Some hurled insults with the mud. Vic seemed to have had enough of Billy’s mockery. Allie aspersed my manhood. Me, I just sang. Hines thought we were nuts. It made him lower his guard.
Our random movements finally brought all four of us to our feet at the same time.
That’s when we rushed him.
It was a clumsy charge, not exactly a pro blitz, but it had its desired effect. In a second we had him face down in the guck, with the weight of four bodies and a considerable quantity of mud holding him there. I saw one gun go flying, but the other was … where? Underneath him? Lost in the mud? And where was the key to the padlock? In his pocket, I supposed, but how to get at it without maybe giving him the chance to gun someone down? It was an odd little impasse. One that I apparently could have bought myself out of with thirty seconds of plain honesty somewhere back down the line, but the next sound you hear will be the barn door slamming behind that particular cow. I didn’t even have the Hackmaster, which meant I’d lost my leverage. I supposed I could vamp about backup files on hidden hard drives, but see above: barn door; cow.
I was starting to think that honesty was a surprisingly powerful card, and one I should really try to play more often.
“So what do we do now?” asked Vic. “Just lie here till we all freeze?”
“That could take a while,” a voice said. “Maybe I’ll just put everyone out of their misery now.”
I looked left, and there were the no-nonsense black boots of Detective Constable Claire Scovil. She bent into my field of vision and scooped Hines’s pistol from the muck. “Let’s see …” she said, brushing off the snow and mud, “Milval’s gun. Milval’s bullets … I’m thinking murder-suicide,” she said. “How does everyone fancy that?”
30.
the hot tub of truth
I ’m saying I didn’t fancy it at all. All my life I’ve tried to (well, had to) hold on to things fairly loosely. Homes, cars, possessions of all kinds. The way grifters roll, they need to be ready to drop everything and run. I thought I held on to life the same loose way. It was a fine party and all—the best I ever crashed—but every party ends, and anyone who doesn’t acknowledge this is just not being realistic. You can fantasize that you’re immortal. You can hold out the hope of heaven, if you like. Me, I was always just enjoy the ride, and turn in your ticket when you’re done. But finally staring death in the face—or from this prone perspective, staring it in the chunky Doc Martens—I found that I wasn’t holding on so loosely any more. Why the change of heart? My something to lose, of course, sprawled there beside me in the mud. Having finally found love, I would be royally pissed off not to get to enjoy it and cherish it for the next sixty or seventy years.
Want to hear something really weird? Much as I couldn’t bear the thought of me dying and her living, I couldn’t bear the thought of me living and her dying even more.
Nobility from a grifter? A genuinely selfless act? It was beginning to look that way—if I could pull it off.
I tried to roll over, but I was all cabled up against Billy’s back and couldn’t gain leverage. The mud caked on my face was starting to harden. I felt like Quest for Fire. “Claire,” I said into Billy’s shoulder blades, “you don’t have to kill us all. Just kill me. I’m the one you want, right?”
Scovil settled down on her haunches and brought her eyes level with mine. “Nobility, Radar? Really?” See? She didn’t buy it either.
“It happens,” I said, trying but failing to shrug. “People change.” She just shook her head. “Anyway, what about the money? Don’t you want that, too?”
“Honey, I want it all. But first I want an explanation.” She thwacked Billy on the nose. “Mate. Why was I knocked out for two hours, and why do I have such a headache?”
“Ah, that would be the flunitrazepam,” he said.
“The what?”
“Roofies. Surprisingly easy to get in this country.” He had that right. At the Blue Magoon, they practically sell them over the counter. “You’re right lucky I only gave you a half dose.”