The Shrinking Nuts Case Page 19

CHAPTER 19

  ELF INVASION

  “Wake up Jake, we've got company,” said Elaine.

  I turned over and reached for her, expecting to touch warm, soft woman-flesh, and something furry bit and scratched me, almost drawing blood. It wasn’t Elaine. It was Prince in his damn fancy collar again, pulling a fast one on me, sounding like Elaine, the sneaky little bastard. Elaine was nowhere in sight.

  The real Elaine poked her head into our bedroom. “It’s Ma and Papa,” she said, smiling. “Shake a leg, Jake.” Then she disappeared.

  I shook a leg at Prince but I missed, but that was OK, because now every time I felt like kicking the little bastard I remembered how he helped save our asses at the Precinct. Then I yawned, got out of bed, and got dressed. I did it in a rush but not in a panic. In the three days since the rumble at the Precinct Ma and Papa Falconie had gotten along fine with me, possibly because I hadn’t seen them at all in the last three days.

  On my nightstand was a pile of dirty rags that had once been three magnificent white fedoras. I had recovered my own white fedora from Wainwright's bank and it was all crushed with stains and holes. I also retrieved the remains of the fedoras of Mick and Grog from the ruble of the Precinct. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them, but it didn't seem right to simply throw them out in the trash. Maybe because my Pop and his Pop wore fedoras, I had a special attachment for them.

  Now I was back to wearing my old brown one, and brown made more sense to me now that Mick and Grog were gone. White fedoras were troll hats, for trolls and troll friends. For heros maybe, and most of the time heros ended up crushed and torn and dead. The elves probably had Mick and Grog in Arizona while here I was safe and sound in Jersey. I didn't qualify as a troll friend any more. Maybe I never had. I settled for a brown fedora now. I settled for being alive, and for Elaine being alive.

  After all, most everything was going pretty damn good. I had money in my pockets, lots of it from Grisim, and hints of more to come from new clients. Though most things had been hushed-up, word of mouth must have gotten around, because we had gotten calls from several people requesting our detective services. I just had to figure out which of them had the most money, and then I would pick a new case. I was in no hurry for that though. First things first. I hadn’t even gotten to the horse track yet since coming into cash again.

  The King and Big Ma were seated in the living room with Elaine and Prince by the time I got there. Vinnie stood by the door. None of them were smiling, but these were serious people, so maybe this visit didn’t mean the end of the world, I figured.

  I figured wrong. For one thing, I smelled garlic. Much more garlic than they would normally have, even as Italians. I couldn’t see it, but they must have had a ton of it on them somewhere under their suit-coats and so-forth. I figured that it meant more trouble. Elf trouble. Shi-i-it.

  "Hi Sonny," said The King. He actually stood up and shook my hand when I came in, and didn’t even try to totally crush my hand in the process. 'Sonny' was the new name he had given me. I wasn't too wild about it, but I figured it was better than other things he used to call me, so I let it pass.

  "We have elf problems, big ones," said Big Ma, getting right to business.

  I shrugged. I had done my part already, and then some, I figured. Let someone else take care of elf problems for a while. “I thought they all left town.”

  “They left the New York area,” explained The King, “but more started showing up in other places. There’s a whole new crop of them every damn day, showing up first in Arizona and then flying all the hell over the world from there, thousands of the creepy little bastards. Elves, dwarves, and all kinds of really nasty critters; giants and dragons and other beasties that would make the troll look like a wimp. All controlled from Arizona. That’s where Loranda and her captives are, we figure.”

  “Thousands of them? What the hell are they doing here? Vacationing?”

  Big Ma rolled her eyes up and shook her head.

  “Jake, don’t you remember what Loranda said?” asked Elaine. “They’re taking over our world.”

  “Sure, I remember. But I figured that was bull. As you remember, they had enough trouble just trying to hold on to the Precinct. How the hell would they take over the whole damn world?”

