Page 38 of It Takes a Thief

I made one of those annoying proud faces, though I wasn’t sure what I had to be proud for. Dr. Chesbrough let me go first the remaining forty yards, the canyon narrowing so I could touch both sides of the sandstone walls.

And at the bottom, who should the homey Native American be, his crook leaning against the side of his hogan while he carded wool—I kid you not—but Galileo Taliwood. I was shocked because I felt he was belittling the true nature of his lifestyle, demonstrating something as corny as wool carding to the mostly white tourists.

“Galileo!” I cried, falling to the ground next to him. I hugged him, but he remained stiff, as though unused to it. “Why are you carding wool?”

“Because sometimes you have to thin out the sheep,” he explained, logically. To my fellow students, he said, “If you don’t shear a sheep it gets weighted down and is very uncomfortable, so we’re actually doing them a favor. We have sheep shearing competitions.”

“I didn’t mean that,” I said. “I thought you were getting out of here, giving your herd to some cousin. Going to live in my house.”

“I would have,” Galileo said sincerely, “but my cousin was arrested for drunk and disorderly. It’s his fourth or fifth time, so they’re keeping him a while.”

I sighed. Penny said, “You know this guy? He’s hilarious. He’s been telling us stories about sleeping in a box, and having a plastic bag of straw for a stuffed animal.”

“I think he was serious, Penny,” said Justin.

Did I tell you Penny is sort of sheltered? Not only was she smoking hot—that was me, eight or ten years ago—her family was rich, and she could’ve chosen any career she wanted, including fashion model or actress. It was to her credit she chose nursing.

Dr. Chesbrough said, “Ol’ Galileo here’s a mainstay of the Rez. You’re taking him out of here, Nurse Illuminati?”

I nodded. “I am, Dr. Chesbrough. He has limited options here, and he’s way too smart to sit around herding sheep all day.”

Everyone was silent. I realized I had spoken offensively. “I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with it. I just know Galileo can do so much more with his life.”

Dr. Chesbrough gave me side-eye. “With your husband’s motorcycle gang?”

How’d he know about that? And I hate people who call it a “gang.” “Not at all. With his shearing skills, he’d make an excellent dog groomer. And he can use his social skills, meet the people of Pure and Easy.” How could anyone argue with that?

Even Dr. Chesbrough nodded. “Well, Galileo, make sure you find someone responsible to take over your herd. That was your mother’s herd. You don’t just want some Tom Dick or Tahoma leading them astray.”

Galileo giggled. “Astray, good one, Ellis. Yes, I shall choose a wise, alive person to herd my sheep. As you know, ‘you can’t wake a person who is pretending to be sleeping.’”

Penny sighed. “Oh. Is that Navajo?”

Galileo said, “One of the boys in my group home always said that. He died.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

FORD

I arrived at Lytton’s house on Mormon Mountain so tweaked I sprayed gravel onto the side of June’s truck.

Tobiah, Wolf Glaser, and Lytton met me on the front deck. Tobiah and Wolf were already jostling for position, nudging each other with their shoulders, so Lytton got between them.

“Okay,” I said, standing at the bottom of the stairs like a Shakespearean actor. “What exactly the fuck?”

“Okay, so,” Tobiah started to say, but Wolf cut him off.

“So I was at Leaves of Grass, you know, minding my own business, making pancakes. Suddenly from my office I hear this booming voice with a Southern accent.”

Noodlum. I hadn’t seen hide nor hair from that crackpot since I’d tried to bury him, making me even more uneasy. I’d finally taken Fox up on his offer to track the guy down, taking Fox away from his important bird work. I hated like fuck to do that, but this was a vital club matter. Santiago Slayer was still understandably miffed—normally I wouldn’t use that word, but relating to Slayer it fit—with me for sucker punching him at the policeman’s ball, so he’d taken himself out of the picture. He was nursing a broken nose in Guayaquil, considering going to see giant iguanas in the Galapagos.

I no longer thought Slayer was making a pass at my old lady, but it was too late. She’d left a few days early for Chinle, angry as a bag of wasps. She’s barely spoken to me, only to cast her eyes down and issue instructions regarding Fidelia and Niko from between tight lips.

I tried to apologize. I must’ve said I’m sorry a hundred times. She should’ve been flattered that I thought her worthy of Slayer’s attentions. He usually went for chicks ten years younger than Maddy, although he must’ve been over forty. No matter. Nothing I could say would put a dent in the wall Maddy had put up against me. And she was right—I did always have to leave, always have to go somewhere, always have to reach out to someone or arrange a sit-down, to protect my assets and therefore my family from encroaching scum-sucking rat bastards.

And then before I knew it, she was gone for real, and despair soaked into every cell of my being. I went back to taking Adderall, to sleeping maybe two hours a day if I was lucky. Tracking down Noodlum consumed me, because he was inadvertently responsible for this whole new rift between my wife and me, not to mention the ruin of my highway job and reputation. But Fox found absolutely no trace of the guy and there was no activity on the computers and phones Noodlum had used before—he must’ve switched over to new burners. In fact, interviewing people around Happy Jack showed that no one had even seen a single biker since the explosion. Fox did find the real Cutlass clubhouse, complete with their asinine logo of two crossed swords burned into the wood over the front door. Inside, he found such mortifying and suspicious items as a spanking bench, a bulldog mask, jars of liquid latex, and some random butt plugs tossed aside like yesterday’s plumbing.

How could a motorcycle club just vanish like that?