Red Delicious(23)

"So maybe, instead of sitting here bumping gums with me, you should send one of your torpedoes after her. And while we're on the subject of how your pick your little henchmen, maybe-"

"Natalie," snarled Auntie H from some place not far behind me. "Have I failed to make myself understood? Might it be I need to raise my voice?" The floor rumbled, and tiny hairline cracks began to crisscross the surface of the looking glass. I shut my eyes.

"No," I told her. "I get it. It's a grift, and you're out for blood. But you know she used me. Your lackey, it had a good, long look around my upper story, right, and there's no way you can think I was trying to con you."

For a dozen or so heartbeats, she didn't answer me, and the mirrored room was still and silent, save all the moans and screaming leaking in through the walls. I could smell my own sour sweat, and it was making me sick to my stomach.

"There are some gray areas," she said finally. "Matters of sentiment and lust, a certain reluctant infatuation, even."

I opened my eyes and forced myself to gaze directly into that mirror, at the abomination crouched on its writhing throne. And all at once, I'd had enough, enough of Ellen Andrews and her dingus, enough of the cloak-and-dagger bullshit, and definitely enough kowtowing to the monsters.

"For fuck's sake," I said, "I only just met the woman this afternoon. She drugs and rapes me, and you think that means she's my sheba?"

"Like I told you, I think there are gray areas," Auntie H replied. She grinned, and I looked away again.

"Fine. You tell me what it's gonna take to make this right with you, and I'll do it."

"Always so eager to please," Auntie H laughed, and the mirror in front of me rippled. "But, since you've asked, and as I do not doubt your present sincerity, I will tell you. I want her dead, Natalie. Kill her, and all will be . . . forgiven."

"Sure," I said, because what the hell else was I going to say? "But if she's with Szabó-"

"I have spoken already with Magdalena Szabó, and we have agreed to set aside our differences long enough to deal with Miss Andrews. After all, she has attempted to cheat us both, in equal measure."

"How do I find her?"

"You're a resourceful young lady, Natalie," she said. "I have faith in you. Now . . . if you will excuse me." And before I could get in another word, the mirrored room dissolved around me. There was a flash, not of light, but a flash of the deepest abyssal darkness, and I found myself back at the Yellow Dragon, watching through the bookshop's grimy windows as the sun rose over the Bowery.

There you go, the dope on just how it is I found myself holding a gun on Ellen Andrews, and just how it is she found herself wondering if I was angry enough or scared enough or desperate enough to pull the trigger. And like I said, I chambered a round, but she just stood there. She didn't even flinch.

"I wanted to give you a gift, Nat," she said.

"Even if I believed that-and I don't-all I got to show for this gift of yours is a nagging yen for something I'm never going to get back. We lose our innocence, it stays lost. That's the way it works. So, all I got from you, Ellen, is a thirst can't ever be slaked. That and Harpootlian figuring me for a clip artist."

She looked hard at the gun, then looked harder at me. "So what? You thought I was gonna plead for my life? You thought maybe I was gonna get down on my knees for you and beg? Is that how you like it? Maybe you're just steamed 'cause I was on top-"

"Shut up, Ellen. You don't get to talk yourself out of this mess. It's a done deal. You tried to give Auntie H the high hat."

"And you honestly think she's on the level? You think you pop me and she lets you off the hook, like nothing happened?"                       
       
           



       

"I do," I said. And maybe it wasn't as simple as that, but I wasn't exactly lying, either. I needed to believe Harpootlian, the same way old women need to believe in the infinite compassion of the little baby Jesus and Mother Mary. Same way poor kids need to believe in the inexplicable generosity of Popeye the Sailor and Santa Claus.

"It didn't have to be this way," she said.

"I didn't dig your grave, Ellen. I'm just the sap left holding the shovel."

And she smiled that smug smile of hers, and said, "I get it now, what Auntie H sees in you. And it's not your knack for finding shit that doesn't want to be found. It's not that at all."

"Is this a guessing game," I asked, "or do you have something to say?"

