Minka #2
“I’m good, thank you.” I unhook myself and start toward home. Because I’m not actually heading home, am I? No. “Did you know my medication costs forty-five thousand dollars per pack, Soph? Per pack!” I hiss. “I go through three a week. That shit is criminal.”
“Wait,” she guffaws. This is all so freakin’ funny to her. “Are you asking me for a loan?”
“Are you good for it?”
“I’m not beholden to money the way society is.
Everyone else sells their time for currency.
The numbers are limited, in that they can only sell so many hours and in exchange, receive so many dollars.
I, on the other hand, dip my hands into someone else’s account, literally anyone’s, and take what I want. ”
“Makes you a thief.”
“Makes me smart. You need forty-five grand, V? I suppose I could consider each hit a job. I mean, I thought we were doing it for the love of the sport, but I acknowledge everyone else’s relationship with money is different than mine.”
“Send me the cash and shut the hell up. Take it from an account you know I’d approve of, and we’ll call it a day.”
Behind me, Harrison’s footsteps echo against the concrete.
Awesome! He’s listening to everything I say. Which means Archer will know—if he cared to ask.
Curious, I rotate on a dime and startle the man into a skidding stop before he runs me straight over. “You know I didn’t infuse last night.”
Puzzled, Soph grunts, “What?”
“Not you.” I lower my phone and search Harrison’s wary gaze. “You knew. Even if you didn’t know last night, you saw my thing at the pharmacy this morning.” I narrow my eyes, suspicious and, more pressingly, bone-deep tired. “Why didn’t you report that detail back to your boss?”
“You’re my boss.” He drops his hands into his pockets and inclines his chin. “Felix is my boss. Sometimes, Archer is my boss, but he didn’t ask that specific question, so…” He shrugs.
“You enjoy playing with fire, Mr. Harrison?” I rotate again and continue walking.
I have somewhere to be, and if I’m lucky, I might get there before I fall on my face.
“Your loyalties are supposed to belong to the Malones.” Yet, he withholds information Archer would normally lose his mind over.
“If someone has to follow me around, I’d prefer that someone was you.
Playing with fire is how you get fired.”
“High praise indeed, Chief.” He quickens his steps, walking beside me now instead of behind. “I appreciate the endorsement.”
“Your failure to report such details back to the Malones interests me.” At the boom-boom-boom of gunshots and the vibration against my palm, I bring my phone up again. “Hang on.”
“Like I said,” Harrison rumbles, his eyes swinging left. Then right. “Nobody asked. However, since you brought up financial situations…” He tilts his head my way. “Yours remains liquid, Chief. You can afford your own medication.”
“Sounds like you’re all set,” Soph quips. “You’re rich, Doctor Mayet. Unfortunately, you’re also stubborn.”
“I’m not spending their money on my meds.”
“But you’ll spend mine?” she teases. “Not too stubborn, I see.”
“I’ll work for that money; that makes it mine, free and clear.
” Spending Malone money, on the other hand, will feel a little too much like prostitution in our current state.
Archer and I had sex for eighteen months, and now we’re done.
I’m not swiping a family card and spending forty-five-thousand dollars.
Hell, I’m not using it for a twelve-dollar burrito, either.
No thanks.
“The law says that money is yours,” Harrison continues, his breath coming faster the longer we spend in the blistering sun.
I take a sharp turn without announcing my intentions, Harrison’s feet carrying him forward for three long strides before he rights himself and follows me into the hospital. “Chief?” Leery, he glances around. “What are you—”
“Hospital,” Soph hums. “Smart cookie. You’ll get your meds, no need to spend Archer’s money, and no need to make official your new vocation as a paid hitman. Hitwoman… hither.”
“Stop talking now, Sophia.”
“Doing it for the sport just seems classier, right? Once money exchanges hands, it stops being a hobby, and it becomes work. Work is never as much fun.”
“Shush.” I stride into the emergency room and stop at the double doors, glancing left. Then right. Half the beds are full, banana bags abound, and one patient has an actual arrow piercing his torso, down by his lowest rib.
Unfortunate.
“Chief Mayet?” Harrison growls. “What are you—”
“How powerful are you, Soph?”
She chews something on her end of the line. Crunchy and noisy. Chips, perhaps. Not candy. “Why?”
“Bet you can’t access the hospital’s PA system and summon a surgeon down to the ER. Her name is Nicki Cleary.”
“Bet.” She crunches on her snack while overhead, a droning voice announces, ‘Doctor Cleary, you’re required in the ER. Doctor Cleary to the ER.’
Harrison’s eyes grow wide, shocked and awed. “Teach me.”
“Eh.” Soph snickers. “He has skills, better than the Average Joe. But he’s just a dumb boy beneath the shine. He’ll never have what I have.”
I meet Harrison’s fascinated expression. “She said no.”
“I’m sending you some of Jen’s batch. It’ll be at your front door by morning.”
“Soph, no—”
“I did you a favor. Now you’ll do me a favor.” Crunch. “I can guarantee, like… ninety-five percent certain, you won’t die.”
“Pass.” I catch sight of Nicki Cleary marching through the ER, her eyes zeroed in on the guy with an arrow poking through his torso.
He’s the patient she’ll wish she’s landed.
I’m the patient she’ll have to deal with instead.
“Alright, Ace. My doctor is here, and this is gonna make me crazy tired, so I probably won’t talk to you again tonight.
I got your email earlier, though, the one about Poul Abate.
I’ll call you in the morning to iron out the details. ”
“Fine.” Crunch. “I’m still sending the M if I don’t medicate tonight, I might spring a leak and not be able to get it under control. ”
“Er, well…” She tucks her hands into her coat pockets. Step one in not losing your license to practice medicine: don’t touch. “I fear I may need a little more information than that, Chief.”
“Would it be easier if I went outside, stumbled on the curb, and smacked my head? That way, you can administer my Factor as a lifesaving measure.”
“Honestly…?” She flashes a wide grin and comes around, dragging her coat out of the way and sitting on my left.
“That would make things much less complicated for me. However, I’d feel kinda bad about the head-smacking thing.
Why don’t we try a less aggressive approach, and you tell me what the hell is going on? ”