Preparations

Tiffany and Tanya returned from church giggling, whispering to one another, singing snatches of hyms, and doing a bit of touching as well.

"Looks like Tanya wasn't so uncomfortable at your white people church as you'd thought," Rick said.

"Yeah, you were right. Rub it in why don't you?"

"Man, those white folks couldn't carry a tune if it had a handle," Tanya said. "They were sure glad to have someone there who knew how to belt it out."

"So you'll be going there from now on?" Rick asked.

"And be the only black girl there? Not hardly."

That got Tiffany and Tanya giggling again leaving it to Rick to drag things back to the problems they faced. "I'm sure nobody is going to take the word of some homeless guy against that of a rich girl so I'm going to need some kind of wire."

Kat shook her head. "You may not have noticed this, Rick, but you have a tendency to end up naked when you're anywhere within a football field length from a pretty girl. And Nicki seems the touchy sort. If you're wearing a wire, she'll find it and there goes any trust you hope to create."

Well, Kat was right. If the last time he'd spent with Nicki was any indication, she figured to be all over him and she'd certainly detect any kind of microphone/transmitter gadget.

"We have an app for this," Tiffany said. "Give me your phone and I'll upload it."

He handed her one of the burner phones he'd bought the previous day and she hooked it to her computer, dragged over an app, and passed it back. "Go out near the pool and say something. We'll check how it sounds."

This was, he realized when he stepped out into Tiffany's back yard, that this was the first time he'd bene alone in days. Like most marketing folk, Rick liked people and liked being around people. Like most guys, he enjoyed being around sexy women, especially sexy women who were anxious to put out and who didn't mind sharing. Still, being around so many horny women all the time had become increasingly overwhelming.

"Testing," he said. "Testing one two three."

He stared at his phone for a minute but there wasn't any response.

Then Kat opened the sliding glass door. "It works. Come on back. You weren't waiting for your phone to talk to you, were you? It would be a pretty bad app if it transmitted the sound of whomever is listening to you back to the criminal."

One of the things Tiffany and Tanya had been giggling about, it turned out, was the date outfit they'd bought for Rick on their way home. This consisted of a silky shirt that was practically transparent, and a pair of pants so tight he worried they would split if he bent over.

"I look like a cheap gigolo," he complained.

"You look like a very expensive gigolo," Tiffany answered.

"If I had a daughter and some man came to the door looking like this, I'd meet him with a shotgun."

"If you run into Dan Hughes, he'll be trying to have you killed no matter what you're wearing," Kat reminded him. "So shut up and try to look sexy for little Nicki."