The World Is Too Darned Big Read online

  a button, and two orange blips appeared on the screen, far below their marked position. "We'll never get caught in a speed trap, if that's what you're worried about."

  "That's not the only thing I'm worried about," she said under her breath, sneaking another peek. God,

  she had to get laid. It was the only explanation for why she was sitting in the passenger's side—the passenger's side!—of a Dodge Neon, lusting after a lab puke. A tall, handsome, stubbly, stubborn,

  antirat lab puke. "Where are we going?"

  "After the bad guys," he responded, as if she was mildly retarded.

  "I know that, Dyson. And then what?"

  "Then, I take back what they tricked me out of."

  "With what, the yogurt?" Maybe he'd run over them with his car. Dyson was built, sure, but those weren't field abs; that was a Bally's Swim and Fitness rack. Did he think March and Webber and Johanssen were going to hand it over if he asked nicely?

  Well, fine. If rough stuff was coming up, she could handle it. Dyson was the brains; she'd be the muscle. Being able to quit The Biz would be infinitely easier if she got her hands on that card.

  "They'll be sorry they ever showed me a fake Purchase Order," Dyson was yakking.

  "You're acting like you didn't get paid."

  "I did so get paid, and that's not the point. They lied. Like you said, everybody knows I don't make anything for the bad guys. They'll be sorry," he vowed again.

  "Sure they will. How are we going to find them? Are you tracking them right now?"

  "Uh-huh. I build STDs into all my gadgets."

  "You infected all your gadgets with sexually transmitted diseases?"

  "Grow up. Satellite Tracking Devices."

  "Oh, really?"

  "Well, sure."

  "All of them."

  "Umm."

  "What an excellent way," she commented, "to get your head blown off. The first time anyone realizes you're tracking-"

  "I've been doing this since high school—"

  "Surprise, surprise."

  "—and nobody's found one yet."

  She smiled to herself.

  "And now that I've told you," he joked, cutting the wheel to the right, "I'll have to kill you."

  "That's probably best," she replied.

  "Uh. I was only kidding."

  "Then you're as dumb as you look." A rather large lie, but who cared? Lying was her best thing.

  Well, second-best.

  Four

  "We've got them now," Ben chortled, turning into the parking lot. All right! The lair of the bad guys! Excellent, just excellent. They'd crash the den of evil and get his card back, and maybe bust a few bad guy skulls along the way. Yeah!

  "Jenny's Flowers," Tara observed, reading the sign.

  "The lair is a flower shop?"

  "Maybe one of them has a girlfriend and wants to pick up a little something on the way home from thieving."

  He snorted, which made Tara laugh again. "Cut that out, Dr. Dyson. It makes my stomach hurt."

  "It's Ben. And it's not my fault you're an easy mark."

  "Actually, I'm not. But speaking of easy marks, what's the plan?"

  "What, you're asking me? You're the one with experience in this ... stuff." He was dying to ask the statuesque beauty just how much of a villain she was. Robbing banks via the Internet villain, or pistol whipping while relieving the elderly of their social security check villain? Because he could live with one, but not the other. "You know, this sort of thing."

  "Before you ask—and what a clumsily phrased question it would be, I'm sure—I'm Switzerland."

  Yeah, probably. She certainly looked like she could come from Switzerland. She looked like a badass milkmaid. "Okay."

  "So, sometimes I work for the good guys and sometimes I work for the bad guys, but mostly I work for myself—and try to keep my head down."

  Oh, she was neutral like Switzerland. Right. Hmm, he was definitely a little off today. Usually . . .

  "I'm usually much quicker," he told her, which was stupid, because it was way too late to try to make

  a favorable first impression. "Honest."

  "You could hardly be slower," was her heartless comment.

  He was momentarily crushed, but quickly rallied. "You'll just have to take my word for it. So, do we

  just charge in there and start knocking skulls?"

  "Dr. Dyson. Have you ever been in a fist fight?"

  "Well, there was this one time in graduate school... My lab partner was late for the wet lab and the prof said it would affect both our grades ... I got a little hot under the collar ..."

  "So, no."

  "I fell down the stairs once and got a black eye," he confessed. "Does that count?"

  She was rubbing her forehead as though she'd gotten a sudden migraine. "Should've stayed in bed ... should've just stayed in bed ..."

  "Let's not talk about you being in bed; it's distracting."

  "Pig," she commented, rolling her eyes.

  "All that's changed now," he declared. He opened his car door and jumped out. "I'm not Q anymore,

  I'm James!"

  "What?"

  "For example, in my old life, I'd never have dared make that bed comment. But no longer!"

  "What?"

  "Never mind. Let's go kick some ass. They'll be sorry they messed with Benjamin Everett Dyson!"

