Deadly Does It

1
It wasn't that Mason was vain. It was just that if anyone was going to mess up her face, she wanted it to be her. She already had two piercings in one eyebrow, two in her nose and multiple holes in her ears, but the guy approaching her with a slender but very pointy ice pick seemed to think something more central was going to really pull her look together.

Not that aesthetics were his primary concern.

"I'm going to hurt you," he said, his breath a little ragged. Mason had just punched him in the gut, and he'd taken it badly. "I don't give a shit who your boss is. She's going to have to find a new pain in the ass to help her out."

Mason was wearing a tiny earbud in her right ear, and it spoke to her.

"Need a hand?" it said.

"Yes, hurry," Mason replied.

The guy raised his eyebrows and grinned. "Oh, no," he said, "I'm going to take my time."

Mason put up her fists and took a step back, settling into a wider stance. Her nose was bleeding, her eye was starting to swell, and she hadn't enjoyed any of this conversation so far. However, her natural exuberance was far from exhausted.

"Bring it, Halloran," she said. "We know you have the diamonds, we know where they are, and the police are on the way."

"Bullshit," replied Halloran, taking a step toward her. "We're all alone and I'm going to cut your tongue out."

A tongue piercing had been on Mason's list of considerations, but she drew the line at complete removal. She leaned back on her left foot and raised her fists higher, pulling her elbows close to her body. Smaller target.

A loud noise outside the warehouse drew the guy's attention for a moment and it was all she needed. She took two quick steps forward and swung her right arm, aiming for his jaw and following through with a lot of commitment. She connected, but he'd been more ready than she thought and grabbed her arm.

He pulled her close enough that she could smell the vodka he'd been drinking. For a split second she flashed on all the nights she'd had too much to drink, the scent of her own skin rank as her body struggled to process the alcohol, then she twisted in his grip and brought her bootheel down on his instep. He folded a little, and she folded with him, grabbing the arm with the ice pick and pulling it tight against her own belly. Still twisting, she unbalanced him and got her ass tight against his lower abdomen, bending almost double now and pulling his body up and over her own back.

The arc he made in the air was quite beautiful. The sound he made when he hit the ground was not.

Mason put her foot on his wrist and leaned all her weight on it. His hand opened, the ice pick dropped out, and she swiftly kicked it away. Having focused her attention on that, she was somewhat surprised when his other hand grabbed her ankle and pulled her foot out from under her. She overbalanced, but managed to shift her weight as she fell, coming down on top of the guy. Which would have been fine as a strategy had he not immediately wrapped his arms around her and rolled on top of her, pinning her to the ground, her face against the concrete.

"Bitch," he said, getting one hand on her head and slamming it down. "That hurt."

"It . . . was . . . meant . . . to," muttered Mason, struggling to get her arm out from under herself, trying to push up against his weight. Halloran was so big it was hard to move, and as her head hit the ground a second time, she began to see stars. He was using his weight to hold her top half down, but she managed to pull one leg free and lever herself up a little. It was all the room she needed to get one arm loose and brace herself. She tried to throw him off, but he probably had sixty pounds on her and she wasn't getting very far.

Suddenly, he slumped against her back, lifeless. This didn't help-he was now two hundred pounds of deadweight-and Mason's head hit the ground for a third time.

"You alright, Mason?"

There was a pause, then the man's body was pulled or pushed off her. It was hard to tell from underneath. She lay there for a moment, gathering herself.

"The police are nearly here," said her rescuer, "but it seemed like maybe you needed assistance more quickly than that."

Mason rolled onto her back and looked up.

A very elegant woman in her mid-sixties looked down at her, a crowbar in her hand. "Do you think I should hit him again?" Julia Mann, Mason's boss, shifted the crowbar from hand to hand, looking like a bride getting ready to throw a bouquet. Graceful was just how she rolled.

Mason turned her head. "No . . . I think you nailed it the first time." She reached out a shaking hand and checked the guy's neck for a pulse. "He appears to be alive, but I doubt he's going to wake up anytime soon."

