Killer Moth and Tiger Moth in:  It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time!

Part One

The SUV glided down the shady, tree-lined road, curving and twisting gently along its bends and turns as the bright summer sun illuminated the leaves overhead into a brilliant canopy of green.  Inside Drury Walker tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel to the beat of the music softly wafting from the radio as his daughter Kitten sat in the passenger seat, her nose buried in her phone, furiously trying to fit in a week's worth of texting in a two-hour drive.

"Almost there, sweetie," he said as they passed a road sign reading 'Camp Indian Springs - 6 miles,' "are you excited?"  To which the 12 year old responded with a dismissive burst of consonant and vowel sounds that approximated human speech without breaking attention from the phone in her hand.  He glanced over and tried again, "did you pack your sunscreen?"

Kitten looked over at him with a carefully sullen glance as she realized he wasn't going to stop until she actually talked to him.  "Yes..." she trailed off as she turned back to her phone.

"Did you remember to bring a pair of flip-flops to wear in the shower?  You don't want to risk getting a foot fungus or something."

She sighed heavily and put the phone in her lap, "Two pairs of tennis shoes, a pair of flip-flops, and yes, I packed enough socks plus extra in case some get wet from canoeing."  Turning away from her dad, she rested her face on her hand and stared out the window.

"Did you remember to pack underwear?"

"Oh my God, Daddy, I was nine!  Stop bringing it up every time I go somewhere."  She turned back to the window with a huff as Dru smirked at her embarrassment, "why do I have to go to stupid summer camp anyway?"

"You love Camp Indian Springs.  You've been excited about it for weeks."

"It's hot and there are bugs, and it's stupid."

They sat in silence for a moment as Dru turned off the road onto the gravel lane leading to the campground, "Is this because your friend Nia is going to space camp?"

"No..." she continued to stare out the window at the pine woods lining the bumpy lane, "...at the end of the week they get to wear a spacesuit and dive underwater so it's like they're in space."

"As I recall, you said space camp was 'loser nerd camp' which is why she hasn't been talking to you for two weeks."  In return, all he got was discontented grumbling noises as he pulled into a parking space in front of the main lodge.  Dragging her out of the car, they made it through the check in process and back out with enough time for Kitten's underlying excitement to bubble up enough that she was having difficulty retaining a disaffected demeanor.

"Alright, just grab your stuff an-" noticing Kitten was no longer next to him he looked around until he spied her almost halfway to her assigned cabin and waving at him.

"Hurry up, Dad!" she shouted as she turned and ran towards the low-slung cabins nestled amid a copse of trees.  Sighing heavily, Dru shouldered his daughter's suitcase and headed after her.  Thankfully, his ego was saved by him not being the only parent toting their child's luggage across the grass and up to the row of identical cabins, where he sat the suitcase down at the feet of his daughter.

"Alright, you may not get to wear a spacesuit in the pool, but are you at least going to try to have a good time?"

Kitten twisted the toe of her shoe in the dirt and tried not to smile, "Maybe..."

"I paid too much for 'maybe.'"

She looked around to make sure either no one else was watching before hugging her father tight.  "I guess I can try to have fun.  I love you, Daddy."

"I love you too, kiddo, and I'll see you in a week," he said as he kissed the top of her head before waving goodbye as she carried her things inside the cabin.

Settling himself back in his SUV, Dru stared at the wheel for a moment contemplating.  One week, free of his kid, with no jobs lined up.  What was he going to do with himself?  He pulled out his phone and stared at the blank screen trying to make up his mind.  Unlocking it, he scrolled to a number saved at the bottom of his contact list - ten digits with no name or anything to identify it.  He still wasn't quite sure how he felt about having the number.  Her number.  The healthy arm's length they had agreed upon had been getting shorter and shorter, and ever since they gained each other's personal number the whole tone of their relationship (though he was loathe to use that word and she even more so) seemed positioned on the brink of a major change.  In spite of the misgivings he found his thumb tapping the number but retaining enough wherewithal to only send a text message:

								Kid-free for week, wanna come over and keep me out of trouble?

Setting the phone on its cradle, he waited, chewing on his thumbnail for a minute or two for a response.  Nothing.  Part of him was relieved.  Maybe she was ignoring him, maybe she was busy, maybe she wasn't down taking things to that level.  Whatever.  It was cool.  He had things to do, errands to run, and he wasn't going to wait around for an answer.  And after another minute staring at his phone, he started the car and headed back home.

Two hours plus a quick trip to the grocery store later he was back home.  As he loaded his arms up with shopping bags he wished he had made the food run while he still had an extra pair of hands to help him carry everything inside, but after some finagling and jiggling he managed to get the door to his kitchen open, only to promptly drop everything he carrying as his phone alerted him to a new text message.

												Not the worst come-on I've gotten.

He thought for a moment how to respond to put the ball back in her court.

