Shame on You

“Don’t you use that tone with me, you old bastard. You couldn’t kick the south side of a barn!”


Finding a parking spot right in front of the store, I set the phone down in the front passenger seat without hanging up. I grab my father’s super-size black-cherry slushie and a hazelnut coffee with hazelnut cream for myself. Normally, I drink my coffee black. When you’re in the army, you have to get used to the bare essentials. But something tells me I’m going to need a hell of a lot more than just the basics to get through this morning.

Climbing back into my car, I can still hear my father and uncle shouting through the phone line. My father is two years older than Uncle Wally and I have never seen two people fight more, aside from my brothers. Whatever made them think they should work together is beyond me. When my father retired from the army, he opened Buddy’s Bail Bonds. Two years later, when Uncle Wally retired, he cashed in his pension, invested the money into the business, and became my father’s partner. Once a week, they argue about changing the name to Buddy Wally’s Bail Bonds. You would think that since they share the same last name, one of them might be bright enough to make that suggestion. O’Brien’s Bail Bonds has a nice ring to it. But that would mean the two of them would have to come to a compromise and that’s not happening anytime this century.

I find a spot on the street in front of Buddy’s and thank the traffic gods that I didn’t have to drive around for twenty minutes looking for a place to park. With my coffee and my dad’s slushie in my hands, I take a fortifying breath before opening the glass door to the office. I immediately have to duck as a stapler comes flying through the air and crashes into the wall.

“I’m not the dumbass who doesn’t know how to alphabetize!”

“Call me a dumbass one more time. Go ahead, do it!”

“DUMBASS!”

Setting the cups on the nearest desk, I rush in between my father and Uncle Wally as they charge toward each other in the middle of the room.

“All right, that’s enough! Back to your corners!” I shout at them, pointing in the general direction of their desks, which are on opposite sides of the room.

“He started it,” Uncle Wally complains under his breath as he turns and stomps back to his desk.

I swear to God it’s like having two more children dealing with these two. A few years ago for Christmas I bought them each a set of boxing gloves. When it gets really bad, I make them go out back and duke it out. This is actually one of the milder arguments and I think we can skip fight club today.

“I need the rest of the information you have on Martin McFadden,” I tell my dad as I hand him his slushie and he begins gulping it down while he sifts through a pile of files on top of his desk.

“If your father would have started using my new filing system, he could have e-mailed you that information in three seconds,” Uncle Wally muses from his desk.

Dad slams down his cup and starts clenching his fists.

“Can it, Uncle Wally. Dad, just drink your slushie.”

With a heavy sigh, he starts slurping through the straw, just to annoy my uncle.

My dad has a few part-time bounty hunters on his payroll and in the past when he got slammed with requests, before I opened Fool Me Once Investigations and I wasn’t busy with army duty, he’d have me fill in for him. I love the thrill of the chase and the rush of adrenaline when you find your man (or woman) and slap the cuffs on him (or her). After my marriage went down the shitter six months ago, I decided not to reenlist with the army so I could spend more time with my girls and they wouldn’t feel like both parents abandoned them.

“Ahhhh, here we go,” my dad states brightly as he finally finds the McFadden file and hands it over to me. “His last known address is in there as well as a list of all of his relatives. I haven’t had time to dig any deeper into his criminal background, but I figure Lorelei can pull some strings for you and get whatever else you need. Speaking of Lorelei, how are she and Paige? And when are you going to stop being so stubborn and just come work for me full time instead of just taking a case for me every once in a while?”

I sigh and shake my head at him. “Lorelei and Paige are fine. And we’ve gone over this a thousand times, Dad. I appreciate the offer of a full-time job, but I need to do something on my own. I need to keep busy so I don’t continue filling up notebooks with all of the ways I can remove Alex’s penis from his body. While fun, it’s not very constructive. Or healthy. Fool Me Once is the perfect distraction for me.”

Grabbing the file from my dad’s hand, I lean over his desk to kiss his cheek.