Read King Maybe for Free Online Page B

shaking.”
    â€œOkay, it was a piece of stale hardtack laced with rat poison.”
    â€œThat’s better,” Ronnie said. “I get all warm and fizzy when you confide in me.”
    â€œI don’t usually talk after a job,” I said.
    â€œNo shit,” Ronnie said, making a right. She headed uphill, toward Mulholland and the San Fernando Valley. We were in a neighborhood where even the weeds were expensive. I don’t spend a lot of time in areas like this. Too much temptation and too many security cameras.
    I said, “Where are we going?”
    She turned and regarded me just a moment too long, given the number of curves in the street, and I hit an imaginary brake pedal with my right foot. “You’re asking me?” she said. “We’re going to that man with the little tiny nose and the Filipino folk dancers, right? You said he wanted the stamp tonight.”
    â€œI’m not sure now. There are a lot of balls up in the air.” My phone vibrated. I pulled it out, looked at caller ID, put it to my ear, and said, “Fuck off, Jake.” Then I turned it off.
    â€œWhat a relief,” Ronnie said. “It’s not just me. One of the balls?”
    â€œHow’d you get my car?”
    She drove for a moment, and then she said, using the exact same tone she’d used the first time, “One of the balls?”
    â€œYes,” I said.
    She said, “How do you think I got your car? I drove the Jag back to where we borrowed it, left it there, and hiked up to where we parked this awful little Toyota. I have to say it’s a real step down, going from the Jag to this heap. On the other hand, this has brake lights. I left about a third of the Jag’s rear end in that gate I knocked down.” She drove a few hundred yards and repeated, “That gate I knocked down.”
    â€œYeah, yeah,” I said. “And thanks. I might not have made it out if you hadn’t done that.”
    â€œIt was nothing. Really, nothing.”
    â€œJust . . . you know, want to be sure you understand I’m grateful.”
    Ronnie took us around a turn, stopped at an intersection, and then took us further uphill. “It’s written all over your face.”
    â€œI’m thinking.”
    â€œMy father always said, ‘Never interrupt a man who’s thinking. You might prevent him from having his only idea.’”
    â€œYour father said that, did he? Where did he say that?”
    â€œI knew we were getting to this,” she said. “And let’s not. Let’s do what we were going to do, before I saved your ass and you got all crazy. Let’s drop the stamp off like you planned and then . . . I don’t know, go to the park and search for poisonous mushrooms, something that suits your mood.”
    â€œYou nailed the gate, swapped cars, and got back to the meeting point.”
    â€œIt sounds so impressive boiled down like that.”
    â€œIt is impressive. And amazingly fast thinking for someone who’s never committed a crime before.”
    â€œAre you going to continue to be awful?” she said. “Listen, if we’re not going to that man’s house—”
    â€œStinky.”
    â€œTo Stinky’s house. I mean, if we’re not going there, where are we going?”
    â€œI’m working on that. So . . . about your criminal skills, if I were to get someone—say, a cop—to comb through the criminal records in Toronto—”
    â€œI’ve never been to Toronto.”
    â€œOr Ontario.”
    â€œOr Ontario. Oh, look at my knuckles on the steering wheel. They’re all white. Such a stressful line of questioning, when what would be appropriate is appreciation and maybe a kiss.”
    â€œI appreciate you. Where was it, then? Montpelier?”
    â€œThis is a very peculiar reaction toward someone who just saved your—”
    â€œAnd demonstrated an