"When was our arrangement amended to permit you to pick and choose your assignments?"
Since never. Be a good doggy, Quinn. Don't make me remind you what happens to bad doggies.
"You're going to get me killed."
Found my boxers. Found my jeans. Fell on my ass trying to pull them on without putting down the phone. I lay on the phone, staring at that water stain all over again.
"You're already dead, love."
"You know what I mean."
Mutter. Mutter.
"I assure you, I'm endeavoring to prevent that outcome. Meanwhile, you're to continue to play along with those two bolshie prats and try not to reveal that we're onto them."
I shut my aching eyes. I imagined B being eaten alive by giant rats. I imagined what a shotgun could make of his smug face. Neither fantasy made me feel any better.
"And when Drusneth sends another nasty after me?"
"Oh, that wasn't Drusneth. If she'd meant to kill you, you'd never have left her cathouse. That was, in all likelihood, Harpootlian. Unless there's another player who has yet to-"
"Wait. Riddle me this. If our Harpootlian bitch is from that other universe, what the fuck is she doing here?"
The mutterer laughed. It was a high, abrasive, slightly girlish laugh.
"Often," replied B, "the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain. Carl Jung said that, kitten, and he was a wise, wise bloke. Which is to say, when you find out, we shall both of us know."
"Why don't you just have me kill the Maidstones and give you two less competitors? Also, Berenice's zombie playmates give me the creeps."
"Quinn, do you genuinely wish to be the woman with Squire Edgar Maidstone's daughters' blood on her hands? Now, stop asking stupid questions, stick close to Berenice, and let's see what they'll do next. I doubt the zombies will do you mischief. I'll be in touch."
I opened my eyes again. The water stain was beginning to look ominous. And no, this isn't foreshadowing. Sometimes a water stain is just a water stain. Also, I needed something to break up all this dialogue.
"Ever seen a movie called The Maltese Falcon?" I asked Mean Mr. B.
"Curious matter, that," he replied. "But, as I understand it, events in one universe very often, if not usually, parallel events in another. Doppelgängers. Overlapping individuals. Counterpart theory."
"You're beginning to fucking sound like Fox Mulder," I told him.
"Who?"
"Never mind."
Mutter. Mutter. Mutter.
"Very well," B said. "Oh, and by the way. The full moon is upon us. Do take care not to dine on our clients while you're riding the crimson wave." Then he hung up.
But he was right. The next day was Valentine's Day, all hearts and flowers and the full snow moon. It would kinda put a serious kink in B's plans if I went loup and ate Berenice Maidstone. But it's not like, back then, I had much control over the pooch in me, any more than it came when I called. It would be years before I figured out how that worked. I finished pulling on my jeans, then got up and went to brush my teeth. Which is when it occurred to me I'd lost the porcelain grill beneath Aloysius' overpass. The day just kept getting better.
• • •
So, if B wanted me to play along with the Maidstone sisters' plot, that's what I'd do. Certainly, I desired no part whatsoever in the grand fist fuck that was inevitably to come of all the unhealthy and imbecilic intrigue looming large on the horizon. But I was over that barrel I'd signed off on all those months earlier, before the Bride and Grumet made me what I am today. Back when Mean Mr. B was offering me protection from the nasties and all the heroin I could shoot and still be useful to him (a fine line, by the way). I was screwed, damned if I do, et cetera.
I tarted up with a fresh coat of concealer and stuck the contacts back in. Like I said, I'd lost the false teeth, but that was something I'd have to worry about later. Meanwhile, I'd keep smiling to a minimum around all those not in the know. Anyway, it was not as if I've ever been big on smiling, and got to be even less so after going vamp and loup. I dragged a comb through my hair, which really only made matters worse, so I grabbed the Slytherin wool cap. Fortunately, almost all the mutilation the gaunt had done was healed up by then. I grabbed my gear, pausing to pop a fresh clip in the Glock and make sure the crossbow was in working order.
Ah, and I forgot to mention this earlier, but-though I'd called the landlord-the front door of the house still had a hole in it, and the door to my apartment still had to be propped up. Thank you, Father douche bag Rizzo. I'd have worried about being robbed, if I'd had anything worth stealing. I'd have worried about being murdered in my sleep if . . . well, you know.
