Chapter Seven:
As Guilty As Sin
Logan was studying the information on his computer screen when the familiar shadow fell across his keyboard. He glanced up at Max's face, the touch of a smile on his lips. "Hey."
"Hey, yourself."
"You must read minds. I was just about to page you." He wiped a hand across his face and glanced back at the information in front of him. "You are never going to believe this one."
"Well, so far today I've learned that my boss is an ex-Manticore employee who helped my sister escape and then faked his own death in order to get a wonderful job at JamPony and keep from getting caught. What's more, Jondy and I just narrowly escaped being riddled with bullet holes in gang territory. I highly doubt that you could top anything that's happened to me today, but you can try if you'd like." He gave her a confused look, concern showing in his eyes. She shook her head. "Nevermind, long story. I'll explain it later. What has the great and powerful Eyes Only dug up on the dirt of Seattle today?"
"Donny Perez is back in town."
A rustling behind of him caught his attention, and he turned his head to see Jondy standing in the doorway. "We already know," she said. "Trust me, we already know."
"You know?" he asked in surprise. He hadn't expected the name to mean anything to either of them.
"Close personal friend," she explained. "We go way back. In fact, Max and I ran into him in Rydin' Forties territory just a little while ago."
He looked up at Max's face, then turned back to Jondy. "He was shooting at you?"
"Yeah. I don't think he's too fond of visitors," Jondy said. "I'd hate to see what happens when the Girl Scouts drop by and try to sell him cookies." She was putting on a strong face, but Logan heard the catch in her voice, saw the shaking of her hands. He decided it was best to pretend not to notice and turned to read the information on the screen in front of him.
"Donny Perez, aka Danny Peters, aka Donald Petsky, aka Peter Donovan, aka Pete Daniels . . . well, you get the idea." Max leaned forward just a bit and caught the scent of his shampoo.
"You forgot 'Mickey Mouse,'" she put in from behind him. Logan smiled to himself, wishing that she could get just a little closer, but he shook it off. There was no use harping on what couldn't be.
"He used to be a big problem in Seattle, but a few years ago he moved down to Los Angeles. Kidnapping, murder, smuggling, extortion . . . and the list goes on and on."
"Quite a little Boy Scout, eh? I wonder what you have to do to get your merit badge in extortion?"
"He's quite a busy man, but what it all boils down to, and the reason I thought you would want to know about this, is that he was a good buddy of our old pal Gerhardt Bronck." Max frowned. "I also have reason to believe that he may be responsible for the death of a colleague of mine in Los Angeles a little over a year ago. He called one night and said he had some important information for Eyes Only about Perez's activities. Unfortunately he was gunned down in the street before he could get it to me."
"Perez is guilty, all right. He's as guilty as sin," Jondy said softly. She had been quiet for the last few moments of the conversation, though she'd been hanging onto every word. She now sat on the floor, leaning back against the partition with her right leg spread out in front of her. She stared down at where her hands were cupped around the knee of her bent left leg, and there was a sad and distant look in her eyes. She hardly noticed Milly, who had crept up to play with the drawstring on her jacket. "Brian was standing in line at a farmer's market," she began. "He was going to buy a chicken."
She closed her eyes, trying desperately to ward off the images that clogged her brain. Gunshots. Blood. Screams, some of which, she later realized, had been her own.
"Perez knew he was there somehow. He knew what Brian knew about him, and he decided to solve the problem himself." She hugged her knees to her chest and took a deep breath. She looked up at Max, sadness sinking into the depths of her eyes. "He had no warning. He never had a chance." And it's all my fault, she amended silently. It was all my fault. She closed her eyes, rested her forehead on her knees, and began to shake.
Max and Logan were silent as they shared a look. Neither knew what to say. Max took a step towards her sister, but Jondy raised her head and broke the silence. "He was part of Bronck's chain of command." There were tears on her face, but Logan saw tears of anger and not of pain. In truth, they were both, but Jondy couldn't let it go now, not here. "They snitched girls off the streets of LA and sold them to the highest overseas bidders that they could find." Max walked over to her sister, leaned down, and rested a hand on her shoulder.
"We know about that, actually. About a year ago we put Bronck out of business for running the same game in Seattle."
"So that was you, huh?" She shrugged. She felt a little bit of pride that her baby sister had helped stop that madness, but there was a twinge of regret for all that she had failed to do. "I was in San Francisco by then. I heard rumors that that business had gone bust, but I knew that they hadn't gotten Perez. He can smell trouble. Even a whiff, and he'll skip town and leave someone else holding the bag." She rubbed her eyes. It was all too much.
