I sagged in defeat. “Actually,” I admitted, “them I work for.” A split second later I wanted to take that back. If that little piece of intel ever got back to Domino, I’d be sunk.
“Manny,” she said dismissively, relieving me of that worry, “why don’t you come back when you’re willing to deal straight with me, OK?”
Maybe not a bad idea. I turned to go into Domino’s office.
“Sir,” she called out in a prim secretary voice, “do you have an appointment?”
I just gave her a look and went in.
Domino Talks
Domino was sitting behind his desk with his feet up, smoking a cigar and nodding his head in an autistic-looking way. I almost started laughing, but then I saw he had on one of those little portable stereos punk kids started wearing toward the end of my life. I thought then they were wrapping themselves up in their own sad little worlds. Just the thing for Domino.
“Domino,” I called out.
Nod, nod, nod.
I pounded the desktop with my fist and shouted, “Domino!”
He didn’t jump. He must have known I was there from the first. He took his headset off and drawled, “Takin’ your first coffee break, Calavera?”
“We’ve got a score to settle, ese,” I snapped.
He sighed. “You know, if I ever spoke to my boss, Hector, that way…” he trailed off with a slow shake of his head.
I wasn’t going to play that game. “You killed my best friend,” I accused.
“The demon?” he asked, incredulous. “Manny,” he said in an exaggerated ‘let’s-be-reasonable’ tone, “you can use a demon as a driver, let him carry your messages, let him serve you food, but you can’t ever start thinking of them as friends. It’s just not natural.”
So he wasn’t going to play my game, either. Fine. I wanted some answers about the setup. I figured they’d be easier to get by playing dumb, the way Domino was trying to play me.
“What are you doing out here on the edge of the world?” I asked.
“Oh, I know,” he said, projecting a wry smile, “I ask myself that every day. But I’m going to train you, Manny, to take my place here running this two-bit light-bulb factory.”
I wasn’t sure I heard that right. It was too small time. “You and Hector set up a secret hideout to make… light bulbs?”
“Oh, no, that’s just a side benefit,” he answered with a chuckle. “No, the real purpose is to have a place we can lock up all these old clients of mine. Can’t have ‘good’ people wandering loose in the Land of the Dead telling everybody how we stole their Double-N tickets, now can we?” He ‘smiled’ broadly.
I was so surprised to hear that admission I blurted, “You stole all these people’s tickets?” Well, there was the answer to why Salvador never heard any rumors of saints walking through the Land of the Dead. They were all on this island. Too bad I couldn’t make a report about it.
Domino seemed to mistake my surprised reaction for confusion. “OK, Calavera,” he sighed, “how much of this haven’t you figured out?” If he was going to make a full confession, I’d play along. I gave him a baffled look. He shook his head and said, patiently, “Copal would route all the good clients to me after he switched over their tickets to a secret holding fund. I’d cover up the paper trail, and we’d make sure that the pigeon ‘jumped overboard’ at the Pearl.” He laughed. It was just a good scam to him.
Well, that was pretty much what Salvador had figured out, except for the part about the Pearl… and that was no longer news to me. There had to more to justify such an elaborate operation. “I knew it!” I exclaimed. “I knew you were getting all the good clients!”
“I handled them all,” he admitted smugly, “except for Mercedes, who you hijacked away from me in that ridiculous hot rod. I tell you Manny,” he said with another slow shake of his head, “hot rods like that just don’t look safe to me.”
He clearly didn’t know what he was talking about, especially since ‘hot rod’ is hep rather than hip, although getting it straight from Domino that he was nowhere in the stormer scene wasn’t exactly the latest word from the bird, dad. (See? Olivia was right. Practice makes perfect.)
“So, it wasn’t my fault Meche didn’t get a ticket,” I said as indignantly as I could. “You stole it!” But it was my fault she was in this fix.
“Well, it’s your fault she ended up in the forest,” Domino retorted, as if he was reading my mind, “instead of coming here right away. But… I fixed that.”
“I’m taking Meche out of this dungeon,” I said.
“Manny,” he said, very seriously, “before I found her, she spent a year out there in the Petrified Forest alone because of you!” That was bad. Very bad. But not exactly news. “By comparison,” he went on, “I’d say I’m keeping her pretty comfortable here in my ‘dungeon,’ wouldn’t you?”
I’d say he was rationalizing. But I needed information more than I needed to take pot shots. I folded my arms and asked, “One ticket for you. One for Hector. How many more do you need?”
“Oh, Manny!” Domino said, sounding a little exasperated. “We never touch the product ourselves! We sell the tickets to unfortunate souls, unable to lead ‘moral’ lives because of the crippling amounts of cash they were born into.”
I could almost see the quotes he put around moral. It was nice to have it straight from the jackass’ mouth, but I still wasn’t hearing anything all that new.
“But you could just take the tickets and leave today,” I pointed out.
“We found a way to make the Land of the Dead livable!” Was he kidding? I didn’t think so. “Why would we want to leave?” he asked. That was definitely a ‘baby, if you have to ask’ kind of question.
Domino was talking pretty freely, but there had to be more to the game than what he was saying and, I was beginning to suspect, maybe even more than he knew about himself. That suitcase Max and Charlie had been playing games with just didn’t fit, not in Domino’s version of things. I decided he wasn’t exactly the big boy he clearly thought he was. Domino probably only knew enough to play his part in the real scam. Whatever it was.
“Well,” I said, backing toward the door, “I gotta get back to trying to escape.”
Domino laughed and said, “Hey, you do that kid. Knock yourself out!” He put his little stereo headset back on as I left.
After taking a few wrong turns, I made my way back to the office where I had woken up after Domino had tucked me in.
“Hello, Mr. Mean Boss Guy,” Pugsy said.
“Would one of you children happen to have a gun?” No harm in asking, and maybe they had a convincing toy gun. Giving that to Meche might make her see how ridiculous she was being.
“Yeah, we do,” Pugsy said, “so stick ’em up.”
I put my hands up.
“He doesn’t have one,” Bibi stage-whispered to me, being too young to know playful sarcasm when she met it. “He’s such a liar.”
“Oh, yeah?” Pugsy said, turning on her. “Well, you’re stupid!”
“Your light bulbs don’t work!” Bibi retorted.
“Your light bulbs all smell like boogers,” Pugsy shot back.
“Ha, ha!” Bibi taunted. “No one thinks you’re funny anymore.”
“Oh yeah?” Pugsy returned, floundering slightly. “Well, everybody in this cage is smarter than you.”