“A hotel? I don’t know about that. We’re so low on cash right now, ya know . . . after what your father did and all.”
Stevie slowly blew out a breath, then said, “I can pay to put you up in a hotel for a bit.”
“That’s real kind of ya, darlin’. Real kind indeed. But we can’t just go anywhere, now can we? After someone tried to kill us.”
“What hotel would you like?” she asked.
“For us? It would need to be the Kingston Arms, now wouldn’t it?’
The Kingston Arms? Was this asshole kidding? The Kingston Arms was expensive. Seriously, blindingly expensive. It made staying at the Ritz Carlton seem like hanging out at a Motel 6 off I-95.
“Well . . . that’s a problem,” Stevie said as she tried to slap the basketball away from a still-dribbling Max, “since—the last I heard—the Scottish MacKilligans have been banned from the Kingston Arms. All Kingston Arms. Even the ones in Africa and Asia.”
“Maybe because they kept calling the Asians ‘Orientals,’ ” Max suggested, making Zé snort just a little.
“That wasn’t what happened,” the uncle argued. “And Africa? How could we be banned from some African Kingston Arms? That’s not a country I’d even go to. Isn’t that right, lads?”
When the men agreed as if even suggesting such a thing was the real offense here, Stevie threw up her hands and snarled. “Africa is a continent, you dimwits! You’ve been banned from all the Kingston Arms that are in the many countries on the continent of Africa.”
“Country or continent—”
“Continent!”
“—being banned from Africa was not the fault of the MacKilligans.” His head bopped from side to side before he added, “But Asia . . . that was definitely our fault. But not Africa. It was our enemies who got us banned from Africa. That was other badgers who used our name.”
“I don’t care! You need to go! And you—” she suddenly bellowed, turning to face her sister, “—need to stop dribbling that goddamn ball!”
But Max didn’t stop; she simply began dribbling the ball back and forth between her legs. Zé had to admit, though, she had solid technique.
The uncle, however, didn’t seem to be aware of anything but getting what he wanted.
“Look, niece,” her uncle began again, “we’d go if we could. Truly we would. We don’t like being in your way. But where would we go? What would we do? So for now, at least, here we’ll stay. And I’m sure with a heart as big as yours, you’ll be happy to let us stay, now won’t she, lads?”
The burly men heartily agreed, their condescending smirks annoying Zé so much, he thought about hurling that Viking boat of a sneaker across the room in the hopes of destroying them all the way the Vikings did to those monks in 793 AD. But before he could make that move, Stevie abruptly reached over to one of the men and grabbed something off his belt.
Zé watched in shock as Stevie expertly flicked open what turned out to be a butterfly knife—an edge weapon that was not remotely legal in New York. He jumped up, ready to step in before she did something she would regret the rest of her life—although he understood it; he wanted to stab that pushy uncle himself. Dude was annoying. But before anyone could make a move, Stevie snatched the basketball from her sister mid-bounce and rammed the blade into it.
Then she did it again. And again. Then a whole bunch more times. All while staring her sister right in the eyes.
Finally, when she stopped, she hysterically screamed in Max’s face, “I told you to stop playing with that fucking ball!”
With that, Stevie shoved the deflated ball back into Max’s hands, the knife still sticking out of it, and stormed out of the room.
There was a long moment of silence until the uncle said, “That girl should be locked up.”
Max pulled out the knife, expertly flicked it closed, and handed it back to one of the other men. “Really?”
“I don’t mean in a prison.”
“Oh, I understand what you mean. You’re talking about a mental hospital. A loony bin, where the crazies go. Do you really think this is about her being annoyed by you? No. It’s about Charlie.”
“Charlie told us we could stay.”
“I’m sure she did. Charlie’s a good person. But she has a very low threshold for other people’s bullshit. She puts up with it from me and Stevie but you’re not us. You’re them. And Stevie’s brain is so advanced, she can look minutes, days, weeks, months, years ahead. She can see that, one day, you’re going to do something so stupid and so uncaring that you piss off Charlie. Piss her off so much that she’ll kill all of you. She’ll kill all of you and not care, even though Charlie cares about everything and everyone. But you’ll push her so far that—boom!—over the edge she’ll go and you boys will be dead and it will be civil war among the MacKilligans. So Stevie is trying to prevent an outcome she sees as clearly as she saw the formula for the minor nuclear explosion she caused that time.”
As the men simply stared at her, Max smiled. “Even worse, once the war starts . . . well, that’s when I will have to step in. And I’ll be forced to do what I do so goddamn well. You wouldn’t want that, would you? Me, completely wiping out the entire Scottish MacKilligan bloodline because . . . ya know . . . I can.”
The smile turned to a grin and that grin grew wide. It wasn’t a sadistic smile, though. That’s what was kind of terrifying about it. It was a pure, happy smile. As if she was at a child’s first birthday party.
“So, to prevent what my adorable baby sister clearly sees,” she went on, “I strongly suggest you make a few calls, pack up your shit, and move over to the Kingston Arms. I’m sure they will take you if you give them our name, promise not to steal anything, and pay much more than anyone in the history of the universe. I know you’re cheap,” she quickly added when her uncle began to argue.
“I ain’t!”
“Oh . . . you is. And we all know it. Right, lads?” she asked the men accompanying her uncle. Their reply was to look down at the floor and not say anything. “See? They know. We all know you’re cheap. But that’s okay. You’re just going to suck it up and pay that tab! Willingly . . . and with love.”
“Now listen to me—”
She held up the deflated ball right in front of her uncle’s face. “What I did with this poor basketball is just one of the many ways I know how to irritate her. You should know that over the years, I’ve discovered thousands of ways to irritate Stevie MacKilligan. You could almost say it’s been a lifetime project of mine. Do you want to stick around while I make her even crazier? Or do you just want to get the fuck out?” Still grinning. How could she say all that and still keep smiling? How could she not be angry on some level? But she wasn’t. Zé knew anger, and she wasn’t angry. Not even a little. “Because I can promise you that my sister can go from slightly hysterical to destroyer of entire worlds in a nanosecond. Can’t she, Dougie?” She looked directly at one of the men and, after a brief staring contest, he nodded. “Remember what happened in the Bronx that time, Dougie? Remember what Stevie did there?” She winked at him and crinkled her nose up at the same time. It was adorable and horrifying. “Oh, yeah. You remember.”