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Mumbles figured he shouldn’t have been too surprised when Bob showed up yet another time for the yearly check-in. But for some reason, he couldn’t help it. The kid had been smart when he still ran with the Wild Bunch—he’d been brilliant, in ways. But he had also been absolutely stupid in others. The kid was brilliant with people, but so young, almost so naive at times that it hurt. When he had announced he was leaving, going off to find himself or some shit or other, Mumbles had half believed they’d never set eyes on him again.
But he showed up, nearly two years later, a tad worse for the wear but with the same childish smile that convinced almost everyone to ignore the dark circles under his eyes and the way he twitched at the oddest little things. Mumbles noticed, but he never got the full story. Never really tried. After two years of being gone, Handsome Bob was a new man. Mumbles only offered him a place to stay, and waited to see whether this man was for the better or for the worse.
He didn’t question it when Bob fought against the pull of sleep each night. Or when he woke from nightmares gasping and shaking. Or when he blinked his eyes and they became years older than his given age.
Bob didn’t stick around for long. He was there nearly a month, then just disappeared, leaving only a note behind to say he had some unfinished business to take care of.
That was the first visit.
The second visit went something like this: Someone bumped into Mumbles as he made his way towards the Wild Bunch’s usual part of town. The guy muttered out an apology and stepped around him before Mumbles could recognize the voice. And once he did, Bob was gone.
The third and fourth visits went much like the second.
Then the fifth visit happened, and Bob seemed to have settled. He’d put on a little weight, and now that Mumbles had a good chance to look him over, he could see the dark eyes and the shakes in his hands were gone. He seemed happy too, or at least content. He stayed for a week, stopping in to play cards, to see everyone, and even to drive for a quick job One Two had been worried about. (Their new go-to driver, Harpy, was still rather green.)
Bob started showing up, ‘round the same time of year like clockwork after that. He’d stay for a week or so, playing cards, lending a hand, checking in on everyone.
It wasn’t til his sixth visit that Mumbles realized Bob never did let slip what he was up to those days. If anyone asked—and ask, they did—he skillfully steered the conversation another direction. He wasn’t sure how many of the others saw through the avoidance for what it was, but Mumbles didn’t press. It wasn’t his place anymore. Sure, the kid probably owed him his life, but he wasn’t one to hold things like that over a mate’s head, at least when that mate was like family.
So the years passed, and Handsome Bob showed up once a year for a visit, twice if they were lucky. Mumbles still half expected him to disappear for good though. He wasn’t sure whether he expected the cause to be a job gone wrong, or whether he thought Bob might have finally moved up high enough in the world to forget about the Wild Bunch. Either way, he was always surprised by the next visit.
He couldn’t be blamed for the slight pause in his footsteps when he entered the Speeler and saw Handsome Bob playing a round of cards with the boys. He was grinnin’ ear to ear, and raking a pile of money in from the table.
“Oy!” Cookie protested. “You’re a cheat!”
“Maybe you’re just a terrible bluff,” Bob retorted happily.
Cookie looked around and spotted Mumbles and One Two entering the room. “Hey! Mumbles come tell this boy he’s a cheat.”
Mumbles rolled his eyes good naturedly, but headed for the table anyway. “Cookie, the kid’s always been a cheat at cards. You know that. But your bluff really is terrible.”
He pulled Bob into a hug as Cookie sputtered protests.
“How long will you be in town?” he asked afterwards, watching with amusement as Bob fluttered his eyelashes at One Two, for old times, before laughing and pulling the man into a hug as well.
“I’ll be in for a few days, off and on,” Bob replied easily, letting One Two go free. “I’ve got a job going down in a few days, but I figured I’d hang close to home til then.”
“Need a place to stay?” he offered.
“Nah, I’ve already settled at a mate’s place for a few days. How’s your mum?”
“She’s in the hospital again, ‘bout like last time, but the doctors are figuring they know what it is now. She should be out in a week or two. How’s your own mum?”
“Refurbishing a new house again,” Bob answered with a fond smile. “I swear the woman never stops.”
