“That’s just it,” the American said, pleased that he’d gotten there a little in advance of his partner for once. “You have a reputation too. And so do his other victims.”
“Mmm,” the Russian said, idly poking the remains of a heap of pickled ginger with his fingertip. “What do you suppose changed?”
“You mean why now?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe we’ll find out eventually. But I’m not sure it matters, given our immediate goals—”
“Staying alive? It might. If we knew what set him off—”
“—it might show us a weakness. Not bad. There’s room to run in that.” The American gestured toward the entrance, where Jackie had paused in quiet consultation with the hostess. “Shall we settle up? Our host is here.”
The Russian pulled out his wallet and thumbed through it. “I assume I’m buying?”
“If you insist.”
“I
assume
,” he repeated, staring at the American through his lashes, “because
you
never have any cash. Besides, did you notice the prices? There must have been some impressive inflation at some point.” He pulled bills from his wallet, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder as Jackie leaned down and set a crisp hundred dollar bill on the sushi bar.
“My treat,” Jackie said. “I happened to hit pretty well on a slot machine on the way in.”
The American wrinkled his nose. The genius of Las Vegas smelled of wet leather and chlorine, and the shirt he was wearing was soaked around the hem where it rubbed the waistband of his pants. “Happen to you a lot?”
Jackie arched an eyebrow at him, and they grinned at each other for a short moment. The understanding that passed between them wasn’t easy or comfortable, but it was
very
sharp.
“An archetype’s gotta eat. It seems to me you get lucky a lot too.”
“Sometimes,” the American said, and finished his sake before he stood. A chill brushed his neck, as if he was watched, but a surreptitious survey of the sushi bar and the corridor over Jackie’s shoulder showed nothing amiss. Still, if it was the assassin watching, that was to be expected. He slid a glance to his partner; his partner caught it and slid it back, as good as a conversation.
And Jackie caught it too. He was watching when the American looked back, quietly, from under beetled brows. “You gentlemen have some business of your own in town?”
“Nothing that should get in the way of helping you out,” the American said, shrugging to settle his jacket.
“—as long as we don’t get killed,” the Russian finished, without making eye contact with either of the others. “You didn’t tell us you had other operatives, Mr.— ”
“Jackie. Other operatives?”
“Tribute,” the Russian said succinctly. “I expect he’ll be along shortly. He was . . . seeing to his supper.”
A frisson brushed the American’s nape at the Russian’s deadpan bluntness. “Yes,” he said, putting his shoulder to his partner’s. “You do have . . . interesting friends.”
“I have even more interesting enemies. So what did . . . Tribute tell you?”
“He told us your friend was still alive,” the American said, watching Jackie’s face for a reaction. The one he got looked honest.
“Yes,” Jackie said, as they headed for the entry. “That’s one of the things I meant to update you on. It’s turned into a rescue mission—”
“What would Angel want with your friend?”
Jackie was guiding them back toward the main floor of the casino. The table games seemed curiously silent. The American found he missed the hum of voices, the buzz of excitement, but it was drowned out by the rattle, beep, and clang of slots. Casino carpeting hadn’t gotten any better, either.
Jackie paused in front of a dollar progressive, and thumbed two tokens into the slot. “You play,” he said, jerking his chin at the Russian.
The Russian stepped forward and examined the controls for a moment. The American wasn’t sure he liked the way Jackie studied his partner studying the machine, and he remembered with unease what the vampire had said about Jackie’s relationship with the Suicide King.
He’d better not be getting any ideas about my friend
.
The American cleared his throat. “It’s not a marriage proposal,” he said.
The Russian shot him a dirty look, and then his hand moved like a crane’s bill stabbing frogs, slapping the
Bet One Credit
button twice and then reaching out to grab the handle still mounted on the side of the one-armed bandit, although there was a big square button labeled
Spin Reels
flashing on the console.
The Russian pulled the lever, and the images on the reels began to whirl. Lights flashed, bells whistled, and a cheerful chirping noise tracked the escalating number on the payout display. The Russian glanced at Jackie in amusement. Jackie shrugged, a quick one-sided jerk of his head. “That should keep you in sushi for a while.”
