Chapter 8
A solid week of downtime—not to mention traveling to Tucson—between The Job that Shall Not be Named and taking out the charity-thieving douchecanoe wrought miracles on August’s outlook on life.
Admittedly, a lot of that positive spin came in the form of retail therapy’s steady dopamine drip, but happy was happy and expensive clothes were healthier than a ketamine addiction.
Even the scorching Arizona sun couldn’t slow him down.
Best of all was Ricardo had flown in the same tailor who’d made August’s gorgeous, ruined suit. Or rather…
“It was going to be a birthday gift,” Ricardo said as the two of them stopped outside the luxury hotel where the tailor had met with them.
“But I couldn’t bear having to listen to you complain about your precious suit any longer.
” He raised his voice an octave as he went on.
“Only fifty of those suits are made a year, Ricardo, hand-sewn by the master tailor himself, there's a waitlist fifteen years long and I'm not on it because I already had a fucking suit! "
A lesser man might have felt mocked, even belittled, but August was comfortable enough with his own personality that he could admit Ricardo was right.
He was wholly prepared to make bitching about twill and silk his entire personality for the next month, but his husband had saved them both the trouble.
“Well, aren’t you just an everyman’s Nostradamus?
” August purred as he wrapped his arms around Ricardo’s shoulders.
“Thank you, baby.” He kissed him right there in the street, a little peck that turned into something longer and deeper when Ricardo didn’t shy away like he sometimes did when August was affectionate in public.
“You going to scout the location?” he asked when they reluctantly separated.
“We’ve scouted as much as we can. I’m going to see a man about a gun.”
August laughed. “I love it when I can’t tell if you’re using innuendo or not!” He leaned in. “If you let anyone who isn’t me touch your gun, we’re going to have problems. This is supposed to be a subtle job, remember?”
“I’m subtle,” Ricardo said, completely deadpan. “This is my subtle face.”
August hid his face in Ricardo’s shoulder for a second as he got the worst of his sudden bout of giggles out.
Decorum, damn it! It was hard not to let go a bit, though; it felt like they’d been serious for so long his face was going to stick that way, and unruffled wasn’t how August wanted to go through life.
Ricardo squeezed his hand, then stepped back. “Meet at the hotel?”
“I shouldn’t be more than a few hours,” August agreed. He had a little more than a suit fitting to attend to while he was out.
Reconnaissance was sometimes a job best done over drinks, after all.
There didn’t always have to be personal contact with the person who hired them on a job.
In fact, most of the time it was better if there wasn’t any personal contact; that was what their handlers were for, after all.
The more layers of plausible deniability between client and hitman, the better it was for both of them.
But Mrs. Harrington Redham, III, who said she’d be damned if she gave up the name after everything she went through to keep it for so long, had specially requested a personal conversation with the people she’d hired to do the job.
Could it be a double-cross? Possibly, but in this case August didn’t see any need for it. She probably just wanted to make sure she was getting what she paid for—a swift resolution to a situation that had only gotten worse since the early days of her marriage.
And there she was, sitting at a little table in the corner of the bar where August had arranged to meet her, nice enough but far from packed that afternoon. She was wearing a vintage Chanel dress that reminded him of cotton candy, but the drink in front of her was straight whiskey.
August sat down at the table behind her, scooting his chair back until the legs gently bumped her. “Oh, excuse me,” he said, but didn’t turn around. He watched her in the reflective lens of his glasses, making sure she didn’t turn either. If she did, he was out of here.
She startled but didn’t move. “It’s all right,” she said after a moment.
“Thanks so much.” August waved down a waiter and ordered a Manhattan, and only after it arrived did he continue. “How are you holding up, Mrs. Redham?”
“Honestly?” Her laugh sounded a little forced. “I’m wound so tight I feel like I might burst apart.”
August hummed. “That’s totally normal when you’re on the verge of getting out of prison.”
She sighed heavily. “Oh, actually…yes, that might be it.”
“Mmhmm. Don’t worry, Mrs. Redham. Soon, your problems will be much smaller.” Not gone completely—no one could do that—but a carefully enacted death often provided the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
“Call me Rachel, please.” He heard her take a sip of her drink. “I prefer it. I…you’re doing it tomorrow, right?”