She could hear sirens. She felt a wave of nausea as the adrenaline started to dissipate and physical pain took its place. "I don't feel so good."

Julia took a step back. "Don't throw up on my shoes, please."

Mason looked at her shoes. Stilettos. Peep toes with a creamy flower at the ankle. She couldn't see the red bottoms, but she assumed they were there.

"Those are your fighting shoes?" She pushed off the ground with one hand, and for a moment her head swam. The sirens were getting closer.

"No, I was waiting in the car, but it sounded like things were getting heated, so I came to your aid."

"Thank you," said Mason weakly, getting up onto her hands and knees. She was going to rest here for a second.

"These are my whacking shoes," said Julia, obviously pleased with herself.

Halloran groaned and started to stir. Julia stepped closer to him and raised the crowbar again.

Mason got to her feet. The sirens were outside now, the flashing red dappling the interior of the warehouse like the world's dustiest disco.

"Drop it," said the first cop through the door, gun drawn.

Julia tossed the crowbar away and turned to face him. There were three of them now, and as Mason watched, hoping she wasn't going to pass out, a pair of plainclothes detectives followed the uniforms in.

There was a pause as they took in the scene.

"Good evening, Julia," said the first one. "Mason."

Mason raised a shaky hand in greeting.

"You've looked better," said the detective.

"I haven't," said Julia, "and I have dinner plans. You don't need me, do you, Brooks?"

"Nice try," replied Brooks, a redheaded woman with a deceptively peaceful expression. "You're both coming downtown."

"Mason probably needs a hospital," said Julia. "She got a pretty serious knock on the head."

"We'll have the EMTs check her out," said Wilson, the second detective. He and Brooks were familiar with Mason and Mann but weren't exactly fans of their work. The uniformed cops had the guy in handcuffs now, although he wasn't completely conscious yet. "Once they finish with this guy."

"It's possible Mr. Halloran has forty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds in his pocket," said Mason, "I didn't have time to check."

"Thanks," said Wilson, unfazed by the news. "We'll take a look."

Mason started walking toward the detectives, but a wave of nausea overwhelmed her, and her knees buckled. She turned to Julia.

"I think I'm . . ." she said.

Julia caught her as she fell, managing to hold her off the ground until the cops came over to help. Once they had Mason between them, Julia dusted off her dress and sighed.

"I need to make a phone call."

Wilson shrugged. "Calling your lawyer?"

"No," replied Julia Mann, pulling out her phone. "Canceling my reservation."

2

Early the next morning, the assembled team regarded Mason with a mixture of sympathy and amusement.

"Why is it always your face?" asked Claudia, Julia's housekeeper, handing Mason a bag of crushed ice. "You need to work on defense. Or get better at ducking. Something."

"She leads with her face." This from Archie, Julia's agent and sometime lawyer. He grinned. "More specifically, her mouth." He privately was very attracted to Mason's face, including her mouth, but didn't need to mention that. Everyone knew.

"Her mouth looks largely unscathed today," said Will Maier, Julia's legal assistant and good friend, and the resident know-it-all. "It's the hugely swollen eye and scraped-up forehead that give me concern. Did you go to the hospital?" He shifted uncomfortably on the persimmon sofa stretching a good way across the length of the office. He didn't enjoy the physical aspects of their work-they made him queasy. He picked an imaginary piece of fluff from his rumpled corduroy pants and shuddered.

Mason shook her head, carefully. "They checked it out at the scene and let me go. I don't have a concussion. It's just cosmetic. I'll be fine in a week or so." She shot Archie a glance. "And I don't lead with my face. I just fight my corner. Yours, too. Didn't notice you running in to help."

Archie turned up his hands. "I was miles away, at a movie premiere. Working," he added, "not having fun." Although he'd helped a lot with Julia and Mason's last case, he wasn't a regular member of the team. He'd made up a reason to come over when he'd heard Mason had been hurt and was hoping no one dug too deeply into what had brought him there so early in the day.

"Sure."

"I would have tried to help," said Will, apologetically, "but I was back here, tying up the paperwork that will hopefully seal Halloran's fate. Legal fate, anyway. His moral fate is in the hands of the gods." He looked up, faux piously, then shrugged.

