Private L.A. (Private 6)

“Handstand push-ups?” Paul moaned. “Is that even possible?”

“Took me five months,” Justine said, kneeling on the floor, getting ready to kip herself up against the wall.

“You’re bionic,” Paul said, and moved off to another part of the gym.

Justine watched him go, thinking how nice it was that he really seemed to love his job, saw it as a calling. It was rare these days to meet a guy who wasn’t chasing money or power or whatever, a guy who—

“Go!”

She threw her feet overhead, balanced against the wall, and started to grind out the workout. One, little sister. Four more now.

When it was over, she’d done twelve rounds in the allotted twenty minutes. Not the best in the gym, but a perfectly respectable showing given the lack of sleep. She peeled herself off the floor as Paul staggered up and said, “This is bad. I’m supposed to give a lecture on Moby-Dick in my AP class, and I feel like the harpooned whale.”

Justine laughed. It was an absurd line, but she liked it. A funny guy too.

“So,” Paul said. “That guy who picked you up yesterday?”

Justine hesitated, then said, “My boss.”

“Oh,” Paul said, looking relieved. “What do you do?”

As a rule Justine didn’t like talking about what she did, especially with single men. When they found out she worked for Private, many of them were intimidated. One guy had recently told her he couldn’t date a woman who was capable of discovering his deepest secrets.

“Actuarial,” she said. “Boring.”

“Sounds fascinating, actually,” Paul said, glanced at his watch. “Feel like grabbing a cup of coffee before work? It’s only seven.”

For a second Justine was tempted, but then she shook her head. “Can’t. Sorry, I have to be on a flight to Mexico at eight.”

“For actuarial work?”

“As a matter of fact,” Justine said. “Rain check?”

“You bet,” he said, beaming. “I’d like that.”

“Good,” Justine said, and left.

She ran across to her car, thinking that maybe the romantic part of her life was not such a mess after all. She had opportunities on the horizon.

Chapter 24

I DON’T THINK I moved a muscle all night. I opened my eyes around seven thirty, rolled over, and put a pillow over my head to block out the sunlight.

Dozing dreams are the most real, don’t you think? I do. On the edge of consciousness, my mind conjured a scene from my childhood. I lay on the grass, screaming in agony while Tommy laughed because I’d broken my wrist trying to skateboard as well as he did. I played college football, but that had more to do with my tenacity; my brother was always the gifted one athletically.

My dreams mutated and I found myself lost in some kind of Rube Goldberg contraption populated by the people who had gathered in the mayor’s office in response to the No Prisoners killings.

“Find him, Jack,” Mayor Wills said, sounding like the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. “Stop him.”

“By any means necessary,” Chief Fescoe said.

“We’ll work with and parallel to you,” said District Attorney Billy Blaze, who strangely wore a button with Tommy’s ten-year-old face on it.

“But we don’t want to know a thing about your tactics,” added Sheriff Cammarata. “Are we clear on that, Morgan?”

In my dreams, it had all seemed perfectly clear. Find and capture No Prisoners, then turn him over, Private’s role a complete secret to everyone but a select inner circle. But when my cell rang, waking me up for good, things quickly became murkier.

“I don’t like this, Jack,” said Del Rio by way of hello. “I’ve been up half the night because I feel like we’re being set up to take a fall somehow.”