												Took you long enough to answer.

										Thing came up with a guy at work.  You know how it goes.

												So about my earlier question...

														Entice me.

He headed back out to his SUV to grab the rest of the groceries with his face buried in his phone, oblivious to his surroundings.

									Dinner.  You, me, my place.  I cook, you pretend to help.

														That all?

				Some drinks in my pool afterwards.  You wearing that pornographic microkini you pretend you don't own...

												And what do I get from you?

He had just rounded the back of his SUV when he stopped short.  There was a car parked at the end of his driveway blocking him in.  On its hood sat a woman in her mid thirties in a cutoff tee, denim shorts, and scuffed cowboy boots, her bleach blonde hair split by a band of red at the part where her roots were showing.  A smile beamed from her face, haughty and smug, and she clasped her hands between her spread knees as she gently bobbed her head, "Hey, you."

Dru's blood ran cold and he inhaled slowly as he put his phone away.  Gathering his composure, he crossed his arms over his chest and planted his feet firmly, glaring at the woman in front of him.  "Ti," he acknowledged towards ex-wife as he stared daggers at her.

"It's really great to see you again, hon," she said as she bounced off the hood and walked up to him, "how have you been doing?"

Dru remained silent and angry as she stood before him acting like nothing was wrong between them.  "What are you doing here, Tiger?" he finally responded.

"Oh well, you know, I was just in the neighborhood..." she reached up and put a hand on Dru's arm, causing him to twitch away, "and thought I'd swing on by.  See how things are."

"Kitten's at summer camp, so if you're here to flash your wad, play the Cool Deadbeat Mom, and bail you're out of luck."

"Actually, I wanted to see you."

"Whelp, here I am," he turned from her and grabbed the rest of his grocery bags before slamming the rear hatch shut, "here's the backside of me.  Get the fuck along now."  And with that he marched back towards the open door.

"We need to talk."

"Nope."

"It's worth a quarter of a million dollars."

Dru stopped for a moment then continued back inside, leaving the door open.  After a second, he stuck his hand out and motioned Tiger in.  She followed him through the laundry room and into the kitchen, mouthing a silent "wow" as she examined her surroundings.  Dru ignored her, focusing on putting up groceries while she wandered around his kitchen.  "Honestly, Dru, I don't get it.  The you I remember would never be caught dead with a place like this, what happened to the dream of a high-rise penthouse?"

"You're not talking money."

"I just need a moment to process the Williams-Sonoma catalog you live in."

"You've been here before."

"You never let me past your foyer.  When did the man I married turn into some bougie fuck?"

Dru tossed the now empty bags into a bin in the pantry and turned to Tiger.  "Look, Ti, I'm already regretting letting you inside, so you've got five seconds to either start talking or start walking."

She rolled her eyes at him and crossed her arms, "So snippy.  Anyways, where to begin?  It's a heist job.  Nothing complex or complicated, but it's definitely a job for two people.  And if I need a partner, I need someone reliable and trustworthy."

Dru rolled her words around his brain for a moment, "So why not use one of the galpals in your little trio instead of me?"

She shrugged, "We're not really a team, we just work together on occasion.  And, you know, reliable and trustworthy."  Scratching the back of her neck she looked down at the floor as she added, "Plus Silken Spider is doing 18 months for elder abuse and Dragonfly landed a sugar daddy."

With a chortle Dru relaxed a bit and headed over to the sink, where he pulled a pot down from the overhead rack and set it on a burner before turning and walking into the pantry.

"Look, Dru," she added as he went about the kitchen ignoring her, "I don't have an 'in' with anyone else running out of Gotham, and this is too great a score to pass up or try to wing it solo.  So yeah, things aren't as great as they could be between us, but at the end of the day it's a lot of money, and isn't that more important?"  She stared as he continued ignoring her, setting an onion on a cutting board and beginning to dice it.  By the time he had dumped them into the pot and switched over to chopping garlic she had gotten fed up, "Okay, asshole, what the fuck are you doing?  Are you in?"

With a sharp smack on the flat of a chef's knife he crushed a clove of garlic and picked away the paper before turning to her and twirling the knife in his hand.  "Making dinner.  You had me at 'nothing complex or complicated,' I just wanted to see you beg and squirm for bit.  Be a doll and grab me the Chianti from the cabinet next to the fridge; we're having pasta with red sauce."

Tiger stamped her heel a bit before fetching the wine as Dru opened a can of tomatoes, crushing each one by hand as he added them to the pot of sauteed aromatics.  Setting it down on the counter, she watched him coolly as he continued his task.  Washing his hands, he stirred the developing sauce gently, intentionally ignoring his ex even as she stood beside him and waiting for her reaction.

"You know they sell this shit in stores for like a dollar?"

"And it tastes like a dollar can of spaghetti sauce."  He glanced over at her and their eyes met for a second.

