Hector said if I had a case he could work with me, he was there.
It would have to be pre- or post-stripping (likely post, which would make it a long night), but we could hit the houses, gain entry cops couldn’t by being badasses (or Hector could be one; I’d pretend to be one), hope they didn’t immediately fence the property they stole and therefore call it into Eddie or Hank so they could get a search warrant and roll in.
“I’ll take the case,” I said to Mr. Kumar.
He grinned.
“I said, I got an eye out!” Tex boomed, and I looked up at him.
“You’re getting married tomorrow,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, and it’s no big deal. A piece of paper. Nance already lives with me and we’re not takin’ a honeymoon for a coupla weeks ‘cause she’s got some cruise she wants to take and they were all booked up for the week we wanted so we had to wait. So I can keep an eye out.”
He said a lot of words, but I was stuck on one thing.
Tex was going on a cruise?
Tex was going to be confined on a cruise ship with hundreds of other passengers?
Tex was going to be lumbering around the decks in his jeans and flannels with his wild-ass beard and hair, frightening unsuspecting vacationers… on a cruise?
I burst out laughing.
“What’s funny?” Tex asked.
“You,” I choked out, “On a cruise.” I looked to Indy and saw her shoulders shaking.
“What’s funny about that?” Tex demanded to know.
“You,” I choked out again. “On a cruise.”
“I know,” Jet said from behind me, having returned from one of her seven hundred daily pregnancy-related bathroom breaks. “I laughed for fifteen minutes when Mom told me.”
“Tex on a cruise!” I cried.
“Shut it, woman,” Tex ordered.
I kept laughing.
“It’s not that funny,” Tex boomed.
It totally was.
I looked to Jet. “You make your mom promise to take pictures. Lots of them.”
Tex growled.
I looked back at him and kept laughing.
His eyes narrowed and he declared, “You’re on this case, I’m workin’ with you.”
I swallowed laughter, wiped a tear of hilarity from my eye and caught his.
“Fine. You make a list of houses we need to hit. I’ll call Hector, who said he’d work a case with me. I’ll get a night when we can hit them before you go on your,” I swallowed again then forced out, “Cruise. Then we go out and hit them. We find stolen property, we call it into the cops. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Tex grunted.
“Can I get a coffee?” A man standing behind Mr. Kumar asked.