Jack peered through the curtains. Concentric cigarette burns let in the lights of the boulevard, the endless line of cars, and the hard diamond glitter of the Hollywood Hills beyond. “That you do,” he murmured.
“Hey, where’s your woman?” Kim said. “I’m fucking starving.”
“Excellent question,” Jack said. A burger shack sat diagonally across the parking lot from the motel, and he peered through the curtains again. Pete’s small, thin shadow was nowhere to be found.
“Stay here,” he told Kim, stepping onto the landing and shutting the door behind him. “Pete?” he called.
The parking lot was empty, mostly full of rusted-out cars and a few caravans, their windows covered with tattered curtains. “Pete!” he shouted, leaning over the rail to check the breezeway below.
“Hey!” A door banged open, and a shirtless bloke with a gut leaned out, glaring at Jack over piggy cheeks. “Shut the fuck up,” he snarled.
Jack pointed a finger at him. “Go back in your room.” He felt a wave of the Black batter against him, and knew from the man’s expression that his eyes were flaring ghost blue.
The door slammed, and Jack started down the stairs. He’d panicked reflexively, and his heart was thumping fast enough that he could’ve just taken a snort of speed. “Pete!” he shouted. The motel sign in the window of the reception office glowed blue, telling him there was VACANCY … CLEAN ROOMS … AIR CONDITIONING. The sign flickered as he passed.
He jogged across the lot to the burger shack. The interior was lit with harsh bulbs that washed out all the color, from the faded food pictures hanging above the counter to the teenager swiping a mop half-heartedly across the gray floors. He looked up when Jack banged the door open. “Fryer’s off. We’re closing in ten minutes.”
“You see a woman in here?” Jack asked. His heartbeat had taken on a rhythm, a drum line of panic.
The boy shrugged. “Nah, man. Nobody like that.”
“Maybe I can help.” Jack was only half-surprised to see Gator step out of the shadows of the corridor to the loo.
“Where is she?” he said. He pulled the Black to him, felt his talent flare in his mind. He’d burn Gator where he stood if that was what it took, and he wouldn’t feel one iota of regret.
“She’s fine,” Gator said. “You know, it didn’t have to be this way. Y’all made it real difficult for us to do what needs to be done.” He shook his head. “Mr. Sanford’s real upset with the two of you. He had me put Miss Caldecott up in one of his properties as insurance.”
“Insurance for what?” His hands were sweating, and he was numb, but not with the unearthly cold he’d felt when he’d killed Parker. This was fury, and he recognized it. Rage and Jack were old friends, drinking partners, had spent long evenings together when he was younger and more foolish. It gifted him with broken bones and busted teeth and stints in lockup, but rage was a good friend to have when you were looking at someone like Gator who’d just kidnapped your pregnant girlfriend.
“For Mr. Sanford,” Gator said. “He has to make sure you won’t get crazy and go off on him.”
The door creaked again, and Sanford entered. He took a seat in the first booth by the door, and gestured Jack into the bench opposite. “I apologize for the hardball, Jack,” he said.
Jack sat. He couldn’t think of a better response. Well, he could burn Gator’s face off and kick Sanford until even his own mother wouldn’t recognize his corpse, but that wouldn’t help Pete. He had to stay calm, for Pete. Get Sanford to tell him what he’d done with her. Play the game and not panic, not react like every bit of him was screaming to. For once, he could keep it together long enough to actually be the one who made things right again.
“Isn’t this nice?” Sanford said. He gestured at Gator, who slipped the teenager a few bills.
“Get that fryer goin’, boy. Bacon cheeseburgers all around, and make me up a batch of those cheese fries. Extra cheese.”
The teenager looked at the three of them in turn, and then shrugged and went behind the counter, hitting switches to turn on the lights and the cookers.
“In Hollywood we call this a sit-down, Jack,” Sanford said. “A meeting between opposing parties to find a mutually beneficial outcome.”
“Where is she, Sanford?” Jack splayed his palms flat on the table. If he could keep his eyes on them, he could stay calm long enough to figure a way out of this. The ends of his tattoos curled around the base of his thumbs, crept between the webbing of his fingers. The fury of the Morrigan wasn’t going to do one fucking bit of good now. Pete depended on him not slagging Sanford off. She depended on him being clever, which didn’t come naturally. Smashing someone in the face was much more instinctive.
“She’s fine,” Sanford said. “You think I’d manhandle a pregnant woman? You really have a low opinion of your fellow man, Jack.”
“Things like you aren’t men,” Jack said. “A man wouldn’t take a woman’s baby to be used as a piece of fucking Tupperware for something like Abbadon.”
“You really think that child would’ve had any kind of life with somebody like Kim in a place like Anna’s?” Sanford nodded his thanks to the teenager as he set down baskets of burgers and fries. “She was a junkie and a streetwalking whore when Anna found her. That’s not a mother, Jack. That’s a bitch who drops a litter.”
He took a bite of his burger and licked his fingers. “You should try this. They know how to do meat right here.”
Gator took a fistful of cheese fries and shoved them into his mouth. “Sure do. Just like home.”
“In a way, Jack,” Sanford said. “You owe me one. You knocked off Parker without so much as a sorry.”
“Yeah, well,” Jack said. “You let your pet monster off the chain, Sanford, and I put it down. You want to have a moment of silence? Maybe light a candle? Didn’t know the two of you were so close.”
Gator grabbed him by the back of his neck, slammed his head into the plastic tabletop, and held it there. Jack could smell the chili powder and grease on his fingertips. “He was my friend, asswipe.”
“Gator.” Sanford ticked his finger back and forth like a metronome.
“You and me ain’t finished, boy,” Gator whispered in Jack’s ear. “Sooner or later, I’m gonna get you alone, and then the pain’s going to come.”
“Looking forward to it, darling,” Jack grunted.
“Let him up,” Sanford ordered. “Now.”
“Sure, boss,” Gator said, and Jack straightened up, rubbing feeling back into his cheek.
“Now’s the part where you threaten again to kill Pete if I don’t help you, right?” Jack folded his arms. “Get on with it, then.”
“That threat never went away,” Sanford said. “But allow me to motivate you, rather than try more useless scare tactics. Abbadon knows you screwed him. He knows you tried to take his vessel away, and he won’t stop until he finds you. You think a couple of bespelled junkies are the extent of his reach? They’re not. Not by a long shot.”
Jack gave voice to the whirlpool that had been brewing in his head since he’d found Kim. “What’re you up to, Sanford? You know an awful lot about Abbadon for somebody who’s only heard about him this morning. From me. Always a little breadcrumb when I got off the trail. Always a convenient helping hand.”
He stood up, shoving his elbow into Gator’s gut on purpose. “Fuck you and your game, Sanford. Either you tell me what you’re really on about or I’m walking. I’ll figure out where Pete is on my own, and you know what’ll happen to you when I do.”
Gator bared his teeth, gold gleaming almost black under the harsh light. “Maybe, but you know we’ll mess her up ’forehand.”
Jack turned his eyes on him. “You lay one finger on Pete and it’ll be the last thing you live to regret. Make no mistake.”
Sanford spread his hands. “This is all completely unnecessary posturing on your part, Jack. Fact is, if you knew the truth, you wouldn’t have helped me.”
“And now?” Jack said.
Sanford grinned, that maddening grin with vast emptiness behind it. “Now I suppose it doesn’t make a difference. You needed persuading, and I persuaded you, and nobody needs to gnash their teeth over it. Do as I ask and Pete will be sound as a pound. That is the expression, correct?”
