“Alejandro?” Ray asked. Of course it was the kid. Who else would answer in that irritatingly perky manner? “Gimme Barnett.”
There was a brief silence. “Uh, sorry, mis—uh, Billy. No can do. He’s in closed conference with Sally Lou.”
Ray was about to ask, At this time of night? but instead grinned sourly at the phone. “Is that what they’re calling it now?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” Ray said. “Listen, you been following events here?”
“Yes, sir,” the kid said. “President Barnett’s not real happy.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve smiled more in my life,” Ray said. “What’s the latest news?”
“There’s not much in the way of recent developments. It’s not general knowledge, but we found out that Peregrine’s husband had her flown out of Vegas on a medivac Lear, back to New York. Thought they could do a better job for her at the Jokertown Clinic than in the Vegas hospital. John Fortune’s still missing. So’s his bodyguard.”
“His bodyguard’s a shapeshifter,” Ray informed the kid. At least, it seemed likely from the info he’d gleaned from Osiris’s tale. “So I figure he impersonated Butcher Dagon—who’s in a Vegas lockup —and took off with the kid.” Ray frowned into the phone. He had to keep his kids straight.
“Well, that’s something,” his kid said. “What happened to Dagon?”
“I kicked his hairy ass,” Ray said. “Angel helped,” he added, to be fair.
“Boy, she’s something,” the kid said.
“You got that. Listen. Tell Barnett that me and Angel are taking the first flight tomorrow morning to Tomlin.”
“How come?” the kid asked.
“We have a line on Fortune,” Ray said. “Something that weird old fart Osiris told me. He’s not sure where Fortune is right now. He thinks he may be in New York City—which at least narrows it down a little. But soon the kid—Fortune, that is, is gonna show up in some summer camp in a whistle-stop called New Hampton, just north of the city. Angel and I will be there to meet him.”
“Okay,” the kid said. “You got it, Billy. Gee, I wish I could be with you and the Angel doing something useful instead of sitting around here in the office while President Barnett takes meetings.”
Ray shook his head. “No you don’t, kid,” he said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this one. Besides, I’m not really sure we could use your talents. Yet.”
“Ah, it’ll all work out fine, Billy. You’ll see.”
“Yeah.”
“But you and the Angel be careful, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Say Hello to the Angel for me?”
“Yeah.”
“Good ni—”
“Good night, kid,” Ray said, and hung up. He still had things to do, and he didn’t want to spend twenty minutes getting off the phone. He called the airport and got reservations for two on the first plane in the morning headed east. It was an early flight which didn’t leave much time for sleep. He sighed, called the desk for a five o’clock wake up call for him and Angel both, and settled back down on the bed. He wasted most of the night thinking about Angel in the room next to his, while his body went about the business of repairing itself, muscle, bone, sinew, and nerve.
It was quite used to that, by now.
New York City: St Dympna’s Home for the Mentally Deficient and Criminally Inclined
It was still some hours before dawn when Nighthawk heard a soft knock on his door. Years of strenuous living had taught him how to awake instantly and fully.
“Yes,” he said, sitting up in bed.
“Phone call for you, Mr. Nighthawk,” a respectful voice said softly.
“I’ll be right with you.”
He was wearing his shorts and tee shirt in lieu of pajamas, so he took a moment to put on pants, shirt, shoes, and jacket and run a brush through his hair. Nighthawk always figured that since he could meet his end at any second, he should always be well dressed when he went out in public. If he was going to end up in Hell, he certainly wanted to look his best. And if he was going to Heaven, he was sure it would be expected. When he opened the door to the corridor an unfamiliar face awaited. Nighthawk figured that he was a recently recruited credenti. The new recruits always got stuck with the jobs nobody else wanted, like nighttime security.
“Yes?” Nighthawk asked.
“It’s Usher. He’s calling from the Waldorf and wants to talk to a perfecti.”
“All right.” He followed the credenti to the office where a couple of Allumbrados were hanging out, supposedly guarding the building but, Nighthawk suspected, actually bullshitting and eating donuts. At least, the open, mostly empty donut boxes and half-filled coffee cups near every hand led him to suspect that that was the case. The three of them, including the message boy they’d sent to get Nighthawk, watched with interest as he took a seat behind the old-fashioned desk.
“Usher,” Nighthawk said into the telephone.
“John,” the big man said with surprise. “Good thing you’re still there.”
“I didn’t feel like coming back into the city after getting Cameo settled.”
“Yeah.” Since Usher and Magda were acting as Contarini’s private bodyguards, they’d returned to the Waldorf right away after escorting Cameo and Nighthawk through Dympna’s wrought iron gates. “Listen. We may have a problem.”
“What else is new,” Nighthawk said, sorting through the leftover donuts on the desk stop. “Ah. Raspberry filled.” He took a bite and chewed softly.
“No time for snacks,” Usher said. “We’ve discovered that Butcher Dagon apparently isn’t really Butcher Dagon.”
“Really?” Nighthawk said. He looked pointedly at the coffee cup that one of the credenti held until the recruit scrambled to his feet and got Nighthawk one for himself.
“Who is he, then?”
“We’re not sure,” Usher said. “It seems the real article is in a Vegas jail cell.”
“Interesting,” Nighthawk said. “I’d better check it out.”
“We can be there in half an hour.”
“You’d better. I don’t have much confidence in the local talent.”
Suddenly the three credenti were looking everywhere in the room but at Nighthawk.
“Okay, John. We’re on the way.”
“Who’s we?”
“Me and Magda and the Witness.”
“Which one?”
“The big one.”
“All right,” Nighthawk said. He hung up the phone and stared thoughtfully into space for a moment while he finished his coffee and donut. The Bigger Asshole. He’d better, he decided, move fast.
“What is it?” one of the credenti asked. Nighthawk looked at him steadily until he added, “Sir?”
“Possible security breach,” Nighthawk said, rising from behind the desk.
“Want us to come with you, sir?”
Nighthawk shook his head. If they saw what he was planning to do, he’d have to kill them all, and Nighthawk just wasn’t that bloodthirsty.
“No. Give me the keys to the infirmary.” One of them took a ring of keys off his belt and handed the proper one to Nighthawk, who nodded his thanks and crossed the room in his soft, measured tread. He stopped at the door and added, “If I’m not back in twenty minutes, come after me.” He thought twenty minutes should give him plenty of time, if things went well. If they didn’t... it probably wouldn’t matter. “In the meantime, finish your donuts.”
He closed the office door softly behind him and went down the corridor lit dimly by infrequent night lights. It’s just like the Cardinal, Nighthawk thought, to be stingy with the electricity. You’d think he was paying the bills personally.
The infirmary was a three-room suite with an entrance off the corridor. The key fit the outer door, but, surprisingly, Nighthawk discovered that it was already unlocked. He opened it quietly and slipped into the reception area, which was dark and silent. A closed supply room was attached to the reception area. The infirmary itself, where the sick or injured were bedded, opened off the reception room, and by order was also locked at night when there was no nurse or doctor in attendance. Contarini had a loyal medical staff on call, but they only spent the night if a patient was in danger. In this case, Nighthawk understood that they’d transported a badly wounded credenti to a friendly hospital where there’d be no questions about how he’d gotten hurt.