“Aw, I love you too, sweetheart.”
“Is this your friend? Hi, Dad’s friend.” She grinned toothlessly at Charlie. “I’m Alexis. But you can call me Lex.”
“Well, hi there, Lex.” Charlie wiped his hand on his napkin before offering it to the girl. “How old are you? My son Oliver is almost twelve now, which I can hardly believe. Do I look like I have a twelve-year-old son?”
Lex said, “Yes.” Then she smiled again. “I’m almost ten. But if you tell anyone I’m not ten yet, I’ll find you and your son.”
“Ooo-K.” Shepherd laughed too loudly, patting his daughter on the head. “Thank you, Lex. You were … so, so helpful.”
She gave a bow and then flounced away to bother another table with bad close-up magic.
“Cute kid,” Charlie said, and sounded like he almost meant it. “Mine is a troublemaker, too. Takes after his mom, eh?” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wallet. For a wild moment, Shepherd thought Charlie meant to pay for his food. But instead, he slid out a small picture and placed it on the countertop. It was a family shot, taken by a professional outside on a beach somewhere. Charlie was younger, in a white linen shirt and khaki pants, a giant smile on his face, his eyes on the woman beside him. She was a beauty, with her long, blonde hair tangled in the wind, and her blue eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled at the camera. Between them was a boy who looked like Charlie shrunk down into a four-year-old’s body, holding both their hands and waking in the sand.
“He looks like me.” Charlie’s index finger traced the photo, something like reverence in the movement. “But he thinks like her.”
Shepherd stared at the bar top for a while, even after Charlie had taken the picture back and put it in his wallet. He clearedhis throat, raked his fingers through his hair, and tried, very hard, to understand what the hell was going on. “Charlie,” he said. “Look, man. I got an ex-wife, too. But I don’t keep her picture in my wallet.”
Charlie said, “Hmm,” likehewas judging Shepherd, before going back to his third slice of pizza.
Shepherd fiddled with his pen, clicked it against the binder in his lap. “About this whole thing you have set up. I just … I know you said you’d give me details as needed but, like, I’m the one going in, right? I’d like to be able to have a night to sleep on it—really rehearse it.”
Charlie shook his head. “Better if you’re unrehearsed. You wanna be loose. Quick on your toes.”
Shepherd kept his head down, his shoulders hunched, and tried his best to look forlorn—and didn’t think about how it was such an easy posture for him to take on. “It’s just, I’ve got Lex to think about. And Ginny. I’m taking on all the risk. If I could get the outline, Charlie, just the outline—man, I’d sleep a lot better.”
Charlie sniffed but otherwise seemed unmoved.
“I could throw in a couple of extra meals on the house?”
The ex-mafioso wiped his face with a napkin. “Fine,” he huffed. “Give me your pen.” And then, on the back of the dirty napkin, wrote out a four-step plan.
A. Four. Step. Plan.
THIRTY-FIVE
“Afour-step plan, Ginny!” The wheels on his chair propelled Shepherd backwards into his office wall from the sheer force of his dropdown into it. The rusting filing cabinets shook from the collision, a badly hung picture of baby Lex in front of the Shepherd’s Pies storefront going crooked. “Four steps!”
“I mean, honestly?” She shrugged. “I was worried it would only be one.”
Shepherd flung the dirty napkin on the desk between them. Or, at least, he tried to. It sort of fluttered for a beautiful second before landing on the floor in a discarded heap. “The last one, Ginny! The last one just says, ‘Haul Ass’!”
Ginny scooped it up off the ground with two fingers, her lips pursed in disgust. “Is this pizza grease? From, like, his face?”
“Yes.”
She peeled it open, her expression becoming increasingly more soured. “Haul Ass, including a doodle of a butt. He even used the grease in the drawing, Shepherd.”
Shepherd nodded. “Poop.”
“Poop.”
Ginny set the napkin down on his desk with more dignity than it deserved. “That shows some creativity, at least.”
He ran both hands over his face. “I am going to die.”
“Hey.” Ginny came around to stand next to him, resting her hip on the edge of the desk. “I’ll be with you.”
“Great. So the bikers can kill us both when they find us elbow-deep in their orgy-room safe.”
