“If he knows something, we’ll pay half.” Mason didn’t even bat an eye. Instead, he clapped his hands on his knees and stood. “We’ll handle the phone calls. You guys get some rest and some chow. We’ll deal with this later in the day.”
I hadn’t realized just how tired I was until I was in the bedroom and away from other people. I didn’t even undress: just sunk down onto the thin mattress, rolled onto my side, and passed out.
Shouting broke through the fugue of sleep after what felt like minutes, shaking me from a vague dream where I was looking into a pit at the upturned faces of tens of children… children missing their eyes, faces blank and bloody. I rolled to the side and clapped my hand down on my knife, bringing it up as I swung my stiff legs around and got to my feet. For several thick moments, there was no sound other than my constricted heartbeat rattling against my ribs. Then I heard something again… the dull rapport of a slamming door.
“—so many better things to do than be arguing about some boxes, okay? I don’t care what you think. Throw them out on the damn street, and I’ll pick them up. Look… no… I’m getting my shit back and there’s nothing you do about it. Yeah, no, you don’t get to say who I do and don’t bring. I don’t care. I stopped caring when you threw me out of your fucking apartment after screwing around on me while I was fighting for my life in the goddamn desert…”
Zane on the phone again. Groggy and mealy mouthed, I lay back down and listened in the dark as his one-sided conversation trailed down the hallway away from me.
The lack of external stimulation in the dark made me unpleasantly aware of the parasite wrapped around and through my chest. I had to lift my legs to the floor, and then heave myself upright, leaden, to reach the bathroom and shower. Binah followed me like a ghost, napped on my towel while I cleaned up, and was disgruntled when I turfed her to the floor.
I found Zane banging around in the kitchen, angrily washing up while eggs and steak sizzled on the stove. When he turned and saw me, a ripple of something I didn’t recognize passed behind his eyes. Fear? Embarrassment? It was as brief as it was elusive.
“Mason says he’s made a time for you with Aaron first thing tomorrow morning,” he muttered. “He’ll come and pick you up, take you to the Voicer building in Manhattan for a meeting with some bigshot Pastor.”
“Wonderful.” I shuffled onto a chair at the table, rubbing my eyes. “Coffee. Please.”
“Coffee’s cold,” Zane said. “How do you like your steak?”
“Blue. Sear it until it stops bleeding, and serve it up.” I said. “Runny eggs.”
“Good man,” he replied.
The promise of caffeine was enough to spur me to new heights. I dragged myself to the coffee maker, added some water to the cold coffee, and poured it back through the machine.
“What… are you doing?”
I looked back to find him with food dished up on a plate, staring at me in consternation.
“What?” I dumped half a cup of ground coffee into the filter and set it to brew.
“You just…” Zane sighed, and slammed the plate down on the table before turning to get his own food. “Don’t worry about it.”
“It’s like those master stocks they keep in Chinese restaurants,” I said. “You know how they keep the same soup boiling for ten years or so? It’s the same thing.”
“No, Alexi. It’s not the same at all.”
“Life is just too short for weak coffee.” I hadn’t had steak in a long time, and I intended to try and enjoy this one. Under normal circumstances, I didn’t eat a lot of red meat. It reminded me too much of work.
“When you put a spoon in it and the spoon melts, it’s not coffee anymore.” Zane slumped into the chair across from me and set into his food like a hungry dog. Or lion… or leopard. Whatever he was. We ate for a while, him in sullen silence, me with what I hoped was a polite level of enthusiasm.
“So…” I said. “Someone giving you trouble?”
“Mm?” Zane swallowed, brow furrowed, and cut himself a piece of steak.
“You were arguing with someone on the phone before,” I replied. “You need me to help sort something out for you?”
He barked a harsh, derisive, bitter laugh. “Sort him out? What, Russian Mafia-style?”
I stared at him until he stopped trying to shrug me off. The light in his eyes and his smile faded over seconds.
“Wait. You’re serious?”
“I am always serious,” I replied. “What’s the problem?”
“It’s, uh…” Zane licked his lips, for once at a loss for words. “It’s just my ex, you know. Girlfriend. She has some of my stuff at her place, and her new guy isn’t letting me go over and pick it up.”
Vassily had a word to describe people when they were like this: ‘cagey’. I wasn’t sure why ‘cagey’ was the term used to describe that weird mixture of hesitation, anger and fear of being caught out, but I could accept it descriptively.
“So we go over and beat the shit out of him, get your stuff, and leave.” I shrugged.
“I can’t.” He shook his head, stuffing steak into his mouth. “It’s… complicated. Nothing I can solve with getting physical.”
“So shoot the lock out of the door as a warning and then go call them again on a payphone. Ne vopros.”
“Look, Alexi… you can’t fucking shoot all of your problems away, okay?” He threw his knife and fork at the plate and stood, too agitated to stay at the table. “That’s not how the real world works.”
“You don’t shoot anyone during an intimidation. It’s supposed to be bloodless,” I replied, sawing off some meat. I was confused, but not so put out that it turned me off my food. “But if you don’t want to stand up for yourself, I won’t push.”
“That’s generous of you.”
Coming from someone who’d apparently forgotten what his 1% patch meant. “I’m going to handle some chores today, and after we visit the church tomorrow, I’ll go and see my contact.”
“Whatever. I’ve got a fight to train for.” Zane was too large of a man to properly sulk, but he was unmistakably petulant as he gathered his dishes and scraped the leftovers into a foil and paper takeout container, washed his hands, and stormed off into the house.
Chapter 20
I was no cop, but I knew that every day that went by without recovering the children was a bad day. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to be much good if we couldn’t get the dirt on where to find them, and that required money.
The first thing I did was to go and check my accounts. To my surprise, my savings accounts were untapped. My credit cards had been maxed out – no shock there – but the banks could send angry letters to the bombed out shell of Kostya’s home for as long as they pleased.
Second stop was a pet store. I returned with a litter box, litter, and black nylon harness and leash for Binah. My familiar was asleep on our bed. I pulled her into my lap, drowsy and pliable, and sized it for her. She yawned, and rolled onto her back as I fed her legs through the holes.
“Here you go, Binah.” I attached the leash and put her on the ground, standing up behind her. “Now we can go for walks together.”
Binah wobbled forwards in consternation, picking up her feet as if she’d forgotten how to walk. When she reached the end of the leash and jerked back, she flopped onto her side on the ground, glaring up at me. As if to drive home the point, she lashed her tail, thumping it against the floor.
I toed her with a shoe, trying to get her to her feet. She slid across the floorboards, as limp as the head of a mop. “You are quite literally the most ungrateful creature I have ever met.”