Page 35 of It Takes a Thief

Banging the hell out of there, I scoured the teeming hall for my wife. She was wearing one of those pink long-sleeved shirts with holes cut out for the shoulders. How hard could it be to find her?

But it was.

I ran into every douchebag and colossal asswad on the planet, but no one had seen Maddy recently. I knew she wasn’t with Galileo, and I saw Sabrina huddled with her dirtbag husband Charlie. I even asked them, risking being corralled into double-dating to a film festival.

“Oh,” said Sabrina, “I saw her go out those double doors about five minutes ago.”

She pointed to the same double doors where smoke was currently seeping in, as though we were on the outside and the building was on fire.

“Thanks, Sabrina,” I said, before they could invite me to go shopping at Patagonia. I just wasn’t the outdoorsy type.

I stormed through the double doors. At first, the cloud of cigarette and other smoke did envelop me. I had to wave my arms to clear it, like in some fantasy movie.

When the smoke parted, I still felt like I was in a fantasy. Of the worst kind.

That polyester shitbird Slayer was holding Maddy by her bare shoulders. Their foreheads were practically touching. He wore that dumbass, drooling look of adoration he often got for things like women, massage oils, and tie clips. Now he wore it for my woman, and I’m telling you, I just saw red.

After the embarrassing highway debacle, and the almost impossibly moronic reality of hitting the wrong house, I just wasn’t in the mood, as they fucking say.

I charged forward without thinking.

“All right, you fucking greasy ballhead,” I shouted.

I remember seeing their two pairs of eyes. Round, shocked.

Yeah, I’ll bet they’re shocked, I remember thinking. Shocked they got caught.

Putting out my arm at a stiff right angle to my body, I hit Slayer with such a battering ram he almost flew out his pointy white shoes. Instead he stumbled back into a brick wall, slapping his hands up against it. He looked at me as though about to cry. How could such a wuss be a fucking sicario?

“Ford!” he cried. “I beg you to tell me what is the mat—”

I took a handful of his polyester shirtfront and peeled him off the wall. He wasn’t fighting back, probably caught by surprise. He was just a loose bag of clothing in my hand. He might’ve been a couple inches taller, but I had all the force of my pent-up rage, and I punched him clean in the face, just a giant hook to the chin that had his head snapping back and hitting the wall.

“Ford!” shrieked Maddy. “Stop it! What the fuck are you doing?” She’d seen me in some altercations before, that was for sure. But I’d never busted her trying to get it on with some other guy. I ignored her.

“Get up, you vinyl playboy. Get up!” I exhorted the fallen hitman.

But he wouldn’t. He just lay sprawled, one arm flung dramatically over his face.

“You motherfucker!” Maddy ran to Slayer’s side, squatting down. “Santiago! Santiago! Are you okay? Can you hear me?”

Without waiting for an answer, she whipped her head around to bellow at me. “Get the fuck out of here, you motherfucking asshole. NOW.”

It was like the voice of a raging god telling me what to do, and I didn’t particularly need any encouragement to leave. But I had to know what’d been going on with her and Slayer. “What the fuck was going on, Maddy? Why you let Slayer touch you all over like that?”

Now her eyes seemed to be lit up, like a demon in a dark alley. “Absolutely fucking nothing was going on, Ford, and if you fucking know what’s good for you, you’ll LEAVE. NOW. I don’t want to fucking have to look at you.”

“Yeah, man,” some smokers around me started grumbling.

“Leave before the cops come.”

I had to march out undignified, leaving a beaten man on the ground. I had no idea what his status was, or what I’d even done to him, really. I just knew I was still full of rage, that punching Slayer hadn’t obliterated any of it. Everything was going wrong for me and the club. This fucking Noodlum seemed to always be one step ahead of us. I wondered why he hadn’t already been gloating over my idiotic mistake. I trusted a hundred percent he had something up his sleeve.

I just had to shoulder it.

I passed by Duji and Monique on my way to my car. They seemed to be leaving, too. Probably past their bedtime Ovaltine. No wonder my club was on the way down in influence and power. Nobody had the fight in them anymore. I wouldn’t be surprised if my downtrodden brothers started Rennfairing soon. It was like they’d just given up.

“Duji. Can you do me a solid and make sure Maddy wins that cruise she wants? Pay anything, anything. I’ll pay you back.”