  “We hoped that was the case too,” said Ma. “But we’ve been getting reports from Families all over the country that the elves are infiltrating everywhere. They control judges, cops, reporters, the military and other power brokers. The nasty buggers take out anyone that gives them trouble that they can’t handle by magic. Permanently.”

  “And now they’re trying to take over your business again? Is that it?” I had to ask, even though I was getting bored with this whole discussion. I was out of it, whatever was going on. The checks were cashed and the case was closed, end of story. Now I just wanted to be left alone so I could have some beers at Sam’s and pick some winners at the track. Maybe when I needed more dough I'd also get the goods on some cheating husbands or find some lost dogs. A brown Fedora life was good enough for me. Was that too much to ask?

  It was the King’s turn to shrug. “As far as we can tell, they ain’t pushing to take over the greater New York area, at least not yet. So far our garlic is just a precaution.” He pulled a several inches of stinking garlic necklace out from uner his shirt and fiddled withy it.

  My turn to shrug again. Italians wearing garlic seamed sort of natural. Maybe that's how they took over the world back in the Roman days. “Sounds good to me. So what’s the problem?”

  “The other Families want us to solve their problem,” said The King. “They see we’re OK and they figure that we were successful in clearing the elves and dwarves out, or they figure worse.”

  “Worse?” I asked.

  “That we have a cozy deal with them,” said Ma.

  “A deal with the elves? That’s crazy,” said Elaine, before I could.

  “I’d rather kiss a wookie,” I added. We had just watched an old Star Wars flick the night before.

  “I told them pretty much the same thing,” said The King, “but I can understand why they might think that way, especially when I couldn’t tell them what I wanted to tell them.”

  “Which would be?” I cued him.

  “Why the elves ain’t bothering us no more,” said Ma. “We’re in an awkward position. The elves will get back to us at some point, I’m sure, but why didn’t they try to finish us off when they defeated the troll? And why are they still avoiding us now? It’s almost like they fear us.”

  “Prince,” I said. “They took off after Prince mauled Loranda. They can’t stand black cats.”

  “We tried that,” said King. “Every Family from here to L.A. has tried cats against them, black and otherwise.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “The result has been a few scratched, pissed off elves and a lot of dead cats,” said Big Ma. “They don’t like each other, cats and elves, but the elves sure as hell don’t leave town because of cats. Garlic works better against them.”

  “And garlic is getting hard to find, even here in the Garden State,” said The King. “We got our hands on a lot of it early on; most of it from up north where garlic grows best and from some really big garlic growers in California, but the elves have been buying it up all over the world and probably destroying it. There’s a worldwide garlic shortage already. When we run out, we’ll be weakened, that’s for damn sure. But garlic just annoys them, it don't really hurt them bad.”

  “Shi-i-t,” I commented. Car tires messed up, fedoras destroyed, and now garlic; this elf/troll business was hitting hard at some core American valuables. What would the world be like without garlic? But then again maybe there was a lot of stuff we didn't ever have that could make life better or worse. “Then it had to be more than the cat and the garlic, when they retreated from us at the Precinct.”

  “Margie,” said Elaine. “She yelled at Loranda just before Prince attacked. She told the elves to take
off, and said Loranda wouldn’t be messing with anyone else or something like that.” Her eyes suddenly bulged. “She’s it! She’s behind the bank tricks and so-forth too!”

  “Are you crazy?” I objected. “Margie?” She had great legs and cleavage; she had to be innocent.

  “Don’t you see, Jake? It has to be her. She’s the source of magic power that the little troll tapped to open the Gate, whenever the bank vault was opened. She’s behind the bank tricks too, she has to be.”

  Suddenly it all clicked. Elaine was a Mensa WOW, all right! “She was the source of magic power that the little troll was tapping,” I said, slowly, as what she said sank in. “Then there was that little note from her that Henry had when he went to Arizona, that’s what woke up the little troll and got things started. It had some witch magic in it that the sleeping troll figurine felt. Shi-i-it!”

