1: Keeping My Balls in the Air

"My mother is trapped on an alien world. Do something!" Cadence demanded.

Well, shit, yes. What am I supposed to do? Lisa had chosen to stay on Chaos so I could come back unencumbered to do battle with her husband—my brother, Wilson—and rescue Cadence. No one expected Wilson to try to destroy the wardrobe with an axe and instead damage our portal. What was I supposed to do?

"Lincoln," Cadence moaned. She collapsed into my arms and sobbed. I retrieved our hotel room key from the bedside table and pulled her with me to the back door. In front, I saw a car cruise slowly past.

"We need to get out of here, love," I said. "We'll go back to the hotel and put a plan together. Right now we need to stay safe from Wilson." She nodded and I looked out the door. There was a shadow moving in the alley behind the house. Shit! We needed to get out of here. I dragged Cadence to the break in the hedge and we slipped up to Mrs. Smith's back door. I didn't dare knock for fear of attracting one of the watchers. I tried the door and it was unlatched. I breathed a sigh of relief and pushed Cadence through the door.

I heard the bolt of an old fashioned shotgun engage.

"Take one more step and I'll blow you to Kingdom Come," Mrs. Smith growled.

"Mrs. Smith!" I whisper-shouted. "It's us! Cadence and Lincoln."

"Well, why didn't you say so?" she demanded. "Get in here."

"Why don't you have any lights on?" Cadence asked. "We thought you weren't home."

"There are prowlers around. I don't want them to know I'm here."

"I don't blame you," I said. "I think it's Wilson's people. Why wasn't your door locked?"

"That door? The lock on that door hasn't worked in thirty years," she laughed.

We slept in shifts with one of us always watching out the windows. It was a drama fit for Chaos. We'd see a shadow moving in the alley and a police car out front. Then a dark car would slowly creep past and a police cruiser would come down the alley. The timing was perfect. No one intersected with anyone else. I suspected the lawyer who was handling the will might have had someone out watching as well.

"How do we get out of here?" Cadence asked over breakfast.

"Oh, that's easy, dearie," Mrs. Smith said. "Where do you want to go?"

"We should go back to the hotel," I said. "Our lawyer has bodyguards watching for us there. We can order room service. And ... the box is there."

"How can you get us there, Mrs. Smith?" Cadence asked sweetly.

"We'll take Christopher. He's in the garage." Mrs. Smith opened the door from the kitchen to the garage and swept her hand toward a canvas-covered vehicle.

"You have a car? I thought you took taxis everywhere," Cadence said.

"Neither Cadence nor I have our drivers' licenses with us," I said.

"Oh, I have mine. You don't want to be seen. You should lie down in back. I'll drive." I was a little doubtful of the frail old lady, but we didn't have many choices. I went over to pull the canvas off the car while Cadence and Mrs. Smith busied themselves moving boxes and cans from between the car and the garage door. I uncovered a perfectly mint condition, navy blue, boxy little car.

"This is beautiful," Cadence said. "What is it?"

"1966 Corvair Monza," Mrs. Smith said proudly. "Only driven by a little old lady to church on Sundays. Air cooled, rear engine. Six cylinders and all the pickup and go it had when it was new. The only hump in the backseat is what you do when you're back there."

"Isn't this the car Ralph Nader wrote about in Unsafe at Any Speed?" I asked.

"You're so cute, Lincoln," Mrs. Smith said as she pinched my cheek. "When I'm driving all cars are unsafe at any speed. Get in and hide on the floor in back. Don't do anything I wouldn't do. Which means have lots of sex. That's what I did in the backseat when I was your age."

We did as she said. Sort of. If she had lots of sex in this back seat, she must have been dating midgets. Crowding as tightly as we could, we could still barely get below the level of the windows.

The car started right up and Mrs. Smith raised the garage door.

