Page 10 of It Takes a Thief

“But?”

“But, ah, see, we’ve started up this organic garden outside the Unexploded Ordnance shed.”

I wasn’t sure I heard correctly. “What?”

“The hippies always out there meditating by the vortex gave me the idea.”

“And me,” said Slushy. “I’m all about the organic.”

“Especially eggplant.” Duji kissed his fingers. “I make the finest moussaka around.”

“I thought you were Italian,” said Faux Pas.

I couldn’t fucking believe it. One, that they had an organic garden outside the Citadel. Two, that I hadn’t noticed it. I’d been so fucking busy lately, I rarely looked at, much less answered, my texts. My bank had probably texted about the strange charges, too. What else had they charged on my corporate card? A shipment of butterfly vibrators? “So what does this have to do with the shredded documents?”

“Well,” said Wolf, “the hippies gave me the idea to start a compost pile. It’s really awesome, actually! But you need a certain amount of greens, water, dirt, and paper. You need to get the balance just right. Lytton helped me with the science of it all, and—”

“You put our shredded documents into your fucking compost pile?”

“They get wet! And dirty! And bugs come to eat them, and—”

There was some rustling outside the closed office door. Wolf eagerly looked at the door, glad for the interruption. But I shot him a look that said “I’m not done with you yet.” I’d make him clean the bathrooms for another year, always the Prospect’s job. Wolf had done it for a year. Now he’d do it for another. I couldn’t believe these fucking guys. Even my old-timer brothers from the shorts pants days were acting like a bunch of hipster goofballs. Where did we live, Marin County? Sedona? They were more concerned with their intestinal flora than with the fact someone was obviously trying to push up on us.

At last, it was fucking Tobiah Weingarten in all his nerdy glory. He slammed shut the office door behind him in a rush, squeaking over in his tennies. He pivoted on one heel in the center of our chairs as though about to do a standup routine. In fact, he did grin under that eagle’s nose of his and point dazzlingly at Wolf. “Sorry I’m late. I ran into Tracy in town and we had a nice chat.”

The ire in Wolf’s face seemed to imbue the entire room. He’d been sitting backward in his chair, and now he half-rose, gripping the seat back, and bashed the chair angrily. “Where the fuck—”

See, they’d been having a rivalry over this chick for quite some time. Tracy wasn’t totally eye-banging, but those two nerds had it bad for her. First, she’d lived with Tobiah. Then she’d lived with Wolf. I guessed she was currently with Wolf—not sure, really. I knew I should take more interest in the ins and outs of my brothers’ true lives, but fuck it. I was a busy man.

Tobiah held out a calming hand. “Sorry to shit on your campfire, Nerdulent.” Everyone burst out into a hearty round of laughter, seeing as how Tobiah was way nerdier than Wolf. Wolf at least dressed the part of a brother at heart. Tobiah wore white belts, skinny velveteen jeans, and turtlenecks. “We just had coffee. Nice girl, though! Pretty green eyes—”

Before Wolf could rise like the Incredible Hulk, I put the kibosh on this whole affair. “Enough! Tobiah! Explain your findings. Who’s behind the fake news stories?”

“Well!” Tobiah was always glad for a chance to be the center of attention, and now he literally was. His X-Files belt buckle flashed in my face when he turned. “Turns out it’s some guy named Noodlum. I know, I know, not much to go on, is it? But I delved deeper into the mystery. Turns out the postings were coming from near the Discovery Channel Telescope—”

Lytton and Wolf gasped.

“—near Happy Jack.”

“My house!” cried Lytton.

“That’s what I thought, too. I thought oh great, someone’s making it look like we’re stabbing each other in the back to create dissention among our ranks. But no. Upon further investigation, the culprit was high up in the mountains, more toward Long Lake.”

Now everyone was confused. They all had that resting bitch face as they drew back and looked at each other suspiciously.

Could it be? The Cutlasses hadn’t caused trouble in quite a while. Seemed they’d burned out and faded into the rearview since my brother had taken out a few of them. Sure, we’d stolen their workers. But what jobs did they have going on, anyway? They hadn’t tried to jack a truck in months.

“Cutlasses,” a few men murmured.

I said, “But who’s this Noodlum asswipe? I know Doug Zelov, the Prez, as we all do. Is he their IT guy?”

Toby shrugged. “That’s where the trail went cold. But you can bet dollars to donuts it’s the Cutlasses behind it.”

“Muldoon,” mumbled Wolf, looking at his phone.

“What?” I said.

He looked at me. “Muldoon. That’s Noodlum spelled backward.”