'Wasn't
fault,' she said.
A couple of ordinary men with fat briefcases maneuvered past us toward the elevator. They looked as if they could be a couple of downand-out businessmen out to collect on a debtor. I knew better. They had that edge to them.
I wondered how they would get the body out of the building. That was their problem.
'What do we do about Isadora?' Ann asked.
I hadn't given much thought to that. She walked beside us through the lobby, shirttails brushing at her knees. The old geezers had fallen back into their torpor-only a few watched her with empty, tired eyes.
The kid spoke without looking up. 'Don't let any latent mothering urges overwhelm you. I've got my own place. I'll be heading back there to change into something that doesn't scratch. I'll sleep for a week, then get ready for more business.' She acted as if she'd just escaped from an ice cream social. Maybe she'd seen so much hell in the minds of others that she found the real thing as easy to deal with.
We headed toward Bunker Hill and the entrance to Auberge. Ann put an arm around Isadora.
'Just stay away from strange men,' she counseled.
'Lady,' the kid sighed, '
the men I deal with are strange. This last one was just a bit stranger.' She looked up at me. 'You called him your client. What do you do? Pimp for him?' She suddenly got that nearsighted look a kid gets when she's suspicious.
'Nothing so simple,' I said. 'Besides, how did he get ahold of
'
She shrugged. 'He talked to me in Auberge, we went off to his house. By the time I'd discovered that I couldn't open his mind up to my suggestions, he'd hit me with a rag full of something that smelled awful. I woke up down there.' She grinned. 'I puked all over his altar. He got really pissed having to clean it up.' She giggled like a drunken hyena.
'Someone should adopt you,' I said. 'You'd brighten up any household.'
'It's best to forget about him,' Ann said. 'You're not involved in any of this.'
'He seemed to think so. He grabbed me just a few hours after those other guys got you two.'
'Just an unfortunate coincidence,' I said, not liking the false sound it made coming out.
'Everything is coincident,' Ann said. 'It's the meaningful coincidences that are important.'
We walked along the darkened street. I wasn't in the mood for deep philosophy at the moment. My senses were as sharp as a bowling ball.
Ann continued to talk the way one talks into a deep well.
'How coincidental were all those creatures in the Plaza?'
'Well, Zacharias wouldn't send them after
, would he? I told him I'd fulfill our contract.'
Ann frowned for an instant. 'Maybe he didn't like the way you interrupted his ritual. It may have altered his plans enough that he doesn't want you to proceed. Perhaps he's discovered something in the contract. Or something about you. Maybe he's scared. Whatever the reason, he wants you to stop.'
'Look, Angel.' I tossed my expired cig into the gutter. 'If Zack wants to cancel, I say fine. He doesn't have to kill me to get me off this goose chase. But I'm not backing out.'
'Maybe you know too much now just to cancel it and let it lie. Maybe you're a threat.'
