The Girl Who Would Be King(92)

“Fine. What do you want from me?”

“You’re so smart, you figure it out,” I say, standing up. “I’m going to get some breakfast. I’ll be back in a few minutes. You can scream and someone will maybe even hear you, but I’ll definitely hear you,” I say, tapping on my ear. “And I guarantee you that I’ll get back here in time to take care of you, before any ‘help’ arrives. Ladies’ choice,” I say, shrugging. She doesn’t make a sound as I head out to the patio and take off like a shot.

I’m back with two bags full of Taco Bell and 2 diet cokes within fifteen minutes. I hold up the bags and walk into the main room where Liz is sitting patiently, her blouse almost dry.

“You didn’t ever mention that you could fly,” she begins.

“Oh, it’s new,” I say. Liz looks at me skeptically, one eyebrow raised. “Seriously,” I say. “I’ve only known how to do it for about fourteen hours.” I sit down in front of Liz with my legs crossed. “I wasn’t sure what you liked to eat, so I got a little bit of everything.”

“I can assure you it wouldn’t be Taco Bell,” she says with a superior sniff of her nose.

“Well, it’s what I felt like, so it’s what you get,” I say. She doesn’t respond and so I take out a plain taco and hand it to her. She begrudgingly opens the package and takes a dainty bite.

“So, Lola, are you going to share this great plan with me, or what?” she asks finally.

“Actually,” I say, between mouthfuls of burrito. “That’s the great thing about all this – You’re going to be my big plan.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve been hating the fact that I’m not so bright, that for all my power I’m really just glorified muscle. Ever since I hit into these superpowers I kept hoping I’d become some great criminal mastermind, but it’s just not in me. I haven’t really like, taken the bull by the horns, or whatever, with many situations, mostly because I’m not really sure what to do and that leads to a couple things: one, a lot of missed opportunity; and two, in the case of what happened to me in Vegas – I liked working with a crew, but I didn’t really like working under a ‘boss’. I have the power, I should be the boss, but I could never quite figure out how to get it done.” I pause and tap the side of my head. “That pesky lack of brains again,” I say offering a half-smile. Liz looks at me like I’m nuts. “Anyway, I got to thinking the other night that surely not all criminals are masterminds, and I thought about some of the mob guys I’ve seen in movies, they don’t seem too smart. But they’re really good at crime. So, what do they have that I don’t have?”

“What?” Liz asks flatly, reaching out for another taco.

“They’ve got a network. They’ve got people working for them, and some of those people are smart. So that’s what you’ll be. My brains. And with you working beside me, we’ll get this thing started right.” I take the lid off a container of nachos and start digging in.

“What is this ‘thing,’ then?” she asks, totally placating me, which is annoying, but I’ve prepared myself for her taking a while to get used to the idea.

“I dunno yet exactly,” I say, reaching into the small pocket in the cat suit and pulling out the article that I found in Delia’s trailer. “But we’re going to start here.”

“What’s that?” Liz asks, reaching out for the thin paper. I bat her hand away.

“Don’t touch it, you’ll get taco on it,” I say protectively. I lay the newsprint on the cool marble floor, smoothing it out so she can read it. “Before I’m going to do anything huge I need to eliminate my competition. Bonnie’s the one thing that might be able to stop me, so I’m going to kill her, you know, as we discussed in therapy. And I think this thing will give me the edge I need to get that done.” I point to the faded picture of the stone.

“What is that…some kind of Celtic symbol or something?”

“I dunno. I need to find it. And you’re going to help me.”

Liz throws her last taco wrapper toward the trash bag. “I still don’t know why you need me?”

“I need you so I can find this thing,” I say, exasperated, questioning how good her brains really are.

“But the article says it’s at LACMA,” she says, equally exasperated.

“Huh?”

“The museum,” Liz picks up the article. “The article says it’s going to the museum.”