"Bougie.  Fuck."

He uncorked the wine and added a bit to the sauce, "I take it you parked your RV at your mom's place?"

Cocking her head, she flipped him off and yanked the bottle of wine from his hands, taking drinks directly from it as she rooted around his cabinets for a glass.  Settling on coffee mug, she filled it and headed over to the table where she sat down and leaned back with her legs spread wide and watched him with a mix of irritation and boredom.  He ignored her as he continued cooking, letting the sauce simmer down, putting the pasta to boil, finishing it off in the sauce, before plating it up and carrying it over to the table.  He and his ex smiled at each other with something resembling but not actually fondness as he grabbed himself a glass and a fresh bottle of wine and sat down to eat.

Together they ate in silence for a few bits until Tiger reached her hand out over the table and said, "Alright, I'll admit it.  This is better than the dollar sauce from the can."

"That's the same kind of stuff they serve in prison, and there is no way in hell I'm bringing something that reminds me of prison into my house," Dru replied as he topped off their wine.  "Speaking of which, what are the full details of the job?"

Shoveling a few more bits of pasta into her mouth and taking a swig of wine, she started.  "It's the Northside docks.  There is a boat mooring there right now, on it is a container full of chemical compounds, and hidden inside a barrel of what is supposed to be synthetic food dye is good old fashioned Chinese fentanyl."

Dru pushed his empty plate to the side and mulled it over.  "Northside is Two-Face territory, do you really want to run afoul of Dent by stealing his drugs?"

"That's the beauty of it," Tiger exclaimed excitedly, "Two-Face doesn't know about it!  It's an outfit out of Ohio with a backchannel deal with some chemical company exec in Shanghai!  They're running it right under his nose.  No one can say anything without triggering a mob war."

"Alright, who is getting the product?"

She paused for a second, "That's...still up in the air right now..."

"You don't have a buyer?"  Dru covered his face with his hands, "Damn it, Ti, we can't just sit on a shipping container until we suss out a buyer!"

"Don't be such a worrywart.  We're going to have to take a big hit on value, but at $250k for $3 mil worth of opioids everyone in the damn country is going to be lining up for that deal.  Worst case scenario, we hand it over to Dent and take a finder's fee.  Not ideal, but livable."  She got up and grabbed another bottle of wine, giving Dru a somewhat glassy-eyed look as she popped the cork.  "But we've got to play fast, this has to go down tomorrow night or otherwise we'll need to hijack a truck in broad daylight."

He stared down at his wine and contemplated as he slowly drained the glass.  By the time he reached the bottom of it he still wasn't sure.  Looking up he was met with his ex-wife's excited and forceful eyes, and inhaled deeply before pouring himself another glass.  "Deal me in.  50/50 split.  How are we doing this?"

Tiger let out a squeal and gripped his hand tightly as he agreed.  Grabbing her coffee mug of wine she clinked it against his glass and took a big sip, "60/40, it's my info after all.  It's pretty simple, we have to black out the security cameras, take down any errant rentacops, then I'm going to need you to fly up and work the crane to get the container off the ship while I bring in a flatbed to haul it off.  You can work a shipping crane, right?"

"Yes, can you drive a big rig?"

"I will have you know that I have a Class A CDL, thank you very much."

"Did not know that."

"There's lots of things you've missed out on since the divorce."

Their eyes met and they smiled at each other, sincerely this time, which caused them to rapidly break eye contact and make moves to put their dishes in the sink.  "I had a, surprisingly, nice dinner with you," she said as they stood next to each other rising off their plates to which Dru responded with a playful nudge with his shoulder.

"I guess enough money makes anyone tolerable."

"You're still a bougie fuck, Dru."

"You're still a cunt, Ti."

She narrowed her eyes and bit her lip, "I, uh, I should get going.  Gotta be up early to make sure everything's ready and source a truck."  She took a step back and wobbled for a bit, "I'm okay, just gotta make it to my mom's place."

"That's two hours from here and we're 3 bottles of wine in."

"I'll make it just fine."  She turned and headed towards the door before promptly stumbling and catching herself, "See, everything's fine."

"You're staying in the spare room," he said and put his arm around her shoulder to steady her, "I think you're done for tonight."

"I thought you didn't want me around."

"Yeah, well I still need you to pull off the job."

"You missed me," she said as she poked Dru in the chest, cutting him off as he began to speak with, "but your aim is getting better?"

Carefully they made it up the stairs and down the hallway to a mostly empty room with a few boxes of random items that hadn't found a home in the garage or basement yet.  Ti slumped up against the wall as Dru unfolded a cot from the closet and tossed a pillow and blanket on top.  By the time he finished she was already stripping out of her clothes and blew him a winking kiss as she shoved him out of the room.  Beneath the excitement of a potential windfall and the haze of alcohol he began to worry if he should have been far more professional about everything, but decided it was too late now.

