Razzle Dazzle

VAL WOKE up two hours later feeling like that last tag end of his sleep was enough to boost him for a week. These were the times when he wanted a chance to jog around the truck stop, or even hop in the driver's seat and push on until morning.

Except it was now a mere one in the afternoon. Didn't matter. After a yawn and a stretch—and a trip to the tiny travel sink to brush his teeth and rinse the grit out of his eyes—he hit the portajohn and washed his hands. While usually he used bathrooms at truck stops or service stations because keeping those receptacles filled could be a colossal PITA on long trips, he was always secretly amazed that a big-rig cabin really could harbor many of the comforts of home.

When he finally emerged and got back in the passenger's seat, he felt charged and ready to go—and only a little aware of his cuts, bruises, and scrapes from the multiple fracases he'd managed to survive the night before.

He belted himself in and took a look around, the wide green plains declaring them well outside of Austin city limits and still under the blazing blue dome of Texas.

Still, he was surprised when he saw the sign for Waco.

"You went out of your way," he said, curious.

"I saw one too many black trucks," Rory told him sourly. "I've got Ford 450s on the brain now, and considering we're in Texas and everybody needs a crew cab and towing capacity, I gotta tell you, I'm starting to feel twitchy."

"Still didn't lose any time," Val said, pleased. "In fact, I think we'll be there two hours early."

"Great," Rory said, still sounding sour. "I've got to piss like a racehorse—and afterwards, I want to have a little talk about whether or not you think these assholes will be waiting for us."

"Oh, they'll definitely be waiting for us," Val said grimly. "It's why I called the USDA—and Dean. I'm going to check with both of them here while you hit that little button on the tablet there…." Val had set up a map tablet on his dashboard—not that he always got signal—but the refresh button was set permanently on "find a truck stop bathroom near me" because sometimes there wasn't a road shoulder that would hold a big rig, and sometimes a big boy needed a big bathroom.

Rory did that and grunted. "Five miles," he said, sounding relieved. "I can make five miles. Do you think you can make five miles?"

Val frowned, puzzled. "Well, yeah. I used the little boy's bucket in the water closet. That's what it's for."

"I don't mean until you have to pee ," Rory said, laughing at what sounded like a joke only he knew. "I mean is anything bad going to happen to you? Are you going to step outside and be surrounded by wasps?"

"Wasps?" Val gaped.

"Are you going to fall into a hole?"

"Probably not—"

"Flies? Boils? Time travel back to the Civil War? Look, man, I'm up for anything. But you got to let me know."

"I am not getting teleported to the Civil War," Val told him. "What in the actual hell?"

"No—no, you can't make light of this," Rory insisted, and Val noted that they'd clicked down a mile toward the rest stop and thought that might be a good thing. Rory was acting very odd, and while delusions of time travel had never plagued Val when he really had to pee, you never knew with some people.

"Light of what?" Val asked, laughing. "Your UTI delusions?"

"No, goddammit, I've got a point here!"

Val stared at him. "Okay, okay. What's the point?"

"I was driving here, freaking out about black trucks, wondering what you'd taste like—"

"Nungh." Val had to swallow. He hadn't been ready for that. "Like kissing?" he asked, feeling small and young when he was forty goddamned years old!

"Like your come down my throat, if you must know," Rory snapped, and Val clunked his head back against the head rest. He'd been trying so hard not to think about sex and Rory McCauley.

"This?" he asked gruffly. "This is what you're thinking about as you drive my rig?"

"Not at first," Rory admitted. "At first I was thinking about Chicago . Then I was thinking about Into the Woods . Then I was thinking about the movie version of Into the Woods , and then I was thinking about Chris Pine, who looks nothing like you, but suddenly all I could hear was you, singing ‘Agony,' and I thought, ‘I'd like to see him rip open his shirt in agony for my touch. That would be fun,' and then I remembered the last two days. If you were in the movie, you would have fallen off the waterfall. If you were on the stage, you would have fallen off onto the floor. When we finally get rid of this load and get a nice hotel, my treat, and a bath and a steak, I am going to fall asleep with you in my arms and wake up screaming, ‘Oh my God, Val, somebody's going to beat you!'"

By this point, Val was laughing so hard he couldn't breathe.

"Oh my God," he whooped. "Oh my God. Rory, we've got one mile to the rest stop, man. Just hold on. For Christ's sake, hold on—the minute your eyeballs stop floating, I promise you, sanity will return."

"You say that," Rory muttered, shifting gears as the offramp came into sight. "You say my sanity will return, but I just spent a long time in my own head, convincing myself to let you in, telling myself that a grown-up relationship could not possibly be worse than living alone and watching middle age charge at me like a slow train, thinking about what might have been."

