Chapter 11 Landing Gear #4
When Josh’s family had been kiting around Europe when he was a child, they’d often stayed in second-tier hotels.
Nice places, no bugs, no obvious drugs or prostitution, but the carpet wasn’t new, and they were off the main drags with less visibility.
The primary reason for this was to avoid any contemporaries of Julia’s father—Hiram Dormer had his fingers in a lot of international pies, and the reason the family had escaped to Europe was to give them all a break from the constant implied violence of the mobster businessman.
One of the unexpected benefits, though, was it turned out to be an excellent training and practicing ground for, say, a group of born grifters.
Josh remembered one time when a businessman had turned away from a woman at the base of the walkway leading into the hotel from the garage. The woman—while not a street-level prostitute was obviously a higher-class working girl—had been affronted.
“We had a deal,” she said in shock. “You had your evening. You need to—”
He’d slapped her before she had a chance to go on and then turned on his heel, muttering, “Greedy fucking whore,” as he marched away.
“Do we…?” Felix began, and then Julia had waved him off to track down the man’s hotel room number while she went to console the woman and get her number.
The next day, Felix stayed back at the hotel to break into the man’s room, get his information, and then put in a word with the man’s company and his wife, while Danny, Julia, and Josh followed him on the street.
Julia had gone first, coming from the opposite direction, making sure to keep her stride loose and her expression haughty—she’d done her makeup and worn a wig to be much like the woman from the night before, figuring the man had a type.
And he did. His attention went directly to her, following her to his left as he passed.
Then Danny had come up behind the man on his right, bumped into him, and extracted his phone from his breast pocket.
And Josh had extracted his wallet from his back pocket without brushing his fingers against the fabric of the man’s slacks.
They’d given the cash and credit cards to the woman—who had cried—and destroyed and disposed of the phone.
When the man returned to his hotel, he found his reputation and finances in such thorough disrepair that he had to report to the American Embassy to avoid prosecution for trying to defraud an innkeeper.
And Danny had announced Josh had officially graduated from his course on lifting a wallet without the owner being the wiser.
Josh’s fingers and fine motor skills were so inherently tuned—and so trained—by this point that he could run through the exercise of unscrewing the frame’s backing while avoiding the contact points for the alarm unit several times over without breaking a sweat.
But after a half hour, he glanced up and noticed that while Liam’s fingers remained steady on their tasks, his forehead was a little damp.
“Food break?” he called kindly, and Liam grunted.
“You’re taking it easy on me,” Liam claimed, but he fell back against the couch and stretched his neck in relief.
“Well, you have other skills,” Josh placated as they both rose and headed for the take-out containers on the counter.
“I am absolutely mortified by that phrase,” Liam told him grimly. “Oh, Liam,” he mocked, “it’s okay if you can’t get it up and you’re a terrible lover—you have other skills.”
Josh cackled. “Well, I think we just proved you can get it up and you’re an amazing lover, so maybe don’t take it like that.”
Liam smiled in that self-deprecating way he had that turned Josh’s key before wrapping his arms around Josh’s waist and pulling him against his chest.
“I just… you know. I’m not a dyed-in-the-wool thief,” he said.
Josh kissed his cheek. “I thought we both agreed my type is the man who catches thieves. You caught me. Be happy.”
“I am.” Liam gave him a squeeze before going for the plates in the cupboard. “Just, you know, don’t let my family scare you off, okay? They, uhm, may have heard a lot about you as you were growing up.”
“Now I find that fascinating,” Josh said, sampling the green lamb curry and finding it mild enough for his poor abused stomach.
He dished that up along with some rice, grabbed the fork Liam had left on the counter, and stepped to the side to let Liam make his own plate.
Liam glanced at the small spot of food on Josh’s and gave a crooked smile.
“Are you going to make me nag?” he asked gently.
“Let me see how this goes down,” Josh told him. “It’s getting better, and this is made with coconut milk, so that helps, but I never know.”
“Nagging over,” Liam said, much to Josh’s relief. He appreciated people’s concern—he did—but God, he was tired of feeling broken. “So now on to what’s fascinating.”
Josh grinned and made his way back to the couch, where he pulled up his legs cross-legged. To his surprise—and pleasure—Liam sat down next to him and leaned back so Josh could lean into him.
