Page 48 of Part & Parcel

“During my recovery I was stuck on theFiddler. A lot. I finally got up the nerve to go through Eli’s box, and while I was looking for that old sock puppet of his, I found this packet of letters instead. This was the first one. It’s um . . . it’s a little hard to read, but if you guys want to see it . . . he explains this better than I can.”

Owen immediately held out his hand for it. Nick gave it to him, licking his lips in a rare show of nerves.

Owen started reading it out loud, but after a few sentences he got choked up and had to stop. He read the rest to himself, his eyes welling by the time he got to the second page. He finished with a watery laugh and handed it to Ty. Then he wiped his eyes and stepped closer to Nick, giving him a wordless hug. Nick rested his chin on Owen’s shoulder, gripping him hard and murmuring something to him that Zane couldn’t hear.

Zane watched in morbid fascination for a few seconds, struck dumb by the amount of emotion being openly displayed by two men who were notoriously good at hiding such things. Then he and Digger read the letter over Ty’s shoulders. By the time he was done, he understood the urgency of Nick’s call to arms, and he understood the tears and the sadness and the need to meet at Eli’s grave. He even understood the tiny leprechaun hats.

“Eli knew you’d get us here,” Ty said to Nick, smiling sadly. Nick returned the smile with weak one. “Now I get why you wouldn’t let me read this when we went through his box.”

“I’m sorry,” Nick said with a wince.

“No, Irish, it’s fine. You did what he told you to do.”

“So what do we do now?” Digger asked shakily.

“Once we’re all together, we open the next letter.” Nick glanced around at everyone, his handsome face perhaps as solemn as Zane had ever seen it. “Everybody in?”

“EZ’s talking to us, man,” Digger said. “I’m listening.”

“Me too,” Owen and Ty both said.

“Before we read that letter, though,” Kelly said, and he rummaged in Nick’s bag for a second before pulling out a ragged orange-and-green sock monkey. He held it up. “Seymour needs to see more.”

After a moment of silence, Digger smacked his forehead with his palm. “Damn!”

“Yeah, it took me ten years, too,” Kelly mumbled.

Zane watched with a confused smile as Ty and Kelly arranged the sock monkey so he’d sit by himself on Eli’s gravestone.

Nick edged closer to him, giving him a self-conscious smile and a nod. “Thanks for bringing Six out to play, Garrett.”

Zane shook his head. “Once you see what he’s got in that Mustang, you might change your tune.”

Nick snorted.

“What are they doing?” Zane asked with a nod toward the sock monkey.

“He’s Eli’s.” Nick’s voice was distant and somber. “He’s had his picture taken at landmarks and special places all over the world. And this . . .” Nick looked around Arlington Cemetery and fought to swallow. His eyes were back on Eli’s headstone when Kelly took a picture of Seymour with his phone. “Doesn’t get much more special than this.”

There are going to be some rules for this trip. You will follow these rules. Don’t make me Swayze the shit out of you.

1. No sex. No hooking up. This is about us, and I can’t have any of you getting all distracted. You can go out and blow off steam, but it can’t be for chasing tail. This rule is unbendable. I don’t care if you’re all married with eight kids. I don’t care if you’re married to each other. No. Sex. Full stop.

2. No one abandons the mission. I know you got lives to get back to, so if you need to leave for work or for an emergency, do it. But everyone goes with you. When it’s done, you get back on the road where you pulled off. I don’t give a shit.

3. You’re going to hit some casinos on your route. No one is allowed to touch the dice except Digger and O’Flaherty. The rest of you are bad luck.

4. I’m going to come back to this and add rule number four, I thought these up while I was going to sleep and I’ve forgotten what four was, but it was very important.

5. Lastly, no matter how much you hate this, no matter how annoying it is, no matter how much pain you’re in, remember Rule Five. EZ loves you.

Now that you’re all together, you’re going to need to get Johns’s big-ass black credit card. Go buy some plane tickets to Denver, Colorado. When you land, I want you to go to baggage claim, stare at the little devil in the suitcase that always makes Nick uneasy. Do it long enough that he starts cursing because that shit’s funny. Then go rent a car.

You’re going to need the car for 14 days. Tell them you’re dropping it off in Las Vegas, NV.

And get lots of insurance on it.

Once you’re in the rental agency waiting, you can open the next letter.

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