Page 62 of The Best Trick

The place was stuffed to the gills with a crowd of people busy drinking and yelling under colorful lights strung overhead.

“Are there enough escape routes at this place?” I asked, looking around.

“Technically, there are three,” Thor said. “But in a crowd like this, there are really unlimited escape routes.” Odin texted Alfred to let him know we were willing to meet now, but at Calamity Joe’s. Alfred agreed to be there in an hour, at nine, just enough time for us to install Thor in a perch from where he could monitor the busy street and valet parking situation and hide Zeus among the patrons at the bar.

Needless to say, they couldn't be carrying my dog picture around, so Odin and I lugged it to a table for four. We set it on one of the chairs and took our seats across from it to wait for Agent Alfred.

I ordered another wine spritzer. Odin ordered a scotch.

“Dogs playing pool,” he said.

“I know you probably think it's stupid. It reminds me of home, though,” I said. “There was a bar that my high school friends and I did a lot of underage drinking at that had these kinds of pictures. And then Vanessa and I found some at a garage sale and put them in our rec room. I always just really liked them. I don't know why.”

Odin grinned at me. “I wouldn't expect anything less from a woman who loves cartoon porn,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Most people, when you ask their favorite painting, they'll say the Mona Lisa or some such shit. That’s not you.”

“So youaremaking fun of me,” I said.

“No, goddess, the opposite. Loving the dog art—it’s the best. You march to your own drummer and make decisions from your heart. You go for dogs playing pool. You took up with a band of outlaws. You’re cooler than the Gigis could ever be.”

I grinned. Odin was famously down on the Gigis. He was jokey about it, but not all the time.

“Sometimes I have this feeling as if you found us in the wilderness,” he continued. “Do you know what it's like to be found by you? To be chosen by you? It's everything, goddess.”

“You’re gonna give me a swelled head,” I said. “It's everything for me, too.” I set my hand on his arm. “Can I ask you something?”

“I’m not discussing butthole spurge with you,” he said.

“Couldn’t you just try Thor’s blanket?”

“It won’t do anything.”

“How do you know if you don’t try it?” I said.

Odin gave me a dark look. “You don’t see what’s going on here, do you?”

“What?” I said.

“The blanket’s not about me.”

“What are you talking about? Of course it’s about you. He had it made for you specifically. To be able to sleep with us. All four together.”

“No, right, in that way it’s a little bit about me, but it’s mostly about Thor,” Odin said.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s about him shooting that man, killing that man, Isis. He’s not over it. He thinks fixing other people will undo what happened, but he’s wrong. I think that’s why he becomes so reckless and unpredictable when he’s not doctoring.”

“Wait. I always thought it was just that…like he hated when he couldn’t be a doctor because that’s his passion,” I said. “He’s bereft when he can’t help others.”

“Well, sure, on the surface, that’s true,” Odin said. “But what other dedicated and driven doctor turns into Mad Max the second they go on vacation or retire? Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“I guess not.”

“Of course not. It’s not a doctor thing, it’s a Thor thing. It’s too much for him to sit still,” Odin said. “He needs to keep healing or being otherwise distracted. Making up for something he can never fix. Trying to erase the guilt. But he never can.”

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