Eyes like those of a boiled fish stared out at us. Of course it was a zombie. What the fuck else would a Maidstone have as a butler but a goddamn resurrection job?
Lurch grunted and ushered us inside. We followed him down a very short, unlit hallway-one turn to the left, another to the right-and into the vast, barren interior of the warehouse. The only illumination came from a banker's lamp with the traditional green shade. It sat on a folding card table before which, in turn, sat Berenice Maidstone. She looked up at us from the Nora Roberts novel she was reading and leaned back in her folding metal chair.
"Classy digs," I said. "Guess Daddy isn't footing the tab." My voice echoed.
"It suffices," she said, laying her paperback down on the table and motioning me to sit in a second chair at the other end of the table.
"I'm fine standing," I replied.
"I really do insist," she smiled disarmingly. "Take off your coat, and, please, take off that ridiculous cap."
Two more zombies stepped out of the shadows behind her. The shamblers were big motherfuckers, and the last thing I was in the mood for was a tussle with mindless goons. One of them took my parka and green Slytherin cap; I walked over to the card table and sat down. Lenore lingered restlessly a few feet away.
Berenice raised an eyebrow and pointed at the shoulder holster and the Glock. "You brought a gun?" she asked me.
"Yeah," I replied. "I brought a gun. I do that."
She tapped the cover of her paperback once, twice, a couple more times; it was a nervous sort of gesture. "Very well," she said.
Here she was, the elder daughter of Edgar Maidstone, and I'd imagined, at the very least, to be confronted with a grim, unnatural beauty. But she was damn near to unremarkable. A looker, sure. No denying that. But nothing much out of the ordinary. Her mousy hair was pulled back into a long French braid. Her lips were a little too thin, and she was a little too skinny, sorta flat-chested. Her eyes were almost the same shade of brown as her hair. She had a slightly haggard air about her that made me think she was well acquainted with insomnia. Her voice was calm, with a certain unflappable quality to it. Only her hands struck me as in any way unusual; her fingers were just shy of conspicuously long and slender, and her unpolished nails were filed to sharp points. Oh, and she had a small red-and-black pentagram tattooed on her left palm. I guess a lot of mundanes would consider that unusual.
"Much better," she said as I took my seat. "Much, much better. I've heard a lot about you, Quinn."
"Mostly bullshit, I assure you."
"Yes, well. As they say, it's not the veracity of our reputations that keep us in one piece. Your left little finger and that toe you gave away not withstanding. Would you like something to drink?"
"So long as we're not talking sodas or fruit juice," I replied.
"We're not."
"Then, yeah, I'd like a drink." I was thirsty, and I'm rarely one to turn down alcohol. It's one of the very few vices from my old life that still does the trick.
"I'm afraid all I have is Scotch and beer," she said. "But it's good Scotch. Glenfiddich, twenty-one-year-old single malt."
"Beer's fine," I told her, glancing over my shoulder at one of the goons. "These guys really necessary?"
Berenice had dispatched a sullen Lenore to get my beer (and had also told her to wash the blood off her face; neither of us had been asked how her face had gotten that way). She seemed to consider my question, and then slowly nodded her head.
"Sure. We're all friends here," she said, and smiled that disarming smile. A few words of French, and Lurch and the other two shamblers melted into the shadows.
"Better?" she asked.
"Yeah. Lots."
"Then I'll stop wasting your time and get down to business. I assume you know about Amity, and how I'd prefer to have this incident resolved without it ever coming to our family's attention."
I leaned back in my chair, one hand on the edge of the table, balancing on two legs. "That's just about all I was told. Which leaves quite a few questions I'll need answered if I'm going to be any help whatsoever. Also, there's the matter of Mr. Lashly to be resolved."
She gave me a confused look, then said, "Excuse me?"
"Shaker Lashly? B sent him before he sent me. In fact, he sent me because he can't find Shaker."
She chewed her lower lip.
"Quinn, I'm afraid I've never heard of the man, much less have I spoken with him."
"Then" I said, "someone's got their wires crossed. Do you mind if I smoke."
