I’d kept him busy a few minutes checking the house for Deliverants —but it was a small place, and wide-open on the inside, so it didn’t take him long. The fact there weren’t any was heartening. I guess my buddy the bug-monster figured he’d give me a little latitude to go along with my marching orders.
Not like that latitude was going to do me any good if I couldn’t find five quiet minutes to formulate some kind of workable plan. I’ll tell you, between Gio’s yammering, and Roscoe screaming his fool head off in the bathroom, it was a miracle I didn’t kill them both. I mean sure, I’m not strictly speaking supposed to dispatch folks willy-nilly, but it wasn’t like the water I was in could get any hotter.
Least, that’s what I thought at the time. One of these days I’m going to learn that when I think to myself it really couldn’t get much worse, I am never, ever right. Much worse is sort of hell’s stock in trade, and I’m an idiot for forgetting that, even for a moment.
“You figure this Danny jackass has got a plague of locusts on his tail, too?”
I shook my head. “Crows.”
“Come again?”
“The creatures stalking Danny would be crows.”
Gio snorted. “Gotta tell you, dude: you wound up with the shit end of that stick.”
“You think?” I asked. “Seems to me, I’d rather run into a bunch of pissed-off insects than an equal number of angry crows. Those fuckers are smart, and nasty when pressed.”
Gio fell silent then, for like a whopping ten seconds. I should’ve known it wouldn’t last.
“So what exactly are you looking for?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I snapped. “I’ll find it when I see it.”
“This research shit would go a hell of a lot faster if you had an iPhone, you know.”
“Phones should have cords,” I said, “not television screens.”
“Next you’re gonna tell me a woman’s place is in the home, right? I know you’re older than you look, Sam, but you might wanna try gettin’ with the times —it’s a brave new world out there! Besides, everybody says print is dead anyway.”
“Yeah, well so am I —and for that matter, so are you. So how about you make like it for a bit and clam up so I can read?”
Gio raised his hands as though surrendering. “Hey, you wanna be a crotchety old fogy, that’s your business. I’m just saying a little Google access would make your life a whole lot easier.”
“Hey, I’ve got no problem with technology, but a Google search can’t help me any if I don’t know what it is I’m looking for. And all I need to make my life a whole lot easier is a few minutes of peace and quiet.” I nodded toward the bathroom, where old Roscoe was shouting himself hoarse. “You think maybe you could shut him up?”
“I ain’t about to whack him, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“What are you, new? If I wanted Roscoe dead, I would’ve killed him myself back at the barn. I was thinking something more along the lines of bringing him a beer and a bite to eat from what’s left of our stash. And toss me that pack of smokes, while you’re at it.”
“Aw, come on, Sam —you’re not really gotta light up in here, are you? Didn’t nobody ever tell you secondhand smoke kills? The last thing I need right now is lung cancer on account of your nasty-ass habit.”
“You’re kidding me, right? You’re worried about lung cancer? Gio, you’ll be lucky if you last the fucking week —and if by some miracle you’re walking around in Mr Frohman’s body any longer than that, it’ll be your heart that gets you, not your lungs.”
Gio looked nonplussed. “Still, dude, it’s all of our house. Can’t you take it to the porch or something?”
“Gio, this house isn’t any of ours —and if I drag my ass outside to smoke, somebody might see me and call us in. You want to spend your last days on this earth in jail?”
At that, he looked chastened. “I’m just sayin’ —a little consideration for your fellow housemates would be nice. Besides, it’s the twenty-first century —who smokes anymore?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Toss me my fucking cigarettes —I’ll crack a window, and blow the smoke outside, OK?”
“You know what? Go ahead. Not like you give two shits about anybody but yourself.”
He chucked the pack at me, and then sulked over to the bathroom door, a gas station burrito and a Santa Fe Pale Ale in hand. I unwrapped the pack and tapped out a cigarette. Then I fetched a matchbook from my pocket and struck one alight. But as I raised it to my waiting cigarette, I paused.
Lung cancer? Seriously? Guy was off his fucking nut.
I sat like that a minute, marveling at Gio’s unrelenting ridiculosity, the match flame a scant inch from my unlit smoke. Eventually, the flame guttered and died. I thought about striking another, but something stopped me.
Ah, fuck, who am I kidding? Someone stopped me. That’s right —the bad-ass soul collector skipped a much-needed smoke to spare a damned man’s feelings. Least I hope that’s what it was. Better to admit that I’m a marshmallow than that I was swayed by the dumbest argument this side of the devil made all the dinosaur bones and stuck them in the ground to deceive us.
Jesus, am I going soft? I mean, shit —if I want a smoke, I should just have one, right?
Right?
Eh, I thought. Maybe later.
Then I shook my head and set the pack aside, cigarette and all.
18.
“I don’t get it,” Gio said, struggling to keep a grip on the local section of the newspaper, which was flapping like a flag in a hurricane now that the Caddy was on the open road. For the moment, it was just he and I —we’d left Roscoe tied up and screaming back at the squat. It was safer traveling without him, and not just a little quieter, too. Or rather it would’ve been, if Gio could’ve kept hold of the goddamn paper. “What exactly am I supposed to be seeing?”
“Halfway down, under the thing about the fire.”
“’Area Man Found Wandering in Desert,’” he read.
“That’s the one.”
“Yeah, but what about it? All it says is that this dude was found naked and babbling late Sunday night somewhere off of Canyon Point Road.”
“He’s our guy.”
“The hell you mean, ‘He’s our guy’? You think Naked Dude’s the demon dope-peddler you been looking for?”
“No. But I think he can help me find him.”
“Yeah? How?”
“Because I’m pretty sure Dumas’s skim-joint is where he was coming from when they picked him up.”
Gio frowned. “I thought you said this skim shit was only for demons and undead-types like you and me —that the living wouldn’t get nothing out of it.”
“It is. Only those removed from the light of God’s grace are susceptible. The living would be unaffected.”
“Removed from the light of God’s grace, huh?” His thick brow bunched with worry. “Is that what I am now?”
I hesitated for a moment, then bit the bullet and told him the truth. “Yes.” What else could I have said?
He swallowed hard and tamped down his emotions. When he looked at me again, he was a little drawn, a little pale, but once more calm and collected. “So what the fuck would Mr Richard Shaw of Chilton Drive, Las Cruces have been doing there?”
I sighed, tried to explain. “When you’re out on a heist, you ever drive your own car?”
“Hell, no —you’re on a job, you want something disposable. A car that, once you ditch it, it can’t be traced back to you.”