  “I bet she shrunk your nuts too, Jake,” said Big Ma, laughing, showing her MOM side.

  The shrinking nuts crap again? Wouldn’t that case ever end? But she was right. That had to be Margie too.

  King laughed too. At least they both had a sense of humor, if a situation was extreme enough. I guess that’s a good thing for future in-laws to have, especially if they’re MOM mob bosses.

  “This has to be confirmed and used,” said Ma, suddenly sober.

  “Jake, Vinnie, you two take care of it,” ordered The King. “Go out to Arizona. You two take this Margie witch woman with you and kick some elf butt where it will do the most good.”

  My jaw dropped open. Kick some elf butt? Me, Margie, and Vinnie? What about the Feds? Hell, what about the Army?

  "The Feds are too much under elf control to handle this," said the King, as if he had read my mind. "We can hit them fast and hard ourselves, under the radar. That's how most stuff in the world really gets settled, Jake."

  “I’m going too,” said Elaine, firmly. “And Prince too. He helped out last time we dealt with the elves.”

  Ma shook her head. “Baby, we just got you back from those devils. You’re our princess, and this is a job for soldiers. If they capture you again, we’re helpless. But if they do away with Jake or Vinnie?” She shrugged. “No offense Vinnie,” she added, smiling at him.

  “None taken,” agreed Vinnie, nodding his head. “Soldering is my job.”

  Not mine. I specialized in lost dogs and stray husbands or versa-visa. “Me, I’m planning on hanging around here a few days, and maybe catching some football on TV. Giants and Eagles play this weekend.”

  “You’re going too, Jake,” Ma told me firmly. “Elaine can’t go but you should take Prince with you. And you better take damn good care of him.” The damn cat purred and rubbed against my leg, and I had to fight off my natural healthy impulse to kick the little bastard.

  So then, it would be me, Vinnie, a black cat, and a bank broad with great legs against an army of elves and nasty monsters worse than trolls and giants. That’s a plan? “Don’t you think this should be thought out some more?” I asked, wisely.

  “The issue is closed,” said Ma.

  “Jake, this is a Family matter,” said Papa ‘The King’ Falconie, as though that settled everything. He stood up, along with Big Ma, signaling an end to all discussion.

  I opened my mouth, and almost asked what they would be paying me, but then remembered what happened to me last time I asked that. “Shi-i-it,” I muttered wisely, as they each gave Elaine a hug and left.

  Next thing I know Elaine was handing me my suitcase and a bag of cat food, kissing me goodbye, handing me my Smith and Wessson, putting my fedora on my head, and showing me out the door too. She was crying like I was already dead, or maybe she was just missing the cat already. Vinnie led the way, carrying the cat carrier, with the damn cat draped over his wide shoulders. The fur-ball was purring and eyeballing me smugly as I trailed dutifully behind them.

  Damn, I hate cats. The little bum was happily going off to face the elves and so forth again. I thought he was smarter than that.

  Outside, I expected to climb into a nice mobster limo, but at the street a little surprise was waiting for us in the form of Detective Joe Kebony.

  “Hi Joe, what shakes?” I asked the big guy.

  “I gotta take you in, Jake,” he says. At least he seemed respectful and even a little sad when he said it. Or maybe it was the fact that he was standing eyeball to eyeball with Vinnie, who was blocking Joe’s path towards me; or at least eyeball-to-eyeball as much as possible, considering Joe is more than a head taller than Vinnie. Actually Prince stood up on Vinnie’s shoulders, and he was eye-to-eye with Joe.

  “In-in?” I asked Joe. “You mean in to the Precinct?”

  “Yeah,” says Joe, “what’s left of it. Hey, you've got your old brown fedora!”

  “I’m sort of busy right now,” I mentioned, glancing at Vinnie, nodding my head towards him, and blinking meaningfully. Even Joe must have gotten the message that I was on mob business.

  “You need him for how long?” asked Vinnie, as he stared menacingly into Joe’s eyes. “Like the man says, he’s a little busy right now.”