  "I'm sure they're shaking in their Doc Martens." Then, "Everett?"

  He ignored the slur on his mother's maiden name and stomped up to the door of the flower shop,

  paused, then kicked it. It wheezed open a foot, then slowly shut.

  "It's business hours," Tara pointed out. "They're open. See?" She eased the door open.

  He darted inside, looking around wildly for a bad guy, any bad guy. "Everybody freeze!"

  "For God's sake," Tara muttered, pushing past him.

  "You," he said to the startled teenaged girl behind the counter. "Where is it?"

  "Well, we have a special on roses. A baker's dozen for twenty-five ninety-nine."

  "Don't play dumb," he sneered. "We know what you've been up to."

  "For God's sake," Tara said again. "She's the front. She doesn't know anything."

  "I am not," the girl said automatically. Then, "What's a front?" This was really good, because it saved Ben from having to ask the question and looking, well, stupid.

  "This shop is a front. You're a front," Tara told her. "The guys you work for have to have some legitimate businesses to hide their money in."

  "But I work for a woman. Katie Webber."

  "Yeah, Webber bought this place as a present for his wife, but he didn't tell her he was gonna use it to launder money."

  "How do you know all this?" Ben asked.

  "There's a bad guy newsletter," she replied straight-faced.

  "You guys are crazy," the girl declared.

  Ben asked, "Why not a strip club or something a little more ... I dunno ... villainous?"

  "Too much heat in the boob trade," Tara replied.

  It was just fascinating how she knew all this cool stuff. Maybe there really was a newsletter. He had a million questions for her. Later. "Okay," he said to the kid behind the counter, who was looking increasingly freaked out, "did some guys come through here a while ago?"

  "There's a back entrance," Tara said—okay, now it was getting downright spooky how she knew all this stuff. "This kid wouldn't have any idea if they were here or not, unless she went in the back and saw them."

  "I'm not a kid," the girl corrected her. "I'm nineteen."

  "How do you know all this?" Ben couldn't resist asking again.

  "Every business establishment has a back door. Hello? Fire code?" She shook her head and looked at

  him as if his nose had dropped off.

  "Why didn't you say anything then?" he said, exasperated.

  "You didn't give me a chance, Dr. Charge In Without Looking."

  "Look, we're just gonna go in the back and look aro
und," he told the kid.

  "Maybe I should call the police," she said doubtfully.

  Ben looked at Tara, who shrugged. "What? I don't know from the police. That's not really my area."

  "Maybe you should call them," he said.

  "Sure, go ahead and call. But if they get the card before we do, it'll sit in the evidence room for a year

  and be called Exhibit A."

  "Don't call the police," he told the girl.

  "Look, are you guys going to buy roses or what?"

  "That's a pretty good price," he said. "Sure, I'll take a bunch."

  "Do you have Attention Deficit Disorder by any chance?" Tara asked. "You can tell me. I won't get mad or anything. I just want to know."

  "Only since you showed up," he muttered, handing the kid two twenties.

  Amazingly, Tara blushed . .. her pale cheeks bloomed with color, and her eyes seemed to get darker. "That's not true. Is it? Of course not. Is it?"

  "Who do you think I'm buying the stupid flowers for?"

  "So we're going to run after the bad guys while I lug around a dozen flowers?"

  "A baker's dozen," the girl said brightly, wrapping them up.

  "For God's sake." Tara tried to scowl, but couldn't help a small smile when the girl handed her the dark red flowers. "Can we get back on track now, do you think?"

  "I'm just gonna go over here and clean up the cooler," the girl said, pointing to the large glass case in the front of the store. "So I wouldn't know if you guys went into the back or anything. I mean, I still think you're nuts, but you can't do much damage in the back, unless you're arsonists."

  "Well, we're not. Thanks," Ben told her. "Maybe you should get another job."

  "Are you kidding? This is part-time, but I get full-time bennies. Plus dental. My mom's plan doesn't even do that."

  "How nice for you," Tara commented.

  "Tell me! Good luck with... you know, whatever it is you're doing."

  "Thanks," Ben said. "Good luck with your flowers. And your dental."

  Five

  Dr. Dyson was creeping ahead of her, which was silly because he was making as much noise as an elephant in the brush. Tara walked behind him, lugging the gorgeous, stupid roses.

  "Okay," he whispered, "here's what we're going to—"

  "Anybody home?" Tara asked loudly.

  "Ack! Don't do that. Stay behind me," he ordered, clutching his cell phone. "I'll take out anybody who tries something."

  "Sure you will." Tara could see the body, which looked exactly like a huddled bunch of bloody rags, beneath one of the tables on the west side of the room. "Thataway, Dr. Dyson."

  "Ben, Ben, do I have to write it on my chin?"

