His lips tightened. “And you still won’t leave, right? We could go under deep enough cover that they’d never find you. The Tong is good at that. But it’s still no use asking, right?” He sighed as she shook her head. “You’re going to invest your windfall, right? Is it enough for that? How much are we talking?”
“A bit over six thousand FedCreds.”
“Okay. That’s enough to stake you for some investments.” He stared off into the distance. “I… know some things about some businesses that aren’t common knowledge. Things that will influence share prices. If I was careful to keep the tips to businesses where you could rationally decide to invest in them if you were a shrewd investor and good researcher, and tell you where to look so you could leave an electronic trail in your systems of doing your homework if they asked any questions, that’s some help I could probably safely give,” he said. “My boss wouldn’t mind one or two people going along for the ride — just keep it in the immediate family. Really keep it close.”
“I’d have to lay some red herrings by doing similar research of other companies I don’t invest in,” she mused. “Yeah, it could work. I could even just take my results to Granpa and suggest an investment. But how would I get him not to share with the immediate world? What am I thinking — it’s Granpa. If I buy an investment book that’s already well thumbed, like at a used bookstore while I’m here, I can just flip through it to learn how to leave plausible trails and talk the game. It’s not like I’m stupid and couldn’t learn it on my own. And even if Granpa suspects I’ve got a source for stock tips, that would just make him more likely to keep it closer than close and not mention to anyone — especially not the Bane Sidhe. Not as upset as he still is with them about money.” She leaned over and kissed him by way of a thank you, which pretty much led to the end of that conversation.
“So, back to the moon with the commuters on Monday. What about you? Off to kill people and break things, or do you get a really tough week chasing the girls?” he joked.
“A week off, then a family reunion, of all things. Wish you could be there,” she said.
“That might be a bit more reunion than your family bargained for.”
“I think the O’Neals would keep it quiet. But we’ve got a lot of miscellaneous folks around from the organization, whose loyalty is more to the Bane Sidhe than to Clan O’Neal. I do wish, but wishing doesn’t work, does it?”
“Clan O’Neal. Sometimes I wonder if you realize how much Indowy has rubbed off on you.”
“Hmph. Not as much as you’d think. We Irish have been big on family ties for a long time. Okay, well, maybe there was some Indowy influence there, too, but it was long enough ago that it doesn’t count,” she said. She sure was cute when she pouted. But maybe they should watch a movie or something before getting into that again. Nah… well, okay, maybe. She probably didn’t need a break, but a couple of hours of holodrama and some microwave popcorn would almost feel like a date.
Before she left Sunday evening, he put a large enough load of sure thing tips in a read and destroy cube that she could set up a convincingly diverse portfolio of rapid gainers, with one or two modest growth stocks, to hatch her share of that commission nest egg into a chicken or two, and soon. He knew she’d memorize them later. It helped him more than she could possibly know to finally be able to do something concrete to take care of his family.
Before she left, they showered. It was one of the sad little rituals they’d developed through seven years of goodbyes. The driving rain of the shower quickly changed to sex. Then, with the carpet outside the bathroom soaked, they climbed back into the shower. He rinsed the fluff from the carpet off her back while she rinsed her sweat off his skin. Soon, there was no trace of her on him at all, with only a damp floor and her scent on the hotel sheets to remind him that he had a wife. He slept on her pillow that night.
She heard them before she saw them. The nasty half-juvenile male laughs, several, and the higher pitched whimper. Her lips thinned and she dropped her leather jacket on the sidewalk, deliberately relaxing before rounding the corner of the crumbling brick wall that had once fronted the alley on this side, pretending to look in her purse for something and coming out with paper that might have been a map and a small flashlight. Six. She’d caught them out of the corner of her eye. The girl was small, either a teen or just short. Cally looked up and startled slightly, pretending to see them for the first time, silently noting that the alley was open to a parking lot on the other end.
“Hey! What do you think you boys are doing? Let go of her!” She let some of the nasal, staccato character of a northern Urbie accent into her voice, indignant, stupid. They looked up, still holding their victim. No need to guess what they’d been starting on. A couple of them looked back at the girl, undecided. Cally advanced into the alley a few steps, trying hard to project a sense of indignation and a tourist’s naive certainty of personal invulnerability. They bit.
“Hell, I never did like sloppy seconds, anyway.” Four of them detached from the girl and advanced in a pack, breaking into an easy lope as she shuffled back a few steps, eyes wide, turning to run.
As they caught up with her, her back kick slammed hard into the lead thug’s knee, snapping it backward with all the force her upgraded strength could deliver. He fell, his scream subsiding into pained swearing that she barely heard. She pivoted on the ball of her foot and slammed her palm heel into the throat of number Two, splintering his adam’s apple, dancing back to plant a sidekick to his gut that threw him back a couple of yards to choke somewhere out of the way. Thug Three landed a hard punch to her head as Four grabbed her wrist. Bad mistake. Ducking under his arm, she brought it up behind him, keeping his body between her and Three for the crucial moment it took to snake her arm around his neck, pulling his head firmly against her breastbone before dropping straight to the ground. Four’s neck made a satisfying crunch, but Three had had a chance to pile on top of her, which ordinarily would have worked on a woman her size. Bad luck for him, Cally O’Neal was anything but ordinary. She grabbed his head and twisted, but this one had the good sense to roll with it, bouncing back up to his feet as she reached her own, to see that thugs Five and Six had joined the party.
She grinned as she jumped into the air, slamming the front of her left foot on the side of Three’s head hard enough to rattle him, but too high to kill him. She landed with bent knees on the way down, taking a fist to the jaw from Six as the price of getting another sidekick into Five and sending him tripping back over One, eliciting another scream. She danced back, rubbing her jaw. If anything, her grin widened. Six hesitated and she blocked a punch as Three came in without waiting for the other two — his first mistake. It cost him a blindingly fast pair of punches to his gut, which knocked the wind out of him right before he got a hard round punch to his nose. Predictably, blood spurted out. She didn’t think she broke it, but it was going to be hell getting all the stains out of her blouse. While Three was hunched over with his hands on his knees, out of the way, Six came back with Five right behind him. The jumping backfist blacked Six’s eye, causing him to hesitate again as another sidekick cracked a few of Five’s ribs and knocked him out of the way.
She and Six fenced, with her absorbing the occasional hit just to get in a really pretty combination move. She seemed to be enjoying it more than he was. For the moment, Three and Five were just watching her play with Six, each grabbing an unexpected hurt but obviously not quite out for the count. Street fights seldom have lulls, but sparring matches do. For a moment, Six was paused, fists up, looking for an opening, catching his breath. She stilled, in the kind of absolute stillness that any fighter knows is one of the most dangerous moments in a fight.