“It’s fascinating that your family is so up on mine. Why is that? Why would you go home and say, ‘Hey, I met this thief called Lightfingers—want to hear his story?’”
Liam smirked. “Not quite like that,” he said, chewing thoughtfully.
He closed his eyes, savoring the highly flavored Indian food, and swallowed.
“I guess… see, I’d started out being a flatfoot—everybody got to hear those stories.
I mean, I patrolled the neighborhood I grew up in.
They knew half the people I collared, yeah? ”
“Yeah,” Josh said, nodding his head and getting it. A little bite of curry. He sighed, thinking he might be able to have seconds. It was good to eat again.
“But then… well, I didn’t tell them about Alec Lawson.”
“Because your sex life is your own,” Josh filled in wryly, thinking about how the entire family had wanted in on his sex life, but he was surprised when Liam shook his head.
“I was ashamed,” he said thoughtfully. “I… you know. I’d thought I’d discovered something really important—”
“You did,” Josh said in surprise.
“And then I got… sidetracked, I guess. I was lied to and dumped, and I took a promotion for my silence. I was embarrassed, I guess.”
Josh frowned, remembering Liam’s dry wish for Josh to keep his secrets secret.
“But you owned that shit,” Josh said. “You took that promotion and you did a good job with it. You got closer to Kadjic than the rest of your organization combined. Didn’t you singlehandedly clean up prison corruption somewhere too? ”
Liam grimaced, and Josh realized he wasn’t supposed to have heard that story either.
“Lightfingers helped me with that,” he mumbled.
“Oh,” Josh said, not liking the mortification on Liam’s face at all. “So it’s okay for us to go in as a group and do all the great stuff, but you don’t get to accept help because you’re a poor boy from East End and can do it all yourself.”
Liam gave him a flat look. “No, that’s not what I’m—”
“So our help isn’t good enough?” Josh kept probing. “You’re mad because the busts we’ve helped you with this last year weren’t pure Liam Craig magic?”
“No!” Liam protested. “I love working with your family—that’s not what I’m saying!”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I was used,” Liam burst out. “I let myself be used. I thought it was true love, but I was merely some strange on the side until―”
“Bullshit,” Josh muttered, shaking his head and ignoring Liam’s indignant gasp. “I checked him out, you know.”
Liam’s jaw dropped, and Josh scowled at him.
“Much like you asked around about Nick,” he added, and now Liam flushed a little, the pink on his cheeks not quite drowning out his freckles.
“Nick is married with a baby,” Liam said on automatic. “Just like you told me.”
“Yes,” Josh said patiently. “And so was Alec. Come on, Liam. You were so good at this with Danny. At looking at him and seeing him drunk and sad and thinking, ‘He risked his life to save that boy,’ and not pushing that you thought he was the infamous Lightfingers. I can read between the lines—it’s practically the family industry.
Why can’t you look at Alec Lawson and see somebody trapped in the life they thought they wanted, who thought you were his ticket out?
That’s what I see. His wife wasn’t the devil.
He loves his children—every story I’ve read thus far bears that out. ”
“A lot, were there, in the last two weeks?” Liam asked dryly.
“I had them ready for work breaks,” Josh told him, completely sincere.
“But he gave you a raw deal—he couldn’t propose marriage, so he fast-tracked you to the career you could have had if you’d been born rich with privilege, and you haven’t let him down yet.
Why would you be embarrassed about that? ”
Liam gave a short bark of laughter and shook his head. For a moment, he concentrated on his food, and Josh did too, giving him time to digest.
Finally he stood and took Josh’s plate, saying, “Want more?”
“Please,” Josh said.
He returned with two full plates and sat again.
“Liam?”
“Your family,” he said after a moment of chewing, “is important to me because Danny got clean. He took that chance in Morocco. I offered him a lifeline, and he took it. He poured himself into staying clean and being the best parent he could for you, even though he was thousands of miles away. You all—you all made mistakes. You all have your vices—yes, Josh, even you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Josh said mildly through a heavenly bite of curry and rice.
Liam chuckled sadly. “But you all forgive each other. I made the call, did you know that? Connecting Julia and Danny when he was asking for your parents to take Tienne in.”
“No,” Josh said, surprised.