“My identification says I was born in 1933,” the Russian said. “In a country that doesn’t exist any more. I can’t cash the tokens.”
“They won’t card for anything under ten thousand,” Jackie replied. He grinned. “After that, they have to report it to the IRS. Consider it a perk of working for the City. So to speak.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” the Russian said, scooping dollar tokens in to the plastic bucket that the American held out for him.
Jackie hesitated, twisting the wet tail of his shirt in his hands. “If she controls Stewart, she controls a bit of . . . of me. Of the city. And there are ways to possess a genius’s power. To take it away from him. They’re not . . . very pleasant, and the simplest one involves consuming his essence.”
“That sounds—”
uneasily familiar
, the American started to say, but something warbled, a commonplace sound that had the Russian and the American exchanging arched eyebrows. Jackie looked down, startled, and dug in his pockets with an expression of obvious distaste. The leather pants
were
soaking, the American realized, and when Jackie retrieved a water-streaked oblong from a pocket and flipped it open against his ear, he started laughing and couldn’t stop.
The Russian looked from the American to Jackie as Jackie spoke into his portable phone, and started to laugh as well.
Jackie turned his back on them until he was done talking, and then glanced over his shoulder and frowned. “Tribute wants us to meet him downtown,” he said, and then blinked at them. “What are you two laughing at? It’s waterproof.”
Tribute Talks to Ghosts.
Las Vegas. Summer, 2002.
Sometimes it starts to sink in that your social circle has gotten a little limited. And sometimes it’s funny how everything seems to tie together, one thread knotting another until it feels like the whole world is being tied together by some Turkish rug-weaver.
The thing with my prepaid cell phone worked like that.
I’d given the number to the managers of the various clubs I’d cold-called the night before, pitching my services as a lounge act. One of them called me—not the one where I’d had the good fortune to run into Angel and her pet, but a sleazy little place off Main Street, just a few blocks from what we used to call Glitter Gulch. I made the mistake of walking through the abomination they’ve made of Fremont Street just in time for the Elvis light show.
Christ, those sideburns. Man, if I had it all to do over again—
Nah. Let’s not worry about that just now.
In any case, one of the things about Las Vegas bars is they’re
dark
. No windows, most of the time, and the lights kept low. Which is why I got lucky, I think, and when I came through the airlock of this particular hole in the wall, I smelled Angel—and Stewart—before she saw me. She was talking to the same manager who’d called, and he was nodding. I knew what he was telling her. She was looking for me. I was flattered.
The other thing about these all-night places: they usually have only two entrances; one in front and one in back, and after midnight, a buzzer to get in. I’d slipped outside, put my back to the wall beside the door on the hinge side, and I had called Jackie. The way things were going, I wasn’t surprised to find out he’d hooked up with the spies. I settled back against the wall to wait. Loyal liege-man, servant to the rightful ruler of Las Vegas.
Whatever gets you through the night.
It didn’t take them long to get there. Jackie had sprung for a cab, apparently, and he and the media ghosts—the American and the Russian—all piled out the rear passenger side door like clowns from a Mini Cooper, an impression intensified when the ghosts of Doc Holliday and John Henry the steel-drivin’ man came with them, not paying any particular concern to whose limbs got tangled up in whom’s.
“Cars have gotten smaller,” the American complained to the Russian as they stretched and stood and Jackie paid the fare.
A mortal wouldn’t have heard it, but my ears were good. “Get Jackie to tell you about gasoline rationing in the seventies. Besides, haven’t you noticed all the suburban assault vehicles?”
The American raised an eyebrow, but played along. Another taxi purred past, but didn’t turn into the parking lot; the headlights caught his eyes sideways and they sparked like amber held up to the sun. “The huge truck things? Yes. What do people use them for?”
“Taking the kids to little league,” Jackie interjected, looking at me. “Less conversation; more action, please.”
I almost choked on my tongue. He arched an eyebrow—teasing. I hadn’t expected to be flirted with, but maybe flirting’s like breathing, for some folks. Or some cities. The spies looked puzzled.