“How’s work been for ya?” One Two asked, taking a seat at the card table.
They joined him, and Bob began shuffling the cards. “It’s all right, I suppose. Been busy. What’s our ante?”
And that was that. It was all he would most likely say about his work this visit. Just that he was busy.
It never did cease to make Mumbles wonder. He cared about the kid, probably because he’d very nearly had to drag him off the streets at some tender teenage year and nurse him back to health from a beating that had done extensive damage. He felt like he’d almost had a hand in raising the kid. He’d brought him into the Wild Bunch, and he’d been the one to teach him everything he could so that the kid could survive in this world. Hell, he’d been the one to give Bob his handle! The kid had introduced himself as Patrick when they first met, but the look in his eyes had made it glaringly obvious that it was a lie. So Mumbles took him home, patched him up, and he’d been answering to his new name by nightfall.
They played cards for the better part of an hour, smoking and laughing, trading stories like old times. Bob talked about people he’d met in the last year through his mysterious work, and One Two and Mumbles filled him in on how the Wild Bunch was doing. Who was serving time, who was pulling the worst shit jobs, who wasn’t around anymore.
Mumbles was relaxed. That’s why what happened next was such a shock.
The doors of the Speeler burst open with no warning, and two men rushed inside, one holding a gun to the other’s temple.
“Nobody move, or he dies!” the man with the gun shouted, eyes flickering about the room frantically.
Now, naturally, everyone in the Speeler froze, but then they kind of frowned or squinted.
“Yeah, what’s it to me,” one of the boys asked loudly from the far side of the room. “I don’t know this bloke from Adam.”
Mumbles didn’t recognize the hostage either. The man was dressed in an expensive suit, and his eyes and stiff jaw line shouted hints of danger. He reminded Mumbles a bit of Archie actually, though not quite so slimy. And the odd thing is, he doesn’t really look afraid of the gunman at all. He looks more frustrated than anything, almost annoyed even.
“Who are you?” One Two asked of the gunman. “What do you want?”
“I believe the question,” Bob began, his voice calm and carefully accented to the tones of someone with class, someone from Southampton, or Sussex, some neighborhood decidedly not where the Wild Bunch might be inclined to call home, “Mr. Dorseth, is what are you prepared to do to get what you want?” The accent, the lilt of his words, sounded so easy coming out of his mouth, like he didn’t even have to think about it, but Mumbles could have sworn he had never heard Bob speak that way before.
“Eames!” the man growled, twisting his hostage to face Bob. “I know he hired you, you bastard! Tell me what he’s after, or I’ll shoot! I’ll do it!”
“If you shoot him, you’ll never get what you want,” Bob said calmly, but now that Mumbles was watching for it, he could see the way the kid’s fingers were pressing tight around his hand of cards. It was the only visible sign that he was upset. His eyes were calm, he was still slouched forward, and his voice didn’t shake. But Mumbles could spot the slight tightness of the muscles in his arm, and the whites of his fingers as they clutched the cards.
Whoever the hostage was, Bob cared about him.
“The only way you’ll get what you want, is if you let Arthur go,” Bob finished. “He’s the one who accepted the job. He’s the one with the details. I’m just the Forger.” (He said the word like it was a title. Like it meant something. Somehow, Mumbles didn’t think they were talking about forging documents.)
“You’ve got to cover it up,” the gunman declared, pressing the gun more firmly against the hostage’s—Arthur’s—head. “I know you were hired to be the Extractor on this team. I know it’s just the two of you working this one. They call you the Dream Duo, you know that? What a laugh! So boring for men of your talent. You hide your tracks well enough for some, but I’ve been following your work for a few years. I’ve actually been meaning to hire you for a few months now, just couldn’t manage to contact you til now. But I see I’ve finally got your attention, right? And you’re going to tell me what Keller is after.”
Bob—Eames—paused for a brief moment, eyes moving from the gunman to the hostage and back, calculating. Then he moved slowly to sit up straighter, laying his cards down and folding his fingers together on the table. “He wants to know about Richard Price.”
