Page 137 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

Henry chuckled. “Who were you visiting upstairs?”

“Randy.” Dex slumped in his chair. “I was supposed to take him for a driving lesson today, but he wasnotgoing.”

Henry chuckled. “Well, that’s what you get when you yell.”

Dex scowled. “Yell? Is that what he said? Iyelled?”

“It’s all we’ve heard fordays—how ‘Dex yelled at me!’ and I had to assure him that the one time you’d yelled at me was when I fell in the pond and then hadn’t called for help, so you probably had a good reason.”

“Oh, I had a good reason, all right,” Dex muttered grimly. “Did he tell you what I yelled?”

“Just that it was a yell,” Henry said. As he spoke, he was deftly cutting up vegetables and some leftover pork chops and onions and putting everything in little bowls. Tomatoes, Dex thought dreamily, and chives. Oh, this was going to be a beauty of an omelet.

Dex pulled his attention back to the matter at hand. “Sure—it was a yell that sounded like, ‘Turn left here anddon’t hit the two garbagemen in the middle of the road,anddon’t hit the can behind their truck either!’”

Henry barely missed slicing his finger while dicing a mushroom as Dex relived the “yell,” and he turned around to laugh at his brother. “So that was the yell?”

“It was hardly unwarranted!” Dex said, hurt.

“Well, yeah—a very necessary yell,” Henry agreed. “But, you know, Randy—”

“He won’t go with me,” Dex said miserably. “Henry, this kidneedsa driver’s license. Heneedsa way out of porn. And I know people can ride the bus for years, but—”

“But he needs to know he can do it,” Henry said, nodding like he got it. He turned to whisking a bunch of eggs cracked into a glass bowl, added some milk and some garlic salt, and then whisked them some more.

Dex was at the place now where he needed to man up. “He wants you to do it,” he said. “And he wants you to do it in Jennifer.”

Henry almost fumbled the bowl and the whisk. He set them both down and stared at his brother in bemusement. “He wantsmeto teach him how to drive in Jackson’s haunted minivan?”

“It’s haunted?” Dex asked, surprised.

“Oh my God. The other day, it almost dumped Galen on his ass in front of the office because Galen… well, he said one of those mean, dry things that I won’t repeat about how Jennifer isn’t a lady. Anyway, she didn’t take it well, and Jackson’s been detailing her upholstery and oiling all those little hinges on the disappearing back seats this weekend. He says it’s like a smudging, except Jennifer’s a practical girl.”

Dex groaned, and not even the smell of the amazing coffee could make it better. “Will it kill my top-billed adult film actor?”

“He’s top billed?” Henry asked in shocked. “Randy?”

Dex grunted. “Have you ever seen his porn?”

“No.Godno. It feels wrong.”

“Yeah.” Dex nodded glumly. “But that’s because weknowhim. If you just randomly watched him in a scene, you’d be saying his name as you came.”

“Davy…,” Henry whined.

“Look, I know,” Dex acknowledged. “It’s wrong when you know him. You know him and you’re like, ‘Wait—thatkid is an adult film star?’ But on film he’s a powerhouse. So here I am, trying to get my powerhouse out of the business, where he is making me lots of money, by the way, because thelittle kid in his heartis not going to do well in this business much longer. And apparently,Ican’t teach him how to drive becauseI yell!”

Henry grimaced and nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I get it. Hold on a sec, let me get this started, and then I’m gonna call my boss.”

Dex groaned. “No….”

“Yeah. Sorry, Dex. My specialty is in telling them bluntly that they’re fucking up. I amnotwho Randy needs. We’re gonna need to bring in the big guns, okay? Andyouare going to need to sit this one out.”

BY THEtime Jackson showed up at Henry’s with a giant box of doughnuts, Henry had finished his very healthy omelet.

Jackson sighed and sat down to eat, admitting Henry’s choice had probably been wiser, while Henry ate three doughnuts in front of Dex and Jackson and they agreed that killing was too good for him.

“Metabolism,” Dex muttered. “Wait until he hits thirty.”

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