North and Shaw Out of Office - Gregory Ashe

1

SHAW COULDN’T EXACTLY remember where he had put the invoices.

“This is fucking ridiculous,” North said as he kicked a banker’s box away from him. “This is one hundred percent your fucking fault.”

“They’re around here somewhere.”

“That’s great, Shaw. Where?”

“I know I didn’t throw them away.” Shaw froze as soon as he had said this. “I mean—”

“Oh Christ. You read that book.”

“This doesn’t have anything—I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I ought to drag your scrawny ass upstairs and show you what I’m talking about. I’m talking about that Marie Kondo spark-joy-and-throw-North’s-important-paperwork-away book. That book. The one I specifically told you not to read.”

“Oh. That one.”

North swept himself upright in his chair, the Red Wing boots coming down hard on the floorboards. “Oh,” he said, his voice pitched high. “That one. Yes, that fucking one. The one you’ve been talking about ever since you and Benny broke up six months ago. Like you’re going to organize your room because you’re not getting laid anymore.”

“Well, I was reading about this custom in parts of China of giving money in red envelopes and how it brings good fortune, and I was thinking that we needed a little good fortune, so then I thought maybe we should be sending out our invoices in red envelopes—”

“Oh my God.”

“—and then somehow I just had that Marie Kondo book in my hand. I swear. I don’t even know how it got there.”

“Oh my God.”

“But I thought I might as well take a look since I had it in my hands.”

“Oh my ever-loving God.”

“You know, I’m actually really good with paperwork. Cousin Rodney says I’d be a bang-up lawyer.”

“Bang-up?”

“It’s an expression.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“I think it’s British.”

“It’s not. And you’d be a fucking terrible lawyer.”

“Cousin Rodney doesn’t think so. He even said he’d give me a job.”

North buried his face in his hands and took a calming breath. Then, speaking between his fingers: “We’re getting a secretary.”

Some of Shaw’s hair had fallen in his face, and he shoved it away. “I don’t really think that’s necessary—”

“We’re hiring one. This week.”

“I’m not sure we can afford one.”

“I’ll quit.”

Shaw shoved more hair away and grinned. “No, you won’t.”

“I’ll hold you down and shave your head.”

That, Shaw had to admit, was frighteningly likely. North was very much the type to deliver on a threat like that. And Shaw wasn’t vain, not at all, he’d been reading all about how to see people’s spirits and how important that was, but he also was pretty sure he didn’t want to be bald.

“What if we compromise? I’ll find some red envelopes, and we can—”

North was starting to growl.

That was when the bell on the front door jingled, and before Shaw could say anything, North shot to his feet. “I’ll get it.”

While North spoke in low voices to whoever had come to the office of Borealis Investigations—a client, Shaw hoped, although it was more likely somebody wanting to sell tacky bracelets on display in the front office, or maybe a kid trying a paper route, or the gas guy who couldn’t find the meter—Shaw pulled open another desk drawer and started digging.

“Shaw?”

He looked up too fast, and his head cracked against the underside of the desk. “Ouch.” His face heated as he extricated himself.

North stood in the doorway, shaking his head. Next to him were two young women. Girls, really. Barely out of high school, if Shaw had to guess, although he’d never really been an expert on girls. One was tiny, with light brown skin, dark hair, and a vermillion bindi on her forehead. The other had peroxide-blond hair shorter than North’s, and her combat boots put her almost as tall as him. The two girls were holding hands.

“We have clients,” North said.

“Awesome,” Shaw said, but as he stood up, his foot caught on a stack of pages under the desk, and Shaw slipped and fell backward, landing on the floor. He took a moment to clear his head and then looked at the mountain of paperwork that had tripped him up.

“Oh! North! I found the invoices!”

North just sighed.

2

THE STORY WAS SIMPLE, although unusual: a bunch of bros was invading a local lesbian bar—the Radio Girls.

“Tune in Tokyo?” Shaw said as they drove east on Gravois. “That kind of radio?”

In a strip mall parking lot, where neon signs flashed for payday loans and liquor stores, a flock of plastic bags fluttered in the fall breeze, cycloning up against a cart corral and then fluttering back to the ground. Shaw cranked down the Grand Caravan’s window—the