By then we were approaching the high-rise building. I stared up at it, gave a half-laugh.
“Then the big secret is...he was legit? He had a real job?”
“A real job?” Maygar’s mouth hardened from its previous glee. “Bridge, do you have any idea how many seers would have actively tried to kill him if they knew he did this ‘real job?’ If there ever was a blood-traitor job, that was it.”
Grabbing the juice from me, he took a long drink. Once he’d lowered the carton, he gave me another look, humor once more teasing his full lips.
“...The joke among those of us who knew was that Dags was a worm fucker.” He grinned wider before clarifying, “...that he preferred worms to seers. Given that he married one, and the Kraut daughter of a Nazi General, at that, I don’t think it’s such a stretch, do you?” Tilting his head back to drink more of the juice, he swallowed as he lowered the carton, his eyes still on me. “Come to think of it...he picked a human over you, didn’t he, Bridge?”
“And a seer,” I said.
He grinned. “Yeah. That’s right. But he fucked the human, yes?”
I felt this as a sucker punch to somewhere in the navel region. The irony should have struck me, but it didn’t.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, he did.”
Maygar grinned again, clapping me on the shoulder.
“Don’t be so sensitive, Bridge. He’s dead.”
By then we’d reached the front door. The doorman opened for us once Maygar showed his ID, but not before giving me a down-the-nose disapproving look for my attire. A security guard walked us to an art deco elevator and stepped inside after motioning us ahead. Stepping just inside the door, he inserted a key, twisted it sideways, then punched in an access code before pressing the top button labeled ‘Penthouse.’ Watching all this, I felt a little sick.
“Maybe you were right,” I muttered to Maygar.
“About what this time?”
“I’m beginning to think this was a bad idea.”
The security guard gave me a questioning look, but I barely registered it. Did I really want to see where he’d lived? I was pretty sure I’d find out yet more things I didn’t want to know. My stomach continued to hurt the higher we traveled, until I started to wonder what the hell was wrong with me. Maygar apparently wondered the same thing. He nudged me with an elbow.
“You look like you’re going to throw up,” he said out of the side of his mouth. “What is wrong?”
I shook my head, giving him an irritated look.#p#分页标题#e#
The elevator let out a soft ping, and the doors slid open. The security guard used gloved fingers to point us down the hall. He smiled at me as we exited, giving me a wink as he hit the button to go back down.
He needn’t have bothered with directions. There was only one door. It had no markings, no identifiers of any kind. A small eye of God stuck out of the ceiling, one of those cameras with a darkened bubble guarding the lens.
“Do we knock?” I whispered it for some reason.
Maygar held up a set of keys, jangling them. “Why?” he said. He bent to the lock, but the door suddenly opened, revealing a small, wiry man in his thirties with a wide face and thinning brown hair. Maygar and I both lurched back in alarm.
The man appeared startled too.
Looking at him, I wondered if they’d rented out the apartment. The man stared between Maygar and me, then focused on me, almost like he knew me.
Hesitantly, I stepped forward.
“We’re friends of Dehgoies Revik,” I said. “He used to live here. We’ve only just now come around to pick up his things. If we’re too late, maybe you could tell us where they’ve been moved...?”
“I know who you are,” the man blurted.
I felt Maygar tense behind me.
Taking a breath, I said, “I don’t think so, Mister...?”
“Eddard,” he said. He stepped out of the doorway, moving almost gracefully. “Please follow me.” When I hesitated, Eddard said, more insistently, “Please...ma’am. Come with me.”
I glanced back at Maygar, who was shaking his head minutely, eyes adamant. When I indicated with my head that we should follow, he shook his head again. When I stepped forward, however, he did the same, only pausing to hold up his hands as if to say, Fine, but this is a terrible idea.
I knew I was being reckless. Neither of us could risk using our sight; the apartment was likely to be under surveillance no matter who this guy was. But, I figured, we could either risk going in now or bolt out and hope they let us leave. With the former I at least had a chance of getting what we’d come for.
So I followed Eddard inside.