Page 69 of It Takes a Thief

“Maddy,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t sob. “Don’t ever fucking go to lunch with anyone ever again.”

She laughed with relief, as if she’d expected me to say something different. “I won’t,” she promised, and there was definitely snot in her words.

Now the men came up one by one, softly patting her on the arm or something, and going, “Hey, Maddy. Good to see you back.” “Don’t go away again.” “We’d be lost without you.”

I’d never been fucking prouder of my men—or of my wife—than that day. When I heard her story later, about waiting for the seizure and grabbing the keys, almost taking off on the SuperGlide in her panties, well, my heart just hit the roof. I was angry we’d put her in the position where crazoids would kidnap her. If not for me, Noodlum wouldn’t have known who she was.

But she’d extricated herself alone. Maddy’s quick thinking and quick feet had gotten her out of the trap. For that she deserved something.

“Hell,” I said, squeezing her tight. “Maybe I’ll reward you with a trip to Alaska.”

“Oh, will you now?” she said lightly. “Might that be a seven-day cruise with optional whale watching?”

“It might be,” I said, because I really didn’t remember how long it was.

I just knew it’d be happy.

EPILOGUE

MADISON

“What do you call a Knicks player with a championship ring?” asked Slushy. He was in his element, holding his giant pair of scissors before the uncut ribbon. He loved cutting ribbons so much that he owned the giant pair of scissors. “A senior citizen.”

Wow, he was really holding the crowd! About three hundred Native Americans had shown up to the grand opening of the new basketball center. Well, it was called The Illuminati Sports Center seeing as how Ford had put up most of the money, and had guilt-tripped people in Washington to match him. This was one of the things he was doing now that Tuzigoot had taken over as operations manager at the construction company. Ford said he was just in a “giving back” mood.

“What do you call twelve billionaires watching the NBA finals?” asked Slushy, emcee-like with his long skinny mic.

“The L.A. Lakers!” shouted one kid.

Slushy pointed the scissors at him. “That’s right, kid. You know your stuff. As Taylor Swift said when she donated twenty-five thousand books to New York City schools, ‘It makes me feel so good to give back.’”

There was silence at the Taylor Swift remark, and I squeezed Ford’s hand. We loved watching Slushy soar, but we also loved watching him crash and burn.

“Let me tell ya. I’ve spoken at hundreds of these opening events. But nothing has ever given me so much gratification as presenting this brand-new sports center.” Several people went “woo.” “It was past time that you have a place to go and burn off steam, and it’s all thanks to this man here, Ford Illuminati of Illuminati Construction, that you’ve got this gleaming new citadel.”

Everyone erupted into heartfelt applause. Unknown Indians even thumped Ford on the back. It was one of the best days of his life.

I’d never seen him donate much of anything before. I knew it had to do with that day I escaped from Muldoon’s clutches. I had thrashed that SuperGlide directly to Spirit Canyon on the Hopi Rez, aided by a stop at an old convenience store that had a payphone, and a bit of begging for coins from bilagáanas. I called June, who confirmed she had not been in a hospital so far that month. She said the men were playing a Pokémon game with Noodlum and had followed directions so far down to Spirit Canyon.

“He created a nurse Pokémon that resembles you, and she’s leading them on a wild goose chase.”

Then my time on the phone was up, so I had to continue on.

What I’m saying is, Ford had changed. There was something about that incident in Spirit Canyon that really got to him. I’m not so vain to think it was because I was endangered. I think part of it was seeing Muldoon—Noodlum, excuse me—bugsmashed in that Camaro he’d roared off in. Weird, a half a basketball pole being embedded that competently in the middle of nowhere. I went back later, and did see that some highway striping indicated there would be an obstacle. But who’d expect that in the middle of a perfectly flat highway? I had insisted on seeing the accident scene myself, wanting to be sure my kidnaper was truly dead. Oh, boy. You couldn’t get any deader. The steering column had blasted him in the chest, instantly crushing his heart, ribs, and lungs. His forehead had hit the wheel so forcefully it was indented. This sort of injury, a contrecoup injury, meant the brain sloshed against the back of the skull, causing further brain damage.

Noodlum was one damaged person. I’d never seen such a severe case of tics and burdens in one man.

“Ford, you are the belle of the ball, and these basketballers are all your suitors, wishing for a peek at your bosom,” said Galileo. He was always so upbeat. With Ford’s help again, Galileo had opened Doggie Style Grooming, and as I’d suspected, he was an ace at it. He was even good at the business side, keeping books, maintaining everything in order, doing paperwork. He seemed to thrive on paperwork. His assistant was someone Noodlum or Moss Empire had taken prisoner in a hotel room. They’d killed a couple other girls, but this one Diné girl had been set free when Ford and his men had gone busting into the room.

“They’ll see plenty bosom when I trash them in a game,” Ford vowed.

We had all bailed Spirit Canyon immediately after ensuring Noodlum was dead. Wouldn’t do to have Rez cops poking around, although they wouldn’t care much about a bilagáana with a long record being killed on their land. We swept the hippies away, too, with a half-hearted request they never speak of it again. They would do what they wanted to. But cops later did ID Noodlum, and found real idiotic stuff on his Show Low computer, like “how to kidnap white women,” stuff linking him to human trafficking, so he was better off dead. Noodlum was the owner of the burgundy rape van Moss Empire had been using to kidnap women.

“Charlie wants to go looking for fancy strollers after this is over,” I told Ford, referring to Sabrina’s much-maligned dirtbag husband. I’d been razzing Ford—hopefully not too much—that now he was a respectable member of society, sort of, he’d have to step up and do things like donate basketball courts and go stroller shopping with Charlie. Sabrina and I would be too busy looking at adorable little dresses for our new girl due in a couple weeks. We’d be in the same mall and all. Only, no one would be there to rescue Ford from Charlie.

“Fuck,” he said, “is this what being semi-retired is like? I have to go to the mall with people like Charlie?”

“Yes,” I said, cutting off all argument and whining. “In the meantime, let’s go check out the steam room.”