Page 31 of Vicarious

“Yeah,” Phae says. “Like that. I suppose you would know that, wouldn’t you? How often do you see the children.”

“Three times a year if I’m lucky. Most of the time, twice a year. This year, once. It’s been chaotic. Dele has had to lay low for a bit, and I was caught up in something with some associates that made it dangerous to bring them around or risk the knowledge of their existence…. Or at least, that I know they exist. Something more regular is going to have to wait until after Pray.”

“How close are you and Dele to taking him down anyway? You’ve been working at it for years. What’s the part that’s missing? What’s stopping you?”

The fact that Dele’s operations aren’t strong enough to start, survive and win a national drug war. The fact that not enough of my allies are in the right places, and I’m not sure if I killed Pray and made a bid for power, everyone would fall in line. The fact that I’m not sure I could get close enough to Pray, get him and his security’s guard down long enough to kill him and then not be avenged by his loyal guards. There are other things. But those are all things that can be worked out after a takeover if necessary.

And that’s assuming this all comes down to exchanging actual fighting blows with Pray. While gun fights and all other forms of physical conflict are my specialty and preference, even I’m not so trigger happy that I wouldn’t prefer not to fight a fight that I don’t have the absolute clear advantage in some way.

Facing off against Pray anytime in the next two years is a coin toss to who would win, which has made it necessary to look for ways to get Pray out of the way without having to shed a bunch of blood. But it’s been hard to find anything. It’s like Cres said when I first brought her on. The man, for all appearances, is squeaky clean. He cleans up behind himself well. He’s the hand in everything but can pull that hand away without having any blood on it and incriminating himself.

Of all those reasons, the latter is what I decide to give Phae. Because it’s the one she’d agree with and doesn’t reveal my ambitions to make myself and Dele the head of all Pray’s operations.

“So what you’re saying is that you need a smoking gun?” Phae asks, tapping her spoon on the rim of her soup bowl.

“No. We have plenty of those. We just need to prove that he was the one that pulled the trigger.”

Phae furrows her brow, and even after all these years, I know what it means. It means she has an idea. An insane one. But at least, unlike Dele, Phae’s going to notify me of what that insane idea is before she decides to execute it even if she thinks I won’t like it. And, undoubtedly, I’m not.

“I know where there’s proof.”

“Where?”

“At his estate in California. His personal vineyard.”

“How do you know it’s there?”

“Because men like my uncle think they’re above being caught or found out. And when you have that kind of hubris, you can only boost that ego more by keeping the evidence of all your misgivings somewhere where you think no one will ever be able to get to it. Right under the nose of any authority who might do something about it.”

“If there’s anyone in the world more paranoid than me, it’s Stephen Pray. There’s no way he’d be that careless to leave all the evidence of his misdeeds in one place that could take him down if the wrong person stumbled upon it.”

Because that’s damn near the first rule about getting into this business. You can never be too paranoid. You can trust no one. You always have to operate under the assumption that you can be caught at any time and by anyone. So you take all the steps possible to mitigate that. And to have all the fucking evidence of your misdeeds in one fucking place that could send your entire life up in flames is to not even just breaking that rule. It’s flagrantly disregarding it. Utterly reckless. It’s the type of behavior that have brought more powerful men than Pray down to their knees in history.

“And if there’s anyone who knows my uncle better than anyone, it’s me. I’m telling you. It’s there. I know it. I was planning to find a way there to get it myself. But then he made his move. But it’s not too late if we could get it.”

“And how exactly were you planning to get onto that estate and find this evidence to begin with?”

“The twins,” Phae explains. “This was before I knew Pray was onto me. I didn’t think he was behind the whole drug war, but I did think he had something to do with it and that he had evidence of it somewhere. I used to think he was like me. Outcast because he wanted more than a life as part of a criminal empire. I was going to pretend I was still under that impression and in the name of being connected to the only family who thought like each other, we could spend some time together. Let him get to know the twins and what was really important to him at his estate.”

“And what was your plan after that?” I ask.

Phae cringes and says, “I hadn’t quite worked all that out yet. I thought I had time and then everything happened. Obviously, that kind of plan wouldn’t work now. But there’s got to be a way for someone. You or one of your people to get on that estate, search it, and find it.”

I pause and then…

“I think I might have any idea.”

“And that is?”

“That it might be time to get engaged to my longtime girlfriend.”

Phae drops her spoon in surprise and sputters. “You have… You…”

“Yes. For appearances only. Because Pray wants to consolidate his power and strengthen an alliance with the Mexican mafia out in California. She’s lesbian.”

Phae gives me a look before taking a napkin and swatting me with it from across the table.

“You ass. You start off with that.”

---