I crept to the gate, balancing my weight on the balls of my feet. I held the rebar in one fist, the grip just firm enough to keep it steady. Most people grasp a weapon until their knuckles turn white, but that just tires out your hand. Like playing piano or giving a good hand job, it’s all in the wrist.
I peered through a gap in the privacy screen and almost dropped the rebar.
“I’ll be damned,” I said, flinging open the gate.
Akiko was standing on the other side, clutching a pet carrier that rattled and thrashed. She shoved it into my hands as she hurtled past me. I grabbed her bag off the sidewalk and took a quick look either direction down the empty street before slamming the gate closed again.
I shouldered the bag and followed her into the courtyard. Mary Alice came flying out of the house, arms wide, and they held on to each other, gulping down silent sobs while the rest of us watched.
They kissed and hugged again and finally broke apart as the carrying case in my arms shook hard enough to rattle the Richter scale. “What the hell is in here, a poltergeist?” I asked Akiko.
She wiped her wet cheeks. “That’s Kevin. He doesn’t like to travel.”
I bent to look through the mesh screen on the front of the case and something inside hissed what sounded like a satanic incantation.
“You brought the cat?” Mary Alice asked, smiling from ear to ear.
“Of course I brought the cat,” Akiko said, smoothing her hair. “He’s family.”
She greeted the rest of us then, and we went into the house. “Am I supposed to let this thing out?” I asked.
Akiko waved a hand. “Just open the front. He’ll come out when he’s ready.”
I put the case on the floor and stepped out of the way while I flicked the front open with one finger. Whatever was inside stayed there, and I turned my attention to Akiko and Mary Alice, who were sitting at the table, hand in hand. Helen and Natalie grabbed chairs and looked expectantly at me while I looked expectantly at Mary Alice.
“You want to explain?” I suggested.
Mary Alice might have played it for embarrassment or defiance. She split the difference, lifting her chin but blushing heavily as she talked. “I called her. When you were picking up the rental car at the Birmingham airport. Don’t look at me like that—I borrowed a cell phone from a very nice woman who was waiting at baggage claim.”
“They could have tapped your home phone,” I reminded her.
Mary Alice turned on me. “Don’t you dare give me shit about this, Billie. I took all the necessary precautions and I gave her precise instructions on how to make sure she was clean of a tail.”
“Yeah,” Akiko said happily. “I’m a natural at this spy shit.”
“Spy?” I asked politely. I gave Mary Alice a meaningful look.
She turned forty shades of puce and looked at her wife. “I think I have some explaining to do.”
“Is this where you tell me you’re not a spy?” Akiko asked, still smiling.
“I’m not,” Mary Alice said.
Akiko laughed. “That’s just what a spy would say.”
“We’re not spies,” I said flatly. “None of us.”
For the first time her smile faltered. She turned back to Mary Alice. “Then what are you?”
“Assassins,” Natalie blurted out.
Akiko made a sound that started out as a laugh but got stuck halfway out and ended up a sort of gargle. “Are you shitting me?”
“No, dear,” Helen said. “We are most definitely not shitting you.”
It might have been Helen’s genteel voice forming the profanity that convinced Akiko. She squeezed Mary Alice’s hand. “Babe?”
“It’s true. We’re assassins. We were recruited in 1979. We work for a small international organization that is extra-governmental.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means our organization is outside of government,” Mary Alice began.
“I know what the word ‘extra-governmental’ means—don’t you dare patronize me,” Akiko said, dropping her hand. “I’m asking, what does it mean? Who do you kill?”
“Arms dealers, sex traffickers, the occasional dictator, cult leaders, corrupt judges. Basically not very nice people,” Mary Alice replied.
“The organization started out killing Nazis, if that helps,” Helen offered.
“But it’s been a while since we’ve found one,” Natalie added. “So, it’s mostly the folks Mary Alice just listed. Plus drug traffickers. And pirates—we’ve gotten really into pirates lately.”