Val caught his breath and allowed his laughter to taper off. "Aw, man, don't think of it like that. My whole life I've been looking forward to… to what my parents have! And trust me, it's not glamorous. Their idea of a rockin' good time is taking each other's blood pressure and scratching each other's backs. For date night, they research good salt-free recipes and go shopping for them. It's… it's insane how boring they are."

Rory's sourness eased along with Val's guffaws. "Then why do you want it so bad?" he asked, coasting into the parking lot and scanning for any suspicious Ford 450s—or maybe that was just Val, catching his paranoia.

"Because they do," Val said, his smile wistful. "They just… amuse each other is all. They look forward to the grocery store because it's an opportunity to talk. They like scratching each other's backs because it means they get to touch. They take bets on who has the BP closest to the target zone. Once I stopped fooling around, relationships started looking like opportunities—you know, to have someone in my life I looked forward to being with as much as they did."

Rory grunted and brought the rig into the nearest angled space in the rather crowded lot. After it was positioned—and Val was full of admiration for his confidence, because not everybody could drive a rig and Val really was lucky Rory had been taught—Rory set the thing in idle and squirmed while he pinned Val with a glare.

"What are you saying?" he asked, his voice a little thready with discomfort.

"I'm saying middle age doesn't have to suck if you've got a partner to—"

"Suck you?" Rory quipped grimly.

"Get the hell out of my truck," Val told him. "Take ten, run some laps, and come back and let me do the same. Holy Jesus, you try to talk to a guy—"

Rory grinned at him. "God, you're easy." Then he opened the door and slid out, leaving Val to check the mirrors and back-end cameras like an automaton, because Rory wasn't the only one spying bad guys around every corner.

Ten minutes later, Rory came trotting back to the truck, and Val glared at him sourly and made a motion with his finger, indicating Rory should do some laps before Val forgave him. Rory laughed and saluted, and Val's shoulders relaxed, knowing the other man was on the job.

He wondered at that, how he could trust Rory McCauley so quickly, know the man had his back—but he had no doubts. Maybe it was because the night before, when he'd been about to engage his opponents in the minimart, Rory had trusted him . Don't leave the haul alone. It had become their mantra with this gig. And as ridiculous as it seemed to have to risk his life and his rig and his business for a dying refrigerator full of bull semen, Rory seemed to grasp the importance like Val did. It wasn't only about the haul , it was about the people—Vinnie's family, his employees, his wife, his kids, his stock—who were counting on the haul arriving when it did. The more Val was on the road with this one, the more he was sure Reg had been absolutely on target and there was something amok with the payload. The first two loads gone awry had pretty much put him and Vinnie on alert. They'd been warned. And Val had no doubt now that the Cassidy brothers were the ones responsible; just like he had no doubt that they were the ones in the F-450.

Of course the big question was why —and it was a question Val planned to get right on just as soon as Vinnie's investment was secure. Whether that meant the product was usable or not was not on his agenda. It was that it hadn't gone bad on his watch. So far he'd done absolutely everything to ensure that if there was anything wonky about those straws of cow spunk, neither he nor his client were liable. If this load of spunk was really a load of crap, Vinnie could recoup his funds, and Val would not have lost the shipment. But he had to be in a position of being able to prove that when they arrived at the lab to test it.

Funny, his folks had been hoping for doctors or lawyers or professors. Hence the extravagant and improbable names. Val had not been happy during his two years of junior college, and he'd taken to his blue-collar business like a duck to water, but apparently a little bit of lawyering had seeped through.

It was like he could finally see the point.

Val watched as Rory made a circle of the truck, the engine's idling a comforting rumble that had sung him to sleep more often than he could count. Before he fell into that comfort, he picked up his cell and called Dean.

"Where you at?" Dean asked crisply, picking up before the ring was even done.

"Just cleared Waco," Val told him. "Rory's doing truck laps at a rest stop, and I'm doing my own in ten, then it's straight through to the lab. Checking to see what's up?"

Dean grunted. "Well, thanks to your info—and Reg's research—we have confirmation that your two troublemakers are the Cassidy brothers, and the USDA has shared some disturbing bits of history. You ready?"

"Hit me with it," Val said, watching as Rory rounded the truck and went for another lap.

"First take a look at the pictures I'm texting you."

Val's phone buzzed and he got another gander at the two guys who had been harassing Rory the night before—and who had tried to ambush them at the rest stop.

"There's our scumbags," he said with satisfaction, and after reading the details that came with the mugshots, "Rob and John Cassidy I take it?"

