Page 42 of The B!tch is Bad

Elektra looked side to side with an abashed grin, like a little girl opening a doll on Christmas. For Elektra, I guess this was a doll. Only Patience, Ford, and I knew it was one of Klozov’s shoes, the heel crusted with dogshit. After taking Amber to the home of her friend, we’d waited a few days for the Bare Bones to dispose of Sean’s body. Ford put a relatively new Prospect, Fosdick, onto Klozov’s tail. He reported when Klozov left the house, and we went in. Patience found the poo-encrusted shoe, to us a sure sign. But Ford felt we could do nothing until Elektra tested it and matched it to Scruffy’s feces in the yard.

Elektra’s eyes glowed with delight, displaying the smelly tennis shoe.

Tobiah cried, “Captain Kirk’s nipples! I presume that’s stool decorating that shoe?”

I allowed Patience to explain her win. “Exactly. That’s one of a pair of shoes we took from Oliver’s house. We took them both, hoping he might not notice so much.”

Wolf pounded a fist on the table. “You brought the party, bitch!” Patience puffed up, proud to be a bitch. “This is dope! Elektra, how long will it take you to test that shoe?”

Elektra placed it gently back in the bag. “Well, I’m not getting back to Flag until tomorrow. I’d say I can give you concrete results Tuesday.”

Lytton said, “You’re crushing it, Patience. I wanna tell you, the bullet you retrieved? We can only match the rifling on it if we have the actual gun, the barrel.”

It was my turn to be a bitch. I’d been pulling on a rubber glove in preparation for this unveiling. Grabbing a jewelry box I’d placed on the table, I lifted the lid, a grand entrance.

A brass casing. Upon later examination of the macramé room, I’d found the brass that had popped behind a case of twine. I knew there could be a partial print on it from when the murderer loaded the gun.

“It’s yours,” I told Lytton.

Now his eyes smoldered like frost in the moonlight. He took the box gingerly, as though afraid to breathe on it. “You just brought a gun to a knife fight, Creed. We could match this to where the pin struck this brass.”

Tanner reminded us, “If only we had the gun. Creed, you obviously looked for that when you rifled through the coozemonkey’s house.”

“Yeah. Tobiah, have you searched online for any firearms Klozov has purchased?”

“I’m in the middle of it. He’s got a shit ton of aliases, including, believe it or not, Britt Schickhaus. He’s been in the red for a long time, owing child support for out of wedlock kids. Tons of liens against him. He spent time in jail for fraud ten years ago. He’s got so many red flags he resembles a used car dealership. I got to keep digging on his aliases.”

Wolf said, “He was convicted in Illinois of theft by swindle. He’s a convicted felon pulling swindles.”

“He was a mold removal guy, I knew that.” I sighed.

Patience added, “And a fake Breatharian from Sausalito.”

Although there was no gavel, and old ladies were present, the sit-down was adjourned when Wolf sprang for a bottle of Ghost Riders open on the bar’s marble counter. Lytton lifted a hand as if to grab Wolf’s utility belt, but sighed instead. Ford stood, signaling everyone to breathe and mill about. I planned on taking Patience aside, but Ford accosted us first.

“You good, Patience?” he asked. “I mean, about the whole Joe King thing.”

She shrugged, hands folded in front of her. “I mean, about as good as anyone could be.” She grinned sideways at me. “I’ve got this daddy here to care for me.”

A bolt struck my heart to hear her speak so boldly about our intimacy. But her serene smile, and Ford’s casual reaction, made me relax. I fondled the back of her head.

“Yes,” I agreed. “I’ll never let this little girl down.”

Ford said, “Fingerhut’s the sort of fellow who likes a little punch with his whiskey. We don’t stand for that in the Bare Bones. You know Slayer’s just chomping at the bit to go to Oklahoma and exit that guy, but we await your command.”

Again, Patience shrugged. “Nah. I’m good. Let’s not draw any more attention to ourselves.”

“Too much exposure,” I added, getting into the lingo of the club.

“C’mon.” Patience tugged my sleeve. “Let’s finally get the hell over to Wine on Main and holler at Grace.” Grace was the wine storage manager.

“Yeah,” Ford agreed. “Go see if Klozov has done any damage. We’re good here.”

“Go into the wine cave,” Patience urged the Prez. “The new tasting room manager is there. Have it all on the house.”

Patience allowing people to drink free was a sign of the highest urgency, and I knew she wouldn’t rest until we’d seen Wine on Main with our own eyes.

I wanted to take my Lucid on the thirty-minute ride so we could talk, but Patience insisted on riding bitch on the Harley. It was thrilling to give her my helmet and let the wind rip across my skull. I donned my plain blank leather vest and imagined I had the stolid approval of a few Bare Boners as we tore past groves of red-trunked mesquite. Vertical sentinels of saguaro zipped by like the cables of a bridge, black white black white, and when we sped up the ascent to Mescal Mesa the rollercoaster overwhelmed me.