He headed to his bedroom and sat down on the bed lost in thought but not really thinking about anything in particular.  It wasn't even 9 o'clock, but Ti was right, they did need to be up early.  A full gear check, scoping out the scene, and setting up alibis all waited him tomorrow.  Standing up, he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it in the bin before slipping out of his shoes and socks, his pants and underwear hitting the floor and staying there as he walked into his bathroom and turned on the shower.  After a quick soap and rinse he brushed his teeth, but as he stared at his face in the mirror he found himself increasingly thinking back to his teenage years and when he first met Tiger, halcyon days of teenage ennui placated by petty acts of social mischief and misdemeanors alongside their gaggle of friends.  And as he thought of them he couldn't help but examine the grey hairs popping up in his stubble, or his widow's peak, and wondered when he started growing old.  Last he heard Julie got a doctorate and worked in some museum.  Simon came out in college then dropped out to run away with his boyfriend.  Melinda popped out two kids by 20 and still lived with her parents.  Perry died at 21.  Dave was still on heroin.  And here before him was Drury - 36 years old, one kid, a house in the suburbs, a less than stellar career as a garishly dressed punching bag, and letting his drunk ex-wife crash in his spare bedroom.  Doing better than Tiger, he thought to himself with a wry smile as he climbed into bed and turned out the light.

He had just about fallen asleep when his eyes almost involuntarily fluttered open.  There was a shape at the edge of his room that slowly coalesced into the form of his ex-wife.  She stood there in the doorway in nothing but her panties and socks, bracing her still wobbly self against the frame.  "That cot was terrible," she said as she lurched into the room, "I thought I was going to fall out every time I turned."

"You can sleep on Kitten's bed," he said groggily, "but I don't know how clean it is."  He fell back onto his pillow and closed his eyes again only to feel his covers being pulled back as Tiger slipped into the bed with him.  "What?  No, Ti, you're not-"

"Shut up, Dru," she commanded as she tucked herself next to him and put her arm upon his chest, running her fingers through his chest hair.  "We've both been flying solo for a long time," she looked up at him expectantly and moved her face closer to his until he could smell the wine on her hot breath, "you know how it gets so lonely at night."

Suddenly he was 16 again, hair slicked back and hoping the blonde in the halter top who tossed a few glances his way wouldn't notice the zits on cheek as he made his way across the party to talk to her.  "No." he said in a voice that he hoped was a firm as he imagined it.  Undeterred Tiger reached back and grabbed his hand, running it down her side before she slipped his thumb under the waistband of her panties.  She was 17 now, stretched out languid and naked against him as they shared a cigarette and watched the waves crash against the breakwater at the abandoned amusement park on Uslan Beach.

"You sure about that?" she asked coyly as she kissed his cheek and ran her fingertips down the fly of his boxers, feeling him harden as she moved along.  They were back at Uslan Beach, this time at the rundown pavilion.  Them and everyone else, sitting around a fire built in the rusted out grill, drinking from a keg provided by that sleazy guy at the liquor store on 39th, and screaming at the world with all the hope and furor of high school graduates.  In nine years Julie would have her doctorate.  Simon still had two years until he kissed another man.  Melinda was already pregnant with her first child.  Perry would get his cancer diagnosis in seven months.  Dave had six years until his first dose of heroin.  And by the end of the night Drury and Tiger would promise that they'd be together forever, in fourteen months they'd be married, and in five years they'd welcome their first and only child together.

"Stop it."  He shifted his body to put her hand on his thigh and removed his thumb from her waistband.

"Fine," she muttered disappointed as she moved her hand off his leg, but remained firmly tucked against him, "but I'm not leaving."

Dru contemplated tossing her out of the bed.  He contemplated tossing her out of his house.  Instead he just lay there and stewed at the woman pressed against him, wanting to say something but unable to articulate anything.  Eventually he heard a wheezing snore coming from Tiger and he moved his head to look at her, catching a whiff of cotton candy body spray, cigarette smoke, and red wine.  Everything he was feeling sprang forth into his mind and as he leaned down he reassured himself that he could always blame it on the alcohol.  He brushed his lips against hers, and when that elicited no reaction pressed them together in a full kiss that left his heart pounding and chest tight.  As he broke the lip lock she stirred briefly, but quickly settled without waking.  He stared up at the ceiling.  He was 27, fresh out of prison, living at his parents' house with his 3 year old girl, frantically trying to find out what happened to his wife who dropped their daughter off with the grandparents one day and never returned.  He looked down at her sleeping peacefully without a care in the world.  He wanted to throw her out.  He wanted to kiss her again.  He wanted to put a bullet in her head.  He wanted to make love to her until it was daylight.  Instead he just kept staring at the ceiling and wondering who he hated more in the moment, himself or her.