“How does he know about Price?” the gunman growled. “I hid my tracks well. I don’t pay my employees for nothing. The paperwork is gone. All the evidence that’s left is hidden away in a place only I know of. A place no one else can reach—not even in my own head. Is that what he’s after? The evidence?”
Bob’s eyes ran cold as he smirked slightly. “Not exactly.”
Then the hostage was moving like a ninja. He ducked, and kicked, and slammed an elbow, and Mumbles was diving to the floor along with most of the Wild Bunch just in case the gun went off.
It took less than five seconds in all. Then the room went quiet as a single body was heard hitting the floor. Mumbles looked up to see the gunman lying unconscious on the ground, the hostage standing above him with the gun in hand.
Bob was still seated at the table, seemingly not having moved.
Everyone began picking themselves up off the floor.
“Arthur,” Bob said tightly, “what the hell were you thinking!” He stood up and furiously made his way over to the man.
Arthur shrugged, looking completely unruffled. “It was simpler this way. The job’s halfway over now, and we’re four days ahead of schedule. Keller will be ecstatic.”
“Keller will be—“ Bob stopped, snapping his mouth closed. “Arthur, you could have taken him down at any point and we could have avoided this whole mess. But instead, you make me sit here and watch you just standing there with—“
“His gun is full of blanks,” Arthur interrupted. “When he first tried to jump me, I kicked his gun away from him. Then I pretended to make a grab for Tisha’s gun because it was on my desk.”
Bob frowned. “That’s Tisha’s gun?”
“Yes, I’m surprised you didn’t recognize it, considering all the trouble we went through with customs so I could get it into the country for her,” Arthur replied mildly.
He blinked. “So he led you all the way over here with an empty gun...”
“Yes.”
Bob sighed deeply. “I hate you so much right now.”
Then Arthur shocked Mumbles with a grin so bright, dimples included, that he almost had to blink. God, the man was just a kid himself, probably even younger than Bob!
“No you don’t,” Arthur retorted, grinning.
Bob shook his head, starting to grin as well. “No I don’t. But you couldn’t have warned me somehow?”
“Not really. Didn’t have time.” Arthur pulled a small syringe from a coat pocket, popping the rubber of the needle, before bending down to the unconscious man. “How do you want to get him out of here to finish the job?”
“We could always call Tisha for a ride,” Bob offered.
“Have you got her number? I had to leave my phone behind. Also, what do you think about changing the setting? We haven’t really finished building yet anyway, so what if we used this place instead?” His eyes were roaming around the room, trying to take in all the details. “Think you could help me rebuild this room and then start him off right before I knocked him out?”
Bob stared at the other man in wonder. “Darling, you are utterly brilliant! We can add a back room with a safe. I doubt he’s been in here before, so he shouldn’t know the place any better than you do right now. Minor details won’t matter.”
Mumbles was so confused. Whatever Bob was up to these days, it was way more complicated than a simple smash and grab.
Arthur pocketed the empty gun and waved Bob away. “You call Tisha, I’ll tie him up just in case.” Then he pulled zip ties from his pocket. (What kind of man just carries around zip ties in his coat?)
Bob pulled out his mobile, but paused, glancing back around the room at all the boys. Everyone was still watching them. He grinned disarmingly. “Uh, everyone, this is Arthur. We run together now. Arthur, this is the Wild Bunch. Now everyone play nice til I finish my little phone call.” He moved to a far corner of the room where it would be quiet.
Most everyone went back to doing what they had been before. But Mumbles and One Two shared a look, before walking over to Arthur.
“So,” One Two began.
Arthur looked up from slipping a zip tie around the guy’s wrists. “So,” he replied.
“You know Bob.”
Arthur nodded. “Yep. I know him.”
Mumbles crossed his arms. “Like in the Biblical sense?”
Arthur didn’t hold back a smirk, and that was answer enough. “What’s it matter to you?”
Mumbles shrugged. “We’re his mates. But we can’t look after him so much anymore.”
