Page 40 of Dick

“I would.”

“If I said I liked cops?”

“No,” I said. “If you said they were in the right.”

He nodded and reached for his chopsticks.

The restaurant we were in was huge, and probably had seating for 200 people. At three-fourths capacity, they were busy, but not packed. As Dick ate his noodles and I sipped my broth, I gazed at the eclectic mix of patrons.

I noticed a man walk in who was wearing a robe. At first, he reminded me of Drake. The guy with him was rocking a ridiculous mustache, but no beard. I personally found mustaches to be grotesque, and for that reason alone, he caught my attention.

As I was preparing to tell Dick about the man in the robe reminding me of Drake, he turned to face me and sat down.

It was Drake.

“Holy shit,” I whispered. “Guess who just came in?”

He shrugged. “A bunch of cops?”

“No,” I snapped back. “That lunchmeat eating friend of yours, Drake.”

Clearly surprised, he craned his neck to see. “Where?”

“Over your left shoulder,” I said. “Just sat down with some dude with a mustache. And he’s wearing a fucking robe. Drake, not the dude with the ‘stache.”

He peered over his shoulder. “He always wears a robe.”

A few seconds later, a really tall Asian man with terrible acne walked over to their table, sat down, and began to talk.

Dick spun around. “Grab your purse. Let’s go.”

“We’re leaving?”

“Kind of,” he said. “Follow me.”

He tossed fifty bucks on the table, grabbed my hand, and quickly walked toward the back of the restaurant. We ducked behind a wall that separated the bathrooms from the dining area and followed it into the kitchen.

While people appeared to be surprised, no one seemed to really care that we barged through the kitchen. Feeling like I was involved in something much bigger than I probably was, my heart raced and my mind jumped to all kinds of conclusions of what was going on.

I imagined the man with the mustache was an undercover cop, because almost all cops that were undercover had a nasty fucking mustache to assist in their disguise. I figured the Asian man was Duc, the man Drake sent Dick to meet on the day we hid the Ferrari in his garage.

We burst through the back door and into a dirt parking lot filled with what I guessed were the employee’s cars.

“What the fuck’s going on?” I asked, knowing he wasn’t going to tell me a thing.

“Give me a minute,” he said.

He stared down at my feet for a moment and then looked up. “The other day, when I got hit, someone took something from me. Something expensive. I think the Asian guy might be the guy, but I got hit from behind, so I don’t know.”

“Go kick his ass and take it back.”

I wanted to see Dick kick the shit out of someone, and it seemed like the most logical answer to his concern.

“It’s not that easy. I took it from him in the first place.”

I shook my head. “You stole it from the Asian guy?”

“Not exactly. I paid for it. But…” He inhaled a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then sighed. “Never mind.”