  “He ain’t being charged with nothing. He just needs to have a short talk with Captain Marks, Mr. Veracruz. Should only take a few minutes, I promise.”

  Vinnie smiled and stepped aside, but I could tell he still wasn’t too happy. “In that case, Jake is always willing to cooperate with the cops, ain’t you Jake?”

  “Oh sure,” I said. What the hell. I handed Vinnie my suitcase and followed Joe to his car.

  “I’ll meet you at the Precinct, Kid,” added Vinnie, smiling. “I’ll pick him up in about a half an hour,” he said to Joe, not smiling.

  “Your new friend is a little pushy,” said Joe, as he drove us to the station.

  “You noticed that too? Hey, when did Marks get promoted to Captain? What gives with that shit?”

  Joe laughed. “Don’t you read the papers? He saved the Precinct from terrorists almost single-handed.”

  “He did? No shit! What terrorists?”

  “You know, the ones that tore up the Precinct.”

  “Really? When did that happen?”

  “The troll-elf thing, dummy. You remember. You were there.”

  “What’s that got to do with terrorists?”

  “Not a damn thing, but the public had to be told something.”

  “And what did it have to do with Marks? Why should he get any credit?”

  “He shouldn’t, but he grabbed all the credit for himself. You know how that goes.”

  “Yeah, I remember. So now why does he want to see me?”

  “Maybe he wants to give you a medal.”

  “You think?”

  Joe laughed. “Get real. By the way, where’s that fifty you owe me?”

  The discussion went downhill from there.

  "Jake fucking Simon!" exclaimed Marks, smiling, when I walked into his big new office. It was in an obscure part of the building that hadn’t been destroyed by elves and so-forth. He got up and shooed Joe out as he shook my hand, still smiling. I never saw this guy smile like that before; I had to look at him again real close to be sure he was really Ed Marks. "Take off that nifty fedora of yours and have a seat, Jake; make yourself comfortable. Nice of you to come by. I hear you're a busy man nowadays."

  "I do alright," I said, as I sat down.

  He actually laughed. "Sure, sure, I bet you do! Hell Jake, I didn't know you were connected. What I mean to say is, if I had known I wouldn't have said some things I said to you maybe, and so forth. You know what I mean?" He winked at me.

  Not really. "I'm in sort of a hurry, Marks. Could we get on with whatever it is you wanted to see me about?"

  "Sure, sure. The truth is, I'm in sort of a jam, and I'd really like your help.”

  I glanced under his desk, to see if there was an empty husk from one of those space alien pods that clones people. No husk.

  "You see, Jake, the FBI and the Chief of police figure that I somehow came up with a w
ay to handle the elf problem."

  "Elf problem?"

  “Don’t pretend to be dumb.”

  I don’t need to pretend. “So someone at last noticed that the elves are the real bad guys?”

  “The Feds, or at least some of them. They also saw that our area became free of them, and they were anxious to find out just how we managed that.”

  “So they asked you.”

  “Sure, since as far as they knew from the mayor, I was the one to get rid of the little creeps.”

  “So you told them.”

  “Now that’s the part where I need your help. I fed them a line, sure, but I really don’t have any fucking idea how we really got rid of them.”

  “So what did you tell them?”

  “I told them that I managed to negotiate their withdrawal, using someone that I had working undercover for years, infiltrating the mob.”

  “A mob infiltrator? No shit!”

  “All shit. But it was the best thing I could come up with at the time.”

  “What’s this all got to do with me?”

  “You’re my undercover man that’s infiltrating the mob.”

  That couldn’t be what he said. “I’m your what?”

  “You’re my infiltrator into the Falconie Family. They're MOMs you know!”

  My jaw popped open and I stood up. “You stupid son of a bitch! If the Falconies get wind of this, my ass is cooked!”

  “Now, now, Jake, I’m sure that you exaggerate. Besides, how would they ever find out?”

