The minute they pushed the roly-poly little man into the backseat of Sam’s car, Zoe ripped off her panty hose. Her voice rang with belligerence when she found she couldn’t get the little man’s ankle up to his wrist. Frustrated, she yanked at his ankle and tied it to the door handle. “He’s not going anywhere,” she said triumphantly. When she slammed the door, Donovan’s face slammed into the back of the front seat. She shrugged. “Take it away,” she bellowed.

The parade of cars peeled out of the parking lot.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” their “guest” blustered.

“Wrong question. We already did it,” Slick said. “Now shut up. From here on in, we ask the questions, and you answer them. If you screw with us, you’ll be sporting a naked lady on that fat cheek of yours, and I will personally pierce your tongue. Think about that, you spy!”

“It’s part of the deal,” Donovan said. Sam thought he sounded pitiful.

“I told you to shut up.”

Donovan clamped his lips shut as he struggled to get comfortable.

“Slick, see if he has a Blackberry. If he does, take it,” Sam ordered.

Slick unbuckled her seat belt, squirmed around until she was on her knees facing the backseat. She pawed through his pockets, taking everything she could find. She reached for the briefcase and tossed it on the front seat.

“How’s this for a Mickey Mouse operation?” Sam snarled.

Donovan ignored the question.

Slick clapped her hands together. “Oh, goodie, we’re home. Bet you can’t wait to get that tattoo, huh, Mr. Donovan?”

The yuppie neighborhood was empty of people. Still, the women surrounded Donovan and did a repeat of their trek with Mateo. They led him out to the deck, where Mateo and the tattoo artist waited. Sam blinked at the very big, very obvious tattoo on Mateo’s neck. Slick gasped. Olivia met her gaze and mouthed the word, decal. Barry, the tattoo artist, was smiling from ear to ear as he admired his phony handiwork. Donovan would have fainted if Zoe and Olivia hadn’t been holding him up by his arms.

“Tie him to the other side of the railing so that his back is to Mateo,” Sam ordered. “I think you underestimated what we learned at the Academy. Actually, your mistake was thinking we were fools. You’re going to spill your guts or suffer the consequences. Did you really believe any of us would go off with you under the conditions you laid out? Well, did you?”

“Yes,” came the muffled reply.

Sam glared at him. “Big mistake.”

“Barry, do you have a Mickey Mouse pattern?” Slick asked. “A really colorful one.”

The artist stroked his straggly beard, wondering what was going down in this nice little slice of suburbia. “Yep. Got all the cartoon characters.”