Home Free - Fern Michaels [51]
“And I would know this . . . how? I just made up that shit about the FBI for Harry’s benefit. I absolutely hate it when his eyes glaze over,” Bert snarled as he shoved his guy into the driver’s seat, where he used another set of flexicuffs to hook his left arm to the door handle. Jack did the same thing to the man he’d pushed into the passenger seat.
“Problem, Jack. I thought these old babies came with two seats in the back. Where should we put the dead guy?”
Jack pondered the question. “Well, he should have the backseat out of respect. He is dead, you know. One guy goes on the floor. We hook his left arm to the master and his right arm to the door. Dump the fourth guy in the trunk. But you better put that on your note, or they might not look for him.”
Harry looked decidedly green when he carried his dead former master to the car. He was sweating profusely. “It’s snowing,” he said inanely.
“No shit! And this means something?” Jack snarled.
“Well, it might mean something if you don’t turn the car heater on. It’s in the low twenties, and they could freeze to death. This is just a guess on my part, but it looks to me like you guys really did a number on them. They might not wake up for an hour or so. Ergo, they could freeze to death. On the other hand, if you turn on the heater, the old guy is going to start cooking, and he smells already. Your call, boys,” Harry said, turning on his heel and going back to the dojo.
“Do you believe this? He lets us do his dirty work, and off he goes.”
Bert laughed. “He’s going to Clorox the entire dojo. How much you wanna bet?”
“Not a cent. What do you take me for? A sucker? So, do we cook the old guy or freeze these cruds?” Jack started to laugh and found that he couldn’t stop.
“Harry was right. It is snowing. So we turn on the engine and open the car windows. If the gas runs out, oh, well.”
Back in the dojo, Harry Wong was indeed cleaning his dojo. The smell of Clorox was so strong, Bert and Jack rushed to the doors and windows and opened them wide.
Jack went to the minikitchen and popped two bottles of Budweiser. “I love to see Harry work, don’t you, Bert?”
“I do, Jack. I truly do.”
Both men walked up to Harry. They wore the most evil looks they could conjure up. “You’re all ours now, Harry Wong!”
Chapter 14
Maggie showed up at Yoko’s nursery carrying fragrant bags of food. She took one look at the tired Sisters and called a halt by saying, “I brought food, and I have news. Of a sort. I love this place, it looks so festive, and it smells just like Christmas. Go ahead, clean up, and I’ll find a place and a way to set up all this food. Chinese and Italian, wine, beer, and soda, and a huge thermos of coffee. Brownies for dessert.”
The Sisters scrambled to scrape the pine resin from their hands, then washed with a strong grease-cutting cleaner. When they returned to what Yoko called the “cutting room,” Maggie had cleared a space against the far windows and spread a roll of colored felt she’d found in the corner of the cutting room. A picnic was a picnic no matter the time of year.
“My dear, you and this food are an absolute lifesaver,” Annie said as she parceled out the food. “I’m starving. I had no idea this kind of work was so . . . taxing. Even wearing gloves, the pine sap and the branches cut through the leather. Not to mention being hard to work with as well as clumsy.”
“But look what we accomplished! We made three hundred wreaths, two hundred grave blankets, and we stacked and trimmed five hundred Christmas trees. If we work tomorrow and Sunday, Yoko should be good to go for the season if we can keep our momentum,” Myra said.
“I’ll help now that I’m back,” Maggie said as she eyed her plate of food. “It’s not like I have any immediate plans, and we do need to talk here, girls.”
“Charles isn’t here, so we can talk and eat,” Nikki said.
Between bites of food and chewing, Maggie talked and talked about her short visit to Camp David. She ended up with, “So in the blink of an