between screaming siblings.
A bird flies by. Fuck me if I know which kind. It’s black and it has wings. I give it a wink, a private hello to Scotty somewhere up there in the blue.
There. Another moment of Zen over and done. I go inside to shower.
Tully’s right, you know. Hers have always been bigger.
3
T he company Tully works for is on the top floor of a four-story, art deco building in the old business section of downtown. The building is nestled between a place that helps people find shithole apartments and a skeezball lawyer’s office specializing in accident and injury lawsuits.
It was a nice building once, back when people rode pterodactyls and knew what a cordwainer was. Not that I do. I had to Google that shit like a normal person. Now the building is just an ugly reminder of so-called better times and a nice place for the local tweakers to take up space. The rent’s cheap though, so the occupancy rate is nearly one hundred percent, despite my rampant incredulity.
There are two rooms in the company’s otherwise open floorplan, and I’m sitting in one of them, a carry-out bag on the conference table stuffed with the two best sandwiches in the long, awesome history of putting shit between hunks of bread.
Glass panels make up two of the conference room’s four walls, while the third has a TV mounted and angled slightly downward on it, and the fourth has a dry erase board and assorted markers. With nothing else to focus on, apart from some blue doodles on the dry erase board in the shape of either a Tyrannosaurus rex or an old man’s pecker, the aromas emanating from the bag are taunting me mercilessly.
Tully comes out of the other room—her boss’s office; nice guy—and crosses the open space to the conference room I’m in. The door’s open so she walks right in. She slaps a folder on the table, then a stack of twenties before reaching for the bag. I’d stop her, but I’m not that stupid.
“Top bit’s the contract,” she says. “Sign the last page, initial where indicated. The rest is yours.” She’s got her sandwich out, unwrapped, and bitten into before her words even reach my level of comprehension.
“Any updates of note?” I ask. It’s been two hours since she and Sandecker graced my home; maybe things have changed in that time. You never know.
I shove the cash into a pocket, then sign and initial where necessary, sliding the contract over to her sight-unread. We’ve done this particular dance before, and while she’s legally required to repeat herself each and every time, I’m in no way obligated to read through that shit more than once.
Which reminds me, I should probably read through that shit at some point. God knows what the hell I gave them permission to do. Maybe I’m lucky to still have all my kidneys.
Tully chews and shakes her head, her eyes rolling back into her head like the wheels on a damn slot machine. Maggie Jane’s will do that to you. Why do you think I haven’t eaten mine yet? I don’t know these people. Let Tully make stupid faces for their enjoyment—some of us have reputations in need of protecting.
She drops the sandwich on the conference table and sits up straighter, and it makes me smile. Watching her be a hard ass, knowing our history? It’s fucking priceless.
“You want the friend version or the work version?” she asks.
I steal a glance through a glass wall to her boss’s office. “Let’s keep it aboveboard for now.”
She nods in silent agreement. “Exchange is set for tonight, as expected. Details start on the second page. There will be three people accompanying the box: the man currently in possession of it and two bodyguards. Assume all three will be armed. An emissary will be there to take possession, along with one body-guard. Again, assume both men will be armed. It is the emissary we wish to stop, not the actual exchange. We have no intel on the rest as of yet, but updates will come as fresh information reaches
A bird flies by. Fuck me if I know which kind. It’s black and it has wings. I give it a wink, a private hello to Scotty somewhere up there in the blue.
There. Another moment of Zen over and done. I go inside to shower.
Tully’s right, you know. Hers have always been bigger.
3
T he company Tully works for is on the top floor of a four-story, art deco building in the old business section of downtown. The building is nestled between a place that helps people find shithole apartments and a skeezball lawyer’s office specializing in accident and injury lawsuits.
It was a nice building once, back when people rode pterodactyls and knew what a cordwainer was. Not that I do. I had to Google that shit like a normal person. Now the building is just an ugly reminder of so-called better times and a nice place for the local tweakers to take up space. The rent’s cheap though, so the occupancy rate is nearly one hundred percent, despite my rampant incredulity.
There are two rooms in the company’s otherwise open floorplan, and I’m sitting in one of them, a carry-out bag on the conference table stuffed with the two best sandwiches in the long, awesome history of putting shit between hunks of bread.
Glass panels make up two of the conference room’s four walls, while the third has a TV mounted and angled slightly downward on it, and the fourth has a dry erase board and assorted markers. With nothing else to focus on, apart from some blue doodles on the dry erase board in the shape of either a Tyrannosaurus rex or an old man’s pecker, the aromas emanating from the bag are taunting me mercilessly.
Tully comes out of the other room—her boss’s office; nice guy—and crosses the open space to the conference room I’m in. The door’s open so she walks right in. She slaps a folder on the table, then a stack of twenties before reaching for the bag. I’d stop her, but I’m not that stupid.
“Top bit’s the contract,” she says. “Sign the last page, initial where indicated. The rest is yours.” She’s got her sandwich out, unwrapped, and bitten into before her words even reach my level of comprehension.
“Any updates of note?” I ask. It’s been two hours since she and Sandecker graced my home; maybe things have changed in that time. You never know.
I shove the cash into a pocket, then sign and initial where necessary, sliding the contract over to her sight-unread. We’ve done this particular dance before, and while she’s legally required to repeat herself each and every time, I’m in no way obligated to read through that shit more than once.
Which reminds me, I should probably read through that shit at some point. God knows what the hell I gave them permission to do. Maybe I’m lucky to still have all my kidneys.
Tully chews and shakes her head, her eyes rolling back into her head like the wheels on a damn slot machine. Maggie Jane’s will do that to you. Why do you think I haven’t eaten mine yet? I don’t know these people. Let Tully make stupid faces for their enjoyment—some of us have reputations in need of protecting.
She drops the sandwich on the conference table and sits up straighter, and it makes me smile. Watching her be a hard ass, knowing our history? It’s fucking priceless.
“You want the friend version or the work version?” she asks.
I steal a glance through a glass wall to her boss’s office. “Let’s keep it aboveboard for now.”
She nods in silent agreement. “Exchange is set for tonight, as expected. Details start on the second page. There will be three people accompanying the box: the man currently in possession of it and two bodyguards. Assume all three will be armed. An emissary will be there to take possession, along with one body-guard. Again, assume both men will be armed. It is the emissary we wish to stop, not the actual exchange. We have no intel on the rest as of yet, but updates will come as fresh information reaches
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