Draw One In The Dark(74)
He didn't even know how many dragons there were around. But he knew that there were enough that they'd tracked him. They'd tracked him all the way to Colorado, tracked him to Goldport . . . And he had to leave the Pearl immersed in water, which meant he, himself, couldn't use it.
So, if he couldn't use it, he might as well give it back. Only he couldn't give it back, because he'd seen enough of the dragon triad, enough of the ruthless way in which they disposed of those who crossed them.
They were so mad at him that these—admittedly low-level—thugs had pretended to forget to remove his gag and had proceed to beat hell out of him. And no, he wasn't so stupid he would believe that they'd actually forgotten to remove it. No. They hated him. They had it in for him. So . . . The minute he told them where the Pearl was, the moment one of them verified it, got his hands on it, and phoned the others back to tell them where it was, he was a dead man.
And Tom didn't want to die. Not yet. So many times over the last few years, he'd thought he would be better off dead.
He didn't know what was different now, to be honest. He still didn't have a chance with Kyrie. Kyrie was probably, even now, snuggling with her lion-policeman.
But, damn it all, Tom felt a sting to his pride, a sting to what he retained as his sense of self, to think that if he died now, Kyrie would only think of him as a fuckup, as a junkie so far out of control that he couldn't keep from getting high in her house—even if he used her drugs for it.
He took a deep breath. He wanted to live. He wanted to know why she kept drugs. He wanted . . . he wanted Kyrie, and a house, roses, and everyday paper delivery.
He wanted the normalcy that had never been his.
A hand lifted him roughly, and he opened his eyes, bracing for a hit. But instead, he found Two Dragons pressing the neck of a water bottle against his lips.
Tom drunk gratefully, as if the water had been the breath of life.
As his mouth and nose became hydrated, the smell of the other three became more obvious. There was some sort of cologne, cheap and probably bought in gallon bottles, and the smell of the masses of product that Crest Dragon had slathered on his hair.
But above it, stronger than all of that, was the smell of living flesh. "No," Tom said. It was all he could tell the inner dragon, who was slavering at the thought of eating these fools.
* * *
Edward Ormson walked along the street, too stunned to even hail a cab from the two or three that drove by. This was all very bewildering. Social workers down at the homeless center remembered him as one of their successes, the landlady liked him, the librarians at the public library down the street gushed over him.
Were they really talking about Tom?
And he still couldn't understand what had made the girl run. In fact, he had no idea at all.
He frowned. It didn't make any sense. What did she know? And who was she, really? She said she barely knew Tom. She said that they'd just worked side by side for about six months.
But there was something else, there. Something to the way she talked about him, to the silences, to what she didn't say.
Oh, Edward had always known that Tom could be very charming to women. In fact, it seemed to him that women tended to like rogues and fools and Tom had a strong component of both, so it shouldn't surprise Edward that women liked his errant son. Even when Tom was little, just toddling around the place, the cook, Mrs. Lopez had been quite smitten with him. It was all they could do to keep her from feeding him on cookies and cake constantly. And Tom took advantage of it, of course. He'd been all smiles to the woman, even when he threw tantrums at his parents.
And yet, Kyrie Smith didn't seem to Ormson as the sort of woman who would be attracted to men who were trouble. No. Despite her exotic features and odd hairdo, she'd come across as capable, self-contained, controlled.
So, why did she seem so protective of Tom? Was it possible that for once in his life, just once, Tom had managed to attract someone in more than a superficial way? Was it possible that for once in his life Tom had a real relationship going? Or did she know something about the Pearl of Heaven itself?
For Tom to steal from the triad seemed like the stupidest form of madness, the last loss of grip on reality that the boy could have come to. But what if this were a cunning plan, hatched by someone with better organizational skills than Tom's? What if Kyrie was behind it? What if she had something in mind for the Pearl?
Edward needed to know more. That's all there was to it. He needed to know more about this whole thing before they could expect him to find Tom and force the boy to give the Pearl back.
He hailed a cab. He'd go back to the restaurant in whose parking lot he'd been let out, and he'd go find out exactly what this was all about. He'd worked for triad members now and then. He was, after all, a criminal defense lawyer.