But it was more. I liked doing this. It was mine. And the Rock Chicks would be all over getting involved.
Doing this wasn’t a fun diversion for me.
It was something else.
I just didn’t get what it was, so I was riding the wave until the cosmos shared that intel with me.
And I was getting off on it.
“Fuck me,” Darius murmured.
I’d lost focus on him again, but when I went back to him, I saw him eyeing me but shaking his head.
“What?” I asked.
He stopped shaking his head and locked eyes with me.
“The what is you’re you. You’re gonna do what you’re gonna do. What you’re not gonna do is do this shit not knowin’ what the fuck you’re doin’.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Darius shook his head again and kept talking.
“I get that you need this to fly under Rock Chick radar. And I really need this to fly under Rock Chick radar. Those motherfucking men will flip right the fuck out if their women get a hint of what you’re doin’, get involved and that somehow blows back on me. So we’re keepin’ this under radar.”
I was down with that.
I just didn’t know exactly what he was talking about until he told me.
“I’m talkin’ to Zip. On the down low, we’re takin’ you in, gettin’ you a weapon.”
Oh shit.
Zip owned Zip’s Gun Emporium. I’d been there. Zip was old. Zip was cantankerous. Zip was also a hoot. And his shop had all any badass needed to kit out his badassness and make it lethally badass. I loved his shop. I had a stun gun, Taser and a variety of mace delivery systems I’d bought in his shop.
Zip’s place also had a firing range.
I wasn’t sure about carrying a weapon, though. I could stun gun with the best of them, but a real gun?
“Darius, I—”
He lifted a hand. “No, woman. No fuckin’ way. You’re in a bar like this, you come in carryin’. But you come in carryin’ and knowin’ what you’re doin’. I know your dad taught you how to handle guns. But before you go out packin’, you’re gonna shoot at Zip’s and you’re gonna do it a lot. We’ll talk him into openin’ the range after hours so you don’t get seen there. And you work with your weapon so you’re so comfortable enough with it that it feels like an extension of your arm. You understand it. You respect it. You know what it can do. And you know how to use it.”
That sounded kind of exciting, but I didn’t get to tell him that because Darius was not done.
And it got better.
“Lee uses this dude’s place down in Colorado Springs. The guy’s got three set ups. One’s a warehouse you gotta clear, good and bad guys. One’s a house you gotta clear. You walk through with your weapon shooting pop-ups. You fail if you take down one innocent, and that means you do it again. And again. And again. Until you pass. You don’t go through it memorizing the scheme. He switches the pop-ups and you never know what you’re going to get. You don’t pass until you can get through it completely clean.”
I so wanted to do that.
In fact, I couldn’t fucking wait.
“He’s also got a driving course,” Darius informed me. “Learn to drive defensive, learn to drive a chase. You’re doin’ that, too.”
I so fucking was!
“You’re tall but you’re slight,” he continued. “That means you don’t learn how to fight. You learn some defensive moves and you learn how to get away. I’ll teach you that. But, starting tomorrow, and every day after that, you run. You got trouble, there’s a high probability you’re not gonna be able to beat it down. You do not shoot at it unless you absolutely have to. Stun guns and pepper spray can get commandeered if you don’t got the moves to stop it, and then be turned on you. So you get your ass in trouble, you run away. But you’re not in shape, that trouble’ll catch you.”
This did not sound all that fun. I wasn’t an exercise sort of person, unless you counted walking in a mall. However, I didn’t share that with Darius, in case me poo-pooing any part of the righteous deal he was offering would mean he’d take the deal off the table.
And anyway, if I ran regularly, that meant I could drink more Fat Tire and eat more LaMar’s donuts.
So I decided to focus on that.
“You got it,” I agreed.
He nodded once and kept going.
“From here on out, you start anything, you gotta be invisible.”
“I already do that,” I told him, but he shook his head.
“Not what you’re thinkin’. I mean you go to Brody. He makes a mint off that game he programmed, but he gets off on this sleuth stuff. Lee pays him a whack, but that guy would come to work every day for free, he’s so into this shit. You give him more, he’ll be all over it. You can solve your problem with an electronic investigation that doesn’t put your ass on the line, you do that.” He paused. “First.”
This made sense and would likely only cost me energy drinks, Costco boxes of king-size candy bars and Apple app gift cards all of which I could make my “clients” procure for Brody. Since all that was doable, I nodded my agreement.
Darius kept talking.
“And from here on in, I’m briefed in full about everything you do. I know all your cases. I know what you uncover. And you do not,” he leaned in, “ever walk your ass into a place like this without me as your wingman. This last is the most important, Ally, and if you’re not down with that, you lose all the rest. You also buy me goin’ to Lee and lighting a fire under his ass to take you off Denver’s game board in a way no one will ever contact you again for this shit.”
