could be creative: Dear Mrs. Alexander, please excuse Stacey from school today—she’s helping me oil all of the AK-47s.”

It was not as if Marcel had had some shining epiphany about being a law-abiding citizen and just quite his little entrepreneurial endeavor out of the goodness of his heart. She’d feel a whole lot better about Marcel quitting moving guns if it hadn’t conveniently happened at about the same time Trevor and a few of his FBI colleagues, along with the ATF, disappeared into the swamp and came out with Alex, in cuffs. Alex, who’d eluded the police and Feds for-freaking-ever. She was pretty sure
that
had something to do with the fact that she’d sort of inadvertently exposed a couple of Alex’s hideouts when she first met Trevor. (Oops. Except, you know,
not
).

Bobbie Faye had exactly zero love lost for Alex. In fact, she sort of wished she’d known about his arrest ahead of time, because she would have hand-decorated the cuffs.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Monique added, “Marcel said everything but the tires will be bulletproof! Isn’t that great?”

Bobbie Faye would have followed up on that, except she saw a familiar someone lurking in the camping gear aisle.

“Oh, hell no,” she muttered as Riles surprised her and went on super-alert, his gun out and up and aimed at the young man hovering nearby in the faded purple LSU shirt. Nick.

Nina sat in the control booth, observing. Gilda took notes as they watched the live video spooling from the various rooms. There was enough betrayal and self-loathing pouring out to overfill the moon and slop a bit on nearby stars.

They winced in unison at screen #5.

“That hurt,” Gilda mumbled.

“Yes, it did,” Nina agreed.

They turned their heads sideways, tracking the action on the screen.

Nina leaned forward and keyed a microphone. “Heidi, we kinda want him still alive.”

The Amazon-sized Heidi, near-to-bursting from her tight leather dominatrix costume, barely paused from the pain she was inflicting to nod at the camera.

Nina leaned back as Gilda said, “Heidi may have anger management issues.”

“Don’t we all.”

“She’s up for psych eval.”

“She gets results. That’s what I need.” Then she heard something on screen that sent a chill through her. “What was that?”

“I’m not sure.” Gilda turned to the computer, rewound and replayed the footage. “I think he said something about bombs.”

Nina drummed her manicured nails on the desk. She’d been waiting for this. Waiting for the man to shatter. He was
looking for an excuse to, he was plate glass lining himself up with a wrecker ball. She was pretty sure it was guilt pushing him. His background was a little too immaculate. He’d been powerful too long to give in easily; he wanted to be forced.

He’d said
bombs
. Specifically, he’d supplied detonators for bombs. Computerized detonators, Nina suspected, given what the man did for a living.

Then he said another word . . . this time a name, and Nina sat forward again, every single cell intent. He’d said
Bobbie Faye
.

Nick the bookie was more chubby-cheeked dimples and blue-eyed wholesomeness than your average boy-next-door, and came complete with a tan left over from a summer of fishing and a bright smile that would con the underwear off even the most conservative Southern belle. His gee-whiz aw-shucks tucked-chin manner had gotten him out of high school detentions on a regular basis and, Bobbie Faye knew, gave him that air of complete trustworthiness that had catapulted him to wealth with his not-so-tiny bookie business. Right then, he stood on the business end of Riles’s Kimber 1911 and was coming to the sudden and complete epiphany that fake innocence did not make him bulletproof. For just one itty-bitty moment there, she had the completely evil thought about encouraging Riles to make that point even clearer, except that Nick wasn’t a physical threat as much as he was a pain in her ass. No, he was just the scum-sucking wart of a dirtbag, the pus of a giant zit on the ass of a rat, aka the guy who made book, Vegas-style, on her during every disaster. He’d gotten his start, in fact, keeping odds on her—whether she would live or die, and if it was “die,” then exactly how, to the minute, and the bettor had to be specific—thank God. There was a growing contingent of disgruntled gamblers who had been sending her nasty notes because she had the audaciousness not to croak in their preferred manner.

“Oh shit,” Nick said, bouncing on his toes, nerves jangling
louder than the change in his pocket. “Oh shit. Don’t shoot. Oh shit.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Look,” Nick said, swallowing hard and trying to pretend the end of Riles’s Kimber wasn’t perfectly lined up with his brain, “I just had to see why the bets were up.” When she blinked blankly at him, he leaned in a little, twitching. “You know. The
odds
.”

“What odds?”

“Um, well. You know.” His voice dropped lower. “The
bets
.” Sweat beaded on his brow and trickled down his neck. “Usually, you’re all over the news before the betting gets really heavy, but now, it’s super quiet and I can’t tell what you’re up to, so I can’t tell just how to cover the spread.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’s the kind of woman who always covers the spread,” Riles said.

She went rigid, glaring, fingers flexing, tingling to pick up the loaded Ruger from behind the display case.

“New rule!” Ce Ce called from a couple of aisles over. “No shooting in the store!”

Bobbie Faye turned her attention back to the vacant spot where Nick had been. She saw his fingers white-knuckling the top edge of the counter and she leaned over to get a better view of him as he crouched. “Get up, Lucy. You have some ‘splainin’ to do.”

He stood, and his hands shook. He tried to hide them in his pockets. He’d never, ever, been insane enough to show his lying, cheating, gambling, lowlife, lucky-to-still-have-all-his-parts face since he’d become a bookie. Nick darted his gaze between her and Riles.

“Talk.” She could smell the fear on him from three feet away.

“There may be a few big bets against you,” he half-whispered.

“You came all the way over here for just a few bets?”

He flinched and bowed his head. A guilty puppy would have been more aggressive. “Um. Maybe more than a few.”

She spread her arms, palms down on the countertop to
keep from shooting him, and she leaned forward a little and asked, “How bad is it, Nick?”

“Oh, not too bad,” he lied, licking his lips again.

“Against?” Riles asked. “And how does one get in on this action?”