Their daughter Laura walked out onto the patio wearing a beach towel. She dragged a lounger close to us and whipped the beach towel off. She was wearing nothing underneath it. She arranged it, and then herself, on the lounger.
“Hi, Johnny,” she said. Richard rolled his eyes.
“You did this to me, Rand. I’ll get you for it someday.”
Cyndi laughed and choked on her wine.
“It’s perfectly natural and innocent, Daddy,” Laura said. “We’ve talked about this.”
“Someday, Rand. Somehow.”
I chuckled. Laura’s 16-year-old body was perfect, with serious promise of turning into a perfect woman.
“Is it really so tough, Richard? Seeing what beauty you and Cyndi have created? Beyond her nudity, which wouldn’t be such a big deal in many countries, she’s a wonderful girl on the inside. I know this, because she’s lived with us. Is it really so tough?”
He looked over at her. “No,” he said. “It was weird at first, but I’m more used to it now. And you’re right: somehow, some way, we raised the perfect daughter.”
He sipped his Scotch.
“I’m still going to get you for it, though.”
******
Meyer, Meyer’s lady spy Georgia, Buddy, Jen, and I sat at the conference table in the conference room of the recently-leased office suite of Rand & Associates. It was the first time we’d used it.
“So, are you shutting us down?” Buddy said.
“We’re just talking,” I said. “None of us needs to work, ever again. The big question is, do we want to, and if we do, what do we see ourselves doing?”
“What do you see yourself doing, Johnny?” Jen said.
“That’s the question that started this,” I said. “I’m sort of floundering. I don’t… no, none of us needs to work, ever again. Ever. If we don’t want to. But like I said, I kind of feel like I’m wasting time. Am I going to spend the next 40 years just drinking champagne, lying naked by the pool, and having sex?”
Meyer raised one eyebrow.
“Okay, so there are worse ways to live,” I said. “But you know what I mean.”
“Let’s go kick some ass!” Buddy said. Jen punched him in the arm.
“Whose ass?” I said.
Buddy was silent.
“That’s the thing,” I said. “We’re missing step 3. We don’t even know whether we want to do step 3.”
“Step 3?” Georgia said.
“Step 1 was leaving the force and agreeing to work whichever cases the chief gave us. Step 2 was opening this… whatever it is. Company. Step 3 would be to figure out what, if anything, we would do with the company in the apparently vast lengths of time between cases from the chief.”
The room was silent.
“If I may,” said Meyer. “We pretty much follow your lead, Johnny. Have been for some time. In fact, by the time we left the force I was already following your lead. That sort of indicates that you need to make the decision about what we’re to do, and we’ll follow it.”
“Fuckin’ A, bro,” Buddy said, and Jen punched him again.
“No,” I said. “You’re not getting it. I don’t know what to do. That’s why we’re here. I want to hear what you guys want to do. That will… I hope that will give me some kind of direction, some sort of…” I threw up my hands in frustration.
Georgia stood up, walked around the table, and stood behind my chair. She started massaging my shoulders and murmuring things in Russian as she did it. I looked at Meyer.
“Loosely translated: ‘There, there,'” he said.
I put my head in my hands. The massage felt good. There was more tension there than I would have guessed.
These were people I’d put my life on the line for, and who’d put their own lives on the line for me. Whatever this group decided, I suddenly realized, that’s what we’d do.
“Georgia, is there a Russian restaurant nearby that would be open at this time in the afternoon?”
“Da, Johnny.”
“Somebody call them and get them to lay on a serious Russian feast. Borscht, caviar…” Which was the extent of my knowledge of Russian cuisine. “Other stuff?”
“You are a heathen, Johnny,” Georgia said. “I shall select.”
“Approved,” I said. “Make it decadent and expensive. Meanwhile, kiddies, the bar is open.”
It was a good bar. I’d ordered the stocking of it myself. It had, to this point, never been used. That was going to change quickly.