"I've got to go." She rose to her feet. "I've still got Reggie's bike, and I need to get it back to him." It seemed like a good enough excuse.
"Jondy, are you okay?" Max lay a hand on her sister's shoulder. "If you--"
Just then the door opened, and Logan reached over and turned off the computer screen. Footsteps moved towards the room, and a voice called out, "Hey Logan, I got those--" A blonde haired woman turned the corner, her voice stopping mid-statement as her gaze fell on Max and Jondy. In her hand she carried a very thick, yet tattered and dirty envelope. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt." She glanced in Logan's direction just a moment too late to see that he was hiding something.
"Oh, it's okay, nothing important." Max tried a half-hearted smile. "We were actually just about to leave." The woman looked doubtful.
"No, really," Logan assured her. "It's okay." He gestured towards Jondy. "Asha, this is Max's . . . friend, Jondy. Jondy, my friend Asha." Asha raised an eyebrow at the word friend. Jondy figured that she must know, too. So this is Asha, she thought to herself. They shook hands and exchanged 'nice to meet you's.
Asha smiled and turned her attention to Logan. "Hey, I'll just go lay these in by the others and go take a shower, okay?"
"No, it's okay. I'm going to want to have a look at them in a minute, so you can just leave them in here."
"Suit yourself." She leaned over and dropped them beside of Logan's keyboard, brushing a hand against his shoulder as she walked behind of him and into the next room. Logan looked slightly ill at ease. Max looked as if she were going to be sick. Interesting. There was an awkward moment of silence. Jondy decided to break it. She unzipped her backpack and called Milly, who walked over to her owner at a leisurely pace and allowed herself to be put into one of the pockets.
"I guess I'll just take my stuff along too, since I left it here this morning. Thanks for not throwing me out on my ear."
"Well, all things considered, I'm not so sure I'd want to try that. I'd probably end up on the losing end." Jondy smiled, or at least tried to, then she and Max turned and walked out the door. Glancing back over her shoulder, she caught Logan jerk his gaze back to the darkened computer screen, but she'd caught him watching Max as they walked away, that same expression on his face, a much stronger version of the one she'd seen on Asha's only moments before.
"We're closed!" Normal yelled at the banging out front. He was sitting in his office with his feet propped up on his desk eating a rather greasy looking sub. He was watching Cops, and he didn't feel like being interrupted. The banging continued.
"Oh, for the love of Mike," he mumbled and walked outside. Seeing the two faces on the other side of the door, he opened it. "Just in case you hadn't noticed, you're a little late," he muttered.
"Sorry," Jondy explained. "We'd have been back sooner but someone down on Clemson decided to try to turn us into blocks of transgenic Swiss cheese."
He wrinkled his brow. "Are you two okay--wait, stupid question. Are they okay?"
Jondy grinned. "Little bastard got away." She wrinkled her nose. "Good thing, too, 'cause he really pissed me off." She shrugged. "Anyway, I thought you'd want the bike back." She rolled it across the room and returned it to the bike rack.
As she walked away, Normal turned to look at Max. He stuck a finger in her face. "Now don't think this gives you any special privileges, missy. You work, just like everyone else. You show up on time, just like everyone else. You get paid, just like everyone else."
Max raised an eyebrow. She found it amusing and strangely relieving that even though he knew what she was, he didn't seem to be the least bit nervous around her. It was nice to be treated as an average human being, even by Normal. "Come on, Normal, lay off my back." He opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head. Jondy returned from the far side of the room.
"Honestly, Reggie, using that tone of voice with two helpless little things like us? You should be ashamed of yourself."
"Helpless? I seem to remember you taking out a two hundred and seventy-five pound mugger at the age of twelve. Helpless, my ass."
"Yeah, well," she added with a mischievous grin. "You never know when Max might just . . . snap." She accented the last word by jumping forward slightly in Normal's direction. He didn't budge. He'd known her far too long to fall for that one.
"Not that I don't think she could if she wanted to." He shook his head. "I've seen her when she's mad, but somehow, with the two of you around, I have a feeling that I am probably the safest person on this planet." Jondy shook her head as she and Max walked back to the door.
"Great," Normal muttered to himself, "now I've got two of them to worry about."
"I heard that, Normal," Jondy called back at him.
"Great. First 'Reggie,' and now this." He shook his head. "Why can't you just call me 'Ray,' like everybody else?" he called after her.
Jondy turned and shrugged, a childish grin on her face. It warmed his heart a bit to see it. She'd never really smiled like that when she was a child.