Jackson Ford - Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air

“Don’t just stand there,” Annie says, stabbing at the floor with her broom. “Grab a sweeper. Help out.”

“Sweeper?”

“You know what I mean. Come on, man, let’s go.”

I raise an eyebrow, then pull all the debris towards me with my PK. Annie steps backwards, startled, as I collect the glass and crockery in a large ball. I float it over to the giant trash can they hauled in from the garage, and drop it inside.

“I keep forgetting you can do that,” Annie says.

“You’re welcome.” I take another sip of coffee. “Any major damage? Beyond a few plates and shit?”

“Trash cans round back are all over the place. Hey, what’s with the get-up?”

“What get-up?”

“Your get-up.” She waves a hand at me. “You look different.”

Right. The get-up she’s referring to is an actual collared shirt – a white one, the only one I actually own, and which I’ve only worn about once before. I don’t even remember where it came from. I’ve paired it with the second-smartest thing I own, a pair of khaki slacks. I even made sure to put on a little more make-up than usual. If I was the kind of person who owned a pencil skirt, I’d probably be rocking that too.

I give a twirl, showing off. Maybe if I pretend I’m in a good mood, it’ll trick my brain into actually doing it. “You like?” I look at Annie over my shoulder, pull a duck face.

I’m expecting her to make a crack. Instead, she tilts her head, looking me up and down. “Eh. Suits you.”

I blink, surprised. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“Also, I see what you did there.”

“What?”

“Suits you? As in a suit? Cos… never mind.”

Normally, I’d take a huge swerve around an outfit like this. But today is Good Impressions Day. It’s all part of the plan, for when I ask Reggie to ask Tanner if I could do some pro-cooking school. I certainly wasn’t planning on getting a compliment from Annie, but fuck it. You take ’em when you get ’em.

“Hey, can you help me with these papers?” Paul says.

“Can’t. They’re organic.”

“I meant by using your hands, Teagan. Like the rest of us mere mortals.”

“Nah. I don’t know what order you want them in. I might mess up your system.”

Paul frowns. “It’s messed up anyway. If you—”

“She’s just fucking with you, babe,” Annie says, giving me a meaningful look.

“That’s OK,” Paul grumbles. “I think I got it.”

“Hold on, white boy, I’m coming.” She props the broom against the counter.

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to hurt the baby.”

I’m halfway through swallowing, and nearly choke to death on hot coffee. “I’m sorry, what?”

Then I see the look on Paul’s face. “Oh. Ha ha. Hysterical.”

He turns back to his papers, grinning. “You’re not the only one who can mess with people.”

“You really need to work on your jokes.”

“For once, she’s right.” Annie cuffs Paul on the back of the head. “You joke about that again, we gonna have a problem.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t want to have a baby with you.”

Annie rolls her eyes, dropping to her knees to help. She slowly brushes her hand across his shoulders as she does so – a gesture I’m not even sure she’s aware of. When she gets to his level, he plants a quick kiss on her forehead, murmurs something in her ear.

I will never understand how Annie and Paul got together. Not in a billion years. The tight-ass, white-bread Navy quartermaster and the former gangster from Watts. Then again, maybe Paul’s tight ass did have something to do with it – I wouldn’t know, I haven’t ever seen him naked, thank God, but…

I shudder. There are things that one should never have to imagine, and our logistics man’s naked butt is one of them.

Anyway, they’ve been together for a few months now, and if anything they are more disgusting than they were when they started. They’ve also relaxed a little. Paul has gotten less uptight – not a lot, but some – and I may or may not have been unfair when I said that Annie’s default setting is angry. Mildly irked, maybe.

She’s definitely loosened up around me. We’ve been through a lot together in the last few months. What can I say – police chases and murder plots and stand-offs with black ops teams have a way of bringing coworkers together. And she is probably just as essential to China Shop as I am, with her ridiculous network of connections across LA. Annie’s Army, we call them. If you need a security pass, a camera tilted out of whack a little or info on how the mayor likes his coffee, you ask Annie. She’ll ask a few people, and have an answer in about twenty minutes.

I bring myself back. “Tell me the coffee machine made it through the—”

“ Teggan! ”

In the next instant, I’m swept off the ground, squeezed from behind by two enormous arms. My coffee cup goes flying, the contents spattering across the counter.

I manage to force words out. “Can’t… breathe…”

From behind me, Africa lets loose a gust of laughter, gives one squeeze for luck and releases. Then he spins me around, huge hands gripping my shoulders, looking me up and down. Like he’s checking for damage. I’m surprised when he doesn’t find any.

“You dëma ,” he says. “You made it out the shaking! I thought maybe something fall on you. You so small, they never find you.”

Africa is Senegalese, seven feet tall, with a voice that can travel for miles on a clear day, and I was kind of hoping he’d decide to stay home. He’s wearing orange sweatpants so vivid they should be banned under international law. On top, he has a purple-and-gold Lakers starter jacket that looks like it last saw action when Magic Johnson was playing. On his feet, pristine Timberlands, the suede clean and crisp.

He smashes a fist into an open palm, the sound like a thunder clap. “I was at Home Depot with Jeannette. I was buying jars for my kitchen, and everything started falling everywhere. We have to hide in the checkout.”

“Yo,” I say. “You spilled my coffee.”

“Oh!” His eyebrows shoot up, and he thunders past me, grabbing a wad of paper towels, slamming them down on the counter. “OK, I fix. No problems.”

Here’s another fun story. A few months ago, I was on the run after being framed for murder. Africa – real name Idriss Kouamé – was a homeless dude who hung around the area the poor bastard died in.

Actually, calling Africa a homeless dude was selling him short. Less homeless, more dude. He was a guy who knew a guy, a man with a million stories, a hardened survivor of downtown LA and a thousand other places across the world.

No joke: if he hadn’t helped me out, I’d be strapped to a table at a government black site right now. I managed to clear my name, but not before Carlos betrayed me.

After the shit-show that led to Carlos’s death, I thought Tanner would fill his spot with someone safe. A spec ops guy, a CIA agent, another bureaucrat to keep us in line. I jokingly suggested we should hire Africa, and was – how can I put this? – a little surprised when Reggie and Annie actually took me seriously.

Their argument? That he was unconventional, and that our job required unconventional thinking. He knew a shit-ton of people in LA – not as many as Annie, it’s true, but he still has plenty of useful contacts that she doesn’t. He can drive – amazingly, the big lunk has a current licence. He’s also huge, and good at looking scary when he has to.

For once, I was the voice of reason. Africa was cool, and I owed him big time, but I did not think he’d be a good fit. I was worried he was going to do something stupid – try and sell us out, or tell someone about my ability. And when I am worried about a person doing something stupid, that’s when the red flags start going up.