Ha. I spotted a familiar face. I didn’t know his name, or that of his fellow reporters, but they’d all had cameras and microphones waving under my nose a few months back. It wasn’t as if I’d forget their faces. I wondered if other Saturn’s daughters were plagued with media nuisances while they battled demons and monsters, or if I was just special.
Andre must have noticed my expression. He slapped his hand over mine in warning. The touch tingled. I gave him my best evil-vamp smile, licking my lips and watching him hungrily. Leo had me blocked in and Cora had Andre trapped. He couldn’t do anything except hold my hand and tap my rubber shoe with his leather one. Not at all satisfactory.
“Do you dance, Leo?” I purred, still watching Andre.
“Not on poles,” Leo said, drinking his beer. But then his gaze caught the way Andre was holding down my hand, and he got the message. “We’re not solving anything here. Maybe it’s time I took you home.”
Since we lived in the same building, that almost made sense. Except I’d never needed anyone to escort me anywhere, and I wasn’t ready to call it quits for the night. I wiggled my fingers under Andre’s. He didn’t release me.
“Clancy is asking for trouble, Schwartz,” Andre said, filling in the conversational gap I’d left open. “Either carry her out of here or dispatch the reporters.”
He knew me too damned well. “Not my boss anymore, Legrande,” I pointed out. “If I want to talk to reporters, it’s my business.”
“I’m your only client and I’m paying your office rent, so yeah, I get to be your boss. I don’t want my lawyer irritating the press. They’ve been behaving so far. They’ll go away when they don’t see me murdering old ladies.”
With my free hand, I pinched the hard, bronzed one holding me down. Andre didn’t even flinch. Chinese water torture probably wouldn’t loosen his grip. I didn’t like being boxed in, physically or otherwise.
“I can always go back to Snodgrass, Legrande. I don’t need you or your problems if you’re going to boss me around. Those reporters over there could be our key to Acme. Let me loose or I’ll scream. Let’s see how many white knights come running.”
With disgust, he shoved my hand away. A pity, actually. I kind of liked the human contact. The imperiousness, not so much.
Leo warily let me out, looking as if he’d far rather heave me over his shoulder. Golden Viking had used that maneuver once before, when I’d been in no emotional shape to deal with it. He probably sensed I’d carve his heart out if he tried it now.
I tossed the mane of hair I’d yet to have cut and bit color into my lips as I swung toward the table of reporters, giving them a full view of the goods. Under normal circumstances, brown-wren me and my crooked teeth wouldn’t be overtly noticeable, but black leather works for me, and these guys knew me enough to be leery.
Since I would never be the friendly sort people would welcome with open arms, I was learning to accept that response. I might prefer it otherwise, but these guys didn’t count for much.
“Hello, boys,” I purred, noting there were no women with them. Poor Jane was stuck at home with her two-year-old. I wondered how many men at this table had wives at home dealing with the kids while they drank beer and annoyed people like me. “Looking for some entertainment?”
“Working the poles these days, Clancy?” one of the older ones asked. “What does your boyfriend the senator think about that?”
I gave him the brilliant gap-toothed smile that Max had told me turned him on. “Why, if you believe everything the media says, Danny Boy has a pole in his apartment just for me. A more original story would be a newsman who reported news instead of gossip.”
They slugged back their drinks and glared. I had no sympathy. If they couldn’t sell newspapers with real stories instead of entertainment news, then they needed to get out of the business.
“So, what’s the real news?” a balding one asked. “Give us something worth writing about.”
“I’m just a little ol’ lawyer, not a big bad investigative reporter. And I can’t say anything that would jeopardize my client’s case.” I hesitated just a fraction, giving them time to absorb the fact that I actually had a client. “But the senator and Andre aren’t real news. It’s the actions of Acme Chemical that should be examined. Corporations are where dirty deeds are hidden these days.”
“That’s your boyfriend’s family gold mine,” one of the younger ones said, trying to sound smart-assed. “You had a fight with Dane? That why you’re over there playing footsie with a murderer?”
I sighed and glanced at the balding guy with mock sympathy. “Is this what you have to put up with every day? Does he always believe what he’s told without getting the facts?”
I left them snickering at the younger guy’s expense. He was probably glowering and vowing revenge, but I’d made them all think, for a change. Real news wasn’t lying out in the street, waiting to be picked up. As with gold, you had to dig for it in dirty, sometimes dangerous, holes.
But those lazy bums wouldn’t be digging into the dungeon soon enough for me, dang it.
I sauntered out and headed up the hill. Maybe I could catch up with the Fat Chick and chat, find out how much she knew about this business.
Within minutes, I was aware of being followed. Oversensitive to bats, I saw pink ones darting about under a purple street lamp. A yellow rat scampered across the street. The Zone liked color as well as food.
I stopped at the corner and leaned against a neon blue building to reconnoiter, as they say in the movies. If necessary, I knew how to blend into the shadows. I’m small and dark and I’d been doing it for most of my life. But I fancied these were friendly footsteps.
Leo and Cora walked toward me, acting not exactly like a happy couple but more like pissed-off bodyguards. I sighed and stepped back onto the sidewalk. “You really shouldn’t follow me, you know.”
“Yeah, and you really should keep your mouth shut, but we know that’s not happening, either,” Leo said.
I glanced at him in surprise. Leo seldom said much, and what he did say was usually politically correct. I glanced at Cora for answers, but she was eyeing him with interest, too.
Leo just took my arm and steered me up the hill, refusing to answer questions we weren’t asking.
“Silent Cop Syndrome,” I told Cora, talking around him. “All I did was point the stupid hounds in a better direction.”
“No, all you did was antagonize Andre until his ears poured steam. And his nose smoked,” she added for emphasis. “No one does that. Andre is a mite . . . peculiar. You can’t just go rubbing him wrong, then walking out.”
Andre was a mite peculiar, all right, but he was a big boy and not my responsibility. “I’m even more peculiar,” I declared, “so people better start tippy-toeing around me, too.” I meant it. Andre and I were going to go head-to-head one of these days, and people needed to back off.
“He didn’t mean it about being your boss,” Cora said. “He was just sounding off, like men do. You just gotta turn on your sexy, and he’ll be buying carpets for your new office.”
The thought of my new office made me feel better. Except it probably had secret tunnels under it, filled with Andre’s computer equipment, where he filmed and copied my every move. “Is there any way of getting bug protection?” I inquired, thinking aloud.
“Like, listening-type bugs, or cockroaches?” Cora asked.