"Now that was a strong response," Will murmured. "A whole lot of protest when an easy answer would have sufficed."
"It was proportional," I said, mostly to myself. "Jocelyn is no longer."
"'No longer' meaning you're not together or you called in the wet team?"
"I didn'tkillher, you asshole," I said. I couldn't say the thought hadn't crossed my mind once or twice since the crew had unearthed nine surveillance devices in my apartment. But she still wasn't worth that kind of effort. "It's over with her."
"Thank fuck," Will shouted.
The baby startled at that. He stood, and started pacing the patio, bouncing and rocking as he walked in the way that must come naturally to parents. "She was an obnoxious bag of silicone."
"They're real," I muttered halfheartedly. I didn't care whether Will thought her breasts were artificially enhanced, and I didn't care about Jocelyn enough to defend her honor.
"Oh, they're fucking not," Will replied. "She has the fakest tits I've ever—"
"That you've what?" Will's wife, Shannon, asked from the patio door. She was four months pregnant, and had forced me to feel the baby kicking after dinner. It was a pleasant kind of strange. She was trying to recruit me to her side—she was betting this baby was a boy while Will disagreed—but I couldn't imagine making that kind of determination based on some kicks. "I'd like to hear the rest of this."
Unfazed by his wife's questions, Will said, "Jocelyn," and Shannon vigorously nodded in agreement.
"Completely fake. Collagen in her lips and cheeks, too. Oh, and all of her personality. Filled with plastic," Shannon said.
"Great. Nothing was real," I said, indulging in some self-pity. "She was gargling Toby Renner's balls when I got home from Riyadh. He doesn't mind the plastic."
Will stopped pacing. "Wait a minute.What?" he asked. "You've been here for hours and not once mentioned a word about Renner or Titsy O'Silicone."
I yawned, the weight of a week on the road settling down on my shoulders. Maybe it was age, maybe it was stress, but the physical demands of pinging around the globe only increased with each trip. Or maybe I was a walking version of Neil Young's "Old Man."
"I mentioned it just now," I said.
"But you didn't mention itbefore," Will said.
"Because I mentioned it now," I replied. Another yawn. My place was only two doors down from the beachfront home the Halsted clan was renting in the Ditch Plains section of Montauk, but I was ready to curl up with Will's dogs and call it a night. That was a far better option than reporting that I'd been compromised. I wasn't ready to talk about that yet, not until I knew more. "Pardon me for not wanting to revisit that issue over dinner."
"I fucking hate that guy," Will said.
"No disagreement," I said, raising my glass. It was empty, but that wasn't going to stop me from toasting our shared loathing of Toby Renner.
"Let me ask you this," Will said. "Was he wearing the Stillhouse hat or polo shirt? Because you know he can't leave the house without one or the other. Or both." He turned to Shannon. "This asshole is notorious for wearing Stillhouse-branded shit in the middle of foreign conflicts and actual fucking war zones. He's got a damn target on his head and over his heart."
"And how is he still alive?" she asked. "Or in business?"
"Those are the great mysteries, Shannon," I murmured. "But it was the polo shirt today, Halsted. Extra tight." I flexed my biceps. "You know how it is, man. Gotta show off the guns."
"I fucking hate that guy," he repeated.
"Yeah," I replied. "But you didn't have to see his bare ass or watch Joss grabbing his sac."
Will shook his head and filled my scotch right up to the top. "That's brutal," he said.
"I'm sorry about all of this, Jordan," Shannon said, rubbing my shoulder. "But things went well in Riyadh, right?"
Drink, drink, drink.
