Can You C The Lightning?

When Cousin Davy came bursting into my place, my first thought was: I gotta remember to lock the door. Too many uninvited guests over the years letting themselves in with the heel of their boot and I’d given up on the things entirely. But Cousin Davy wasn’t particularly strong, and if I’d remembered to click the deadbolt that day–if I coulda talked to him through the door rather than let the imbecile walk the trouble right into my living room/bedroom/kitchenette–maybe I wouldn’t have had to bolt for my life.

First thing Davy did when he got in was dump the contents of his duffle bag onto the floor. All cash, big bills.

“What’s all this from?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

“I did a job,” Davy said with a smile. “We can buy back ma’s house from the bank now.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Dav-o,” I said. “Tell me about this job.”

Davy smiled even wider. “Couple of Verona’s guys did a handoff at the docks. Three kilos of the high-gravity for fifty g’s. All I had to do was wait and stick up the car when they were on their way back.”

I bit my lip hard enough to taste blood and went to the cabinet to pour myself a stiff drink. If Davy was offended by my lack of social grace, he didn’t say so. Instead, he idly took out his phone while I got the rum down.

Here’s what you have to know about Cousin Davy: he’s got a head like a bag of pennies, a lot of shiny ideas clanging around in there, all of it adding up to precious little sense. Still, I couldn’t reprimand him. It was no use. It’d go in one ear, out the other. Plus, this couldn’t be all his fault. The fact that he’d stolen from Verona, queen of the city’s vast and unbecoming underbelly, and was still very much corporeal, not some floating specter come to tell the tale of a hold-up gone wrong, meant he’d had some help.

But that didn’t make sense. How could anyone be smart enough to plan a successful job to steal from Verona yet stupid enough to actually put it into motion?

Unless–and this occurred to me as a poured a finger of Jamaican into two cloudy glasses–this was all a diversion. Someone distracting Verona with a lowlife like Davy while they tried to pull off something much riskier.

I turned back to my cousin, ready to hand him his rum and explain the situation as far as I could tell, but he spoke first. “Cool if Rico comes over here?”

“Rico?” I said. “You still talk to him?”

“Not much,” Davy said, typing something. “We haven’t been super close recently. That’s why it would be good to see him. He just texted me and asked if he could come by where I am. Maybe he wants to start up the fantasy league again.”

“Davy,” I said. “Give me your phone. Right now.”

Sure enough, the message hadn’t come in from a contact. Someone purporting to be Davy’s old buddy Rico had texted asking where he was at, and Davy had stupidly given him my address. Which meant, if we didn’t scram, we’d be getting a visit from New Number. Verona’s most feared henchman, he’d been given his nickname for two reasons: first, for playing the same little trick he’d pulled on Davy just now; and second, because he was so prolific at his work that every time you asked how many people he’d made disappear there was a new number.

“Whoa, whoa!” Davy cried when I dropped his phone to the floor and stamped on it, but I didn’t stop until it was pieces. Then I threw the money back into the duffel, handed it to him, and pushed him out into the hallway, following behind him and not bothering to lock up or even close the door.

“Where we going?” Davy asked on the way down the stairs.

“Anywhere,” I said, “but here.”

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Davy’s phone, before it was destroyed, had been charged using an Anker PowerLine+ III USB-C to Lightning Cable.]