August hummed again. Deniability, always deniability.
“You know, I’ll be at the party.”
Oh, that was news. “Why?”
“Because the only positive interactions I’ve had with that man for the last five years have been about the charity,” she said, her voice getting a bit louder as her passion for the subject matter grew.
“I chose a man who didn’t respect me, or any woman.
He brought home a disease that ravaged me so badly I had to have a hysterectomy.
He promised me the world and then made my world the size of a penthouse apartment, no larger, except for his damn parties.
He kept me locked in and wouldn’t let me leave, he said he’d ruin me if I tried, and… ”
She went quiet, and August stared into the dark depths of his drink and wondered how hard it would be to kill Harrington Redham, III, with the toothpick currently plunged through the center of his maraschino cherry.
“The charity is important to me,” Rachel said at last. “And he almost ruined it, too. I’ve got more in my life now thanks to connecting with Lisa and the girls, but the money we raise at this event should go to the people who really need it, not my awful husband. I need to make sure it goes well.”
August nodded slowly. “I understand.”
“Good.” She raised her glass. “L’chaim.”
“Cul sec.” He drained his drink right along with her, then left a fifty on the table and departed before she could say anything else.
A client at the party was a complication, but not something they couldn’t work around.
August had dealt with worse things, twice while wearing a wetsuit and lugging an oxygen tank on his back, so this was nothing more than a wrinkle.
Galas, especially for charity, especially when they happened during the light of day, generally meant that the participants were going to be on their best behavior, so despite the fact that the Redhams were a hair’s breadth away from a vicious divorce, they ought to be able to tolerate each other’s presence in public.
Hell, they’d been married for two decades—Rachel was clearly a boss at tolerating her lesser half.
As long as there were no tantrums between the main characters, things ought to go perfectly.
In fact, if Ricardo had gotten the dosage right, they wouldn’t even be around when Harrington started showing symptoms, never mind when he finally bit the dust. Ricin kicked in slowly, with miserable but not emergent symptoms appearing hours later.
Death? Two or three days down the line, long after August and Ricardo had vacated Arizona for some place less arid and scorching.
“Did you get everything I need?” August asked Ricardo over dinner in their hotel room.
It was a little crass, to be eating roasted duck on a silver platter while sitting on the edge of the bed, but they’d made sure the room was free of listening devices.
The same couldn’t be said of the restaurant downstairs, and neither of them wanted to leave anything to chance this time.
“No,” Ricardo said as he brought his fork up to his mouth.
He chewed obnoxiously slowly, drawing out the moment for the sake of fucking with August. Asshole.
Cute asshole, but still. “I’m relaxing over dinner with you because I’ve decided to change everything about the job without even talking to you about it.
We’re going to be dropping a safe on Redham’s head at the party instead. ”
“Deadass, that would be amazing,” August said, and snickered as he watched Ricardo mouth “deadass” in silent disbelief to himself. “No cap. But a piano would be even better. What are the odds we can make that happen by tomorrow’s luncheon?”
“Nonexistent,” Ricardo said. “The same as the odds you’re getting laid tonight. No… cap? No cap.”
August placed a hand over his heart. “What, darling, you don’t like my efforts to modernize my vocabulary? All the hip young people are saying it!”
“Well, you just disqualified yourself.”
Ricardo absolutely deserved the napkin he took to the face next. “It’s all set,” he said, ignoring the delicate square of ecru linen as it fell to the floor.
Ecru napkins, ugh. Bad enough when the shade trended cream, but yellow? Yellow? Who did that suit? No one, that’s who.
“And you’re sure the dosage is right?”
Ricardo rolled his eyes.
“Hey, I’m just asking. If he just shits himself, pukes, and gets over it, then we’re screwed.”
Another eyeroll. “People don’t just shake off ricin.
And he has enough health issues that even if it’s not a fatal dose in a healthy person, it’ll be enough to shock his system beyond repair.
” Ricardo stabbed a green bean with his fork.
“Anyway, the lethal dose is so small, if anything, I want to make sure we don’t give him too much. If it kicks in too fast and too hard…”
“I mean as long as he doesn’t puke on me…”
Ricardo laughed soundlessly. “Well, stay out of the line of fire and you won’t have to worry about it.”
August flipped him off.