some important San Judas citizen arrested or shot on its premises over the years. It was funny to think that this den of revelry and bad behavior stood so close to the manicured, leaf-blowered streets of Edward L. Walker and his neighbors.
“Slouch down,” she said suddenly as we tooled down the main drag. “Too many eyes on this street.”
“This car has got tinted windows.”
“I’m not worrying about human eyes.”
I slid down until my head was level with the glove compartment. From this close proximity I couldn’t help looking over at my driver, who I realized for the first time was not wearing some kind of exotic wrap-around dress but a silk dressing gown. It had slid entirely off her left leg, and I watched her slender but muscular thigh and calf muscles bunch and relax as she worked the accelerator and brake pedals. It was very interesting.
“Keep your eyes to yourself, Wings,” she said after some moments.
“You really don’t want me to look? I thought you lady demons were all about seduction.”
“What you don’t know about lady demons would fill several books too long for you to read, Dollar.”
I laughed despite myself, despite my broken ribs and the gun pointing at me. “Whatever. Where are you taking me?”
“Someplace to get you dried off and less conspicuous while I think about where to dump you. And so you’ll have a chance to tell me what you know in private.”
“And that would be…?”
“Don’t you ever just shut up?”
I get that a lot.
We drove through a dark neighborhood of tall apartment buildings, not the nice kind they had out on University Avenue with their gleaming frontages and doormen in uniforms but the kind where people dried their washing on their balconies, and broken children’s toys slowly turned into bleached fossils on patches of crabgrass- studded dirt that had once been lawns. The sidewalks were empty, of course-it was well after two in the morning- but the litter suggested they were usually full of people with nothing much to do. Our tires crunched through bottle glass as we turned into a downsloping driveway.
“I’m spending a lot more time than I’d like in underground garages these days,” I said as she nosed the big car down the ramp into a five- or six-story apartment building that, as far as I could see, was indistinguishable from its neighbors along the quiet, dark, depressed-looking street.
“You won’t be in this one long.” She passed several empty parking spaces and drove right toward the back wall of the garage. As we approached it she reached up and thumbed a device on her sunshade; the entire wall lifted up like a magic trick. We drove through and it slid quietly down behind us again.
“Whoa.” I was impressed. “How did you find this?”
“It’s mine. I had it built. And all the contractors are dead.” She gave me a look-I honestly couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. “Going to keep your mouth shut about it?”
“You’re taking me to your place?” I had a moment of what I imagine is teenage excitement-“imagine” because I can’t remember the actual thing and “teenage” because suddenly I felt like I was growing hair all over my body and could no longer create articulate speech. I’m telling you, it may have been pheromones or just Hell’s nastiest magic, but the Countess of Cold Hands could have made an actual stiff stiff. If you know what I mean.
“Yes, it’s my place, but it’s not the only one I have so don’t think you can sell me out. It’s a very small piece of information. And you’re not the only one who has it.”
That had several strange resonances, but I didn’t bother to follow up as we got out of the car. “Thanks. You have a way of making a guy feel right at home.” I followed her up a dark, narrow stairway from her hidden parking spot. “Speaking of, are you still pointing that gun at me?”
“What do you think?”
“Yeah, I figured.”
She unlocked the door at the top of the stairs-I couldn’t help noticing the door itself was as heavy as the kind they use in government air raid shelters-then led me into a really surprising place.
Surprise number one was when she flipped the switch and light bloomed everywhere, a half-rainbow of muted reds, yellows, and sunset oranges. The apartment had no windows at all as far as I could see, as if we were underground, which we weren’t. The other surprise was that, based on how the Countess dressed and talked, I would have expected some kind of serious stark modernism or at least a sort of bohemian informality. Instead, her hideaway looked like some antique version of a sultan’s harem-you could almost imagine it as the setting for some romance novel about a sultan’s seraglio. The walls were covered by streaming gauze, with little lights set in alcoves or hung on the walls glowing through the fabric. A huge bronze mirror stood in a corner, draped with what looked like very expensive versions of Carnival beads, and across from it stood a curtained bed. The filmy red draperies were drawn and several layers deep, so I couldn’t make out what the bed itself looked like, but just being near it carried a strong erotic charge.
I realized I was staring at the bed. Instead of reveling in this demonstration of the effect she had even on a battle-hardened enemy, my hostess seemed irritated and maybe even a bit embarrassed.
“Nice place,” I said. “Who was your decorator, Cecil B. DeMille?”
“I happen to like it.” She sounded angry. “If you want a shower the bathroom’s through there.” She pointed at a door half-hidden by more filmy drapery, then settled herself in an overstuffed antique chair in front of an equally old-fashioned writing desk, the picture only spoiled by the open laptop on top of it and the nest of cords snaking out from beneath. “You should be able to find some clothes that will fit you in the closet. Take anything you want.” She turned to her monitor screen as if I had ceased to exist.
I couldn’t figure out anything about this woman.
No, I reminded myself.
Still, when I stepped out of the tiled, gloriously hot shower and began rummaging through the carpeted walk- in closet, I wasn’t thrilled to find an entire row of hangers full of khakis, expensive bespoke sports coats, slacks, and collarless dress shirts, as well as polo shirts in all the colors of a blooming tropical forest. It made my gut clench, because I’d met someone with just this kind of wealthy-preppie taste recently. A Grand Duke of Hell, to be precise. I checked the monogram on the inside pocket of one of the coats. As I suspected, it was KV-Kenneth Vald.
I picked out what was least offensive to my eye, black slacks and a white button shirt, and returned to the main room. “Nice closet. Whose clothes?”
“None of your business, Dollar.”
“Are you sure about that? Maybe it’s someone I know.”
“I’m asking the questions, remember. Unless you’d like to leave now, but this isn’t a great area at this time of the night-especially if you’re a wanted man on foot.”
Stalemate. I fell into a chair not far from her desk and solaced myself by digging my toes into the thick, fleecy rug and thinking how much better this was than crouching in a cold river breathing through a tube that smelled of tonic water. “Okay, Countess, I definitely owe you one. What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” She pinned me with those pale blue eyes. I couldn’t help remembering the ones she’d had the first time I saw her-scarlet as an Amsterdam whore’s window. “Tell me everything that’s happened to you since you’ve been caught up in this.”
“And if I do, will you answer some questions of mine?”
“No guarantees, Dollar. Like you said, you owe me.”
So I told her where I’d been and what I’d done. I might have shaved off an uncomfortable rough edge here or there, and I certainly didn’t go into minute detail about how badly the
“Grasswax had gambling debts with Prince Sitri? Are you certain? Who told you?”
“Now it’s my turn to say none of your business.” I wasn’t going to give up my sources. Not that it would be so
