Shepherd rolled his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do was drive back to Charlie’s house. Maybe they could meet halfway somewhere?
“Charlie,” Ginny said, not unkindly, “the government thinks you’re dead. They’re not tapping your phone.”
Charlie didn’t respond. Shepherd double-checked his phone screen to make sure the retired gangster hadn’t hung up.
“Huh. Yeah. I guess you’re right. Still, I don’t like to discuss too many details. This is my job, right? And I know it’s for your mom, Ginny, but I don’t need two amateurs getting ahead of themselves on me.”
Shepherd’s bicep cramped. He sat up, shook out his arm. “Just tell us the location, OK. And maybe why them. And alsowhat—what would be cool.”
“The Tire Irons got a good deal going, you know. Lots of different … streams of income. Things end up stashed at their clubhouse, you know, while they work out where the best, let’s say, cleaners are.”
Shepherd and Ginny exchanged a look. For a man who had just been convinced that his phone wasn’t wiretapped, he sure was spending a lot of time trying to talk in code. Failing. But trying.
“So they’ve got cash they haven’t laundered yet in their clubhouse,” Ginny summarized. “Where?”
“In a safe behind a clown painting,” Charlie said, which was not a phrase Shepherd had prepared himself for.
“I beg your pardon?”
Charlie continued, without pardoning anyone, “And the day after tomorrow, they’re hosting their annual Fourth of July barbecue. Which means a lot of bikers coming and going. A lot of access to that safe, if anyone knows to look for it.”
Shepherd said, “Behind the clown painting.”
“That’s right.” Charlie exhaled again, blowing smoke on the other side of the phone. “Plus, you’re going to need supplies. Can’t go into these things unprepared. Bad for business.”
“This is, without a doubt, the dumbest thing I’ve ever agreed to, and I let Lex dress me up as a giant baby for Halloween last year.”
Ginny froze in mid-lipstick application. They were sitting in his car, down the street from the Tire Irons motorcycle club clubhouse. The sun was setting directly into his face. Her ice-blue eyes snapped from his visor mirror to his face in a microsecond. “I beg your pardon?”
The tips of his ears burned. He inflated his cheeks and regretted ever being born with a tongue. Shepherd shook his head. “Forget I said anything.”
“Did she take pictures? Please, Shepherd!” She launched herself across the center console, her lipstick marking up his forearm. “Please, are there pictures? I won’t, I won’t ask her for them, I swear! I just need to know they exist.”
Shepherd tugged his arm away, wiped off the lipstick. It smudged on his fingertips. He waved them in her face, bright red and sticky. “Get out of here and go lie to bikers already, will ya?”
Ginny pressed a kiss to his cheek with a delighted squeal before hurrying out of the car. She pulled her skirt down as she went, closing his car door with a bump of her hip. She was in a power suit today, a cool gray-toned jacket with matching skirt. The jacket looked as if it had shoulder pads, too, but instead of making Ginny look like a linebacker, it made her look rich.
Shepherd wiped his cheek with the back of his hand, only to find even more lipstick. “Great,” he mumbled, looking around his mess for hand sanitizer or a napkin or something. “That’s gonna make me real popular with the bikers.”
Relatively lipstick-free, Shepherd used binoculars to search for Ginny. She was knocking on the clubhouse door, a giant smile on her face. The cover story was:
1. She’s a lawyer (objectively true).
2. She was working for the city (not true).
3. She was claiming that the city thinks they have accidentally encroached on the biker’s private property and is sending her to check it out before offering monetary reimbursement (obviously a lie, and anyone who fell for it should be easy to scam).
It didn’t hurt that Ginny was as pretty as she was, with a smile like that, and hair the color of a sunrise.
Sure enough, if the expression on the bearded biker’s face was anything to go by, he believed what she had to say the moment she showed him some official-looking paperwork that Charlie had got hold of. “Don’t ask,” he had said when he handed it over.
The FaceTime ringer chimed on Shepherd’s phone and he slid it on automatically, keeping his camera off and turning his screen recording on.
“Hi, Mr. Rogers,” Ginny said. “I’m inside the building now, and I can already see that it isn’t nearly big enough for their property allowance.”
Shepherd was pretty sure that wasn’t a thing. But he went, “Yep. Yep, I see it. Follow that south wall, please.”
“Of course, sir,” Ginny said, practically purring the honorific. He rolled his eyes, but the tips of his ears burned again.
