Everything but the Squeal

added, lifting his arm straight in front of him and training the silvery automatic directly into my left eye, “is the present.”

The flow of time slowed to a trickle. I could feel a bead of cold moisture make its way down my cheek in agonizing slow motion. There was an itch in the center of my back. I knew that the moment I moved the smallest muscle I was dead. The hole in the end of the automatic looked wider than the Milky Way.

“The question,” I said through rigid lips as the Mountain wheezed and snuffled beside me, “is what brought you out from under the plumbing?”

Bruner lowered the gun with a nasty little grin that told me he knew he'd scared the shit out of me. He kept it aimed casually at my middle. “Good question,” he said. “You should have been a cop.”

I wiped the moisture from my cheek and found that it was blood from the scratch on my forehead. “So should you,” I said.

Ship Rock bared puffy gums and let out a truncated bark. It could have been a laugh or a particularly vehement scoff. His gun stayed trained on the Mountain.

“This is Sergeant Belson,” Bruner said by way of introduction. “Sergeant Belson thinks you're funny.”

“Yeah,” I said, wiping the blood on my pants. My hand brushed over the hard barrel of the gun, and I immediately let my arms dangle at my sides. “Well, it's hard to get good help.”

“Hey,” Belson said. It was probably the longest sentence he'd spoken in a week. He was looking at me instead of the Mountain. Belson could be distracted. That was something to remember. Not much, but something.

Bruner shook his head again, pityingly this time. “You're not going to rattle me. You sure shook up Doris, though. It was a cute stunt, but any idiot would have known it was a setup.”

“Doris?” I said. “You mean the Wicked Witch of the West has a first name? What'd you do, Max, slip into the Mister's used condoms? Were they still warm?”

“Keep trying if it makes you happy,” Bruner said. “The Mister, as you call him, had to keep poking the merchandise. I handled the investigation on the Mister, which maybe you already know.” I certainly hadn't. “He had a very sweet thing going. If he hadn't had his heart attack when he did, I would’ve attacked his heart for him. Now, let's go inside.” He gave his gun a tiny jerk toward the door, and I turned obediently, hearing the Mountain snap into step behind me. To draw attention away from the gun jammed into the front of my pants, I laced my fingers together and put my hands on top of my head.

“So that's why you're here, Max? You're the new Mister? You figured the pictures on the computer were a draw play?” I asked, keeping as close to the wall of the warehouse as possible. It was darker there. We were about a third of the way to the door.

“Doris panicked,” he said, full of male superiority. “Keep walking. Your little parlor trick got her all superstitious. She barely had the brains to call me. It was an obvious spook trick, and I was working on my list of possible spooks. When she described you and your adorable little ward, the list shrank to one. I didn't know about Tubbo, here, but I'd already decided that she should get the meat together and Belson and I should hang around and watch you show up. Tubbo just makes it better.”

We rounded the corner. The door was only paces away.

“Why does he make it better?”

“He'll cook slower,” Belson said in the resonant voice of someone who uses his skull mainly as an echo chamber. Then he barked again.

“Shut up,” Bruner said.

“The sergeant has something on his mind,” I said, “and it must be an exciting occasion for him. If you don't let him talk, he could have a stroke. There must be some blood pressure up there.” I had slowed considerably, and the Mountain bumped up against me. I could smell the sour sweat of fear coming from him.

“Accelerate, please,” Bruner said. “If you keep walking, I'll explain. Otherwise, I shoot you here, and not to kill. A man who's been gut-shot can live long enough to burn to death.”

I accelerated.

“When they respond to the fire alarm,” Bruner said, giving me my reward, “they'll find a bunch of dead missing kids and two dead adults. One of them is a private dick who decided to go for big money instead of a fee you could count in pennies, and the other is a tub of lard who works at the place where the kids hang out. I mean, you couldn't ask for more perfect suspects. Case closed.”

The child's wail split the night again. I drove my fingernails into the palms of my hands.

“Don't slow down again,” Bruner said. “You want to measure your life in minutes, or in half an hour or so?”

“Fire alarm,” I said. “The kids are going to be dead. Then why are they hurting her?”

“Ahhh,” Bruner said, “some people know what's going on, and some people don't.”

We'd reached the door. It was closed.

“Hit the horn, Belson,” Bruner said. Belson ambled obediently toward the nearest car.

“Why, Max?” I asked, trying to keep him talking instead of thinking about searching me. “What happened? Al always said you were a good cop.”

“I am a good cop,” Bruner said. The Mountain made a small choking sound. “That's the problem. I'd bust the pimps and see them on the street the next night. I'd save the kids' lives and send them home and then watch them come back and turn into pimps.”

“This is bullshit,” I said as Belson gave a beep on the horn of a car behind me. “It can't be the lady. I mean, she's okay for someone with a lot of wear on her, but nothing to abandon your life over. She's got a neck like a leg of poultry.”

“Don't be silly,” Bruner said. “I've seen enough sex so that I don't ever want anything to do with it again. Anyway, I'm not the Mister that way. We stay away from each other. I'm what you might call the fixer.” There was a knock from inside the door.

“Knock twice,” Bruner said.

“It was the money,” I said, not knocking.

“It was a lot of things,” Bruner said, “and none of them matter worth an ounce of spit. Knock on the door two times or I'll shoot you in the back.” I hesitated. “Even better,” Bruner said, “I'll shoot Tubbo, here.”

The Mountain let out an involuntary moan. I knocked twice.

The door opened as Belson shuffled up behind us. It was like a dam bursting: light flooded through it and into my eyes, and I was blind.

“Well, Happy Easter,” said a familiar voice. “I must of been a good little boy. And, looky, the Mountain too.”

“Marco, you little shit,” the Mountain said.

“Congratulations, Marco,” I said, trying to focus. “Nice job on Junko.”

“Nothing compared to what I'm going to do to you.” He bared his cocaine-rotted teeth and waved the switchblade, his vitamin, under my nose. His pupils were the size of punctuation marks but less expressive. Marco was flying.

“Now that we've all said hello, Marco,” Bruner said in a voice that would have frozen vodka, “maybe you can get the fuck out of the way so we can get inside.”

Marco jumped back as though he'd been jerked on a wire.

“Max,” Belson said, “I think we-”

“Belson thinks,” I said desperately. “What a headline for the Times. On a par with mayor abducted by UFO or Elvis appears at summit meeting. Do you pay Belson to think, Bruner?” What Belson was thinking, I was certain, was that he should search us. “When was the last time a crustacean had a good idea?”

“God damn you,” Belson said. The Mountain hissed in warning, and a 747 flew into my right kidney. My head snapped back and I hurtled into Marco, knocking him flat on his back. I landed on my face next to him, feeling the concrete floor rip at the cut on my forehead. Something black and hot rose in the back of my throat and I turned my head and retched. In what seemed like the far distance I saw Belson blowing on his fist.

Marco scrambled away from me, swearing in a thin, chemically high-pitched voice. The next thing I knew, he