Duke had been in the parking lot leaning against his bike when I finished at the Shelter that afternoon. He followed me to the hobby shop and was by my side as I made my knitting selections and even when I wandered into the sticker and card-making sections just in case knitting didn’t take.
I thought this was something which would annoy him but he seemed to have all the patience in the world for hobby shop shopping.
“You’re good at this,” I told Duke in the checkout line.
“What?” he asked.
“Shopping.”
“Dolores paints,” Duke replied then went on, “and does macramé and a bit of cake decorating and dried-flower arranging.”
Sounded like Duke was no stranger to hobby shops.
I handed over my credit card and turned fully to him. “Why are you doing this?”
“What?” he asked again.
“Protecting me. You barely know me.”
He regarded me for a second.
Then he said, “Got a feeling you’re gonna be a fixture in Indy’s life. Whoever is a fixture in Indy’s life is a fixture in mine. Don’t got no family outside Dolores and her folks. What family I got walks through the doors of that store on a regular basis. I’m guessin’ by the way Vance looks at you and Indy and her gang have taken to you, you’re gonna be walkin’ through those doors on a regular basis. I’m gonna do my bit to make sure you continue walkin’ through those doors. Where I come from, you take care of your family.”
At his words I’d had to put my hand to the counter to hold myself steady.
For some bizarre reason, maybe because he’d shared so I felt I should do the same, I told him. “I don’t have much family.”
“You do now,” he replied.
I had the strange but strong desire to hug him. I didn’t, instead I turned to the clerk and took my credit card back.
Duke followed me home and did a walkthrough of my house even though I told him there were cameras everywhere. He stayed for a beer and long enough for me to knit and pearl my way through a line of wool, all the while Duke reading the directions to me.
Finally he said, “Gotta go or Dolores’ll be pissed I let the dinner go cold.”
I walked him to the door.
“You go anywhere you call me or one of the boys. Hear me?” he ordered.
I wanted to be a head crackin’ mamma jamma but I couldn’t, not after what he said at the hobby shop and not after what happened at Fortnum’s that afternoon.
I just nodded.
He gave me a look as if to assess my honesty. I must have passed the honesty test because he nodded and left.
While I was eating a dinner of microwave popcorn (I might not be any good with an oven but I was hell-on-wheels with a microwave), Sniff had called.
He was full of stories. He told me of their official tour through the Nightingale Investigations offices, their “cool-as-shit” (Sniff’s words) hour-long shift in the surveillance room and working with Brody, Lee’s hacker, on the computers.
He told me of dinner at Lincoln’s Road House and I made a mental note to have a word with Vance about taking my (underage) boys to a biker bar for dinner.
He also told me of their ride-along with Vance after they ate.
I was only slightly alarmed to learn that Vance had gone gung-ho. Not starting slowly, he had taken them along on a break-and-enter search that included disabling an alarm, picking a lock and rifling through the possessions and computer files of a possible corporate embezzler. Vance did this so well, the “possible” became “definite” and the boys were high with excitement. They were also left understanding that you had to be more than just physically fit to do the job. It wasn’t just about cracking heads, you had to know computers; you had to understand electronics; and you had to be smart, thinking three steps ahead so you didn’t get caught.
If Roam and Sniff thought Vance was the shit before, they were even more convinced of it now.
“He didn’t make, like, a sound. It was like he was a ghost. It was f**kin’ cool!” Sniff told me.