Page 12 of Nightcrawler
I frowned. “I didn’t have a total hard on for him. I was pissed, that’s the extent of it.”
“By the sound of your voice, you’restillpissed about it.”
“Do you have any idea how much money I lost on that fucking recovery?” I asked. “I mean Jamie does okay for himself, but he’sgot other bounty hunters working for him and he has to spread out the work.”
“But you’re his best, Staff Sergeant. He should be givin’ you more work,” Vonne said.
“Jamie’s okay. He gives work to people who deserve work,” I said, speaking the truth even though it bugged the shit out of me. “And I fucked this one up the same as I did six months ago when I lost the Mulberry diamond collar to this guy.” I reached up and ran a hand through my hair, turning away from Vonne who’d always been able to read me. I hated showing how vulnerable I was, and it seemed every time I was in the presence of Raven Mathis, I felt exposed. I walked over to the stove, lifted the lid, and began stirring. When Vonne walked up behind me, I could feel him. I’d always known when someone was coming up behind me. That’d been honed into my very being, not from my days in the military, but long before that…the night everything had changed. “I can feel you at my back, Vonne.”
My best friend chuckled. “You always could, Staff Sergeant.”
I turned around with a smile on my face for him. “You don’t need to call me that anymore, Vonne.” I rested my hand on his shoulder.
He shook his head. “Nah, I kinda like it. Makes me remember that you were always the smartest and bravest of all of us.” He turned and pointed to the bed before catching my eye. “Until you go and do a boneheaded move like gettin’ that man shot and I suspect almost yourself. What in the hell happened, Huerta?”
I smirked. “Did you ever hear of a 70s porn star by the name of Gemma Monroe?”
Vonne frowned before a lightbulb went off. “The chick with those giant jugs?” He held his hands out chest high, a foot in front of him.
I laughed. “Yeah, that’s her. Anyway, I’m sure you know they’re fake, right? Women don’t come by something that prominent the natural way.”
“Yeah, they’re breast implants, I’m sure.”
I shook my head. “Not implants. They’re actually a prosthetic, you know, like the one that actor used in the Boogie Nights movie.”
He tapped his chin. “Mark Walberg?”
“Yeah. He wore a fake dick in that movie.”
Vonne’s eyes widened. “I never knew that. I remember thinkin’…respect, man, that boy’s hung like a broth’a.”
I burst out laughing. “Racist.”
“Uh…uh…never seen no white man with a dick that long,” Vonne said.
“I’m sure they exist. Anyway, Gemma Monroe’s boobs are fake, and she apparently loved them so much, she insured them for a quarter of a million dollars. She told her insurer that her ex-boyfriend stole them, and it so happened that he lived right next door. A big recovery reward went up a few days ago…so, I went to grab them.”
“You broke into the dude’s place?”
I shrugged, turning my back and stirring my stew. “Hey, it’s not really breaking in when it’s the thief’s house, is it?” I asked, pivoting back to look at him.
He shook his head. “You’re tellin’ that to a black man, my man.”
I laughed. “Fuck you, Vonne. We all bleed red, and you know I’ve never seen you like anyone other than my brother.” Ireached out and squeezed his shoulder. He covered my hand and nodded.
“I do. So, he caught you, and—and where was that white boy when he done that?”
“Mathisworksfor the insurance company, and they sent him out on the recovery. He was waiting for him to come out, or planning his way in, or whatthefuckever. The fact is, he spotted me hopping the wall and followed me in. When we realized we were both there for the same retrieval and checked the safe together and didn’t find it, we decided to team up. You know I do what I gotta do, even if it means working with someone I don’t like, Vonne.” He nodded as I continued. “Anyway, we realized he had to have put it somewhere else in the house. We thought the noise he was making upstairs was him working out in his weight room, but it turned out, he was boning Gemma, his supposedly ex-girlfriend, and she was wearing them the whole time.”
“So, that guy shot Raven when you two brain surgeons ran, right?”
I nodded. “After her tits fell off, we ran but not before I got pictures of the whole thing, the inside of his bedroom and a few other places, so I could collect my fee from the insurer.”
His eyes widened to saucers. “Hertitsfell off?”
“She was wearing the fake ones while they fucked, like I said.” I rolled my eyes. “She was wearing them over her own and they kind of fell off when we caught her.”
He stared at me for a second before bending over and grabbing his stomach. He slapped a hand over his mouth, probably to stifle his laughter. I watched his shoulders shake and when he finally straightened, he was grinning like a jerk with tears streaming down his face.