KnockOut

Queen? What’s taking them so long to get it together? Why aren’t they coming out of the house?”
    Lissy patted Victor’s cheek. “They will, baby, they will. They’re stupid. They don’t know anything. They’ll come trotting out of the front door any minute now and we’ll blow them into a gazillion pieces.” She frowned suddenly, punched his arm. “Some bomb you made, Victor. First you couldn’t manage to stall out that security guard’s car in Washington, and now you couldn’t get the bomb to go off. Some computer expert you are.”
    “It should have gone off,” Victor said, rubbing his arm. “I followed the instructions carefully; you watched me do it. Don’t hit me again, Lissy, I don’t like it.”
    “Still,” she said, then looked over at Bernie. “We’ve got Mr. Fed here, and that’s something.”
    Victor leaned over and punched Bernie hard in the arm. “Hey, wake up, pigface. You know why your buddies aren’t out here looking for you?”
    Bernie was awake, had been for some time now, trying to control his roaring headache from the blow on the back of his head. Actually, he’d been whispering hallelujahs. Victor’s bomb hadn’t exploded, thank the good Lord, which meant Savich and Sherlock had disarmed it. Cully was still alive, and that was all Bernie wanted to think about. He’d hoped they’d say something useful if he kept playing possum, but then Victor hit him.
    “Come on, pigface, open your baby blues!”
    “His eyes aren’t blue, Victor, they’re brown.”
    “Yeah? How do you know that, Lissy?”
    “He’s all big and dark; no blue eyes for him.”
    Bernie opened his brown eyes and stared up at Victor. He didn’t have to fake looking dazed. “What?”
    “Hey, were you trying to fake it? Or are you still knocked stupid?” Lissy punched him in the belly with her fist. He barely responded. “See? He’s still stupid. I hit him so hard his cop brains arc still scrambled.” She leaned down and whispered in his ear as her palm flattened out on his stomach. “Hey, Mr. Agent, I like the feel of your gut. No fat, good muscle tone. Let me see.” Lissy jerked his shirt out of his pants, ripped the buttons off, and spread it open. “Wow, Vic-tor, look at our buff cop here.” She stroked her hand over his stomach, and, to his horror, Bernie felt her fingers slide down into his shorts.
    He tried to jerk away, then coughed, wheezed.
    Victor jerked when he saw her hand. “What are you doing, Lissy? Stop that, you hear me? You don’t even know him. Stop it!”
    Lissy laughed, pulled her hand out of his pants. “That’s the way to wake up a cop, Victor. All you gotta do is touch their brains.” And she laughed again. “Hey, that’s true of any guy, isn’t it? From what I could tell, our cop here’s got a pretty good brain.”
    Victor looked at her like he hated her, then kicked a rock on the ground beside him. “Why’s it taking them so long to come out of the house? Forget the forensic crap. There’s no way they know we’re here; they’ve got to figure we’re gone. So where are they?” But Victor didn’t really care at that moment what the federal agents were doing because his heart was still pounding at what Lissy had done—she’d actually touched another man, she’d actually felt the damned cop, and right in front of him. His hands shook. He wanted to hurt her; he wanted to kill the damned agent. He said again, “They should have come out. Why haven’t they?”
    Bernie heard the shrillness in Victor Nesser’s voice, knew he was furious, near violence, at what Lissy had done. He had to calm things down. He said matter-of-factly, “Since I’m not in the house, they’re checking everywhere for clues. They’re thorough, so it takes time.” And they know you two didn’t leave. They figured it out, they’re holding light, waiting for the local cops to show up. But Bernie hadn’t heard any sirens, hadn’t heard a blessed thing. Were they coming in silent?
    “Our pretty boy here is right,” Lissy said. “There’s been time for a whole battalion of cops to get here, but no one’s come to save their butts. I think they’re still looking around, still looking for clues. Don’t worry about it, Victor, those clowns don’t know we’re out here. They’re stupid.” She thought about the constant ache in her stomach and rubbed her fingers along the row of ugly metal staples still dug into her flesh. She saw Savich clear in her mind, on his back