asked me to drive it. It’s one thing to be stranded in Bel Air and another to be stranded in the middle of the desert. “Bought yourself a replacement already?”
“Oh, no. This is my real computer. The other was the one I take on jobs, just in case.”
“Arne, what happened to Melly? What happened to you?”
“Just a minute. Busy.” He turned back to the computer and started typing.
“Busy with what?” My voice sounded sharper than I’d intended. I wanted to say more, but everything I could think of sounded ridiculous.
“Destroying a man’s life,” he said. “Ray, what do you know about porn on the Internet?”
“There’s porn on the Internet?”
Arne laughed loudly, and I could feel some of the tension going out of the room. I needed him on my side, but somehow I’d lost the knack of winning people over.
“My favorite is where people make their own and put it up online. It’s crazy popular, even if most of the content is videos some dude made with a hooker or revenge postings by the recently dumped. Sometimes it’s even weirder. Check it out.”
He turned the laptop toward me. A video was playing, and it took me a moment to realize it was the same video I’d seen in Francois’s house. Except that someone had added a timer to it.
“Why is there a …” Then I saw why. By the time the counter reached 27, Francois had finished.
“See, Francois has a wife somewhere—Park Avenue or something—and she is a litigation powerhouse. Her whole clan is. Once word starts to spread about this video, he’s going to have a very expensive divorce on his hands. Plus the twenty-seven-second thing.”
He turned the laptop toward himself again. There was a jangle of keys, and I noticed that his big key ring was hanging off the side of the machine. Arne pulled at it, unplugging a memory stick, and pocketed it. He must have found the DVD in the Bugatti right away, copied the file during the drive back to the city, and put the disc back.
But that was his deal. I had other problems.
“Arne, Melly said you were dead. She said you’d been killed and it was my fault.”
Arne gave me a steady look. This was it. He was about to break down and give me what I needed. “Well, he was your buddy, wasn’t he?”
I didn’t have any buddies. Not anymore. “Who?”
“Wally King.”
Oh, God. Wally Fucking King.
CHAPTER THREE
Lenard touched Arne’s shoulder as though he’d just seen something they’d both been waiting for. “Hold that thought,” Arne said.
I heard a foot scuffle behind me. Arne glanced at the floor behind me. I turned, but there was no one there.
A heavy metal canister clanged near my feet and let out a wet hiss. A plume of tear gas billowed around my legs.
I turned to shout a warning to Arne, but he was no longer in his booth. I shut my mouth and clamped my hand over my nose before I caught a whiff, then soccer-kicked it toward the front door. Damn, it was hot already—I could feel the heat of it against my ankle. It struck something on the floor I couldn’t see and skittered sideways toward Rumpled Guy.
I shut my eyes just as the stinging started. Something moved very close to me, and the gunfire started.
I dropped flat onto the floor. The tattoos on my chest and the outside of my forearms are bulletproof thanks to a spell called the closed way, but my head, back, legs, and sides were completely exposed. The guns sounded very loud and very close, but nothing hit me.
I crawled blindly toward the fire exit. Sawdust stuck to my skin, and my chest felt tight. I hadn’t caught a good breath, and my oxygen was running out. Fortunately, the gunfire had already stopped. It takes very little time to empty a magazine.
I heard the sounds of clips being ejected from pistols and slammed back in. There were two gunmen, at least, and now I was sure they were close. Someone was hacking and choking on the gas, but it didn’t sound like anyone near me. Were the gunmen wearing masks?
I was sure they could see me—the gas couldn’t have been that thick—and I expected a bullet in the back. I hoped they’d have the decency to shoot at my head; at least it would be quick.
But I didn’t stop crawling, and the bullet never came. I finally made it to the wall and, reaching to my right, found the doorway. Arne was right about my sense of direction. The door was open, but I was barely across the threshold when it swung shut, slamming against my head and making me gasp.
I crawled into the alley, gagging on the wisp of tear gas I’d inhaled. I didn’t know if it was heavier than air, but I wanted to be on my feet; I stood and stumbled against a dumpster. Time to live dangerously; I opened my eyes.
Immediately, they started to burn. Tears flooded my cheeks, and I couldn’t stop coughing.
Arne and Lenard weren’t there, but Rumpled stumbled through the door just behind me. He was coughing so hard I thought he’d convulse.
My eyes were burning stronger now, as though the tears were washing the chemicals into my eyes rather than out, but he had it worse. He kept saying: “Ah, God! God!” between retches.
We were helpless. If the shooters inside the bar came out here, they could have put bullets into us without breaking stride. Of course, they could have done that inside, too.