******
I had gotten up early. As quietly as I could, I made a serious breakfast feast for Dawn, Mary Beth, and Jay. Timing was the issue, so I made the things that didn’t depend on when they woke up first: Coffee and biscotti and mixing stuff. When I heard the first stirrings upstairs, I started the blini and the omeletes. Blini was a revelation from yesterday afternoon.
By the time the girls came down the table was set with Parmesan and prosciutto omelets, blini and Osetra caviar, corned beef hash, champagne, and frozen vodka.
Mary Beth stopped in her tracks.
“What the fuck is going on, Johnny?”
“Just making breakfast,” I said.
“Right,” she said. “You’re a very good cook. At dinner. For breakfast, you make scrambled eggs. I know a setup when I see it, and this is it. We just need to know what it’s a setup for.”
I sighed. “Let’s just eat and then we can talk, okay?”
“Serious talk?” Jay said.
“Fairly serious,” I said.
“Go put some clothes on, then,” Dawn said.
“Do I have to?”
“No.”
******
We were all sitting around the table naked, finishing breakfast.
“So basically,” Dawn said, “Your peeps want to be the Avengers.”
I had another blini with caviar and washed it down with a small shot of frozen vodka.
“What my ‘peeps’ want to do is keep working. They don’t want to become irrelevant, and they don’t want to stop helping the innocent.”
“And what do you want, Johnny?” Jay said.
I pushed a piece of omelet around on the plate.
“I still don’t know,” I said. “But I’m inclined to follow my people.”
“That’s a conundrum, Johnny,” Mary Beth said. “Because they’re inclined to follow you.”
I pushed the omelet back and forth on the plate, then sat back in the chair.
“And what do you girls want?”
They looked at each other. Dawn became the spokesperson.
“We want you to be safe. We want you to be here. But we want you to be happy.”
The front door opened. “Hello? Good morning!”
Christine and Melanie, our housekeepers, made their way into the dining room.
“Naked breakfast, I like it,” Christine said. “Could be a sequel novel to ‘Naked Lunch’. Or a prequel, I guess.”
Dawn held her head in her hands for a moment, then pushed back her chair.
“Johnny, I have it. I see it.”
“What?”
“Christine has a degree in criminology, remember?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Don’t mock me, Johnny. Learn from me.”
“Rand & Associates, Melanie speaking. How may I help you?”
I had fired our housekeepers as housekeepers and rehired them as criminologist and admin/receptionist, at a significantly higher rate of pay. And had tasked Melanie to find the next housekeeper(s) for me, Barker, and Morrison.
“Mr. Rand…”
“Johnny.”
“Johnny, I have a potential client on line one.”
“Gimme two, then patch them through to the conference room.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Johnny.”
“Yes, Johnny.”
Ninety seconds later, we were all assembled around the conference table speakerphone.
“It’s… it’s my daughter. She’s been gone for two weeks.”
Meyer said, “Have you contacted the police, sir?”
“Yes. But she’s an adult, and she was living with a guy, and they don’t even want to take a missing person report.”
“Do you have any reason to suspect that her actions are against her will?” I said.
“Absolutely. We are very close to her, her mom and I. She would tell us. If she were going to move, or change jobs, or whatever, she would tell us. She talks to us every week. We haven’t heard from her in two weeks.”
Christine: “Can you tell us anything about her boyfriend?”
“He’s an asshole. In and out of prison. We tried our best to get her away from him, but I think he has her in thrall. He did the bad boy thing to get her, and now he’s beaten down her will to get away from him.”
“Sir, please let me confer with my colleagues and I’ll get back to you within the hour,” I said.
“Thank you. God bless you.”
I looked around the table. As always, with these comrades in arms, I could tell it was up to me.
“Let’s go get her,” I said.
“Fuckin’ A!! Let’s kick some ass!!” Buddy said.
“If we have to,” I said. “She may have gone willingly.”
“What does your gut tell you, Johnny?” Meyer said.
I sat back and thought about it.
“Let’s kick some ass.”