“I’m sorry,” said Fox. I hadn’t realized I’d said it that loud. “It was all we could think of at such short notice. I guess I didn’t have to blow up the fuel truck, but I couldn’t stop the gas from flowing without getting out and turning off the valve.”
I put my arm around Fox’s waist as we mounted the front steps. He was still holding onto Wolf’s arm, so we were a very affectionate threesome. I said, “It’s all right, darling. I think you pretty much saved the fucking day.”
He smiled crookedly down at me. “I don’t think I did, pussycat. What was up with you and your bow?”
I smiled too, until I realized we’d have to step over the body of that cleaning woman who had been caught in the crossfire. I tried not to look. “Oh, I got one inside the lobby here,” I bragged.
“Good for you. They would’ve gotten us if we hadn’t gotten them. That’s how to look at it.”
“Damn straight.”
The lobby was a blur of activity. Maddie, a nurse, had found the first aid kit and was bandaging Ford’s forehead where he’d been pistol-whipped bloody. The building inspector Paul had some sort of bullet grazing injury to his upper arm, and June was tending to him. And Gollywow’s entire white T-shirt was a mass of bloodstains, although when he took off his shirt, he looked intact. Maybe he’d just gotten splattered by an Ochoa.
I started wiping the blood off my desk and shredding the bloodstained papers. The guy I’d buried was gone, dragged off. My lobby had suddenly become a command station for a natural disaster. As Wolf and Fox fell to helping me, we developed a copacetic rhythm. Wolf carried a trash can over. Fox handed me a roll of paper towels. Everything was getting done like clockwork. Maddie had even finished bandaging Ford and went over to check out Paul. It was like a triage station in there, and before I knew it, Wolf had whisked away the trash can, moving on to wiping blood from the floor. I could sit at my desk as though nothing had ever happened. I could always reprint those blood-soaked purchase reqs.
Fox perched on the edge of my desk. With his hands folded between his thighs and his devilish grin, a sheen of sweat just barely breaking forth on his forehead, he looked like he’d just come from a rousing baseball game—one that his team had won, of course. “So now you know.”
“Know what?”
“How to create your own story. See what I mean? Now you’re truly Pippa Lofting of the Smoky Mountain High cannabusiness.”
“That’s for fucking sure. And you’re forever going to be Fox Isherwood of the Bare Bones MC.”
He shrugged. “We’ll see.”
I lightly slapped his arm. “After this? How can you say no?”
He just smiled enigmatically. “Come on. Let’s see if there’s any food for these folks.”
EPILOGUE
FOX
“And the Leaves of Grass plantation in conjunction with its dispensary, A Joint System, is proud to be the underwriters for this noble, mellow, and truly harmonious undertaking,” said Lytton into the microphone. “With all the overpopulation, pollution, fracking, terrorism, and racial tension in this world, it’s an honor to contribute to such a peaceful venture. When Pippa Lofting first came up with this idea, I thought ‘you’ve got to be kidding.’ A bud and breakfast where people can sit around enjoying a peaceful bowl—where cancer patients can come to get over their recent bouts of chemo. But Slushy here looked up the laws, and sure enough, it’s perfectly legal with a medical card.”
Lytton gestured at Slushy, who stood near the red ribbon with his trusty pair of giant scissors. People had told me he’d do that, but I didn’t believe it until I saw it for myself. He was truly just dying to cut that ribbon. We had built an enclosed patio in the back near the office and kitchen where people could eat their breakfast, toke up, read, or have cocktails in the afternoon, so we’d put the ribbon on that gate.
“He’s just chomping at the bit,” Pippa whispered.
“I’ve seen him cut through strands of garlic and sun dried tomatoes when opening up a farmer’s market,” confided Wolf. “He’s just mercenary the way he goes to town with those scissors.”
“Maybe he should’ve been a Bare Boner,” I said.
I was currently wearing a PROSPECT patch above the front pocket of my cut. If a year ago you would’ve told me I’d hang up my sicario holsters and adopt the colors of a club of men, I would’ve shot you dead.
Pippa’s gracious, loving influence had altered my life so irrevocably. Somehow, she made me want to stick around a place, to put down roots, to nest. After giving up her trashed apartment, we’d found a nice 1940s bungalow in an old subdivision on the way out of town toward Mormon Lake. I was working fulltime at the raptor conservancy and had even filled in for the director when he’d gone away on business trips a few times. We were a normal, homey family, especially with the addition of Pippa’s giant mutt, Monstro. WITSEC had finally seen the error of their ways and had allowed her to take custody of her dog.