The morning was getting a little older when his intercom buzzed.
“Yeah?” Domino said as he pushed the button.
“I need to see you in my office,” Copal’s voice said. “Now.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Domino said and released the button. He carefully folded his paper, stood up and stretched, then sauntered out into the hall. As he approached Eva’s desk he asked, “Any messages?”
“I can’t see your tube from here,” she answered matter-of-factly as she carried on with her typing.
Domino laughed as if she had made a joke and went into Copal’s office after a quick rap on the door.
“About time,” Copal groused as Domino closed the door behind him. “Didja stop for donuts or what?”
“What’s the panic?” Domino asked lightly.
“The poisoning,” Copal answered in a clipped tone.
“Oh, fuck!” Domino exclaimed. “You dragged me in here for that… that feeding frenzy?”
“Look at what I just got,” Copal said, flinging a work order toward Domino.
Domino picked it up off Copal’s desktop. “Son-of-a-bitch!” he said under his breath. Then, aloud to Copal, “Don’t tell me this whore is at the poisoning.”
“She’s at the poisoning,” Copal snapped. “And guess where her ticket is right now.”
“You know,” Domino said, “we really need better lines of communication around here.”
“Like that’s gonna help now.” Copal rubbed his eye sockets. “The good news is that all the early birds have already got their cases, and none of them brought back this… this…”
“Calabaza,” Domino supplied.
“Yeah, Calabaza,” Copal repeated. “But there’s still Calavera.”
“Isn’t he taking the day off?”
“How can he? He never makes his quotas.”
“Oh, yeah,” Domino said, ‘grinning’ wickedly.
“Yeah,” Copal sneered. “So he could wander in any minute now, and the first thing he’ll see is that goddamned memo. So you’d better get your ass out there and bring that woman in!”
“Sure thing,” Domino said, putting the work order in his pocket. “No problem.”
“There’d better not be, or someone’ll be taking you out to the greenhouse.”
Domino left and, in the elevator, let loose a stream of invective toward Copal. Who did that slug think he was threatening? When he got to the garage his driver was waiting for him with the car. Before getting in he spotted Calavera’s driver. He clicked his fingers at him and the demon trotted over.
“Calavera’s not coming in today,” Domino told him. “Take the rest of the day off. Go enjoy yourself.”
“Are you sure, sir?” the demon asked.
“Hey!” Domino spread his arms in a grand, magnanimous gesture. “It’s a holiday! Why should you be stuck here waiting for nothing while your boss whoops it up, huh? C’mon, get outta here, kid! And if anyone gives you any trouble about it tomorrow, you just send ’em to me and I’ll fix everything.”
“Thank you, sir!” the demon said, then went to put Calavera’s car away.
“OK, furball,” Domino said to his driver as he got into the car, “let’s go.”
Domino soon enough found himself at a diner in the Land of the Living. He got his pigeon and bundled her into the car. As they pulled away from the diner, Domino was surprised to see Calavera’s car arriving. He waved happily to him as they passed, idly wondering where that big, orange replacement driver had come from.
Back at the office, Domino got the nun off to his boys in the Nada Mañana offices for the drop at the Pearl. Then, out of curiosity, he used his ‘special’ computer access to find out who the remaining soul in the diner was. He had a good laugh when he read the bio. Even with honest dice for once, Calavera still threw snake eyes. Chuckling, Domino stripped down to his undershirt and started working out on his punching bag. He was just getting into a good rhythm when Calavera walked in, asked a lot of strange questions while nosing around the office. When he started poking at the computer Domino warned him off, even though the machine was secured. Finally, Domino got the pest out and then got back to the obituaries.
A few days later, Domino was busy doing the paperwork on his legitimate cases when his message tube gave a sad hiss. A sure sign that the server had just crapped out again. Domino hated the slowdown that always caused. Eventually, demons from the mail room got around to distributing work orders and other documents. Domino looked over the first batch that came to him and set them aside. Nothing critical there. The second batch had a Double-N case right on top. Domino grabbed his reaper gear and headed out.
Once on the Limbo Highway, Domino read over the bio. He always got a laugh out of that, seeing how the idiots denied themselves power, pleasure and money just so he could take away their ‘reward’ to sell it to those who had earned it by succeeding in life.
He had just finished reading when he spotted headlights in the rear-view mirror. He turned to look through the rear window, idly wondering who else was going his way. As he watched, he noticed the other car was catching up fast. He got a little concerned when he saw that it wasn’t just headlights lighting the other car’s way. The car—if that monstrosity was a car—seemed to be on fire.
Whatever it was, it was soon right on Domino’s rear bumper. His driver was looking worriedly in the rear-view mirror, hardly paying attention to the road in front of him. The nightmare car kept pace with them for a short while. Domino saw that Calavera’s replacement driver from the poisoning was behind the wheel, and he was sure that was Calavera himself perched up behind him. The driver had a manic look on his face and Calavera already had his scythe out and planted beside him like some evil standard. Death rides a burning hot rod, Domino thought, shivering slightly despite himself.
Suddenly the other car surged forward. Domino’s driver panicked and they went rolling over into the ditch at the side of the road. When it was over, his driver was the first out and helped Domino crawl through a broken window. The demon apologized repeatedly for the spill and looked so scared that Domino took the trouble to put him at ease. It wasn’t as if he didn’t share his driver’s reaction to that weird car, after all.
Fortunately, his car wrecked in such a way that most of the damage was to the upper body. His driver was able to roll the car back onto the road. The engine started fine, although it sounded like it was working a little harder than it had been before. The driver thought it should get them there and back again. Domino had a sick feeling he knew where Calavera was in such a hurry to get to, and so they got back on the road to pick up the client. The driver said the steering wasn’t exactly right and took it a little more slowly than usual. They didn’t see any sign of the hot rod on the way to their destination, and Domino began to hope that Calavera got lost. After all, Domino had the work order. But when he got to the hospital room where his pigeon was supposed to be, he found that she was already gone.
That was bad, and Domino felt an unfamiliar sinking feeling where his stomach used to be. He went back out to his car and told his driver to return to El Marrow, and to not ask any questions about why he was empty-handed. He did a lot of thinking on the trip back, and once the car came to a stop in the garage, Domino immediately sought out the tube-system operator to confirm his suspicions about its breakdown. That done, he went to report to Copal.