Carmine slid out of the booth as pink essence flashed in the air. Joe wobbled above the table, oversize sunglasses pressed against the bridge of his nose. “It’s dark as the bottom of a keg in here,” he said.
I glanced at Carmine, but spoke to Joe. “The glasses, Joe. Funny you showing up here.”
He settled to the table, removing the glasses and staring at them as if he’d never seen them before. He tossed them over his shoulder into the next booth and cocked his head at Carmine. “Dare I think that’s a bar behind you, Master Red?”
“Your powers of observation astound as always, Master Pink.” Carmine placed a plastic red card on the table next to my elbow. He nodded at the stone cube. “We have a wide selection of those. Consider yourself my guest for the rest of the evening, Connor. The rooms in the back are at your disposal.”
“You don’t have to do that, Carmine,” I said.
He bowed. “Of course not, but sometimes I do things I think are necessary at the time.” He nodded to Joe. “Master Pink.”
Joe tapped his head and bowed. “Master Red.”
Carmine strolled away as the waiter reappeared. He placed a small chair on the table for Joe, two mugs of Guinness in flit glasses beside it, and a full pint in front of me. Joe picked up a mug and draped himself on the chair, dangling his feet over one of its arms. He raised his mug. “To the good red man!”
“To Carmine,” I said, and tapped.
Joe hummed as he surveyed the bar. “Busy in here.”
“Carmine called you, didn’t he?”
He looked at me with half-closed eyes. “I would have been here soon or later, making the rounds. You think you’re the only morose guy bitter at the world that I know? I have a schedule, you know.”
Joe knew my ancestors, stood beside them on battlefields and watched people die over the right to lands that didn’t even exist anymore. It was hard to feel like my issues were important around him. Not that he didn’t care what I was going through, but he had a way of reminding me that I wasn’t alone and that anything that was happening now had happened before and will again. It was the Wheel of the World. I chuckled as I drained my glass and pulled the new pint closer.
“How’d you make out with the elf?” I asked.
He downed his glass and picked up the second. “Very strange. I lost him. One moment he was there, the next gone. Never saw an elf do that.”
“Did he ghost?” I asked. The fey, especially ones with strong body essence, had the ability to move at extreme speeds.
Joe feigned an insulted glare. “Do you really think someone ghosting can get away from me?”
I shrugged. “Just asking.”
“Nope. He turned a corner and vanished. Not a trace of essence left behind. It was like he fell in a hole.”
I grunted as I drank my beer. “I wish I could fall in a hole.”
Joe grinned. “I feel a bender coming on.”
“That, my friend, sounds like a perfect idea. I don’t want to think about tomorrow.”
He downed his second mug and sighed. “See, now, in the same situation, I can’t wait to see what happens.”
Amused, I crumpled a bar napkin and tossed it at him. He tilted his head and used his toe to nudge at the card Carmine had left. “Are you going to use that? I’ve heard rumors about some interesting new entertainments.”
Meryl’s vacant stare flitted through my mind. She wouldn’t care if I lost myself in some mindless recreation. Depending on the situation, she’d toss me out the door to go play if I was not on her agenda for the night. I didn’t want to, though. Tonight, it would have felt like an indulgence and not in a good way. Beer was enough for what I needed right then. I pushed the card closer to Joe. “I’m not in the mood. Take notes for me.”
He spun the card on the tip of his finger, cheating by using essence to keep it aloft. “Oh, I’m sure Carmine has video.”
12
I woke with a gasp as cold water poured on my face and spilled down my neck. I hunched forward in the darkened living room, a headache blooming at the sudden movement. My body shields flickered but receded as my sensing ability picked up the body signature beside my futon.
“Ass,” I said.
Murdock smirked down at me, a half-empty water glass poised in his hand to drip more water on me. “Rise and shine, grumpy.”
I wiped the wetness from my face with my hands and winced when Murdock turned on the lights. Sunlight peeked through cracks in the plywood and plastic barrier that served as my replacement window. During the riots, Guild agents had smashed their way in to arrest me, and the landlord wasn’t in any rush to replace the glass.
I swung my feet to the floor and made my way to the bathroom. My head felt like it followed on a tether about two feet behind. A flutter in my stomach tried to get my attention, threatening to become a rush of something trying to get out of my body. I stood in front of the john, steadying myself with one hand against the wall as I relieved myself. “You could have called,” I said.
His voice echoed in from the living room. “I did. And I rang the buzzer, but you didn’t answer. Seemed like a good idea to check if you were on the run or dead.”
I shuffled out of the bathroom and slipped on some black jeans from the floor. I was pretty sure they were the clean ones. “I guess I was in a deep sleep.”
He eyed me with amusement as he washed the glass. “I guess technically that’s true.”
I pulled a clean T-shirt out of the laundry basket. It was clean. I knew for sure. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He leaned against the counter, shaking his head. “Connor, I really don’t care you went on a beer binge. What I do care about is that you got dressed and still smell like ass. Go take a shower. I’ll wait.”
The aroma of bar reek and beer sweat coming off me was not a pleasant combination. I hadn’t realized I wasn’t the only one who could smell it. “Wait for what?”
“We got an ID on the pit victim,” he said.
I pulled the T-shirt off again and shucked my pants to the floor. I lost my balance in the process and almost fell over. “And that concerns me because?”
He smiled and shrugged. “Because you need to do something other than drink and act like Eorla Kruge’s errand boy.”
A thick silence hung between us as I debated whether to be insulted. Murdock’s eyebrows flicked upward, a telltale sign he was more than willing to go toe-to-toe with me on the subject. I checked the rumbling burn of anger in my chest. He was right, a little blunt, but right. I walked back in the bathroom. “Your shirt’s ugly.”
“And for the love of God, brush your teeth,” he shot back.
The hot shower soothed my muscle aches but didn’t get rid of my headache, or, at least, the headache I had in addition to my usual headache. It did help me shed the layer of odor. I came out of the bathroom, rubbing my hair with a towel. “How’d the ID happen?”
He didn’t look up from the home-design magazine he was reading. I might live in a hovel, but I still appreciate a nice design sensibility I will never see again for myself. “Prints. A couple of minor arrests two decades ago,” he said.
I pulled on a clean T-shirt, then a dark gray sweater. “Has Janey done the autopsy yet?”
He dropped the magazine on the floor. It wasn’t rude. It landed on the stack of other magazines there. “Since we got an ID, she’s going to move it up,” he said.
I grabbed my jacket and knit cap. “Ready.”
Downstairs, we settled into Murdock’s car. “When I said ‘ready,’ I meant ready to go through the drive-thru at Dunkin’ Donuts. You knew that, right?”
Murdock lifted a large foam cup from the console and handed it to me. “Took care of it on the way over.”
The cup was warm in my hand, so he wasn’t joking. It’s hard to tell the fresh junk in Murdock’s car from the stale. I took grateful sips. “Do you always stop for coffee when you think someone’s dead in his apartment?”
We hopped on I-93 south to take the shortcut to Albany Street in the South End. “I said I was checking to see if you were dead. I suspected you were hungover. Likely outcomes first, you know.”