“Business will boom.” Beneath the gruffness, I heard a reluctant sympathy. “He blames himself. He snaps and snarls as much as I do, but I’ve been around a long time. I see.”
My face didn’t move, but whatever he saw behind it was the end of the conversation. Without further word, he put a glass before me on the bar and left.
Cal blamed himself . . . as if I didn’t know.
The Auphe had given Cal every reason to blame himself. It was part of their game. It wasn’t enough to kill us or him. There had to be suffering, agony . . . torment. Months ago, before Cal had killed the Auphe in Florida, they had told my brother they would save him for last as we were torn to pieces before him. They wanted him to blame himself for every one of our deaths. They would be happy to know he already did. Cal had already lived that moment hundreds of times in his head, I knew. Would live it hundreds more before this was all over. And no matter what I said or did, that wouldn’t change.
My grip tightened on the bottle and I put it down with exquisite care before I shattered it. I couldn’t change it, but I could make sure he only lived the nightmare of it, not the reality.
The first step would be to stay together as much as possible. Robin would take some persuading, but I was rather in the mood for some persuasion. I’d missed my workout this morning. Dragging him kicking and screaming from his den of debauchery could be a substitute.
I stood as Delilah gave Cal something to remember her by. As she turned her back on him, I waited for him to walk over before I commented on the bright red handprint on his cheek. “Things went well, then.”
He gave me an irritable glance and rubbed his face gingerly. “Funny, it doesn’t feel like it did.”
Delilah slapped her hand on the bar, snapping, “Pigeon! Whiskey. Now.”
Amusing though it might be, I didn’t have time to see the fun and games that were going to start with Ishiah. Herding Cal toward the door, I said, “She could’ve broken your neck with one blow if she’d wanted. That’s the tap a mother gives her cub.”
“Being smacked by a she wolf,” he muttered, “it gives new meaning to ‘bitch slap.’ ”
“Don’t complain.” I opened the door and shoved him out just as I saw Ishiah pull his sword from beneath the bar. “You could’ve stopped her.”
“Maybe.” He scowled, then let it go. “Relationships. I never claimed I was good at them.”
“When you actually have one,” I advised, “we’ll return to the subject.”
Coincidentally, as we arrived at Robin’s, he was in the process of not having relationships as well. Standing on black-and-white marble in tastefully subdued lighting, I wondered not for the first time how Goodfellow had managed to weasel his way past the co-op board of this place. They couldn’t have any idea what went on behind that door. I’d only seen glimpses, and as much as I appreciated education, that was one no one needed.
After several minutes of Cal’s pounding, we were finally let in by a shirtless Robin. His pants were still on, though, and that was something. Not much, but something.
Tapping a bare foot impatiently on the floor, he asked, “What? What do you want? It’s never-ending with you two. I would think a giant eel attack would have you taking at least one day off.”
“We’re . . . oh, hell. What are you doing now?” Cal asked as we both caught sight of the rumpled clothes on the living room floor—a Salvation Army uniform, a sweatshirt that read ABSTINENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER, and, if I wasn’t mistaken, a Shriner’s fez.
That was the type of day it was going to be, then. I pinched the bridge of my nose at the oncoming headache.
Robin folded his arms and raised his eyebrows as if it were obvious. “I’m trying to change my ways. I’m helping the poor, the deluded, and the medically needy. Who could find fault in that?” he said with a self-satisfied smirk.
Trying to change. More like trying very hard not to change. His brush with death as a result of similar behavior had him trying to prove to the world that he was fine the way that he was—and trying even harder to prove it to himself.
“You . . .” Cal started, then gave up immediately. I didn’t blame him. This was Robin as he was and as he would no doubt always be. Which was fine. I liked him . . . well, I was used to him the way he was. Semantics.
“Just don’t tell us the cat is involved as well,” I said. “There’s a line to be drawn, and necrophiliac bestiality would be it.”
“The cat.” He gritted his teeth. “Do you have an idea what my life is like now? No, you do not, and why? Let me tell you. Yesterday she got out and . . .”
“She?” Cal interrupted before inhaling. I could smell the cat in the apartment as well, and my sense of smell had nothing on his. The mummifying spices of cinnamon and ginger floated on the air, winding about us. “Hey, that’s nice,” Cal grinned. “You can’t beat a walking undead deodorizer for that domestic touch, can you, Nik?”
“She?” I prompted, returning to the subject at hand and giving his ribs the reprovingly sharp point of my elbow. The sooner Robin vented, the sooner we could get on with it.
“Yes, she,” Goodfellow snarled, “and a complete and utterly psycho bitch she is. Like many of my past liaisons, as a matter of fact. Yesterday she somehow opened the locks, got out the door, and ran into Mrs. Federstein’s Great Dane. The woman”—he made a seesawing gesture as if he wasn’t quite sure she qualified for the gender—“wholly unattractive and not especially bright, lets the dog roam up and down the hall for exercise. The poor, wretched creature is a hundred years old, completely deaf, mostly blind, and no brighter than his owner. Up and down the hall he weaves, bouncing off the walls, probably praying for death from whatever god dogs worship.” He sighed and ran an agitated hand into his wavy hair and clenched it there. “Well, he got his wish. I come home from the dealership last evening to find a ‘present’ on my pillow—one very big, very dead dog. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a Great Dane into the incinerator? Do you?”
“Aw, she loves you.” Cal’s grin stretched a little wider. It was a rare one for him, neither dark nor sarcastic. For one brief second he wasn’t thinking of the Auphe, and that made Robin’s rant more than worth listening to.
“What are you naming her?” I asked, as genuinely curious as I was genuinely amazed that he had kept her after all.
“Salome. She was a bitch too,” he replied, disgruntled. “All she could talk about was John the Baptist. Bring me his head on a platter. I want his head on a platter. Now, where’s that platter? Blah, blah. I was willing to serve up my dick on a platter, still attached, of course, but was that good enough for her? Nooo.”
“Robin, we’re starting without you.”
I could say if it was a female or male voice coming from the bedroom, but what was the point? Robin lived a restriction-free life in that area. All areas, actually. It was too bad for him that was about to come to an abrupt, if hopefully temporary, end.
He turned and walked away, waving us off with a “Thanks for visiting. Drop by anytime. My best to the family. Pick a platitude and leave with it.”
“I don’t think so.” I tapped his shoulder with the blade of my katana, stopping him in his tracks. “Pack. You’re coming with us. We’re all staying at Promise’s until the Auphe situation is resolved.”
He looked in the direction of the bedroom and then back at me. “I most certainly am not.”
I gave a smile sharp as my sword. “Yes, you most certainly are.”