just listening to it made me feel like I was biting down on a manhole cover. “I know you, tiny fellow. But you have my name wrong.” His wide mouth frowned just a little, a downward feint in the center of a rubbery front nearly a foot wide. “I am Prince Sajatapandra.”
I really hated that he knew who I was. “Hey, fine,” I said. “Sat On A Panda, whatever name you want. To be honest, I don’t care if you call yourself Princess Grace of Monaco, I just want to talk to you for a moment…”
“Who are
“Go ahead, Dollar,” the fat thing said. “You have my attention. Of course, you may regret that at some later point.” Prince Sitri made a noise like a medium-sized brick wall collapsing into the mud; a laugh of sorts. He’d amused himself.
“Just wanted to ask you about a prosecutor named Grazuvac. The extremely late Darko Grazuvac. Or you may have known him better as Grasswax.”
At the sound of that name Sitri rolled his flinty little eyes toward the hotel manager, who was still as pink as a boiled crab. “You. Go away.”
The manager didn’t say a word, but obediently scuttled out of hearing distance and busied himself rearranging a perfect flower arrangement on one of the hall tables. Sitri rolled those gleaming shark-orbs back toward me. “Grasswax is dead. Seriously and thoroughly dead. But you probably knew that. So what about him, little angel?”
I didn’t see a flash of concern or guilt or anything in those eyes, but then I probably wouldn’t have even if he’d squeezed the life out of Grasswax with his own fat hands. You don’t get to be a prince of Hell without having a pretty damn good poker face. “I heard he owed you money, Prince. Or at least owed you something. Gambling debts.”
Again the doughy smile, and this time it was big enough for me to see the teeth behind it, each one filed into a perfect little point. If you ever crossed a piranha and a giant salamander and bombarded it with Gamma rays, Prince Sitri would probably be your first result. And your last. “Grasswax…gambling. Yes, I seem to remember he had a weakness for a flutter. He may even have lost to me a few times at the races. Are you suggesting that I would have him killed over such small change?” Again that titanic, stony chuckle; his chins didn’t stop moving for several seconds afterward. “Oh, my dear fellow, what an idea!” Then the smile vanished. The voice still sounded like a tank idling, but suddenly I could hear the full depth of the hatred his kind feel for my kind. It wasn’t a good feeling-just meeting his eyes made my stomach squirm. Sitri was a very, very old and very powerful demon. “And even if I had, little angel,” he said, the rumbling a notch louder than before, “what business of yours could it possibly be?”
For the first time, I really felt the breadth and depth of my own impulsive stupidity. Even though we were a little way from the main lobby down a hall, there was still plenty of traffic, most of the folk looking as though they belonged to one side in the great struggle or another. Every single one of them was now staring at us, most with the kind of expression zoo-goers wear when some crazy sonofabitch climbs over the rail into the grizzly bear enclosure. Still, it was too late to pretend I’d fallen in by accident.
“I heard that Grasswax had something of Eligor’s. Something special. You know Eligor, right? Tall fellow? Owns about three-quarters of this city?”
“Our host, you mean? Mr. Vald?” Fat Boy was suddenly smiling again. “Of course I know him. He owns this hotel, too.” My expression must have amused him, because he laughed again. “Oh, did you not know that?”
Eligor, the guy who wanted to murder me-if I was lucky-owned the Ralston? Now I felt like the grizzly bear was putting on his Kiss the Cook apron and firing up the barbecue, but I soldiered on. “Yeah, that guy. I wondered if you might be able to tell me whether Grasswax might have stolen that something from Eligor with the hope of paying his debt to you.”
“Ah.” He nodded, or at least compressed some of his chins. “So you’re not asking me whether
The manager was looking at his watch. He’d arranged the bejesus out of those flowers, and now he was getting nervously impatient again. I decided I’d already drawn enough potentially fatal attention to myself for one afternoon. “Yeah. I guess so. And?”
Sitri’s lips writhed in distaste like a pair of mating eels. “Grasswax was a fool who didn’t know his limitations.” A large gray-blue tongue crawled out from between the sharp little white pickets and moistened those lips, making the long, rubbery things look even more like sea creatures. “Anything that happened to him was richly deserved. He is not mourned or missed. And neither will you be, little angel.”
“Come along, your Highness.” It was the manager, bustling back into the midst of things as if invisibly signaled.
I couldn’t think of any way to dig myself in deeper so I gave him my best jaunty salute. “Right, then. Enjoy your stay.” As I turned away I could hear the freight elevator groan, indicating they had finally managed to maneuver Sitri into it.
So now I had a few more pieces to play with. Sitri knew Grasswax and I was sure he knew damn well why Grasswax had been so thoroughly dispatched, that was obvious. Now, demons lie constantly, but they also speak the truth if it suits them. His Flabbiness hadn’t minded talking about Grasswax, which meant he either enjoyed the fact that Eligor’s troubles were so well known, even if they reflected ever so slightly on himself, or he was as innocent of wrongdoing as a demon prince can ever be-at least, in the case of Grasswax’s messy and extremely painful death.
Or he might have felt certain he was talking to a dead man, so he didn’t need to be too coy. I couldn’t find much to cheer about in any of those possibilities, and the whole thing hadn’t got me closer to anything important, just guaranteed that yet one more of the nastiest bastards in this or any other universe was now thinking about me and my nosy nature.
Good one, Bobby.
thirty-one
I hadn’t even made it back across the lobby to the guest elevators when a hand full of steely fingers closed on my arm. Startled, I clawed in my pocket for my concealed automatic even as I turned. Reflexes aside, I knew nobody was likely to attack me in the middle of the biggest summit for decades, but I was still relieved (slightly) to see that the person who’d stopped me was from my side. At least as far as I knew.
The angel holding my arm had the tanned, fit look of a mid-career military aviator. In fact, everything about him looked military, the creases in his expensive charcoal gray suit so sharp that it might as well have been a dress uniform.
“Slow down, son,” he said, and the iron grasp of his fingers made certain I did what he suggested.
I had never seen him wearing flesh and, in fact, had only seen him once in any form, but I hazarded a guess. “Karael?”
He didn’t bother to acknowledge it. “I saw your report. You’re testifying tomorrow, but I want a chat with you ahead of time.” The way he said “chat” made me think of rubber truncheons and other painful methods of ensuring team play, but I think that was just his style. “Now you’ve seen how hard these bastards will work to cover their tracks, to make it look like the breakdown is on our side.”
I looked around, worried about eavesdroppers, but if Karael wasn’t worried I decided I shouldn’t be either. This guy had been fighting the Opposition since before the Seventh Day; he must know what he was doing. In fact, that was what was worrying me more than any demons listening in. Still, I lowered my voice. “Hold on. You’re