  “How would they find out? Are you nuts?”

  “Wait Jake, you haven’t heard the best part yet. We owe you five years back-pay, for all those years you have been under cover. I rushed things through, and the money has already been put into a bank account with your name on it. Taxes are already paid and everything.”

  That sounded good for about two seconds, but then my brain kicked in. “Great. That means that there’s a paper trail leading straight to my neck for the mob to follow. That’s just wonderful.”

  “A green paper trail, Jake, lots of green. A quarter of a million dollars.”

  I sat back down again and my jaw dropped down further. “A quarter of a mil?”

  “That’s right. But there is no actual paper trail, Jake. Do you think we’re stupid?”

  I judiciously avoided answering that one. I was being paid off by the cops. Sweet! But if the mob found out I was worm bait. But a quarter of a mil is a quarter of a mil. I found myself smiling.

  “I need something else from you and the Feds, Marks.”

  “More than money?”

  “Hey, cash ain’t everything, not quite. A lot of shit’s been happening, what with slit radials, the busted up Precinct house, Henry’s murder, and stuff like that.”

  “So?”

  “Me, the Falconie Family, Margie Wainwright, or Joe ain’t ever going to be charged with any of that stuff that happened. Agreed?”

  Marks shrugged. “OK, fine by me. Publicly I've got to stick with the terrorist line anyway. Anything else?”

  “Where’s my dough?”

  “First things first, Jake. There are a couple of things I need from you first.”

  I knew there had to be a catch. “Like what?”

  “Tell me why the elves really split. You’re up to your eyeballs in this whole elf thing somehow. What really happened? The only thing I can figure is a mob deal, with the mob working things out with the elves, just like I told the fucking Feds. They had the Falconie girl as hostage, after all.”

  “Sure, Marks, it was something like that. But along that line I got to go on a business trip and take care of some things now, or you’ll be up to your eyeballs in elves again. You wouldn’t want that! Just tell me where my money is and I’ll even put in a good word for you with the Family and the elves next time I see them.” I stood up to go.

  “Sure, Jake. There’s just a couple more things. Little things.”

  “Like what?”

  “You have to wear a wire.” He pulled a thick black pen out of his desk drawer and handed it to me. It didn’t have any wires sticking out of it of course, since wires nowadays are wireless.

  “Are you nuts? Wear a wire while I’m running around with the mob?”

  “I had to promise the Feds you’d wear it at all times. It’s called a Mark-220. Latest thing the Feds have. They tell me you don’t have to do nothing to it; it’s on all the time. The Feds will be tailing you, of course.”

  “Great. I feel really, really secure already, just knowing that. So where is my money?”

  “Just one more tiny little thing.”

  “What?”

  “Kebony.”

  “Kebony ain’t very tiny. What about him?”

  “He’s going with you, wherever you go.”

  I sat down again. “You have to be kidding this time. I can’t hang with the mob with a cop at my elbow!”

  “That’s part of the deal. I want one of my own men with you at all times, but it has to be someone the mob will get along with. Your good buddy Joe will have to do. He’s going under cover with you. I’m putting out the story that he resigned the Force to join your P-I firm.”

  “And I hired the big lug?”

  “That’s the story.”

  “That’s nuts. It won’t work. I won’t do it.”

  “You want the money, don’t you?”

  He had me by the balls, the slimy bastard. “OK, he’s hired. So where is my dough?”

  “It’s in an escrow account being managed by someone you know and trust. I give him the word and he turns it over to you.”

  Someone I knew and trusted? I couldn’t think of anyone like that. “Who?” I asked.

  “Your lawyer, Zeke Feltstein Junior of Harding and Feltstein.”

  My buddy Zeke. One of the Falconie Family’s lawyers. “That’s swell,” I heard myself say. I was a dead man.

  Next thing I knew, I was numbly walking out of the Precinct with Joe.

