Teddy thought about it, and then was floored. “Are you saying Pop was the person who fed this shit to Coop?”
“He’s the one who wants to create thatwe’re in disarray and Mick the Tick has fallennarrative,” said Nikki. “Why wouldn’t he control it with the most well-read columnist in town?”
Teddy sat the iPad down and leaned back. “I’ll be damn. There’s always method to Pop’s madness.”
“But I’m with you, Teddy: why would we give our enemies the match to light us up with? Why would we give them an opening that wide?”
“Because we aren’t giving them shit.” Teddy sat up. He was thinking this through. “Now I think I get what Pop’s doing. It’s like what Uncle Reno said about people who gamble in his casino. They’re feeding the beast every time they put their dollars on a bet that more than likely they will lose. But if the house gives them glimmers of hope and let them win a few times, they start to think that they’re in control. They bet more. They spend more money thinking they got it figured out and are going to get more back. They think they’re beating the beast and aren’t feeding the beast any longer. But Uncle Reno said is what they don’t realize is that because they don’t think they’re feeding the beast, that’s when the beast is eating them. And eating them alive. But they’re too focused on positioning themselves for the big payout. They’re too focused on winning. That’s how those casinos get you every time, Uncle Reno said.”
Then Teddy smiled. “Pop’s playing the Reno game.”
Nikki understood it, too, but she still didn’t like it. “Sometimes,” she said, “those lowly gamblers do beat the house and win. And they win big. The house may let them win. I’m not denying that. But they still win.”
Teddy’s smile slowly dissipated and he let out a harsh exhale. Then he nodded. “And therein lies the rub.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Roz woke up that same morning to find Mick seated in a chair near their bed staring at her.
First she smiled because he was suited up in all black: trousers, turtleneck, gloves. Then she became alarmed because he was suited up. He didn’t have on the long white, tricked-out coat that usually accompanied his all-black get up, but she knew that was a given. When he was ready to leave the house, he would have it on.
But she knew coming at Mick with worrying and anxiousness never moved him. She had to be cautious. “How do you feel?”
“Like I got shot six times.”
“You don’t have to do anything right now, Mick. The doctors already said you’ve got to take it slow. You’re the only person that declared you healed.”
“I am healed. That’s not an issue.”
“Then why did you bring up the fact that you’d been shot?”
Mick hesitated. “I thought I was joking.”
Roz looked at him and shook her head. Then she couldn’t help but smile. “That would be a joke to you,” she said, and Mick smiled too.
But Roz’s look turned serious again because she seriously needed to know. “What is your game plan?”
“To find the fuckers that did this to me, and tried to do it to you and Duke and Nikki, and stomp them through the earth.”
It was a typical Mick response. But Mick was no longer typical Mick. He had had a serious health scare. He couldn’t act as if it never happened. Because it did. She saw it with her own two eyes.
She sat up in bed, with the covers dropping around her waist. She was naked and her breasts were revealed, but she had forgotten the state of her body and didn’t notice.
But Mick noticed. He immediately went hard. Not that he hadn’t had her since the shooting. He’d had her several times as early as a couple weeks after that shooting. That part of him never stopped working. But it surprised him how easily she was still able, after all these years, to turn him on and to do so far more intensely than anybody else ever could.
“It’s been a whole month,” Roz said as she lifted her legs toward her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs, “and nobody’s made any moves yet. Maybe they realized they failed and gave up.”
“You don’t pull off a stunt like the one they orchestrated in that hick town and then give up because we got away.”
“So what do you think is happening?”
“They’re on Plan B. Which is where I want them to be. They’ll have to show their hands eventually.”
“And in the meantime?”
“I’m going to cut off every hand that had a hand in their scheme. Somebody’s going to lead me to their doorstep.”
Roz was pleased that Mick was telling her what he was thinking, but it was alarming too. He seemed so matter-of-fact.
