"You've been quiet," he said.
"And you've been busy," I said, motioning to his stacked plates.
"No busier than normal. You gonna finish that?"
He hadn't gotten the sentence out before I pushed my own plate over to him.
"You're thinking about your son," he said between mouthfuls.
"Hard not to."
"The thing about the devil," said Kingsley, who didn't bother with the twirl method, preferring, instead, the shoveling method, "is that he can't win."
"What do you mean?"
"It's in his nature to lose. It's how..." Kingsley shrugged and took another bite and might have swallowed without chewing. "It's how he was constructed. Or, rather conceived. God's foil and all that. God's foil who can never win, no matter how clever or smart or handsome the devil is. Remember that, Sam. Remember, there's always a way to beat the devil."
Chapter Four
The house was big. Damn big.
This was the kind of street I should be living on. This was the kind of home I should be living in, too. My God, Danny had been an attorney. I had been a federal agent. We should have gotten a nice home. A big home, one that didn't shake every time Anthony guffawed and slapped the floor, which he was prone to do when watching TV or playing Xbox. A home that didn't creak endlessly, too. A home with, wonder of wonders, an attached garage. A home with a laundry room and more than one bathroom. My God, what I would give for two bathrooms. A shiny, new, beautiful home with a billiard room. Why not, right? I suddenly saw myself playing pool with Kingsley and Allison and Sherbet. Maybe that character Knighthorse, too, and his pals Spinoza, Sanchez and Aaron King, who may or may not be Elvis. Maybe some of my other cop friends I'd met on any one of my hundreds of cases over the years. Funny how I had so many police and private eye friends. Then again, I always did gravitate toward good people, honest people, and hardworking people-people who fought for truth, justice and the American way. And yeah, I'm pretty sure I would be friends with Superman, too, if he existed. Of all my friends, only Fang didn't really mix. Or Dracula for that matter. Or the Alchemist, although I suspected he might shy away from such gatherings.
Lots of men in my life, I thought. And only Allison and Mary Lou to balance out all that testosterone. And Tammy, of course. Luckily, she was mellowing out as she got older. She was also taking her gifts a little more seriously, too. She often asked to help me when she could, recognizing her value to me and my cases. Having almost lost Anthony had been an eye-opener for her.
Yeah, I pictured all of these characters-and they were all characters, every last one of them-here at my big new house, playing pool, having a barbeque, talking shop, ready at a moment's notice to help those who couldn't help themselves, to fight the good fight and put themselves in harm's way to help a fellow human being.
"Would be a helluva pool party," I whispered as I approached the door.
It was nearly eleven p.m., which was our agreed-upon time. I'd spent the last two hours with Kingsley at his own estate, which itself was so big that even jealousy went out the door. After all, is one jealous of, say, an ornate museum? Or a glass shopping mall? Or a skyscraper? Hardly. One admired and moved on, and that's how I viewed Kingsley's own rambling mansion, with enough extensions and wings to form an entire flock.
We had, of course, spent the majority of that time in his bedroom. The poor guy had to work at it, as I wasn't in the mood, or feeling sexy. Hard to care about such things when the devil has targeted your son. But I eventually came around, and I'm fairly certain the big oaf finally got what he wanted. By the time I left, he was out cold, snoring away, and looking far more like a bear than I was comfortable with.
The community wasn't gated, nor was Charlie Reed's home. That said, it was hard to miss all the security cameras. He'd warned me about the cameras, which was why I had overdone it on the makeup on the way over here. At the door, I knocked lightly. He was evidently waiting for me, as the door opened immediately and my new client's now-familiar face appeared above me.
"Thank you for you coming, Ms. Moon," he said. "I would think these aren't your normal working hours, but I suspect private eyes work all hours of the night."
I winked and shot him a blank with my forefinger. "You suspect right."
He stepped aside and showed me the way in. My Asics made a surprising amount of noise on the polished marble floor. In the foyer, at the base of twin curved stairways, I was greeted by an alabaster statue of a rising horse pawing the air. Or whatever the hell they might call it in horse circles. I asked as much.