Nancy Bartholomew

The language has been cleaned up to protect the innocent...

I hunched down behind the bumper of my sister, Jack’s 1962 Cadillac El Dorado and shivered in the late night air. Jack trained her neon yellow binoculars on the back exit of Sneaky Pete’s. I checked the safety on my Sig 9 m.m. Again. What possessed me to come here? What made me think risking my life would somehow erase the past three years of our lives? What made me think I could ever come home again?

I am doing penance, I reminded myself. Why else would a self-respecting P.I stoop to hunting a bail skip, low-life like Hector Luiz? Why else would I let my sister take the lead when it’s as clear as the nose on my face she doesn’t know squat about bounty hunting?

“Jack,” I whispered. “I think we should move the car. A guy like Hector is bound to have people. They see your car parked under the streetlight like this, with you dressed up like a hooker on holiday and I don’t gotta tell you, they’ll pull the plug on Hector’s booty call.”

Jack didn’t even lower the glasses when she answered me. “Excuse me, person-who-abandoned-this agency-so-she- could-‘follow’-her-heart-to-Las Vegas. I don’t recall asking for your opinion. You are my back-up. That’s all. I’m the primary. You said you’d do anything if I’d let you back in- Well, this is it. You work for me. You do what I say.”

I resisted the urge to reach out and strangle her, trying to reason with myself. Jack’s 35 going on 15. Worse than that, she’s a second born- so she’s got an ax to grind with me from the get-go. I was born first. So, she’s gotta show me. She’ll be tougher, smarter and faster than the big sister who left her hanging- even if she doesn’t have one athletic bone in her body.

Jack suddenly went still. She made a flapping motion with her pudgy arm and her gold bangles clattered around her wrist. I held my breath, hoping no one heard. Jack tugged at her bright yellow tube top, hitching it higher as she continued the losing battle with her double-D breasts and inched forward.

“It’s him!” she whispered excitedly. “There, next to the girl in the white shirt.”

I edged around the other side of the car, straining to make out the two figures on the concrete loading dock. We were in luck. Luiz didn’t have his security team with him. The take-down could be a cake walk. That is, if Hector was too busy chasing skirt to remember he was a wanted man. with a big price tag on his head.

I stayed in a low crouch behind the Caddy's rear bumper and studied our quarry.  I fingered the safety on my gun and sized up Hector’s girlfriend. She was about my height, 5’7 and runner-lean. Short, black hair cut in a boyish fringe shag that feathered around her face. Hector smiled at her,  inclined his head and motioned her forward, ahead of him, down the stairs and away from the lights.

“Atta boy, Luiz,” I murmured under my breath. “Come to Mama.”

Hector’s long, black hair was pulled back into a thin ponytail. His suit was tailor-made. He was years older than the girl. I knew this from reading the information folder Jack showed me before we left the office. He was in his mid-forties but the girl didn't look over 25. Money talks, I thought, watching the two of them. Otherwise, I couldn’t imagine why a good-looking woman was wasting her time on a low-life like Hector.

My sister crept up beside me. She reached inside her huge leather purse, fumbled around for a moment, swore softly and finally managed to extract a bright yellow Taser.

“Tell me that’s not real,” I whispered.

Jack grinned. “Oh, it’s real, all right. Just wait ‘til I take him down. Come on!”

Before I could react, before I could stop her, Jack jumped up and was made her move. She ran, clomping in her high heels and waving the Taser like a crazy woman.

“Hector!” she cried.

Luiz froze. The smile he’d been giving his girlfriend vanished. His face hardened into an ugly, reptilian mask. His right hand vanished beneath his suit jacket as he reached for his gun.

Something was very wrong here. Hector’s girlfriend jumped out in front of him, turned her head and yelled something I lost in the pandemonium of the moment.

Hector vanished back into the darkness of the parking lot as the building's back door burst open. Men with guns flooded out onto the concrete dock.

Jack fired the Taser but the twin prongs went wide, missing her target, if indeed there ever was a target.

“Bond enforcement agents!” I yelled, whipping my I.D out of my back pocket and waving it in the air. “Back the hell up!” I held the Sig out, making sure Hector’s body guards knew it was there, just so we were all aware I was legal and armed.

Jack was too hopped up on adrenaline to even hear me. She reached into the waistband of her black leather miniskirt and extracted yet another yellow Taser.

“Stop!” she screamed. The Taser crackled and this time found a victim.