With a sigh, she crossed her arms. “Fine.” Her bottom lip stuck out in a pout. “It was my own cooler, though. Cute and pink. And I bought all the hard seltzers with my own money!”
“We literally just robbed meth-dealing bikers to save your mother, Ginny,” Shepherd said. “You can sacrifice a cooler and some hard seltzers for the cause.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“We’re all suffering,” Noah agreed from the front seat, his voice thick with unshed tears. “We’re all suffering greatly.”
Shepherd’s Pies was closed, though there was a light on inside. Noah parked in the back alley, still sniffling, and the three of them eased Hector out of Ginny’s car and into the kitchen. Normally hotter than the street outside, the ovens were off, and the kitchen was a stuffy eighty-two degrees, give or take.Chris was sitting on one of the counters, eating a banana. Max and Charlie were off to the side, looking at Max’s phone.
“This one’s angle is better,” Max said, his thumb moving across the screen. Something exploded in his hand. Both he and Charlie laughed. “Oh, man, this is gonna trend, I just know it. ‘Taco Truck Explodes at Biker Party’ just has a ring to it, you know? A je ne sais quoi.”
“Gesundheit,” Charlie said. “Ah, you made it! What, uh—” He crossed his arms. “What’s that?”
Shepherd, Ginny, and Noah dropped Hector onto the tile floor with a bang. Noah shuddered, wiped his eyes. “I need ice,” he whispered. “I’m gonna throw up.”
Chris hopped off the counter and ushered Noah away with an arm around his shoulders. “There, there, little buddy. You’re safe now.”
“There wasn’t a safe,” Shepherd said. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “No safe. Only painting. Money in painting.”
Ginny blinked at him. “Are you OK? Do you need ice?”
He waved her off, though really he was mentally calculating the steps to the nearest toilet and/or trash can. Robbing bikers on an empty stomach was, apparently, not what his body considered optimal biological functioning. “Just get me a knife. Max, lock all the doors. Let’s get this open.”
Ginny pulled a butcher knife out of the nearest block, a metallic twang filling the air. “OK, but I don’t want to watch.” She handed it over. “Bye, Hector. You were misunderstood, but Lex would’ve loved you.”
“Oh God.” Shepherd moved the knife to his right hand. “Lexwouldlove him. Maybe we should cut him from behind to try to save him?”
“No!” came Noah’s frantic, high-pitched scream from somewhere else in the restaurant. “Kill it! Kill it now, Shepherd!Take off its face before it eats us alive!”
Charlie laughed. “Damn. What a group you got here, Ginny. Like a sitcom. Come on, Shep. Let’s get this money so we can pay those kidnappers, eh?”
“Right, right. The kidnappers.” Shepherd sighed. “The whole point.”
Then he stabbed Hector in his sad clown face.
FORTY-TWO
How much money can fit into one sad clown painting?Sounded like a question asked on a math test Shepherd hadn’t had a chance to study for—and then, during the test, he realized he was naked and back in high school, and oh, thank God, it’s a nightmare.
The answer, however, turned out to be a million and a half dollars. Shepherd stared at the bricks of green scattered neatly around his kitchen, his various employees and mob bosses having organized them in easily recountable piles. This was Scrooge McDuck–level money. This was never-work-at-his-dumb-restaurant-ever-again-level money. Sure, he couldn’t retire in luxury—not in this economy—but he couldretire. He could have hobbies!
Shepherd never really had a hobby before, but he could start now! Maybe … collecting baseball cards? Geocaching? Foreign films?
Charlie patted the nearest stack of hundreds. “It’s a good haul, kid.”
Ginny sat on her knees on the floor, surrounded by piles of money, her blue eyes glassy. “It’s short.”
“Right. Yeah.” Shepherd ran a hand over his face. The kidnappers asked for two million. There went the baseball cards and the GPS units and the subtitles. There went Deandra Kent, if he didn’t think of something quick.
“We could just … not get paid?” Noah offered. “I mean, I know we risked our lives and our freedom, but, Ginny, your scary mom is in actual danger.”
Chris and Max nodded.
But Ginny sighed. “Well, we’re only giving you each a thousand dollars. I don’t think three grand is going to make much of a difference to the kidnappers. Thanks anyway, guys, but you earned your money.”
Charlie gave each of them ten one-hundred-dollar bills. “You ever need another job, let me know,” he said with a wink. “Could use a group of good guys who are quick on their feet.”
The three of them left together out the back door, talking about a club downtown. Shepherd ran his fingers through his hair and then left them there, pulling on the strands in thought. “We could fluff it.”