  Right in front of the Precinct, parked in a no-park zone, Vinnie was leaning against his limo, waiting for me. I took a deep breath of fresh air, and then exhaled it in the form of some pretty wild news for him. “Vinnie, you remember Joe? Good news! He’s quit the Force and joined my private detective company. He’s going to go with us and help us out with our little situation. Now ain’t that just great?”

  Vinnie never cracked a smile or blinked an eye. “Sure Kid, that’s just dandy. Now let’s all go for a little ride.” Always the gentleman, he opened the limo door for us and we all piled in, as if cops and mobsters sharing a ride was as normal as anything. Prince was sleeping on a seat and only opened one eyeball to check us out for a few seconds before going back to sleep, the lazy little bastard.

  As Joe sat there grinning and gawking, giving the swanky limo a good looking over, admiring the leather, TV, mini-bar, and everything, I winked at Vinnie, pointed at the pen that was sticking out of my suit coat pocket, and mouthed the word ‘bug’ a few times.

  With an amused twinkle in his eye Vinnie pulled a little electronic gizmo from a limo storage bin and swept it around in the air like a music conductor while it buzzed and beeped. It beeped a lot when it was close to my new pen. Vinnie pulled the pen out of my pocket and crushed it in his hand like it was a cracker. Then he held out a big hand to Joe, and Joe shrugged and handed him another identical pen, which Vinnie also crushed. He threw them out the window.

  “Mark 220s,” remarked Vinnie. “Marks must have got them from the Feds. Good little bug. We own the company that makes them.”

  “It wasn’t my idea,” I said.

  “Relax, Jake,” said Vinnie. “No problems. Big Ma talked to Zeke yesterday.”

  My heart stopped. “What did she say about it?”

  “She was as amused as all hell. Imagine getting paid off by the cops! That worm Marks must be really desperate, to arrange something like that.”

  “Ma wasn’t mad at me or anything?”

  “I don’t th
ink so. She was more concerned about the story that the Family had a deal with the elves. She told you about that already, right?”

  “Shit. So Marks started that rumor?”

  “He strengthened it.”

  “The Feds are in on this,” I said.

  “Sure. That goes without saying, even without the Mark 220s.”

  “The Feds are tailing us then, I bet,” I mentioned.

  Vinnie shrugged his big shoulders. “Sure. They always do that anyway. But we lose them whenever we want to. Such as now.” The limo sped up and made some two-wheeled turns.

  “I hate Feds, myself,” said Kebony.

  “Sure you do, Detective. Everybody does. They even hate each other. How do you feel about elves?”

  “I hate them even worse than Feds.”

  Vinnie smiled. “Good. I suggest that be the basis for us working together.” He reached his huge right hand out to Kebony.

  “Ok by me,” agreed Kebony, shaking Vinnie’s hand vigorously with his equally huge mitt. “You happen to have any donuts in this limo, Mr. V?”

  “Sure thing,” said Vinnie. He reached into a big storage bin under his seat, pulled out a box of donuts and handed them to Joe. “We’re always giving rides to cops for one reason or another, so we always got fresh doughnuts.” Joe was soon happily wolfing down jelly filled gut-busters.

  The rest of the ride to Margie’s bank we spent talking about sports and dames. We all really hit it off well. Mobsters, Cops, and PIs have a whole lot in common, being different sides of the same coin: ‘heads’ for mobsters, ‘tails’ for cops, and the edge between for PIs, if you think it all through, from a philosophical angle. Plato and Shakespeare probably figured that one out centuries ago.

  I went into the bank alone to talk to Margie, since we figured that Vinnie, Joe, and Prince might spook her. I had decided to ease into things with her.

  “Everything is back to normal, Jake,” said Margie, smiling, after she ushered me into her office. “What brings you here? Did you come to show-off your brown fedora? Did my check bounce?”

  “Naw, nothing like that,” I said. “I just want to hire you for a few days.”

  “You want to hire me? What on Earth are you talking about?”

  “We figured it all out. You’re a white witch.”

