Tasìa shut the vault door behind her and locked it. Annebél had turned the former office into a finely-decored set of living spaces for herself and her brother. She had also reinforced the walls and window portals with assault proofed materials.

Spook safe houses were typically less well defended.

"Shit, Avellana! Big gun there," Annebél exclaimed on sight of her. "How do you even hold that thing when you fire it?"

Tasìa chuckled. She flexed her right-side bicep in a tight repose. A gobliny grin smirked across Tasìa's face to let Annebél know she wasn't being serious.

"Experience, more than anything. If you hold it correctly, you won't clonk yourself in the forehead while shooting it."

Tasìa realized Annebél wasn't a gun girl by the way she regarded the weapon curiously. She had killed a man with her fists, after all. What did she need with a gun?

"So, it looks valuable. Is that why you brought it inside?"

Tasìa shook her head.

"No. I want to hold off on telling you because it might spoil my big reveal."

Tasìa tapped the bottle wrapped in her shirt rag.

Annebél bit her bottom lip as her eyes darted back and forth between Tasìa and the Desert Eagle laying on the kitchen island top surface at the thief's elbow.

"You sure its a good idea to keep it to yourself? There has been a lot of things going on."

That you have not told me about, thought Tasìa. Though you know my own entanglement with the Javierras.

Tasìa bit her own lip in turn. She passed the bottle over.

"Here," Tasìa said, smiling as she forced through a sense of enthusiasm. "Open this!"

Annebél's hands fidgeted, but she complied.

"Son Délice Sauvage? Tellement chic!"

Then Annebél frowned.

"It's just a broken bottle, Avellana. Worse still, it's completely empty."

Tasìa brought out her beer bottle full of the vodka.

"It's in here. I salvaged what I could."

"Well then," Annebél perked up with a smile.

She stood up and grabbed a pair of shot glasses.

"If I am not being greedy," Annebél continued. "Two ounces a shot. That comes to three for each of us."

She glanced over to her brother. Agu was enwrapped in the world inside his stereophonic headset and VR goggles.

"Does he drink?"

Annebél stared straight ahead past Tasìa. Tasìa poured the shots.

"Like a fish whenever I let him." She turned to Tasìa in a change of tone. "Have you tried it yet? What did you think?"

Tasìa raised her shot to just beneath her lips.

"This. It's like squeezing the nipple of an angel and letting the milk spill into your mouth."

Annebél grinned wryly.

"Do you pray to your Lord with that potty mouth?"

Tasìa shrugged.

"People have certain expectations of nuns like they do of prisons that have little to do with the reality of either."

She thought of the shrine to San La Muerta that the ghouls kept when she continued.

"Even here in Paraquay where we are positively drenched in the Old Church's counter-culture."

Annebél squeezed Tasìa's shoulder.

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"I'm pulling your chain, my dearie. Every old whore here like myself sends her prayers up to heaven via Our Lady, Doña Sebastiana."

Tasìa smiled and relaxed her demeoner at this admission as she had muttered a prayer to the same hedge-saint the previous evening when she survived a near death experience.

She held her glass out for a cheer. Shots properly clinked, they threw the drinks back.

For Tasìa, it was even better than before, but more supple and less burn. For Annebél, she gasped as she held on to her neck with her chin raised up.

"I wasn't ready for that," she exclaimed. "I'm totally discombobulated."

Annebél shook off the trance by rubbing at her face with her two palms. With a flourish, the redhead shook her head. Her head of hair bounced lovely against her neck.

"So," Annebél began as she pointed with a slight jab. Her crooked finger wiggled at the Desert Eagle. "Now with the first shot out of the way, perhaps, I'll enjoy the second one even more if you tell me why you needed that?"

Tasìa grimaced. Will the bontemps still continue?

"I don't want to alarm you. It's not like he is an enforcer out there or anything. Just a walk-around guy."

Annebél's forehead wrinkled together.

"Walk-around guy? How can you be certain it's not an enforcer out there?"

Tasìa nodded her chin vigorously, as she poured another shot for each of them.

