Anarchy of the Mice

Chapter Twenty-Seven

As Quaid saw it, things were going according to Hoyle. The Mice were en route. Molly's phone was pinging only intermittently, likely stuck in an RF-blocking bag, but extrapolating by its time and last location, Durwood pegged the caravan at thirty minutes out. The Mice would park outside the old steel factory and confirm Steed was in his office, then infiltrate the premises using the security holes Molly had slipped them. When they tried storming the CEO's office—no doubt Josiah was priming his sermon right now—the guys would intervene.

"Spitballing here on next steps," Quaid said in the back of the Vanagon. "After these kids are locked up, will you need to get back to West Virginia and tend the acreage a bit? Or should I book us another gig?"

Durwood watched his monitors. "You count chickens. I'll watch the eggs."

Quaid chuckled. "Always look forward, Wood. Always. This could be a marketing coup, stopping the Blind Mice. We'd be negligent not to capitalize."

Durwood switched between views, now watching Jim Steed hunched at his desk, now jib cranes in the prefab construction facility.

Quaid went on, "Obviously you can't run TV spots advertising that sort of thing, but word gets around. It affords us an opportunity to grow the brand. Expand the image of Third Chance Enterprises."

Durwood grunted his displeasure at the name. Quaid considered it quite the bon mot, believing it captured the essence of the partnership perfectly. Both men had arrived at their current station on the heels of failure—Quaid, twice felled from the pinnacle of Massachusetts politics by prostitution scandal; and Durwood, who blamed himself for the deaths of his wife and eldest son, then came unhinged upon those dozen Iraqis, perpetrating a vengeance so savage the Army rangers disavowed him.

Durwood refused to call this last a mistake. Still, between it and what'd happened with Joel and Maybelle, you had to figure two slip-ups could be assigned—which in Quaid's estimation validated the name.

"This unrest could take a while wrapping up. There's all kinds of work available. Priceless art needs recovering. State secrets have been jeopardized. I'm still taking phone calls from Fabienne Rivard—she wants to meet in person." Quaid licked his lips at the thought of the leggy French heiress-CEO. "We're free to make this thing whatever we like."

Durwood said, "No difference to me, what the brochures say." His calloused finger worked the cam-joystick. "I'll worry about keeping the both of us alive."

Faced with such incuriousness, Quaid had little choice but to carry on the musings in his own head. He reclined as best he could in the cramped Vanagon confines, amid Durwood's arsenal and spy gizmos, Sue-Ann nuzzling his loafers, and dreamed.

He believed Third Chance Enterprises could be more than small-force private-arms. There was a core of life in what he and Durwood did—a vitality, a zest. He believed this core deserved to be shared somehow, spread far and wide. Should he memorialize their adventures in print? Nah, nobody read books anymore. Movies? Quaid knew plenty of Hollywood heavies who might turn their tales into box-office gold, but this didn't curb his wanderlust either.

As a boy, Quaid had lamented the unconquerable size of the world, of humanity—what a mere sliver one could ever know. How many people would be born, grow tall, make goals and battle sickness and fall in love, and never catch a whiff of Quaid Rafferty? The tragedy flowed the other direction, too; Quaid, no megalomaniac, felt despair at all the beautiful souls in Namibia and Burma and the plumb-middle of Ohio that he'd never meet.

These thoughts had surely driven him into politics, along with the Gallagher family name. Fame had balmed—but not cured—his lust to connect more broadly. When he'd helped that first prostitute (he chuckled ruefully at the need to clarify which) during his governorship, it had been this reverence for the undiscovered greatness in people, a Pretty Woman Syndrome offshoot, that had driven him to abandon all caution and good sense. She'd needed help keeping her apartment. She and Quaid had shared a stretch of bar at the working-class watering hole he frequently stole off to. That was all it had taken to sprout the seeds of his downfall.