“Kid, I am going to beat your ass.”
Perry laughed, but that hurt even more than talking. He pulled off the sheets and tossed them on top of the blankets, leaving a naked mattress. It had a few beer-wet spots, but it would do. He’d passed out in his clothes—they were beer-soaked as well, so he took them off and lay down. The running shower helped drown out Dew’s shouts a little. Perry just closed his eyes and waited. If Dew didn’t go away soon, his clothes would freeze on him, and he’d catch pneumonia and die.
Either way, Perry won.
A wave of nausea hit him. He slid his head over the side of the bed and threw up on the floor. As if his head didn’t hurt enough already—was a hangover vomit not one of the worst pains in the world? And Perry Dawsey knew pain. He dragged his face back, using the corner of the mattress to wipe the puke away from his mouth.
The banging stopped, and he quickly fell asleep.
ROOM SERVICE
A knock at Dew’s door.
He was still shivering as he buttoned up a dry shirt. He should have hopped into the shower to warm up, but there just wasn’t time—too much work to do.
“Who is it?”
“Margaret. I brought your food.”
Dew hadn’t eaten yet. He’d been so pissed he hadn’t really noticed how hungry he was. He stuffed his shirt into his pants, buttoned and zipped, then opened the door.
Margaret stood there in the morning light. She looked good, as always, dark eyes staring back with that combination of kindness and an ever-present haunted look, the result of seeing too many horrors in too short a time. But what really made her attractive was the Styrofoam food container she held in her left hand and the steaming Styrofoam cup she held in her right.
“Double cream, double sugar,” she said. “That’s how you like it, right?”
“You’re an angel, lady,” Dew said. He took the container. “You want to come in?”
Margaret nodded and walked into the room. She looked around, eyes lingering on the suitcase placed neatly in the closet, at the shoes lined up next to the suitcase, and the wet shirt, sport coat and pants hanging on the clothes rack, each on its own hanger.
“What happened to you?” she said.
“I took your advice, that’s what happened.” Dew sat down and opened the container. Plastic utensils were in there, rolled up in a paper napkin. He pulled out the fork and shoveled eggs into his mouth.
She sat on the bed next to the nightstand. She looked at Dew’s array of weapons laid out there—the .45, the .38, the Ka-Bar knife, the switchblade, the collapsible baton—then casually scooted farther down the bed, away from them.
“So you were nice to Perry,” she said. “And then what, you went for a swim?”
“He opened the door and doused me,” Dew said as he chewed.
“You’re kidding.”
Dew shook his head. “Ice bucket, I think.”
“Looks like Amos won his twenty bucks back.”
“Those guys bet a lot?”
Margaret nodded. “They’ll bet on anything. That same twenty-dollar bill has traded hands at least a dozen times. Must be some guy bonding strategy.”
“It’s called having fun,” Dew said. “Guys don’t have bonding strategies, they just do stuff.”
“Like douse someone with water?”
“That’s not doing stuff,” Dew said. “That’s being a fucking asshole. Pardon my French. His room smelled like a frat house. I think he’s hungover. Bad.”
Dew stabbed the fork until it filled with the last of the eggs. “Kid is a fucking alkie,” he said just before he stuffed the eggs into his mouth.
“He hasn’t had enough time to become an alkie, Dew. It’s only been six weeks since he cut those things out of himself, you know.”
Dew swallowed half the eggs, then picked up a sausage and crammed the whole thing into his mouth.
“Wow, eat much?” Margaret said. “You’d be a classy dinner date.”
“I do sorta reek of class,” Dew said as he chewed. “It’s all in the breeding. We ran a full background check on Dawsey, you know. Kid used cash for everything except the bar, but trust me, his credit-card bills showed he spent plenty at those bars.”
Margaret rolled her eyes, an expression Dew found simultaneously dismissive and alluring.
“He’s in his twenties, for God’s sake,” she said. “Did you spend any time in bars when you were in your twenties?”
“Of course not,” Dew said. “I was busy building churches and helping the poor.”
“Oh, now I can see your halo,” Margaret said. “I missed it earlier. Bad lighting in here.”
“Okay, so you’ve got a point. But you know what? Your calm, doctory logic kind of gets on my nerves. Do you always have to be right?”
“Doctory? I rather like that word. I don’t have to always be right, Dew, that’s just how it works out.”
He took a big drink of coffee. It scalded his mouth a little, but he didn’t care—he felt the heat going into his chest.
“Well, Doc, I’m afraid you’re not always right. I tried it your way and got water thrown in my face.”
“So try again.”
“Why the hell should I?”
“You mean besides the fact that we need a live host to figure out what the heck is going on?”
“Yeah,” Dew said. “Besides that.”
“How about having compassion, Dew? How about being understanding? Perry’s been through hell. He lost his best friend.”
“Yeah? So what? So did I.”
“And did you beat your best friend to death? Did you nail his hands up with steak knives and write discipline on the wall in his blood?”
In his entire life, he’d never been around anyone who made him feel as stupid as Margaret Montoya did. At least not without punching them in the mouth.
Dew grabbed his shoes and started putting them on. “No,” he said. “I didn’t do any of that.”
“Right. So maybe, just maybe, Perry is trying to deal with some things that you can’t understand.”
“That shit only floats for so long,” Dew said. “I’m starting to think he’s nothing more than a glorified bully, and the only way to get through to a bully is to give him a whuppin’.”
Margaret smiled. It wasn’t the kind of smile that said, I bet you’d be a fun roll in the hay, because Dew knew what those smiles looked like on a woman. At least he used to know what those looked like. He didn’t get them anymore. This was another kind of smile, the kind a young woman gives to an old man when the old man says something silly.
“Dew, I know you’re very good at what you do, but just keep some perspective, okay?”
He grabbed his dry coat off the hanger and put it on. “Perspective? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Margaret shrugged. Her smile grew a little wider, a little more condescending. “Well, look at you and… look at him. You’re not going to beat any sense into him, and shooting him won’t work. You already tried that.”
Dew quickly put the weapons in their various holsters and hiding spots. “Doc, you stick to the sciencey and doctory stuff and leave the rest to me, okay?”
She smiled that smile again, then shrugged. “Whatever you say. So what do we do next?”
“We have to finish up some things here. Then I think we’re heading closer to Chicago.”
So far there was no pattern to the location of the four gates. Chicago seemed as central as the next spot, within quick striking distance of Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.