Zero Sum Game

Chapter 1

I resisted the urge to crash the jeep on purpose. Not that I had much to crash it into, out here, but I could have managed. The correct angle against one of those little scrub bushes...

"You do realize they're not the only ones who want a piece of you, right? In case our lovely drug running friends neglected to tell you before they dumped you in a basement, the authorities are scouring California for you. Narcotics trafficking and murder, I hear. What, were all the cool kids doing it?"

She winced away, hunching into herself. "I swear I didn't know they were using the shipments to smuggle drugs. I only called my boss when I got stopped because that's what they told us to do. It's not my fault."

Yeah, yeah. Her sister had tearfully shown me a copy of the police report—driver stopped for running a light, drugs found, more gang members who'd shown up and shot the cops, taking back the truck and driver both. The report had heavily implicated Courtney in every way.

When she'd hired me, Dawna Polk had insisted her sister wouldn't have hurt a fly. Personally, I hadn't particularly cared if the girl was guilty or not. A job was a job.

"Look, I only want to get paid," I said. "If your sister says you can throw your life away and go to prison, that's A-okay with me."

"I was just a driver," Courtney insisted. "I never looked to see what was in the back. They can't say I'm responsible."

"If you think that, you're an idiot."

"I'd rather the police have me than you anyway!" she shot back. "At least with the cops I know I have rights! And they're not some sort of freaky weird feng shui killers!"

She flinched back into herself, biting her lip. Probably wondering if she'd said too much. If I was going to go "feng shui" on her, too.

Crap.

I took a deep breath. "My name is Cas Russell. I do retrieval. It means I get things back for people. That's my job." I swallowed. "Your sister really did hire me to get you out, okay? I'm not going to hurt you."

"You locked me up again."

"Only so you'd stay put until I could come back for you," I tried to assure her.

Courtney's arms were still crossed, and she'd started worrying her lip with her teeth. "And what about all that other stuff you did?" she asked finally. "With the cartel guards, and the stones, and that cop..."

I scanned the constellations and steered the jeep eastward, aiming to intersect the highway. The stars burned into my eyes, their altitudes, azimuths, and apparent magnitudes appearing in my mind as if stenciled in the sky behind each bright, burning pinprick. A satellite puttered into view, and its timing told me its height above Earth and its orbital velocity.

"I'm really good at math," I said. Too good. "That's all."

Polk snorted as if I were putting her on, but then her face knitted in a frown, and I felt her staring at me in the darkness. Oh, hell. I like it better when my clients hire me to retrieve inanimate objects. People are so annoying.

By morning, my madly circuitous route had only brought us halfway back to LA. Switching cars twice and drastically changing direction three times might not have been strictly necessary, but it made my paranoid self feel better.

The desert night had turned cold; fortunately, we were now in a junky old station wagon instead of the open jeep, though the car's heater only managed a thin stream of lukewarm air. Polk had her bony knees hunched up in front of her and had buried her face against them. She hadn't spoken in hours.

I was grateful. This job had had enough monkey wrenches already without needing to explain myself to an ungrateful child every other minute.

Polk sat up as we drove into the rising sun. "You said you do retrieval."

"Yeah," I said.

"You get things back for people."

"That's what 'retrieval' means."

"I want to hire you." Her youthful face was set in stubborn lines.

Great. She was lucky I wasn't choosy about my clientele. And that I needed another job after this one. "What for?"

"I want my life back."

"Uh, your sister's already paying me for that," I reminded her. "But hey, you can pay me twice if you want. I won't complain."

"No. I mean I don't want to go flying off to Argentina. I want my life back."

"Wait, you're asking me to steal you back a clean record?" This girl didn't know what reality was. "Kid, that's not—"

"I've got money," she interrupted. Her eyes dropped to her knees. "I got paid really well, for someone who drove a delivery truck."

I snorted. "What are the going rates for being a drug mule these days?"

"I don't care what you think of me," said Polk, though red was creeping up her neck and across her cheeks. She ducked her head, letting her frizzy ponytail fall across her face. "People make mistakes, you know."

Yeah. Cry me a river. I ignored the voice in my head telling me I should take the fucking job anyway. "Saving the unfortunate isn't really my bag. Sorry, kid."

"Will you at least think about it? And stop calling me 'kid.' I'm twenty-three."

She looked about eighteen, wide-eyed and gullible and wet behind the ears. But then, I guess I can't judge; people still assumed I was a teenager sometimes, and in reality I was barely older than Courtney. Of course, age can be measured in more ways than years. Sometimes I had to pull a .45 in people's faces to remind them of that.

I remembered with a pang that my best 1911 had been lost back at the compound when I was captured. Dammit. Dawna was going to get that in her expense list.

"So? Are you thinking about it?"

"I was thinking about my favorite gun."

"You don't have to be so mean all the time," Courtney mumbled into her knees. "I know I need help, okay? That's why I asked."

Oh, fuck. Courtney Polk was a headache and a half, and clearing the names of idiot kids who got mixed up with drug cartels wasn't in my job description. I'd been very much looking forward to dumping her on her sister's doorstep and driving away.

Though that small voice in the back of my head kept whispering: drive away where?

I didn't have any gigs lined up after I finished this contract. I don't do too well when I'm not working.

Yeah, right. Between jobs you're a fucking mess.

I slammed the voice away again and concentrated on the money. I like money. "Just how much cash do you have?"

"You'll do it?" Her face lit up, and her whole body straightened toward me. "Thank you! Really, thank you!"

I grumbled something not nearly as enthusiastic and revved the station wagon down the empty dawn freeway. Figuring out how to steal back someone's reputation was not my idea of fun.

The voice in the back of my head laughed mockingly. Like you have the luxury of being choosy.