“Only kidding! I was hoping you’d cut me a discount.”
“Asshole. No, and just for that shit, I want an extra ten percent. And it’ll double if you ever do that again,” she warned. “Double or baseball bat: your call, mister.”
“Ouch.” Imp massaged his forehead ruefully, then rooted around in the bag for a bit, before giving up and emptying it on the floor nearby. Bundles of bound banknotes fell out, fives and tens and twenties—nobody except dealers and gangsters used fifty pound notes. He picked up a centimeter-thick bundle. “A thousand quid—this one’s your fine: catch.” He bowled it at her. Del caught it, her mood lightening instantly. It was true: money couldn’t buy love, but it made one hell of an apology. Another: “Thousand quid.” And another. Del began to giggle.
“Cut that out!” She jumped over the end of the sofa, pulled up his shirt-tails, and started to tickle.
“Thousand—help! Uncle! Aunt! A kingdom for my horse! Have pity, have pity belle dame sans merci, oh the humanity!”
She stopped. “Does anybody really say that?” she demanded.
“Probably. Santa. As they were cru—” He trailed off, shocked sober by his tongue’s treachery in reminding him of things better forgotten. “Listen, we agreed your cut was five large—”
“—Six now.”
“—Okay, six. Let me up and I’ll give it to you. Here. Remember to wear gloves and count them in the kitchen sink, just in case you missed any packs.”
“Can’t count anything in the kitchen sink until you do the washing-up. I swear the beer glasses are campaigning for the vote.”
“It’s not my turn to—”
“I’m sure the botulism doesn’t care whether it’s your turn or Doc’s to boil it to death in a stream of detergent; man up and get your big boy Marigolds on or I’m inviting everyone to the next tickle party.”
“Slave driver!”
“Bitch.” She grinned as he rolled to his feet and shuffled towards the kitchen. “Barefoot in the kitchen, that’s how I like my men.”
“Not pregnant as well?”
“Don’t test me, I’ve got a friend who’d lend me an ovipositor sex toy—”
Working together made the washing up go significantly faster, although Imp kept up a steady stream of complaints as he dried dishes. Del ignored them pointedly. They both ignored the overflowing ashtrays on the window ledge: judging by the smell of stale skunk there was nothing of tobacco in them, which meant they were Game Boy’s. The highly regrettable remnants of several Cornish pasties, in contrast, were obviously Doc’s. He had a weakness for the things, but for some reason never ate the crescent section of the crust, leaving little half-moons of abandoned pastry rind lying around the place.
After Imp bagged up the empty beer cans and Del dumped the bottles in a crate for recycling, she stepped back and produced a roll-up out of thin air. “We need to talk.”
Crap, Imp thought. Striking a pose against the worktop with a broken cupboard door, he declaimed:
“‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
‘To talk of many things:
of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—’”
“—I’ll give you sealing-wax!” Del snarled at him with a promise of physical injury if he continued, which only caused Imp to raise his voice to auditorium-filling levels—
“‘Of cabbages—
And kings— And why the sea is boiling hot—
and whether pigs have wings.’
Ahem. You were saying?”
“Fuck it.” Del flicked her fingers, summoning a blue flare of light that danced around the tip of her spliff before vanishing with a giggle: “Thanks, Tink.” She drew in a long, slow lungful and held it for a couple of seconds before allowing it to trickle from her nostrils. Imp grabbed at the joint but, swift as an angry bee, Del snatched it out of reach and held it above his head. “You are pissing me off with these improv stunts,” she complained, relaxing only very slightly as the joint began to hit her. “It’s all fun and games until someone loses a fucking eye, Imp, they nearly grabbed GeeBee! Are you insane?”
Imp forced himself not to wilt under the glowering weight of her regard. “I’m insane on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and days with a Q in their name. Otherwise I’m totally in touch with reality, thankee kindly. And thankee kindly for putting GeeBee off his game, really, what was that about, you utter toad-plucker? Were you trying to trigger him?”
“Hmm. Yeah, nope, I didn’t think I was—no, I just didn’t think. None of us is fault-free. I’ll apologize later.” Del took another toke then reached a decision. She offered him the joint, then when he accepted it, grabbed his right ear and marched him briskly towards the drawing room. Imp staggered after her, inhaling wheezily, pursued by a faint giggling and the chiming of tiny bells. “Sit,” she commanded, shoving him down atop a hideously stained futon. “What I want to say is, there will be no more half-cocked schemes which you make up on the spur of the moment and where we get scragged if anyone stumbles. Is that understood?”
“You’re no fun when you’re like this, Becca.” Imp whined, but at least he was listening. “If you only wanted to talk why did we have to do the dishes?”
“Dishes weren’t going to do themselves, fool.” Del—known to her parents and the court system as Rebecca—frowned, then plucked the joint from his lips and took another furious puff. “Quit the act. You’re plotting mayhem and chaos. Confess.”
He twitched. “I, uh, may have updated the spreadsheet. Again.”
Del rolled her eyes. “You and your fucking spreadsheet. What’s it say this time?”
“We made sixty, sixty-two thou today. That leaves thirty in the kitty after I pay you, him, and other-him your salaries for the next month. But the overheads just went through the roof, so it’s going to take a couple more jobs before we’re ready to start shooting, if we stick to the schedule.”
“Oh for—” Del abruptly sat beside him. “Can’t you improvise?”
“It’s the tech,” Imp complained,