“So this is what, the big brother talk? Are you going to threaten to break my kneecaps if I let him get hurt?” Arthur tightened the zip tie around the guy’s ankles and stood. “Just for the record, I’ve already gotten that talk. And no matter what you say right now, I’m fairly sure you can’t be more terrifying than his mother was.”
Mumbles had met Bob’s mother exactly three times since he first ran into the kid. And he would definitely agree with that statement. Bob’s mother was terrifying.
Rumor was that she was an assassin. Mumbles wouldn’t be surprised, honestly.
Whether she was or wasn’t an assassin though, she did have some intimidating acquaintances. There had been one point, years ago, when Bob had been kidnapped. At first the Wild Bunch thought it was their job gone on its head. But then a tiny slip of a woman had burst into the Speeler, at least a dozen men with large weapons following her inside. She had demanded they tell her where he had last been seen, then she was gone. Two days later, she showed up, with only two men in tow, and with Bob limping beside her.
She had taken One Two and Mumbles aside and told them to keep an eye on her boy, because she was going to have to go out of the country to finish dealing with whoever had taken Bob. It was possibly one of the most frightening conversations of his life, and he didn’t even get a chance to speak, except to mutter ‘yes, ma’am’ whenever it was required of him.
Mumbles let himself smile as he looked back on that memory now. “So you’ve met his mother, then?”
“Yes. And I’m afraid we both left a rather memorable impression on each other.”
“Darling,” Bob cut in, walking over to them, “that is a terrible joke. I beg of you, never make it again. Your bullet barely nicked her, and she was laughing about it the next day.”
That really gave Mumbles a pause. This kid in the fancy suit who seemed to know no fear—did he actually know no fear? He had shot Bob’s mother? Blood hell!
Arthur huffed. “Every time I’ve talked to her on the phone since then, she’s reminded me of it. She’s never going to forget,” he added almost mournfully.
But Bob just laughed. “Of course not, love. You proved yourself to her that day. And now she can trust you.”
Arthur rolled his eyes. “If she’s trusting me to keep you out of trouble, she obviously needs to spend more time with you on a job. You don’t make it easy. At all.”
Bob poked him in the chest. “Ah, but you love it, don’t you? You’re life is so exciting now. Just think about how boring it could be if you didn’t have me in your life?”
“All the normal hours I might keep, you mean?” Arthur bickered right back at him. “The normal sleep I might be able to get?”
“Hey, you’re the one who decided a quickie wasn’t good enough for you last night. It wasn’t my idea to spend nearly two hours in the hot tub--not that I'm complaining, of course.”
“Oh god,” One Two groaned, slapping hands over his eyes and stalking away.
Mumbles laughed, and Bob grinned back at him. “I knew he’d enjoy hearing about that.”
Arthur appeared amused, but he also had a slight blush rising on his cheeks. It was kind of adorable, somehow.
Mumbles had always thought Bob would be just a bit too soft, a bit too naive to make it. But it seemed like that was mostly just a show now. The kid had a backbone, and a kickass boyfriend, and still had the most terrifying mother in the world.
He was doing all right for himself.
A car honked outside, and Bob pulled Mumbles into a hug. “We’ll be leaving now, it looks like. But we’ll be back sometime. I’ll have to start bringing Arthur ‘round so he can get to know everyone.”
Mumbles clapped him on the back and let him go, saying, “You’ll have to do that sometime. We’d be glad to get to know him and hear more about what you’re actually doing these days.”
Then Bob and Arthur were heading out the door, draping the target of their latest job between them as they headed for the car. As they headed out the door, he heard Bob ask, “Darling, we never did join our English accounts, did we?”
“We can do it next time your mother’s in town,” Arthur replied. “I’d hate to tell her she missed the ceremony.”
“A wonderful plan,” Bob said, just before the doors closed behind them. “She does love weddings.”
One Two appeared by his side, pointing to the doorway in shock. “Did...did he just say ‘weddings’? They’re getting married?”
“Huh,” Mumbles said, beginning to smile. He clapped One Two on the shoulder, then headed over to collect the money Bob had left on the table.
Handsome Bob was doing all right for himself.