Chapter 20
The drive back to the safe house was relaxing, and Mike tried to savor his last moments away from Lenny. He knew that as soon as Lenny got back into town he’d again have to stand around at clubs, drive packages from place to place, and dig through junkyards for no reason.
When Mike got back to the house, he planted himself on the couch and turned on the TV. He needed to make it look like he hadn’t been away all this time.
It wasn’t long before Lenny walked in.
“Don’t bother cleaning up for me,” he said with a laugh.
Mike clenched his teeth, then released them. “I’m not your maid.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t it be nice if – ”
Mike cut him off. “How was your trip? Feel like enlightening me as to what you were doing?”
Lenny threw his bag on the floor and took a seat on the couch. “It was fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“You have to tell me something eventually.”
“Relax, I will.” He put his feet up. “Once you’re cleared.”
Mike grunted. His patience was running thin. It was something that he shared with his undercover character, actually. He was about to speak again when Lenny stood up.
“I need to take a shower. Can you get a pizza or something?”
“Yeah.”
“Where was that place that had those garlic knots? I liked that. Get it from there.”
Mike resisted letting out a sigh. Lenny loved acting like he was in charge. There was no amount of power too small to go to his head. “I don’t know where that was. I think you ordered it last time. Is the number in your phone?”
Lenny frowned, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Oh yeah. I saved it under ‘garlic knots.’ Ha!”
Mike glared at him. “Read me the number.”
Lenny rattled it off and stuck his phone back into his pocket.
“Wait,” Mike said. “Was it twenty-one or twenty-two at the end?”
Lenny rolled his eyes. “Come on man, do I have to everything around here?”
Mike stood up just as Lenny pulled the phone from his pocket and entered his passcode. 4-2-0-5-5-4.
Perfect. Mike committed it to memory, then punched the number for the pizza shop into his phone.
“Tell them it’s a rush order,” Lenny said as he walked off to the bathroom.
“Sure thing,” Mike called out. It was hard to keep the excitement out of his voice. Now that he knew Lenny’s passcode, it would be much easier to plant a bug.
He had everything that he needed. The question was: how would he get Lenny away from his phone? That was part two of the problem.
Mike decided that he needed to speed up the process. When he went to pick up the pizza, he also got a bottle of Blanton’s Single Barrel Bourbon Whiskey.
When he got back to the safe house, Lenny was impatiently waiting for his dinner. “Dude, what took you so long?”
Dude. “I needed to pick something up for myself.” He slammed the bottle onto the table.
Lenny’s eyes grew wide. “Oh yeah? What’s this?”