It was a good thing Cadence and I were packed in so tightly. We'd have been lying on the pavement someplace otherwise. 'Unsafe at any speed' did not apply to the car! We stayed low for our own safety until Mrs. Smith pulled into the hotel parking garage. This was one of those hotels that had a conference center and meeting rooms on the second floor, so we took the elevator from the garage to the second floor and switched elevators to the penthouse from there.

A guy was standing outside our door and turned to look at us, puzzled. We rushed him.

"Wait! I'm a good guy!"

Shit! How were we supposed to tell? Everybody wore black suits. I was thinking I needed to buy one so I'd blend in.

"Who are you?" I demanded as I lifted him off the floor by his neck. Adrenalin was pouring through my body and my strength surprised even me. Cadence already had the guy's pistol out of the shoulder holster. I don't think she knew how to use it. She was just waving it around.

"Gino sent me to watch out for you. I thought you were inside. Honest!"

"Who is Gino? Was he following us around my house last night?"

"Gino is Big Al's Consigliere. I don't know who was following you since we thought you were inside. Everybody is on edge. Please put my gun down. I won't touch it until you get inside, but you're making me nervous." Cadence was making me nervous, too, but she laid the gun gently on the carpet on the other side of the hall. The adrenalin was washing out of my body and I relaxed my grip on the bodyguard.

"You two are fast. Thank you for not killing me."

"We're going to order room service," I said. Cadence and I unlocked the door and went into our room, closing the bodyguard in the hall.

"First you are going to service me!" Cadence said. "As soon as the adrenalin started wearing off, my pussy started dripping. Is it like this on Chaos?"

"All the time, honey."

"I'm gonna get fucked so often I'll be begging Mom to spell me," she sighed. Her clothes came off and I was on top of her, in her. If the bodyguard was listening, he might have thought we were being attacked.

"Room service."

I opened the door and let the guy pushing the cart into the room. I knew immediately this was no hotel employee. He wasn't even trying to disguise it. He was wearing a black suit like the lawyers and bodyguards did. Apparently it was the uniform of the day on Earth.

He was an older guy and I could see the bulge under his jacket before he reached into his pocket. I slammed the door shut behind him and slipped one of my canes between his legs and twisted. He stumbled forward and Cadence caught him by one arm. With a quick twist he was on his stomach on the floor with Cadence sitting on him. He didn't move. Didn't even struggle.

"All right. What gives?" I demanded.

"If you already knew I wasn't the room service guy, why did you bother opening the door?" he laughed. Laughed?

"We need some information. We've been waiting to capture someone. Now you are going to give us answers," I said.

"Maybe. Depends on if she's who they say she is," he said.

"Who do they say?" Cadence asked. She had a cord stretched between her hands ready to slip it under his neck. Where the hell did she get that?

"They say you are Cosimo Pesciano's daughter, Al Pesciano's granddaughter."

"That's what my birth certificate says. Are you here to try to get me out of the way of my stepfather?"

"Wilson? That piece of shit? If you are truly Cadence Pesciano, I'm here to help you." I nodded at Cadence and she flipped over to the right, pulling two knives out of her belt. She was ready to throw them if he moved wrong.

"Have a seat and tell us a story," I said, nudging him with my cane. He rolled over slowly and levered himself into a seated position leaning against the sofa.

"I'm getting too damned old for this," he moaned. "I brought dinner. For three. How about a nice civilized meal and a little talk?"

"How about you lay your gun over on the table by the door, very slowly, first," Cadence said.

"This?" he said, opening his jacket. "I left it outside with Paolo. He wouldn't let me come in armed." His shoulder holster was there, but there was nothing in it. "May I serve dinner now?"

"Sure," I said. "Just to keep it interesting, though, who are you?"

"I am Gino. I am or was Al Pesciano's consigliere. I was also Cosimo Pesciano's best friend. I'm very happy to see his daughter has such skill as a fighter. And you..." he said, pointing at me. "His son-in-law?"

"To be," I answered. "Unfortunately, I have the stench of being Wilson's brother on me as well."