  Her face did get a little whiter, at that. “You’re crazy. Some weird stuff was happening while the troll was around, but that’s over with now. It was the troll all along, or parts of him, behind all of it. It had to be.”

  “Maybe because of the troll being around, you could do what you did, giving the magic a taste of troll as far as Mick and the elves could tell, but it was you that actually did the magic spells.”

  “Me? I did magic spells? That’s nuts.”

  “Good example, the nuts. You were pretty pissed off at Grisim when you had to fire Henry, weren’t you?”

  “Sure. So what? I get pissed off at a lot of things.”

  “Did you say something about his shrinking nuts when you were mad at him?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. Well OK, maybe.”

  “That’s what shrunk him and me, you know. Nuts that when eaten caused him or anyone else that ate them to shrink. Shrinking nuts.”

  Her face paled. “I don’t remember, exactly. I might have said something about his nuts shrinking, and also maybe something about him turning to shit. Maybe.”

  I had wondered about that part. Apparently with magic you didn’t really have to shit yourself away when you shrunk, unless it was part of the spell. “You did say something about him and the board sitting on their fat, hairy asses, I heard that one myself.”

  “So?”

  “So, they all magically got fat, hairy asses.”

  “It had to be a coincidence.”

  “What about Eric? Weren’t you mad at him? About his new tires and about him skipping work? Did you say or think something about tires and about Eric always fussing with his hair?”

  “Maybe, but I didn’t mean for it to really happen.”

  “What about that car that turned inside out?”

  She shook her head and put her hands over her ears.

  “And you wished some shit to come down on Henry too, I remember that one. Well, shit was raining down on his house and yard when I went to see him later; falling out of the clear blue sky. Quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Get out of here!”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t even know that you were doing it. Besides, you saved my life, yours, and lots of other lives, there at the Precinct. You saved the whole damn New York area, it looks like. You’re a hero. Hell, a super-hero!”

  “What are you talking about now?”

  “You used your magic power against the elves. You sent the Queen of Elves away and she went, before she could hurt anyone else.”

  “I did?”

  “Damn right you did. They left the area and stayed away. We think it’s because they’re afraid of you.”

  “Afraid of me? You had me going there for a while, but you’ve really gone off the deep end now. That’s crazy!”

  “Now I want to hire you to go with me after the elves in Arizona.”

  “No damn way. Even if I wanted to go, there’s my kids and my job to think of.”

  “Taken care of. Your sister is arriving at your home as we speak to watch your kids. My client called Grisim and he’s given you a leave of absence.”

  “That’s big of him, but I do need my paycheck, small though it may be.”

  “How is this for a start?” I pulled a stack of money out of a pocket and handed it to her. She gasped. “That’s ten thousand for starters. Tax-free. Plus another ten thousand a day starting right now. Plus, we’ll have all potential police charges dropped as far as the slashed tires, hairy asses, and other things go. It’s already been worked out with Grisim and with the cops.”

  “I must be dreaming.”

  “The people I work with want results, but they pay good. Are you in?”

  “I’ll have to pack.”

  “Your sister is already doing that. We’ll stop by your place on the way to the airport, and you can pick up a suitcase and say goodbye to your kids.”

  We joined Vinnie, Joe and Prince in the limo and were soon on our way. Margie fit in well with the rest of the group. She had a vocabulary like a drunken sailor and nice legs. Good combination in a woman, I figured. Prince insisted on sitting on her lap, where Margie constantly stroked and scratched him, the lucky little bastard. “I always got along well with cats,” she explained. “Especially black ones.”

  Right; just like any witch. So now we were finally all assembled: mankind’s finest warriors, a cat, and about a hundred pounds of fresh garlic. No MOMs or WOWs included, I noticed; as usual, all the MOMs and WOWs of the world were home snug in their beds while us pawns were out doing their dirty work. We were going up against invading hordes of magic-wielding elves and their monstrous minions.

  We didn’t stand a chance.

  ****