“Want to know what I find curious?” said the president sharply. “That you have the brass balls to talk to me in this manner. Perhaps I need to remind you who is commander in chief and who is a subordinate.”
“I am very much aware of the Washington power structure, Mr. President.”
“Are you? That may require a formal review. If you thought that by calling and insulting me you would somehow reclaim what you justifiably lost, Deacon, then you are very much mistaken. You’ve mismanaged the powers and authority granted you by my predecessors. If I had any doubts before about putting Harcourt in charge of the DMS, I have none now. In fact I wonder if he’s not the most appropriate person to take exclusive directorship of the DMS.”
Mr. Church said, “Since you are being frank with me, Mr. President — and as it seems I can’t get further onto your bad side — let me be equally frank with you.”
“Oh, please do. You’ve got a little bit of rope left.”
“I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you made a decision based on your understanding of the situation as it stood prior to this conversation. I called to help you clarify your vision. We are at a crossroads, you and I. I would hate to see you take the wrong path merely because you dislike me. I would hope your integrity, political sobriety, and good judgment will keep you from making choices that could have unfortunate consequences for the nation we are both sworn to protect.”
“Don’t you dare threaten me, you arrogant son of a bitch,” growled the president.
“That was not a threat, Mr. President, though I find it significant that you’ve chosen to take it as such.”
The line went dead.
The president stared at the phone for a moment.
“Asshole,” he muttered.
Then he bent forward, cleared the line, and made a call.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
I had high hopes for a quiet night.
I got home very late and had a nice dinner with Junie. Fish tacos and dirty rice. Then we put the dishes in the sink and moved to the balcony to watch the stars over the ocean. It had been cloudy earlier but now there were stars by the billion.
Junie was in on the case now, and I was free to share the rest of what had happened with her. I told her about Lilith calling Mr. Church with a tip about a new and very mysterious ISIL leader she called the Mullah of the Black Tent.
“I thought that case was taken away from you,” she said.
“Church said he was going to talk to the president about that. Maybe he’ll have some good news for me tomorrow.”
She touched my face. “I know you want to get back into this, Joe, but you have to give yourself time to rest.”
“I’ve had enough rest, thanks,” I said. She didn’t like that answer, but she knew how to pick her fights.
The evening rolled on toward night. We talked about Majestic and Gateway. We speculated about Prospero Bell. What was he like? Did he know about her and the other hive kids? She said that Greene seemed to suggest that maybe Prospero wasn’t dead, that his death had been faked. It was only an impression, though; she had nothing to base it on. My middle-aged marmalade-and-white tabby, Cobbler, came and sprawled in my lap. Junie was still on her first glass of wine because she had no tolerance at all. I forget how many glasses of bourbon I’d put away. More than my share, but on the whole not enough. Junie wore one of my flannel shirts over a skimpy top and leggings. Her feet were propped on the rail, toes touching mine. We were drifting toward a lazy, let’s-go-to-bed silence when my cell phone rang. I grunted in surprise when I saw who the caller was. He wasn’t someone who called me except in very rare cases when he couldn’t otherwise find Junie. Bemused, I punched the button.
“Toys,” I said.
“Ledger,” he said.
There was a moment of silence, which is how a lot of our conversations start. A moment to assess. I hated him for a long time, and with very good cause. Last year, when the Seven Kings — led by that monster Nicodemus — invaded a hospital in San Diego with the intention of killing Circe O’Tree — Rudy’s pregnant wife and Church’s daughter — Toys nearly died to protect her. In doing so he helped save Junie’s life. Toys was nearly cut to ribbons by broken glass. His body is covered with scars. Afterward, when he was leaving the hospital, I told him that while I still didn’t like him and would never forgive him for the crimes he’d committed, he and I were no longer at war.
“Junie’s right here,” I said, “hold on and—”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t call for her. I called for you.”
“For me? Why?”
“I need your help. I just killed four people,” he said.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Toys was sitting on a deck chair outside of his room but stood as we approached. He was dressed in jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, looking exactly like a vacationing tourist unless you looked into his eyes. If eyes are the windows of the soul, then beyond those panes was a bleak and wasted landscape that was devoid of all hope.
“Are you okay?” asked Junie as she hugged him and kissed his cheek.
“I’ll live.” He looked at me. “Ledger.”
“Toys.”
No handshakes. We weren’t touchy-feely with each other and probably never would be. He didn’t try to pet Ghost, either, because Toys is not that stupid.
On the chair next to him was his ragged-looking cat, which eyed Ghost with such obvious disdain that the dislike between them was immediate and palpable. Ghost barely tolerates Cobbler, but his general opinion of cats is that they are chew toys. The cat on the chair probably considered all dogs to be scratching posts. Ah, love.
Toys introduced the cat as “Job,” explaining that the scruffy animal had been through the wringer.
“Lot of that going around,” I said.
Junie reached out a hand to Job, which he sniffed and then rubbed his head against. Ghost looked disgusted and walked over to the closed door of Toys’s apartment, took a sniff, and immediately began to growl softly.
I drew my gun and nodded to the door. “Shall we?”
“You won’t need that,” said Toys. “All of the drama is past tense. It’s not pretty, though.”
“I promise I won’t faint,” I said as I reholstered my Sig Sauer.
He gave a half smile. “I meant that for Junie.”
Junie patted his arm. “I’m pretty sure I’m unshockable at this point.”
Even so, Toys shifted to stand in front of the door. “Let Joe go in. Even if you are the Iron Lady, you don’t need to see that. I had to, um, encourage one of them to talk to me.”
“I got this,” I said, and pushed past him. The door was unlocked, the lights turned low. I stepped inside and stopped, with Ghost lingering on the threshold, a ridge of hairs standing up along his back. The entire room was a mess and there was blood everywhere. He said that he’d had to encourage one of them. I spotted who that unlucky bastard was right off. He was the one who didn’t look human anymore. There was only a small patch of unbloodied rug to stand on and I went no farther in. Everything that could be read was splashed on the walls and written in the taut lines of pain etched into four dead faces. The distinctive freshly sheared copper smell of blood was masked by three burning sticks of temple incense.