"Yes indeedy. Oldest children of their father, James, who built up Elite Cattle from three heifers and a bottle of jizz nearly thirty years ago. Here's his pic, back before old age and bad habits hit him hard."

The man in the picture had small eyes in a flatly planed, craggy face, and Val frowned as he contrasted it with the next pic Dean had sent, in which the man was older, frail, his big frame clothed in baggy skin and baggier clothes as he leaned on a cane and towed oxygen behind him.

"Bummer," he muttered. "Remind me to watch my sodium."

"Yeah—steak night is suddenly not quite as attractive."

Val frowned. "Steak night?"

"Yes. One night I eat steak, one night pork, two nights chicken, one night fast food, and two nights vegetarian. I can trade off chicken or pork nights, never add fast food, and fried tempura never counts as vegetarian."

Dear God. Val's little brother. "What about fish or sushi?" Val asked in spite of himself. "Where do those fit in?"

"Hmm… it depends. Fried food gets lumped into fast food, but the omega-3 fatty acids are essential for—"

"Stop, Dean. Just stop. You are making me tired. Let's just make a promise to never take up smoking and scotch as a hobby and I think we'll be okay."

"Sure." Obviously Dean felt as though his health would fall to shit if he so much as ate a chocolate bar, but since he wasn't raiding Val's refrigerator, Val might not disown him.

"Anyway, James Cassidy's health falls downhill—"

"Goes. It goes downhill," Dean corrected.

"I'm going to throttle you through the phone waves," Val muttered. "For fuck's sake, let me finish a thought."

"Hey, you're the one who interrupted me. You didn't need directions to my diet—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah—I hear you. Let's focus, okay?" Val wondered if Dean ever remembered all the times Val had stepped forward to take out the kids who'd tortured his little brother through grade school. Times like this when every word out of Val's mouth felt dissected and pureed through Dean's analytical brain made him doubt it very much.

"Sooo," Dean said, drawing the word out, "James Cassidy's health falls downhill, and his two sons take over. On paper Elite Cattle Company is still the thriving business it's always been. But…." His voice dropped, and Val could picture Dean sitting at his computer, scrolling through figures. "Yes. There we go. So Elite Cattle Company continues to thrive, but there are… glitches."

"There usually are," Val said, unsurprised.

"So Elder Cassidy's first stroke was four years ago…." Dean was definitely scanning figures as he spoke. "The company toddled along with steadily decreasing profits, and then—oh!"

"What?" Val watched as Rory made a third lap around the truck, smiling a little because the man wasn't slow, even in boots. His long rangy frame moved easily, and Val could see some of the stiffness working its way out of his backside and thighs as he went. The man sure was a joy to watch.

"They had—well, it's called an industrial accident , but apparently there was a coolant failure in one of their stock houses."

"They lost meat?" Val asked absently. Such a joy to watch.

"They lost stock ," Dean said, sounding shocked and appalled at the same time. "Remember how hot it gets? Well, most places have shade and water and covered barns, but this breed is apparently really delicate. They had a cooled barn, and the AC broke, and…."

"Oh God," Val muttered, his attention finally wrenched away from Rory McCauley's ass by the awfulness that implied. "How many head of cattle did they lose?"

"It says here one hundred fifty." Dean sounded suspicious.

"Did they get an insurance payout?" Val asked. He'd seen the cattle around the place. They looked good and healthy, he'd thought. And plentiful.

"They did," Dean mumbled. "And a really sizable one at that. I mean, I realize these cows are supposed to produce, you know, meat of the gods, but this is…."

"What?" Val prompted, scanning for Rory again. And there he was, doing what would probably be a final lap.

"Didn't you say you're transporting bull jizz?"

Val almost groaned. "Yes, bull semen is my payload." He paused. "It's in the trailer I'm hauling," he amended.

Dean snorted. "I'll take that for what it's worth," he said. "But no—there should be seminal samples from their prize bull, Ambassador, in your shipment. That's the bull that's listed as their primary stud."

"Okay, yeah," Val said. "Although, you know, if Mom and Dad had eight—"

"Oh God, don't get me started," Dean muttered. "We're just lucky Laure and Prock didn't get in on the naming thing. The horror. Anyway, Ambassador is listed as their stud. It's his jizz you should be carting around. There's only one problem."

"What's that?" Val asked, motioning for Rory to come in so he could have his shot at the urinal.

"Well, while Ambassador isn't mentioned as a casualty of the facility breakdown, there are three head of cattle here that were worth—collectively—as much as the other one hundred fifty that died."

