Dev stared at him, jaw working. Walter’s eyes were compassionate but implacable. He was right. He had toiled in Victor’s shadow for a very long time. He had given cover to evil that, even now, I did not think he countenanced. He would be better at this job, with his artist’s eye and crackling smarts, than Victor had ever been with other people’s hands. Some twisted honor had never let Walter steal that prize himself. He’d had to wait for me, the only other killer with a will and a chance of succeeding.
“You’re an artist, Walter Finch,” I said.
Some kind of light, or understanding, filled the shadows between us. He bowed his head. “So are you, Phyllis Green.”
The interior of the Pelican was mottled with natural light, dim in some corners and fiercely bright in strips where the sun came through the open doors. In an effort to keep the temperature bearable, heavy industrial fans circulated the air inside, but still the men had discarded their jackets and ties. The dentist looked so casual smoking in his rolled shirtsleeves with the boys at the bar that at first I didn’t recognize him. I knew that he was occasionally convivial with Victor, but it surprised me, somehow, to see the local boys sharing their break with him.
“Red Man,” he said, “we brought the last of it inside, but they said you were busy down there.”
My old lover glanced at me and then awkwardly away. It unsteadied me to see him again, though I hadn’t spared him much thought in the last week. It pricked my vanity, if not my heart, that he had left me so cleanly.
“Did you bring enough nitrous oxide this time?” Walter asked.
The dentist gave me another nervous glance. “Just what Victor asked.”
“Oh,” I said. Of course.
After Maryann West was fired from her job, Victor would have needed another supplier, someone with unfettered access to regulated pharmaceuticals. The dentist looked at home with the soldiers because he’d always been one of them.
Had he known what it meant, when I told him about my dream with the hands? Or did he just give the drugs to Victor and make sure to never ask questions? Tamara had known, I realized—her strange little joke about “difficult extractions.” And here I had imagined that Tamara had kept herself ignorant of the ugly underbelly of her high water bird.
Victor had been sitting in the shadows beside the false bookshelf. He stood up now and waved me over.
“Good to see you out of bed, angel,” he said. “I suppose you’re feeling…?”
“Like shit,” I called amiably, and squeezed Dev’s hand hard enough to crack the knuckles. “Get out,” I whispered, and left him before he could respond.
Victor looked me over, messy hair to scuffed shoes, and said, “Well, can’t say it doesn’t show. To be expected, right, after a bullet in the chest. I expect you heard that we’ve got a rat among us? That some ungrateful rat tried to kill me? They’ll regret it, I promise you. I know you were in bed all day, right, but let’s just make sure. Put that knife of yours on the table there and come back to my office.”
I put the knife on the table and then let Jack pat me down for any others. There weren’t any. I’d only brought that one because I’d figured it would look strange if I came unarmed. Victor smiled that chrome smile and flicked an incisor with his fingernail.
“Well, then, come with me, angel. Won’t take a…”
Lifetime, I thought, and followed him back.
Zero goes last.
Each silver tooth marked a pair of hands. A mouth full of death, in love with its own reflection.
A hard number. Two suicide kings fighting over blood and ash. A sword behind one and an axe behind the other. One has heart but the other has power—who will come out alive? Depends on how the luck is blowing. Hearts and diamonds, sugar, all that love and brute force.
He’d left a bowl of that soup on the desk. White dumplings shimmering with fat, plucked with his fingers from yellow broth. He ruminated on one while Jack closed the door behind us. He licked his fingers clean of the juice and then wiped them on a silk hankie, silver to match his tie.
“Just like my mother made them,” Victor said. “The trick is in the mixture of the meat, pork and beef. Nice to see you back on your feet, Phyllis. Sadly, Maryann West won’t be needing your services, but I’ve got a few others…” He smiled, and I had the hideous impression that I could see myself in his silver teeth.
You can’t win, but I don’t think this has been about winning for a long time now. These cards, they’re talking about survival, and sometimes to survive, you’ve got to make a move. Even if it might kill you.
Recommendation: Play.
10
“I’m retiring, Victor.”
My voice was wary, even as I scanned the room. The silver penknife at the edge of the desk was provocative but too obvious, and the metal was too soft to penetrate bone. The empty Russian candelabra was a better bet, if he gave me time to swing it. But I guessed that I had one chance, and so a throw would be safer. Bludgeon, then. One of those heavy glass tumblers by the sideboard would do nicely, if it struck on the bottom edge. And it would, if I threw it.
My hands had never felt stronger, more full of energy, of a sweet, heady singing.
Victor chuckled and shook his head. “This is Dev’s influence, I’m guessing. You finally take him back and this is what I get?”
He stood, fished another dumpling from the broth, and popped it whole into his mouth. His cheeks bulged while he chewed; drops of pink juice gathered on the ashy hair of his mustache. He walked around
