They spooned under the comforter in Middleton’s king-sized bed.
Middleton realized he’d dozed. How long? Not more than a few minutes, surely. He remembered what had happened with an easy smile. The kissing had gotten earnest, then had become frantic, each of them pulling at the other’s clothing. They’d moved to the bedroom, and Meredith had pulled him down on top of her, legs wrapping around him, both of them so eager, months of wanting this finally coming to fruition.
In spite of some fumbling on his part, it had been energetic and glorious. And extremely brief.
He pulled her closer, nuzzled his face into her neck. She made a low kind of purring sound. She wiggled herself back against him, and he slipped a hand under the comforter and cupped a breast. Everything about her was so soft. She was perfect.
She kept wriggling herself back against him until he took the hint.
When he’d grown ready again, Meredith reached back and guided him in. He pulled her close, and they found a slow rhythm.
“Yes,” she whispered. “That’s … nice.”
He paused.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Do you … have you taken precautions?” It occurred to him that it was an extremely tardy question.
“The pill.”
“Oh. Good. Is that because … I mean are you…?”
“I’m not seeing anyone else,” she said. “I started in college. Seemed like part of the independent woman thing.”
“Oh. I never thought to ask. Obviously, you could have been seeing somebody. I mean, why not?”
“It turns out my boss is a real slave driver, and I don’t really have time for a social life.”
Middleton laughed.
“Weren’t you in the middle of something?” she reminded him.
He resumed.
Every time his instinct was to speed up, he forced himself to maintain a steady, slow pace. He wanted to prolong the moment. He wanted it to last forever.
She took his hand from her breast, slid it down her belly to a spot between her legs. Middleton understood what to do. He wasn’t completely without experience, and had a working knowledge of the necessary mechanics. Still, it had been a while. Perhaps he could make up for being rusty with raw sincerity.
With two fingers, he massaged tight little circles, matching the rhythm of his thrusting hips.
He sensed her getting close and picked up speed.
She went rigid, legs trembling, her head going back. Her mouth fell open, no sound coming out, and squeezed her eyes closed tight. He finished with her.
They both went slack again, breathing heavily.
They lay there for several minutes, not talking, just dreamily enjoying the afterglow. Then she scooted over to the edge of the bed, reached for the smartphone. She looked at the screen and frowned.
“Fifty-eight. Shit.”
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and bounced up, began circling the room, grabbing her clothes off the floor.
Middleton sat up. “Fifty-eight what?”
“Emails.” She stepped into her panties, looked around. “Where’s my bra?”
“On the chair.” Middleton pointed. “Is something going on? An emergency or something? How long were we in bed?”
“Not that long.” She waved the smartphone at him. “This is standard. You realize I’m the gatekeeper between you and the rest of the world, right? If I don’t start answering these emails soon, they’ll send out a SWAT team and search dogs.” She shrugged into the bra. Hooked it in back.
“Don’t sweat it,” Middleton told her. “I happen to know you’re on the boss’s good side.”
She sighed, sat on the bed, and pulled on her stockings. “Okay, we need to talk about this.”
“You don’t need the stockings,” he said. “Your legs are perfect.”
“I’m serious,” she said. “You need to listen to me.”
“Uh-oh.”
Meredith shook her head. “Not uh-oh. Nothing uh-oh. We just need to … compartmentalize things.” She shimmied into her skirt.
“Compartmentalize.” Middleton said the word out loud, hoping he’d understand her meaning better. He didn’t.
“We’ve just got to keep things separate. This thing, whatever this thing is”—she gestured back and forth between herself and Middleton—“it can’t overlap with work. I still need to do my job, and not have this”—she gestured at the bed—“somehow become my new job.”
Middleton sat up straighter in bed. “No, oh, I mean, of course. I never meant—I hope you don’t think—”
“I know, I know.” She slipped on her blouse, began buttoning. “I just needed to say it. I’ve always wanted to be professional, you know? I mean, I am professional. I’m good at my job, I think. Aren’t I professional?”
“You are.”
She held up the smartphone and headed for the door. “I have to start answering these. Tell your kitchen to make me some more coffee.”
* * *
Cavanaugh sat across the table from Ernie in a nearly empty cowboy saloon called the Bull Market Beer & Grill in Valentine, Nebraska. Even a casual observer would have recognized at a glance that the two men were beaten down and defeated. They slumped in their chairs, not speaking.
At last, Ernie said, “I don’t think we’re doing this right.”
Cavanaugh waved him away. “Not yet. Just … not yet.”
They sat and waited.
The beers finally arrived. The place had just opened, so it was taking a while to get things cranked up. A waitress left menus in case they wanted food later.
Cavanaugh sipped beer. It was cold and yellow.
When they’d set out after Berringer and the girl, they’d kept generally south and west on Bryant’s suggestion. Once over the line into Nebraska, Cavanaugh had sent the guys in the other two cars down different highways to cover more ground. Fortunately, one of them had only been two minutes away, and after a quick call, they’d come to scoop up Cavanaugh and Ernie and take them away. On their way out of town, there had still been no sign of the local cops. Score one for being in the middle of nowhere.
