Page 62 of It Takes a Thief

“You did such a fucking bang-up job on this highway,” I said, by way of explanation. I still couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone I was stepping back. Back, not down. I’d never step down. But I thought Maddy would accept it if I just backed off, put a lot of the load on Tuzigoot and his men.

“I just thought I’d put it in motion, you know?” I said nervously. Tuzigoot nodded as though he had no fucking idea what I was driving at. “I mean, maybe let you swing for the fences for once, on your own. Take total charge of some big jobs.”

“Be foreman,” Tuzigoot said dully.

“No! Be superintendent, man, superintendent of jobs. How’s that sound?”

Tuzigoot smiled with half his mouth. “Would sound better if it came with a pay raise.”

“Of course. Let’s bang that out later.”

We shook hands, and Tobiah shouted,

“Wow! Nurse Joy was just added to the game!”

“What?” gaped Wolf Glaser, who immediately dropped his pool stick to unholster his phone. “Since when?”

“Since now!” cried Tobiah, manning his laptop and watch. “She just appeared at A Likely Story.” That was the name of the bookstore three blocks down.

“Get the fuck out!” shouted Wolf, aimlessly thumbing around for the nurse.

The nurse. I flashed on that screensaver nurse, the one from the time traveling novels. I strode over to Tobiah’s seat to look at the nurse on the screen. She was wobbling, sort of knock-kneed, wearing a white cap with a little red cross.

“Maddy’s a nurse,” I told Tobiah. “What can you find out about her?”

“Well, if it’s the same one, and not Noodlum-based, she helps out other Pokémon. She heals them, takes care of them when injured.” Every time he’d click on her, she’d jump and make an “ooo” face, but other than that, I didn’t see how useful she was.

“Whoa!” shouted Wolf. “She talks!”

“What?” shrieked Tobiah in his high Mickey Mouse voice. Nurse Joy talking was obviously an earth-shattering revelation. “None of these characters have ever done much aside from saying their own name.”

Wolf shot a finger gun at Tobiah without taking his eyes from his phone. “Right-click on her!”

Tobiah did so, and she jumped, squealed, and said something. He turned up his volume while I told everyone to shut up, and he right-clicked again.

We both leaned so close to the laptop we nearly bumped heads. “Catch me if you can!” she squealed.

“Well? Catch her!” I ordered Tobiah.

“I can’t. She’s not a Pokémon you can catch!”

“Try it.”

He double-clicked, and man did that innocent little nurse roar to life. A sound like a fighter jet passing came from the speakers, and now her not-so-innocent face filled the screen. Her voice sounded electronically messed with, like those backward-speaking people in that Twin Peaks dreamland.

“Hello Ford,” she boomed. “I want you to know we’ve got Maddy, all trussed up like a birthday gift waiting for you to find her.”

“Can they hear us?” I asked.

“Let’s try,” said Tobiah. He even cleared his throat first. “Nurse Joy, you’re looking well today.”

The nurse just swayed, her face taking up almost the whole screen.

I shouted, “What the fuck have you done with Maddy?”

She swayed like a daisy, that inane smile on her insipid face.

“Click once,” suggested Wolf.