Page 20 of Down and Dirty

Zach stopped talking when he realized his buddies were all smiling and that his explanation was more incriminating than what had actually happened. Besides, he couldn’t think about Britta right now, or he would go crazy. “Back to my problems with Sammy, they should soon be over,” he said. I hope.

“How do you figure?” It was Sly getting his digs in now.

“My lawyer is handling the Afghan government and U.S. legal process proclaiming Sammy my son. My dad is hiring professional bodyguards to keep the kid from being kidnapped. And Geek is helping me investigate boarding schools.”

“Boarding school for a five-year-old? That is cruel.” It was JAM speaking, but the others nodded their heads in agreement. “I was sent to seminary when I was twelve, and that was painful. He’s only five.”

Five going on fifty. “What else can I do? I’ll be back on active duty soon, and I can’t just leave him with a babysitter for weeks at a time.”

“Dum-dum-de-dum,” Sly sang.

“Do y’all smell weddin’ cake?” Cage added.

“Whaaaat? Marriage? Are you two nuts?”

“Listen, mah friend. If ya get hitched, ya have sex whenever ya want and a resident babysitter. As my maw maw usta say, ‘Ya gotta jump the fence iffen ya wanna taste the berries.’” Cage had a thing about hokey Cajun sayings, which he attributed to his grandmother but probably made up himself.

“That makes absolutely no sense. And I’d like to meet the woman who would want that job.” Actually, he’d already offered it to Britta, sort of, and she hadn’t been interested.

“I don’t know,” Sly said. “There are a lot of chicks who would love to park their Jimmy Choos under your bed.”

“Not anymore.”

“Who’s Jimmy Choo?” JAM asked, frowning with confusion. “Why would a woman want to put another man under Pretty Boy’s bed?”

“Shoes. Jimmy Choos are shoes, you moron. Dontcha know anything about fashion?” Sly jabbed JAM in the arm.

“Apparently not,” JAM said, jabbing him back.

“Back to my plan. I’ve got to get out of this WEALS instructor billet. ASAP. Arsallah, Sammy’s grandfather, is one of the worst tangos in al-Qaeda. He pretends to be all religious and Allah-be-praised in public, but he’s the bastard who beheaded those Marines last week.”

“Why does Arsallah want the kid?” JAM asked. “I mean, under normal circumstances, yeah, I could see a grandfather wanting his own blood kept close to home. But these fundamentalist Muslims would consider him an infidel, wouldn’t they?”

Zach nodded. “I suspect this is all just a power play. The Ugly Americans steal our children, that kind of thing.”

“Reminds me of that Elián González case,” Cage mused. “Remember the Cuban kid whose Miami family wanted him to stay here, but his dad wanted him back with him in Cuba?”

Zach nodded again.

“I might be able to use my situation to draw Arsallah out of his hiding hole. I can’t do that when I’m teaching misguided women how to do jumping jacks.”

“You’d use your son as bait?” JAM was staring at him as if he were lower than a snake’s belly.

“No, knucklehead, I wouldn’t use Sammy. He would be in deep hiding by then.”

“We’ll do whatever we can,” Sly said, “but in the meantime you’ve got to keep your nose clean. Do jumping jacks till your balls are in shell shock. Otherwise, you’re gonna be leadin’ females off to war, buddy.”

He nodded.

A waitress walked up to the table and put a hand on Zach’s shoulder. “Want a refill, Pretty Boy?”

He peered up over his shoulder at Maudeen. “No thanks, honey. Gotta leave soon.”

“Hiiiii, Maudy darlin’,” Cage drawled, his voice dripping with innuendo.

“Go screw one of your gators, redneck boy,” she snapped.

They all laughed.