"No, I think I'm finished," she replied. "In fact, I think I'm done for. So let's get this over with. By the way, how many women have you killed?"

"You played me," I said again.

"Takes two to make a sucker, Nat," she smiled.

Me, I don't even remember pulling the trigger. Just the sound of the gunshot, louder than thunder. . . .





CHAPTER FIVE


FRIENDS OF

MR. CAIRO

So, there you have it. The supposedly fictional account of a supposedly fictional artifact from another universe that, according to Mean Mr. B, wasn't at all fictional. An artifact that had somehow entered this universe and now four power-hungry bitches were scrambling to get their paws on it before one of the others did. It was a lot to take in, and mostly I thought it was bullshit. But I'd read the story, and then I'd passed out for twelve hours. I was finally awakened by the Hello goddamn Kitty iPhone on my bedside table chirping at me like a rabid canary. I sat up, glared at it, lit a cigarette, and considered tossing the thing out the window. I knew it was B, calling from one of his merry-go-round of blocked numbers. Pretty much no one else ever calls me. Finally, I answered it. If I hadn't, he'd just kept calling back. Unless I turned off the phone, and then he'd only have sent one of his boys around.

"Yeah, what do you want?"

"Well, precious, good morning to you, too. You read the tale?" he asked.

"I did. It's a load of malarkey. The Maidstone sisters, Drusneth, that Harpootlian, they're all on a wild goose chase, and you know it. And I know you know it."

"You can be very, very narrow-minded."

"I have a headache," I said. "I think whatever I ate last night didn't agree with me. So, call back later. I need a whole fucking bottle of aspirin before I have to talk to you."

There was a moment of silence. I took a drag on my Camel and stared at a water stain on the ceiling. Through the phone, I could hear another voice, faint but audible. At least to my supersensitive vamp ears. It wasn't one of B's fuck bunnies. Sounded like an older man, maybe in his sixties.

"Who the hell's that?" I asked B.

"Another interested party," he replied.

"Jesus on a pogo stick. How many people are mixed up in this foolishness?"

Another pause. More muttering in the background.

"I take it you don't believe in the unicorn."

"Or Santa Claus. Or the Tooth Fairy. Or Old Man Jehovah looking down on us sinners through his pearly goddamn gates."

The water stain was getting as boring to look at as B was tiresome.

"Dude, even if I were to buy this whole ‘magazine from another world' angle-and I don't-it's fiction. Or did you miss that part?"

Pause. Mutter. Mutter. Mutter. I caught ". . . move very quickly or . . ."

"Will you please tell whoever that is to shut the fuck up. He's annoying me."

"Your view of existence is sadly impoverished," said Mean Mr. B. I didn't bother asking him his name that day. I didn't give two shits.

"Poor me," I said, wondering if I even had any aspirin, wondering what the hell had been in the bloodstream of that girl I'd eaten the night before.

"The story is a fictionalized account," he went on, "of events that actually transpired, over there, in their alternate 1935."

"Right, and you know this how?"

He didn't answer the question. "You can imagine, then, the influence that would be possessed by she or he or it who comes into the possession of the unicorn."

"And you want me to get to it first, which you neglected to tell me-well, you neglected to tell me anything-"

"Yes, kitten."

"-same as Shaker Lashly, and that's what got him killed-chasing after this pie-in-the-sky nonsense, and what almost got me killed. Which, by the way, I'm still pissed about. You put me in the crosshairs of a bunch of lunatics because you believe in a transdimensional dildo with a fancy French name, carved from the horn of a unicorn. Which, surprise, you want for your own."

"At least you have a firm grasp of the situation."

I stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette. My mouth tasted bad enough without it, like something had crawled inside and taken a big ol' dump. I could get by without the nicotine.

"B, aren't you a little old to believe in unicorns?"

"Love, you're a vampire, and a bleeding werewolf, who works for a man who runs errands for demons. Need I bother to point out the inherent inconsonance in that query?"

"I'm passing on this one. Find another sap."

Pause Numero Très. This time, I caught ". . . need I remind . . ." and ". . . of the essence . . ." from the mutterer.