Julia laughed. "Not sure which gods he follows, but they were not in evidence last night. Mason was struggling with gravity and the hardness of concrete, but I sailed in and made everything OK again." She preened. "Damn, I crush, as the young people say."

Will clicked a button and the giant screen that covered the far wall of the office flickered into life. "And he had the diamonds on him?"

Julia nodded. "In his pocket, ready to sell."

"The client must be happy."

Another nod. "Yes. He's wiring payment this morning."

Julia's legal and investigative business broadly fell into two categories: Finance and Fun, which are somewhat self-explanatory. The diamond case fell into the Finance category, because it had been straightforward and highly remunerative. Fun cases often involved someone they knew, or a friend of someone they knew, and frequently made them very little money. However, those cases often got someone they liked out of trouble, got someone they didn't like into trouble, or got Julia's name in the papers. Occasionally, all three things happened. Finance supported Fun, Julia liked to say, and Fun often led to increased Finance. She claimed it was a virtuous cycle, but Mason had yet to be convinced. Cycle, sure. Virtuous? Depends who was asking.

Julia had been an award-winning and headline-stealing actress who'd gone to jail for murdering her husband (she always said she didn't do it) and then got sober and became a lawyer while she was behind bars. Mason and she had met when a dead ex-boyfriend showed up in Julia's pool and her subsequent drunken running from the police (in a Lamborghini, because why not) had made her look guilty. Mason had stepped in as her interim sobriety sponsor . . . then her temporary assistant . . . then her permanent sidekick. So far it was working well for both of them. Apart from the occasional beating up, which, to be fair, only ever happened to Mason.

The young woman stretched, then regretted it. "I'm going to a meeting," she said. "Get my busted head on straight. Any takers?"

As a sober alcoholic, Mason regularly attended AA meetings, and as both Julia and Will were also sober, they often went together. Right now, though, both of them shook their heads.

"I went on Zoom this morning," said Will. "I need to close out the Halloran case and finish filing all the paperwork."

"I'm good," said Julia. "I might go later."

Mason stood up, nodding. "Got it."

"Wait," said Julia, "there's something else we need to discuss." She held out her arm, which was dotted with red spots. "There are fleas in the house, and I blame you."

Mason raised her eyebrows. "I don't have fleas, Julia."

"Maybe, but Phil does."

Phil was Mason's cat. After their first case together, Mason had moved into one of Julia's guesthouses, and Phil had obviously come along.

"How do you know it's not Lorre? Dogs get fleas, too." Lorre was Julia's dog, also a relatively new arrival on the scene. He was sitting under one of the Eames loungers and perked up when he heard his name. His bulging eyes gleamed as his plumy tail moved some dust around. He was not an athletic dog, more of a character actor than a superhero, but he was comfortable in his milieu and really liked living with Julia, who had strong opinions about high-quality dog food.

"Lorre is regularly medicated." Julia reached out as the dog emerged from under the chair and docked his head with her hand. "Aren't you, baby?" The dog said nothing, but it was nonetheless true.

"So is Phil."

"And yet I have fleabites."

Will cleared his throat. "You know, fleas have been around for a very long time. Dinosaurs had fleas. Some fossilized fleas have been dated to at least 165 million years ago."

Julia smiled at him. "While that's fascinating information, Will, those are not the fleas I'm concerned about."

"They would have been much bigger, obviously, with mouthparts strong enough to bite through dinosaur skin." Will was keen to share the details.

"Of course. Which would make them easier to see, I guess." Julia pointed at Mason. "You need to keep Phil out of my house, Mason."

Mason shrugged. "He is not my employee. If anything, I am his. He has a cat door, he roams the grounds at will, I have no control over him. I tried keeping him indoors, but he wailed and paced for two days solid and my nervous system couldn't take it. Maybe beef up security over here."

"I don't let him in."

"Well, someone does."

There was a silence. Claudia got to her feet and started to leave. "If you guys have finished this pointless debate, I'm going to go get dinner started for tonight."