“No. I want to meet your people.”
“I have the Qomrama and the gun. What you want isn’t really relevant to the discussion.”
This is starting to piss me off. Ten more seconds I’ll be chewing his face off myself. I could throw some hoodoo at him, but he still might get a shot off and hit Candy. I’ve got to find another angle.
“I have to make a tiny confession.”
Declan is already edging for the door.
“What?”
“That 8 Ball is a fake.”
He stops and looks at it like maybe he can tell the difference.
“It better goddamn well not be,” he says, and shoots a glass vase holding some long-stemmed lilies. Thank God. I was planning on knocking the ugly thing over myself. Declan shakes the 8 Ball. Uses his gun hand to try to make it do something.
A whirring, clicking noise starts behind me.
“What are you two doing out here? Fucking each other with cannonballs?” says Kasabian, bleary-eyed, creaking out of his room on all fours. He sees Declan with the gun and jerks upright, which, if you aren’t used to it, looks even worse.
“Shit!” yells Declan. He shoots at Kasabian, hitting him in the leg. I pull the Peacemaker from the waistband behind my back and, before he can turn the gun on me, put a hole in the side of Declan’s thick skull. He drops the 8 Ball, but Candy’s Jade reflexes are quick-like-a-bunny fast and she catches it before it hits the ground.
“What the fuck?” yells Kasabian, grabbing his injured leg. “Your fucking hit man crippled me,” he says. He hobbles over to Declan’s body. “This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. You don’t kill me, so you bring in someone to do it for you.”
“Calm down. I didn’t know he was going to shoot you. I wanted to see if he knew how to use the damned 8 Ball. Someone besides Aelita must.”
Candy sets the Qomrama on the coffee table and looks at dead Declan like she still wants to eat him.
“Fumbling with the 8 Ball, he looked like a junior high kid trying to take a girl’s bra off for the first time.”
I put the pistol back in my waistband.
“Hey, the first time can be confusing. And then some girl fools you with the kind that closes in the front and you start getting worried about how many other ways bras can open.”
“That’s the girl IQ test,” says Candy. “Can the rat run the maze and find the cheese?”
“I knew it was a conspiracy.”
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
Kasabian drops down into his desk chair. He tries to straighten his bum leg, but can only manage to get it about two thirds out.
“I’m fine over here, Nick and Nora. Thanks for asking.”
Declan has a pretty big hole in his head and it’s bleeding all over the Chateau’s pricey carpet.
I say, “I’m going to dump the body. Why don’t you two clean up the blood as best as you can and cover what you don’t get with a throw rug or the sofa?”
Kasabian shakes his head.
“Forget it. I’m not cleaning up your mess.”
“I kept this asshole from killing you.”
“You brought him here.”
Kasabian and I have ended up here before, but this is the last time.
“You’re right,” I say. “I put you in danger. Maybe it’s time for you to take all that money you have stashed away and find your own place.”
He frowns.
“What?”
I point to Declan’s corpse.
“This isn’t the last time this shit is going to happen. If anything, things are going to get worse as the Angra get closer and people start scrambling for whatever they can grab.”
“See? Looking for any excuse to get rid of me. I told you you’d do this.”
“I brought you here to save your sorry ass, but I guess you forgot that. What we’re talking about right now, though, this is your choice. You don’t want to be a team player? Fine. I’ll help you get back in our old room at the Beat Hotel. But just remember that from now on you’re going to be watching your own back, and if you want any more work from Manimal Mike, you’ll be paying for it yourself.”
“You’re going to let him do this?” he says to Candy.
“Sorry. I’m on the crazy man’s side on this one,” she says.
“This is how it is from now on. Everyone works with everyone else. You want to play lone wolf, you’re on your own.”
Kasabian rubs his chin with a metal paw.
“So what, we’re going all Super Friends now?”
“Something like that.”
“He wasn’t trying to get me shot?”
Candy shakes her head.
“No. The bastard was trying to get me shot.”
Kasabian thinks for a minute.
“Okay. You have your demands. I have mine. You drop all the ‘Old Yeller’ stuff. You want me to be a team player, you treat me like part of the team and not the equipment.”
“That’s downright cruel, man.”
He holds up a finger.
“And my leg. I want it no-shit fixed.”
I nod.
“I’m working on that. There aren’t a lot of listings for hellhounds on Craigslist. I’m going to have to go Downtown and beg or steal one.”
Candy clears her throat.
“You know, it might pique someone’s interest if you call the concierge for a bunch of bleach and a body bag.”
“Use the blankets and towels to get up as much blood as you can. Then call down for new ones. If they ask about the old ones, tell them we’re taking care of them.”
“That won’t make them suspicious.”
“I’m Mr. Macheath. I work in mysterious ways.”
Kasabian gets up and whirs and clanks into his bathroom to get towels. Candy gives me some of the cash people have been paying me not to bend them into balloon animals.
“Sorry about making you play damsel in distress tonight.”
“Tell me you didn’t plan it in advance.”
“I was improvising. I promise.”
She looks at all the blood.
“It’s like Sweeney Todd’s rumpus room in here.”
“I’ll be back soon.”
I FIND AN all-night market a few blocks from the Chateau. I buy garbage bags, bleach, duct tape, and a shovel. The clerk doesn’t bat an eye. I sneak back through a shadow in the parking lot and come out in the penthouse, my stomach catching a little, not just from the typical nausea of coming through the penthouse’s magic defenses, but from the thick smell of blood in the room.
While Candy and Kasabian pat down the carpet with towels and sheets, turning them bright crimson, I stick Declan’s head in one of the garbage bags, securing it with tape around his neck. I don’t want any more of the red stuff splashing around. I know I should feel bad about wrapping a dead man like pork chops for the freezer, but I can’t work up much sympathy. He was a greedy fuck who was going to shoot Candy. That’s after he almost got her shot at Donut Universe. No. Declan Garrett deserves what he got and what he’s going to get.
Candy carries each soaked sheet and towel into the bathroom and throws it in the tub. The wall looks like a musk ox exploded while taking a soak.
“Where are you taking the body?” says Candy.
“Teddy Osterberg’s place.”
“Silly question.”
Kasabian moans and groans, but he does his bit getting up the blood. I bag as many of the sheets and towels as I can carry, figuring I can come back for the rest later.
I kiss Candy on her bloody cheek. She smiles but I can tell she’s still a little sore. I toss Declan’s body over my shoulder, grab the bags of bloody sundries in my hands, and tuck the shovel under my arm. No one in recorded history has looked more like he’s going to dispose of a body than I do right now.
I step through a shadow and come out in the garage. It only takes a couple of minutes to find Declan’s Beamer. I pop the trunk with the black blade, toss Declan inside and the other goodies on top of him.
The black blade opens the door, and when I jam it into the ignition, the car starts right up. I back up carefully and drive out of the garage, giving the attendant a friendly wave as I leave.