I called Berenice Maidstone, and she told me she'd ditched the warehouse on Kinsley for a place above a deli on Atwells Ave. She'd decided it was wisest if she kept moving, a target in motion being harder to hit and all. Probably not such a dumb idea. She gave me the address, and I told her I was on my way.
That afternoon, the Econoline decided it was a good day to be a pain in my ass, and it took me about ten minutes to get the rust bucket's engine to sputter to life. The tailpipe coughed out a puff of black smoke, and I wondered if this would be the day the PPD pulled me over for driving a vehicle that belonged in a junkyard, not on the road. I was shifting into drive when I noticed the herring gull watching me from atop a streetlight.
You gotta understand, it was a suspicious seagull.
I stared back at it, showed it my middle finger, and the bird gave me a dirty look, spread its wings, and flapped away. I was jumpy enough without suspicious seagulls watching me from streetlights.
I was halfway to Berenice's deli hideout when I glanced up through the dirty windshield and saw the gull again, wheeling not far above the van.
Great. I was being tailed. By a goddamn seagull.
See, it's not all that uncommon. Lots of nasties employ birds as spies. Being airborne, they're obviously perfect for the task. Plus, they work cheap. Pigeons, sparrows, crows, and especially seagulls, which are sort of the punk-ass weasels of the whole avian kingdom. There's no job too sketchy for a gull, and herring gulls are the absolute worst. Also, they have the best command of English. Anyway, I had no idea who'd sent this one to keep its beady yellow eyes on me, but whoever had done it, I had no intention of leading the gull straight to Berenice Maidstone's hidey-hole.
I turned down a side road, and the bird followed.
I drove in circles, all the way around Brown three times, and the bird followed.
This was not a terribly bright bird, even as gulls go. Clearly I'd caught on, and if it'd had half a brain, it would have given up the chase and tried to pick up my trail again later.
I drove over to India Point Park and pulled in near a giant heap of snow the plows had dumped in the lot. About five minutes later, the gull landed on the lowest limb of one of the pines between my van and the cold, dark waters of the bay. At most, the bird was five and a half feet above the ground.
Whoever had hired this gull, they should have asked for references.
It did an absolutely lousy job of pretending not to watch me. I opened the door and walked slowly towards the water and the thin rind of ice along the shore. The bird stayed put, still as a stone. Right up until the moment I reached out and snatched the creep off the limb. Then it squawked and began frantically beating its gray wings. It pecked at my hands with its hooked beak. And sure, that hurt. But after the previous day's pummeling at the hands of a night gaunt, getting pecked wasn't much more than love taps. I had a firm hold around its bony yellow legs, and in a few seconds more, I'd wrapped my right hand firmly around its neck. It screeched and squawked loud enough people could probably hear it a mile away.
"Stop that," I growled, and the bird managed to squawk even louder. So I thumped its head against the trunk of the pine tree, twice, and it shut up.
"Who you working for?"
"What!" the bird screeched.
"Who. Are. You. Working. For?" I punched each word into the chilly air.
"What!" the bird asked again, and I thumped its skull against the tree a third time.
"What do you think you're doing!" it demanded.
"Getting ready to bash your tiny brains out."
"Fuck you," it cried out, then pecked my left wrist extra hard. I shook it, and the gull stopped pecking and blinked at me stupidly.
"People lose teeth talking to me like that. But since you don't have any teeth, I'll have to improvise."
"I don't know what you're talking about," the bird squawked. "I was just flying around, looking for scraps. Yeah, right. That McDonald's over on-"
I shook him again. Harder than before. In a comic book something cute like "bopple-bopple-bopple" would have been scribbled over the gull's head.
"B knows I'd spot you," I said. "Also, not his style. And I hear Drusneth doesn't do business with any birds but crows and ravens. So the list of suspects is getting short. Kinda like my fuse."
I narrowed my eyes, wishing I wasn't wearing the hazel contacts, because I'm a whole lot scarier without them.