"Yeah. When the mob needs to know something, they don't send some roughneck thug-ass type. They get the most amiable, likable guy on the payroll to go around observing and talking to people. The walk-around guy."

Annebél dropped the shot down her throat.

"Muy elegante," Annebél proclaimed. She shut her eyes as if she could have shut off the very world itself.

Tasìa continued.

"This guy was definitely not an enforcer. I am certain of that. No enforcer wears a pink suit."

Annebél glanced back at Tasìa with her eyelashes barely unclamped.

"Pink suit?"

"Big guy. Six four. Fat."

Annebél stared back.

"Freddie 'Frenzy' Ferenzi. It has to be. He retired from fighting. Went to work for the Javierras."

Annebél marched to the vault door. Unleashed the roll guard and unlocked it.

As soon as she slammed the door open, Annebél yelled into the night air.

"Hey, Frenzy? Looking for me? Get your ass over here."

He sounded far off as he responded, but as he came closer, Tasìa could make more but not total sense of his words.

"Hey __, Annie. I wasn't sure if this was your ____ __ not. That little squirt with the big-ass hand cannon, ain't gonna shoot me, is she?"

Annebél glanced back at Tasìa.

"Completely up to her. She might if you call her little squirt to her face. She isn't known for taking a lot of shit from anyone. Even me."

Ferenzi peeked over Annebél's shoulder and he got a look at Tasìa. His jowls fluttered rhythmically as he studied her.

"What if I tell her that she is cuter than a june bug? Would that mollify the situation?"

Annebél laughed as she let the big man inside.

"I told her pretty much the same thing about that getup she is wearing. She was in no mood for being called cute."

Tasìa shook her head slowly with her eyes drawn low to let them both know they were treading on thin ice.

"Evening, ma'am," Ferenzi said to Tasìa with a hat tip. "I've come to have a chat with Annebél. Hope you don't mind if I interrupt your parlor drinking games, but the need is urgent, and Annebél is the only one I personally know from this town."

Tasìa regarded the man. She had no problem extending her hospitality, it wasn't even her house, after all. She was, however, confounded by Annebél's reaction.

After all, Annebél was so angry with the crime family, she talked Tasìa into letting her blow up an Alfa Romeo HybrClydis sports car owned by them. Tasìa knew little for certain but it was safe to assume Annebél saved a teenage girl from their malevolent schemes.

Now, Annebél invited one of their henchmen into her home. It made little sense.

Tasìa decided to remain silent. If he was asking for some privacy, he would have to ask her directly. Tasìa nodded to him, then turned to pour a shot.

Ferenzi played it off. He turned back to speak to Annebél.

"Not a very talkative one. I don't think she is going to shoot me, so that's progress."

Tasìa chuckled as she raised her shot glass to her lips.

Ferenzi whispered.

"Is it cool to talk with her around?"

"Go ahead, Frenzy. It's okay."

He cleared his throat before speaking again.

"My boss has a nephew who is in a coma up in the local hospital here. We have little idea what occurred. They sent me to piece it together. Find out what happened."

His voice was not at all threatening. He merely pleaded.

"I see," was all that Annebél answered back in turn.

That was the wrong approach Tasìa thought. She kept that up, pretty soon Ferenzi was going to catch on.

"It's the damnedest thing. I inquired with business nearby. Surveillance cameras have been wiped out from that night and only that night so, of course, I am as suspicious as hell about it now."

Felicité? Tasìa thought. Did she wipe those? Felicité never mentioned the extracurricular work if she had done so.

Of course, Ferenzi may have been testing them. He likely found out a few more things than he was willing to reveal. Likely so, if he spread money around asking questions.

He did not give off a menacing air. He could have spoken to the store clerk, Eliza. A little charm thrown her way, she would have no clue she was endangering anyone.

Or, what if the nephew was now talking. Even in a coma, it was possible for him to have brief moments of lucidity where he remembered and recalled before lapsing off again.

Before Annebél had a chance to be caught in any duplicity, Tasìa turned around.

"Hey, Ferenzi. Come in here and have a seat, and I'll tell you what happened to your employer's nephew, Sal."