Free Pros and Cons by Jenna Black

fast, putting his whole body into the effort. It was an impressive display of dexterity, considering he was holding a bottle of beer by its neck in the fingers of his right hand. He didn’t look up as I approached, though I was sure he knew I was there.
    â€œYou’re going to tilt the machine if you’re not careful,” I said. The ambient noise was loud enough that I practically had to shout. It was going to be a long evening, if the start of it was any indication.
    Jack gave me a sidelong glance. “Oh, ye of little faith,” he said, taking a moment to swig from his bottle of beer. The pinball took that opportunity to roll through the gap between his flippers. I hoped that meant the game was over and we could go somewhere quieter to talk, but I should have known better. The machine flashed a “game over” message, but that quickly blinked out and was replaced with “free ball.”
    â€œHere, hold this,” Jack said, thrusting his beer bottle into my hand. Then he pulled back the plunger and sent his “free ball” into play.
    I considered pouring the remains of his beer over his head, but he’d probably find that funny. And the bartender would probably get stuck cleaning it up.
    â€œReally, Jack?” I said instead. “We have more money than everyone else in this place combined, and you’re too cheap to just feed a few quarters into the machine?” In a lot of ways, Jack is the most powerful of all of Anderson’s Liberi . Not because he could cheat a pinball machine, but because of the impressive variety of skills he’d revealed over the short time I’d known him. I was pretty sure he could use his powers in more ways than I had yet seen.
    â€œI’d have had to start back at zero if I did that,” he answered, not looking at me this time.
    Don’t let him draw you in, I reminded myself. Arguing with Jack was a pointless endeavor. I bit my tongue and reminded myself to slip a big tip to the bartender when we left to make up for whatever Jack stole.
    â€œSo,” Jack said, his eyes still on the ball as it careened wildly. “You said on the phone you needed some help setting up a sting. What can I do for you?”
    Silly me. I’d thought Jack would stop playing so we could talk.
    He didn’t turn his attention from the pinball machine once as I told him all about Heather and Doug and their ill-fated blackmail attempts. His lips twitched a couple of times—I suspected he found the idea of Doug running a scam on Heather, who was running a scam on Fowler, amusing—but that was the only indication that he heard a word I said.
    He kept right on playing after I’d finished telling him the whole story, saying not a word. I hoped his mind might twist the same way mine had, because I was pretty sure he’d like any plan better if he was the one who came up with it. I waited a good minute or two in hopes that he might be thinking things over, but it became quickly obvious that he wanted to force me to do all the talking. Like maybe contributing something to the conversation himself would be too much trouble.
    I get that he’s descended from a trickster god, but is it really necessary for him to be so annoying all the time?
    I let out a sigh of resignation. “Well?” I prompted, trying to hide my annoyance because I knew he’d enjoy it. “Do you have any brilliant ideas for how I can get Fowler locked away for good without risking getting Heather or Doug killed?”
    He waited a little while longer to answer, bouncing the ball repeatedly off of the same bumper, making the same high-pitched dinging noise over and over again until I wanted to do something much more violent with the beer bottle I was holding than simply pouring it over his head. Then, as if he hadn’t been focused on the game with such intensity for the past fifteen minutes or so, he took his hands off the buttons and stood up