One of the new guys entered the saloon and came over to Cavanaugh’s table. “The SUVs are all gassed up. What now?”
Cavanaugh sighed, then gestured at the empty tables across the room. “We’re figuring it out. You and the boys grab a table, get some burgers or whatever. Just have the girl send the check over here.”
“Okay,” he said and left.
Cavanaugh and Ernie finished their beers. Cavanaugh waved the girl over for two more.
The beers arrived. They sipped.
Ernie raised an eyebrow. “Now?”
“Go ahead.”
“Look, maybe we made a mistake, huh?” Ernie said. “If we’d just disappeared the girl like we were supposed to, we wouldn’t be sitting here licking our wounds like a couple of chumps.”
“We’re supposed to find the paper anyway,” Cavanaugh said. “We had to make her tell us. Nothing would have been any different.”
“Maybe I’m just superstitious,” Ernie said. “I feel like if we just did the job we were paid for, none of this would have happened. I appreciate what you said about a big score, but I think we got off track.”
“Do the job we’re paid for?” Cavanaugh asked.
Ernie sipped beer, shrugged, nodded.
“And how long can we do that? You got a retirement plan? You got a 401(k)?” Cavanaugh didn’t wait for a reply. He already knew the answer. “How do you feel right now?”
“What do you mean?”
“How do you feel?” Cavanaugh said.
“Like shit.”
“Elaborate.”
“I feel embarrassed,” Ernie said. “I feel like we should have wrapped this up by now, but fucking amateurs keep dicking us.”
“And?”
“And what?” Ernie said. “I said I feel like fucking shit, okay? My neck and back hurt. My face fucking hurts. I’ve been in two damn car wrecks in as many days. I am fucking tired.”
Cavanaugh was nodding along. “What you mean is you’re old.”
“Fuck you.”
“Take it easy,” Cavanaugh said. “I don’t mean drool-your-oatmeal old like you can’t control when you piss, okay? That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying too old for this bullshit we’re doing. You and me both. I spent prime years in stir making toilet bowl moonshine. You hear me? I mean, those years are fucking gone, right?”
“Jesus, who are you talking to?” Ernie said. “I know. Of course I know. I lived that shit too.”
“Then okay, you know what I’m saying,” Cavanaugh said. “Are we still going to be doing this same shit in ten years? Twenty?”
Ernie didn’t reply. The look on his face was enough.
“And it’s more than that,” Cavanaugh said. “Everything’s changed. Guys like us used to be something. We had respect. Now guys like Bryant sit in a comfy, air-conditioned room pushing computer buttons. We’re just monkeys doing the grunt work. We’re working for the computer. We get our hands dirty. We get the bruises.”
“I thought working for Middleton would be easy,” Ernie said. “Lean on people. Get their minds right when needed.”
“Exactly,” Cavanaugh agreed. “But now it’s the computer that leans on people. Intimidating people used to be a professional thing. Now it’s just like paying your electric bill online or some shit. And Ike is dead. Dead. Some fucking cubicle asshole killed him. What kind of world do we live in where a guy like that can take out a guy like Ike? Everything is upside down.”
“So what do we do?”
“What I said before,” Cavanaugh told him. “We get out. We say to hell with all this shit and get set up somewhere. I got my eye on Costa Rica. But that takes money, and this is our best chance right here and right now. I know we’ve hit a few bumps.”
“‘A few bumps,’ he says.”
“I know this hasn’t been clockwork,” Cavanaugh pressed on. “But this is our score. This is our ticket out of working for a computer and some kid billionaire. And God bless Ike, wherever he is now, but the fact is now we’d only be splitting the take two ways. We get this paper with the techno crap on it and cash out. Then we’re our own bosses again. Then we get our lives back.”
Ernie thought about it. “Okay. What happens next?”
“First thing is we stop chasing across flyover country like dumbasses,” Cavanaugh said. “I’m pretty sure I know where the girl is going. We’ll get ahead of them. We’ll be cutting things close, but we’ll make it work.”
“And the girl and Berringer?” Ernie asked. “What do we do with them?”
“We do with them what we were always going to do with them,” Cavanaugh said. “No loose ends.”
Ernie shrugged in that way Cavanaugh knew meant it was a shame, but it is what it is. Ernie was always the pragmatic one. “Then how do we find a buyer once we get our hands on this thing?”
“I’ve been mulling that over,” Cavanaugh said. “I think the best buyer is going to be Middleton himself. He obviously doesn’t want anyone else to have this thing, and we know where he is, so we don’t have to track him down. And we sure as hell know he has the money to spend.”
“He won’t like it.”
Cavanaugh grinned. “The beauty is that he doesn’t have to like it. What’s he going to do? Call in his muscle? That’s us. We tell him to pony up or we take the paper to another buyer. He can call it a severance package if he wants.”
Ernie nodded, drained his beer, and smacked his lips. He thought about it a moment. “I’m good with it.”
“Okay, then. It’s decided. We do this.” Cavanaugh picked up a menu. “First, we get a burger, and then we do this.”