I said, “Thank you for coming so quickly, gentlemen. Jackie. Dr. Holliday, Mr. Henry.”
“Dr. Holliday?” The American craned his neck, and I realized with a start that neither he nor the Russian could see the ghosts. Of course not—they weren’t . . . supernatural. Just average guys who happened to be fictional characters.
Jackie gave me a look, a twist of his mouth that moved his nose to one side. “I’ll explain later. In the meantime, we have a city to save. Move it along, kids.”
I nodded and fell into step beside him, extending my left arm to herd the Russian and the American. The American gave me one more hard, questioning look, but he went, and the Russian stuck to his side like a coursing dog. I didn’t quite touch the Russian’s shoulder, but I sidestepped, dropping my hand, and turned toward Jackie just in time to see the ghost of Doc Holliday flip the hem of his natty gray jacket back, reach for his gun, and yell through his drooping moustache.
—and the asphalt reached up and smacked me across the face a split second after somebody’s mule kicked me between the shoulder blades and ran. I straight-armed myself away from the parking lot, but my elbows didn’t lock, and then strong hands took my shoulders and dragged me forward and I realized I’d been shot, shot in the back as I stepped sideways.
Angel had help.
So much for Sycorax’s coat.
I looked up. Jackie was crouched over me, both hands locked in leather and straining the seams of my coat. The Russian lay flat on his belly half-under me and wriggling to get out. Accelerating footsteps told me the American was running for the edge of the parking lot, toward the gunman, whoever he was.
And then Doc’s revolver boomed and the sweet sick reek of black powder burned the back of my nose, outcompeting the appetizing tang of blood. The Russian was hurt; I pinned him to the concrete with both hands. “Hold still, fella. Jackie, lie
down
. It’s just a bullet wound. It can’t hurt me.”
And it’s a good way to get shot, trying to drag your buddy under cover while the firefight’s going on. The one-eyed Jack looked at me hard and dropped to the pavement a yard or so off.
“Not injured—” the Russian said, but he quit trying to squirm out from under me.
“I smell blood. And it’s not mine. So if you’d just lie still, I’d be much obliged.” My accent came back strong all of a sudden—stress, and the irritation of the wound through my torso starting to heal, a burning, itching kind of pain not all that different from rolling in a hill of fire ants. He didn’t argue, but let me flip my coat over both of us, covering up too much yellow hair in the dark. He could be hurt and not know it. I needed a second to take stock. And I could buy that second, because by rights I should be dead—deader than I am already, I mean—and the guy with the gun knew it. If I weren’t a predator, that shot would have killed me before I hit the ground.
So the sniper might think he’d gotten us both, if we just lay still. He couldn’t have too high an angle of fire, either, or the bullet would have tended down going through me, and it had punched through pretty much straight and then done whatever it had done.
I’d only heard one shot. Thinking back, I could only remember one shot, but the Russian could have wound up taking the same bullet that punched through me. Which would make the Russian the unluckiest son of a bitch since the governor of Texas, if you believe such things.
I pushed against my elbows again. This time they locked. There hadn’t been another bang, and Jackie still sprawled alongside us, breathing like a runner. John Henry stood over him, both hands on his useless hammer, and Doc was staring into darkness, ready to snap off another shot that couldn’t hurt a fly. The American had vanished.
“You all right, son?” Holliday asked, without looking down.
“We’re fine down here, Doc. You just take care of your own self. Can you see anything?”
“I can see that Yankee skulking around the back of the drug store over opposite. No shooter, though.”
“Has Angel come out of the bar yet?” Jackie didn’t lift his chin to ask.
Holliday did. “John?”
The big, quiet ghost shook his head. “I ain’t seen nothin’, Mr. Holliday. You thinkin’ maybe she got a friend?”
“I’m wondering if I have an enemy, Mr. Henry,” I said.
“Nyet,” the Russian said. “That was my bullet. Who is Mr. John Henry?”
Jackie cleared his throat. I could feel the Russian stretching himself, settling himself, ready to dig in and run. The asphalt was still warm under my hands. It stank of tar and spilled beer and urine. The blood smell was fading, at least. An old wound torn open again? Maybe the bullet
had
missed him.