"I'd heard you were crippled," Gino said. "I'm glad to see you are well. You don't really need those canes, do you?"

"They are handy and will travel where more conventional weapons cannot." I glanced at Cadence, looking for the garrote she'd had in her hand. Wherever she concealed it, it was gone now.

"Good. Good. Let me get the food on the table." He set up our table quickly, opened a bottle of wine, and sat at one side. Cadence and I sat on the other. The chicken cacciatore smelled delicious. That wasn't what we'd ordered from room service. "I was bringing dinner with me from Al's kitchen when I encountered the delivery boy. I gave what you ordered to Paolo. He'll eat anything."

"So you know our bodyguard outside?" Cadence said as she bit into the delicious food. "Mmm."

"I'm his boss. The lawyer called and said he sent you here. I put a crew on you right away."

"So you've been following us?" I said.

"Not me personally. And following you. Following Wilson and his soldiers. Following the cops. I have thirty men and women on the job. I just needed to come personally and confirm that it was true. I can see in your eyes, Miss Cadence, you are his daughter," Gino sighed, shoveled a mouthful of food, and washed it down with wine. "Try the vino. This was Al's favorite." I took a sip. It was so dry you almost needed a drink of water afterward to wet your mouth. "Sagrantino di Montefalco," Gino said. "Al despised the wines of Tuscany as having been over commercialized. I think it was all just a part of his native Umbrian pride," he laughed. "God, I loved that man."

"We found out about Big Al's death on Sunday night," I said. "Two guys brought a letter for Lisa, Cadence's mother. The next morning, she sent Cadence away on a kind of treasure hunt that would keep her away from the house for a day or two. That night, I found Wilson beating Lisa and trying to kill her. I ... got her out of the house to where she can recover. But Wilson has kept up his search for Cadence. What Lisa put on Cadence's treasure hunt was the things she needed to present to the lawyer when Al's will is read on Monday. When we went back to the house last night, we discovered Wilson had destroyed our ... some important things and we were still being followed. We got away again," I said simply. I couldn't tell him I took Lisa to Chaos or that Wilson had destroyed our portal.

"You have it? What you need for Monday?" he asked.

"Birth certificate, will, and high school diploma," Cadence responded.

"Perfect. Then all we need to do is keep you alive until you can take over," Gino said.

"That sounds ominous."

"Here is the simple story," Gino said. "When Cosimo died, it almost destroyed Al. I was thankful he ... brought me back. Our little family business here is not connected to any of the big crime families. Our town is not big enough to concern them and for all the power that Al wielded here, we are still only a business. He divested himself of nearly all the illegal or shady things to make sure that what you inherited would be pure. Your ... stepfather, who Al fired two years ago, has been reopening all those businesses and wants the rest of Al's legitimate businesses to hide them. We are on the brink of a war."

"How can Cadence prevent it?" I asked.

"There are three camps. Wilson drives the dirty side. His people just want the power and the money and he won't stop until he gets it," Gino said.

"He's an idiot," I said flatly.

"That is one of the reasons neither of the other two sides wants him to succeed. But those two sides only agree on one thing. It isn't because the business is dirty. It's because Wilson is not Italian that he is unacceptable. Both his enemies agree that there has to be blood on the throne."

"And Cadence has the blood," I said.

"Which makes her acceptable to one of the other two sides. To the other side, forgive me, it is unthinkable to let a woman take over the business. So, you see, there is contention."

"And where do you sit in this battle, Uncle Gino?" Cadence asked softly. He smiled at her.

"Cosimo Pesciano was my best friend. My boyhood partner. My brother in arms. He married my sister, so, in fact, I am your uncle in a way. I also have more than a little sway with the soldiers. They all know me as Consigliere. The largest of the three groups will follow me. And I will follow Cadence Pesciano."

"That helps," Cadence said.

"Yes," he answered. "Unfortunately, though, the largest group is not the majority. We have others to win. And there will be a test that you might not be able to pass."