"Oh my God," Val said in recognition. "They didn't just lose their cattle , they lost their studs. "

"Yeah," Dean muttered. "Probably."

"But there were young cattle on that property," Val said. "I saw calf pens with calves in the distance. Who's their stud if Ambassador was lost in the accident?"

"That there is the hundred-thousand-dollar question." Dean was quiet for a moment. "You know, there are rules against inbreeding cattle. Did any of those cattle look… I don't know. Deformed?"

"Yeah, Dean. Every fucking cow on that property looked deformed. But I checked on it—that's just what those things look like."

"Great," Dean muttered. "I'm only saying, maybe that's what they're trying to hide."

Val grunted. "This is the third shipment. The other two were stolen en route. I mean, two shipments of bull jizz. It was probably these two guys."

"The insurance paid for both of them?" Dean asked.

"Yes, but Vinnie had already filed his business plan. Even if the Cassidys got paid for their junk by the insurance, Vinnie needs this product or his business plan is void. He needs proof that there is something hinky here so he can not pay the Cassidy family and give that money to somebody else for a different stud, and so the insurance companies can maybe reimburse him for his other losses. That's why he hired me. To ensure the delivery. But since we're being chased by the Cassidy brothers, I've got to assume they were behind the other two thefts and were trying a different tack on this one. Not out-and-out theft, but sabotage. When that didn't work—"

"Out-and-out theft is fine," Dean supplied grimly. "So yes, your plan to get to the lab and get what's in the back of your trailer tested and verified—or tested and determined to be lacking—is a good one. But here's the fun part."

"Uh-oh."

"We need the video from your truck cameras to make a case against them."

"Oh my God."

"Yeah, I know. It's either that or video from some other creditable source. And until we get video of them actively trying to sabotage the shipment, I can't get men to guard you or the people at the lab while the comparisons are made."

"Oh. My. God. "

"And we've got a line on your boys, and their F-450 is coming off another highway, but they're as close to the lab as you are."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Val asked. Next to him the door opened, and Val thought longingly of using a bathroom that was more than half an inch wider than he was.

"I am not," Dean said. "But… but give me a minute. I'll call you back in ten minutes. Could you do me a favor and stay where you are?"

Val brightened. "Oh boy, can I!" he said.

Dean grunted and hung up.

"What?" Rory asked.

"Oh, I've got ten minutes of what to catch you up on," Val said. "But first I'm going to go use the bathroom, and then I'm going to take my own jog around the truck, and then we're going to talk plans. What do you think?"

Rory scowled. "That was your brother on the phone?"

"Yeah."

"Dean?"

"Yeah."

"And he's the one cooking up the plan."

"Yeah."

The scowl deepened. "You do know your brother's cray-cray, right? Like, he's only been able to keep one partner for the last five years crazy."

"They have a decent clearance rate," Val defended, like he'd been defending Dean his entire life.

"Oh, they have an amazing clearance rate," Rory snapped. "But that doesn't stop people from calling Dean and Marcus the craziness twins."

Val chuckled. "Really?"

"Yes, really—"

"That's awesome. I'm going to bait him with that the next time he calls. And if I don't hurry, that's going to be while I'm on the pot, and that's embarrassing. Watch my back, partner—"

Rory leaned forward, grabbed Val by the front of the shirt, and hauled him in for a kiss. A hard, good kiss that hit all of Val's corners and his spots and left him panting and a little confused when Rory let go of his shirt.

"Wha—"

"You have been battered and beaten in the last two days, and I am really starting to get attached to you. I'm starting to reevaluate because of you. I'm starting to have dreams . So you think long and hard before you listen to your batshit crazy little brother and follow him off the cliffs of hell, okay?"

Val knew his grin was stupid but couldn't help it. "You'll follow me anyway, won't you?"

"Shut up," Rory growled.

"That's all right. I'm worth it." And with that, Val slid out of the driver's seat and went jogging for the rest stop.

His entire body tingled. Dean called as he was shaking off his arousal, and they were still discussing the plan when he clambered up into the cab of the rig.

Rory was munching on one of the chicken wraps Val had packed in the dark hours the day before, eyebrows raised like he was pleasantly surprised.

"Curry," Val said, holding his hand over his phone. "Helps me cut down on the salt."

Rory laughed a little, and Val went back to listening to Dean.

He signed off five minutes later feeling a little reckless, a little bloodthirsty, a little like kicking ass.

"What?" Rory asked suspiciously. "What is that expression on your face?"

"Hold on to the chicken strap," Val said, curling his upper lip in a snarl of excitement. "It's gonna get real interesting."