Grumpy Best Friend

Jude ran a hand through her hair and tugged nervously at the ends. “Does that mean he’s telling the truth?” Jude asked. “That he owns the patent?”

“Absolutely not,” Lady Fluke snapped, eyes going hard, but she softened a touch when Jude seemed to cringe away from her. I hated the strange power Lady Fluke had over Jude, and I wished I could break that spell. The Lady was smart, that much was obvious, but I couldn’t tell how much of her innate charm and power came from her family name and breeding.

Jude, by contrast, was entirely self-made. While Lady Fluke likely grew up in a comfortable house with posh friends and expensive private schools, Jude had nothing, only a pill-addled mother and no hope for the future. The fact that she had a degree and a decent job was nothing short of a miracle, and I wondered how much Lady Fluke actually knew about her assistant, and if she fully understood how hard Jude’s life had been, and how much she’d struggled to escape the black sucking monstrosity that was home.

I hoped she didn’t know too much, because the full story didn’t exactly make me look like a great person.

“Then what’s going on here?” I pressed and we squeezed onto one side of the path to allow a group of girls in workout clothes to jog past, their ponytails bouncing with each step.

“Zeke is an unconventional man,” Lady Fluke said, staring straight ahead. “He had very unconventional businesses with ties to very interesting people. He does things in rather—”

“Lady,” I said, interrupting her. “Please, you need to speak plainly.”

Her face screwed up in frustration. “Zeke Kettner has ties to Czech organized crime,” she said pertly, mouth puckering into an annoyed ring. “He’s been a crook his whole goddamn life.”

Jude stared open-mouthed and I wasn’t sure if she was more shocked by Lady Fluke cursing, or by her open admission that Zeke is a mobster.

I slowed my walk and felt like my hands were simultaneously tingling and frozen and burning up. Jude gave me that same shocked stare, her mouth hanging open, and Lady Fluke stopped walking, back straight, frowning down the length of her nose at the both of us, like we were overreacting.

“He’s a mobster?” I asked, trying not to laugh. The idea was absurd—I’d worked in the factory business for a while now, and I’ve never once been involved with organized crime. I’ve built factories in South America, in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in some very suspect places, and yet not once have I so much as seen a gangster up close.

And now, apparently, because of this very prim and uptight British lady, I was deeply enmeshed with one.

“That’s overstating it a little bit,” she said. “Come now, we must keep moving, else we’ll be run over.” Another bike whizzed past and Lady Fluke glared at it like her eyes might shatter its tires.

“Did you know?” Jude asked, blurting the words out in a burst.

“Know what?” Lady Fluke asked as we began to walk again.

“About Zeke. When you married him.”

Lady Fluke let out a sigh and shook her head. “No, I didn’t,” she said. “He charmed me back then.”

Jude seemed oddly relieved. “When did you find out?”

“About six months into the marriage,” Lady Fluke said. “I had suspicions that he was too good to be true. I’d grown up in a business family, you see, and knew something about how a real business was managed. His business did not seem anything like what I was used to, mainly because it didn’t exist. He’d say he imported things, and exported then when necessary, but never actually said what industry he worked within. I have a feeling his industry was the illegal drug trade, but I cannot speak to what he does now.”

That admission hung in the air. Birds chirped in trees and a motorcycle screamed past, loud enough to make Jude walk closer to me. I was tempted to put my arm across her shoulders—she looked so angry and upset, and I wanted to do something to comfort her. I knew that was way outside the realm of possibility, but still. This was unfair to her, beyond fucked up. Jude had no experience in business, not really, and yet Lady Fluke had thrown her face-first into shark-infested water, and now this whole business with Zeke was like slicing Jude’s skin to ribbons and covering her in papercuts, just to make those sharks even hungrier. She was out of her depth, and I wanted to do something to try to calm her down, but kept my hands to myself instead.

“Why would he come for us like this?” I asked.

Lady Fluke pursed her lips in response. “I do not know,” she said. “I haven’t heard from him in a long time. He’s popped back up again over the years, appeared here or there, asked for money once, but he never stuck around. This business with the patent is new.”