"No," she replied. "Please. Be my guest."
I paused to light a Camel. The smoke hung in the air between us, heavy and gray in the lamplight. There wasn't an ashtray, but I doubted she'd mind me tapping ash on the cement floor of the warehouse. I offered her a cigarette, but she declined. Said she didn't smoke. Kids these days, right? Lenore returned with my beer, a bottle of Heineken (which I fucking despise, but didn't say so). She'd made a half-hearted effort at washing her face, which had, at least, removed most of the Death makeup. Her nose and lip were beginning to swell, and there was a Band-Aid pasted to her chin. I took a drink of the shitty beer, and Berenice pointed at Lenore's face.
"Was that really necessary?" she asked me, jabbing a thumb towards her "messenger." Lenore was staring at her own feet.
"Seemed like it at the time. Want me to apologize?"
Berenice Maidstone sighed and shook her head. "That won't be necessary," she said; then she shooed the girl away on some errand or another. I don't remember just what.
"You gotta understand, Ms. Maidstone, Shaker isn't someone B wants to lose track of, or just write off as an occupational hazard. The guy's a valued asset. Can't have him falling off the face of the earth."
She didn't ask me to call her Berenice.
"I understand that, Quinn. But I don't know what else to tell you. I've never met the man."
I shrugged and let the front legs of my chair bump back to the floor. Ain't no point in my putting a spin on this so I come off like some brilliant judge of character, like I can spot a lie from ten paces. I'd told B I wasn't a detective, and that's the fuck's honest truth. Near as I could make out, Berenice was telling me the truth. Which meant she could be lying her ass off. An undead polygraph machine I ain't. Mostly, I was asking and hearing her out because I had orders to do so, and because I needed to have something to tell Mean Mr. B when I checked in with him. About the only part that made me suspicious was that insistence she had no idea who Shaker was.
Then again, those of us who work for B-the few, the just shy of expendable-we had a habit of making the worst sorts of enemies. You'll recall how B told me that up front, and it was gospel. For all I knew, one or another of those folks Shaker had pissed off caught up with him before he'd had a chance to meet with Berenice. Made sense. I moved on.
"Fine. Then let's talk about your sister."
Which is what we did. We talked about Amity Maidstone for the next hour, until well after dark.
"Sure," Berenice said, "we're not angels, either one of us. But my sister, I sometimes believe she has a talent for dreaming up brand-new vices, and that she does it just to piss off Daddy."
If I wore a watch, I'd have been checking it right about then. Instead, I made of show of looking at my bare wrist. I'd heard enough to write a biography about Amity Maidstone.
I said, "Me, I'd have thought a man like your father, he'd be proud to have his offspring wreaking havoc, getting down and dirty at every possible opportunity."
Berenice had started batting the Nora Roberts paperback back and forth, sliding it from one side of the table to the other. Made me think of a cat toying with a mouse.
"People, they get ideas in their heads," she said, sounding almost like someone talking to herself. "About my family. All manner of horrible, unsavory ideas."
"You lot do bring dead people back to life. You get paid to bring dead people back to life, often for pretty shady reasons. Unless I'm mistaken."
"You're dead, Quinn," she smiled. "And I expect you know we'd have done a better job with your reanimation than any vampire could have."
"I'm just unlucky that way."
"We provide a service to the community. No different, really, than your Mr. B. People come to us with their dilemmas, and we resolve those dilemmas." She continued to play table tennis with the paperback.
"I'm not judging, okay? Just saying, that's all."
"Unless I'm mistaken, you're not here to editorialize about the Maidstone éclat. You're here to help me find Amity. Correct me if I'm wrong."
Something in her voice had changed. It was a subtle shift, yeah, but enough it sent a chill up my spine all the same. That's doesn't happen very often, which, I suppose, is saying a lot. Props to creepy Miss Berenice.
"Point taken," I said, realizing I was having trouble taking my eyes off the book.
"Apology accepted," she whispered, and batted the paperback extra hard and moved both her hands away from the tabletop. But the book didn't go sailing to the floor. It simply fucking vanished.