  "That could be fun," she commented.

  "Hey," he said, spotting the body, "somebody's in trouble."

  "Okay, you can go with that theory." Me, I'm thinking along the lines of good riddance.

  Before she could stop him (sigh), he raced over to the body and flipped it on its back. An excellent way

  to get shot in the face if the body wasn't really a body.

  But this time, it was. Or damn near.

  "It's Webber," she commented, surprised. The worst of them all, shot and left for dead. Wonders never ceased.

  "Webber?" Ben whispered.

  She decided to make a long story short. "Bad bad bad bad bad bad man."

  The body opened its eyes, which were so bloodshot the whites weren't visible at all. Kaarl Webber tried to grin up at her, and failed.

  "Marx," he wheezed.

  "Kaarl," she said politely. Then, casting about for a way to continue the conversation (she sucked at

  small talk), she added, "Head shot, huh?"

  "Stupid."

  "Bound to happen," she commented.

  "Lie still," Dyson said, flipping his cell open and tapping buttons. "I'm calling for help."

  Tara promptly kicked the phone out of his hand, and he watched in amazement as it skidded across the cement floor.

  "Thanks," Webber wheezed.

  "No problem," she replied.

  "What the hell?" Dyson snapped.

  They ignored him. In truth, she didn't feel terribly sorry for Webber, who liked to trade heroin for the nightly use of little boys, but it was pathetic to watch him cling so desperately to life. A head shot, a

  chest shot, and it looked as if he'd been kneecapped, too. Not a nice way to die, and she wished he'd

  get on with it.

  "Stupid," he was gasping. "Never thought they'd have the nerve. Double-cross me."

  "Try not to talk," Dyson begged.

  "Where are they going?" she asked.

  "Tara, what did I just say?"

  "The Mayo," Webber whispered.

  "Why?"

  Ben said, "I think he wants us to take him to the Mayo Clinic, which frankly is an excellent idea given

  the circumstances."

  Webber ignored him. "Cure . . . for some kind of... cancer .. . steal... charge billions ... to give back ..."

  "Sneaky," Tara said approvingly.

  Webber didn't reply; he had died.

  "He'll be avenged," Dyson vowed.

  "For God's sake," Tara said. "This guy totally got what was coming to him." Hell, I was thinking of

  doing him in myself.

  "Nobody has this coming," Dyson said, examining the head wound. "Christ. How he hung on long

  enough to have a conversation is a complete mystery."

  Not really. Villains are really good at the whole cling-to-life-to-burn-ex-partners thing. "Yes, it's a

  total mystery. Well, at least now we know what the bad guys are up to." She paused, then asked hopefully, "I suppose this is too much blood and gore for a fellow like you, so how about you take the

  car and head back home and I'll—"

  "Fuck that," Dyson said, which was startling, if kind of sexy. "We're going to the Mayo. Right now. I mean, as soon as I get my cell—there it is!"

  "Of course we are," she said, watching him scoop up his phone from the far corner, then followed him out.

  Six

  "You realize it's about a two-hour drive to the Mayo. And it's kind of a big place. Like, university-campus big."

  "I know," Ben replied, watching the tracking screen on the right side of the windshield. Yes, indeed, there they were, right where that poor shot fellow said they'd be. "We'll find them. Once we're on the highway, I can... there!" He popped the clutch, set the speedometer at just under ninety, and hit the cruise. Tara was momentarily pressed back into her seat, then recovered.

  "And, naturally, crashing and dying isn't exactly a big worry."

  "This car can see a collision coming a mile away—literally—and adjust accordingly."

  "Of course it can. Soon everyone will have one. So, what's the plan when we get there? You can't

  exactly march into the Mayo. Well, you can, but eventually someone will ask you what you want."

  "Hit the glove compartment button."

  She obliged, and he noticed for the first time how long and pretty her fingers were, tipped, oddly, with Martian Green glitter nail polish. An odd choice for a thief, someone who wanted to blend in. Of course, she couldn't exactly blend, not with her height and hair and outfit. What was really weird was, he liked her for it.

  He heard a faint nibbling coming from the backseat and deduced the rat was chewing on the roses. Dammit.

  The glove box opened, and he said, "Lift the lid of the larger box."

  She did, extracting two ID cards, freshly laminated. "Whoa," she said, examining them.

  "You'll have to stick the what-do-you-call-'ems on ... the clips. There's a box of them under your seat."

  "Dr. Benjamin Dyson, Oncology. Dr. Jane Carlson, Oncology." Tara raised her eyebrows at him.

  "Dr. Jane Carlson?"

  "Well, I didn't want to use your real name."

  She laughed, and stuck the clips on, then put her fake Mayo employee badge on. "What makes you

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