Cherry Bomb_ A Siobhan Quinn Novel - Caitlin R. Kiernan Page 0,8

older than she was; but, obviously, her own life had also been the sort that increases the gulf between actual and apparent age.

“Well, for what it’s worth,” I said, “I feel a lot older than you, kiddo.”

She laughed, and then there was another silence, and this one we couldn’t blame on street noise. I smoked, and she picked at her raveling cardigan. After maybe five minutes, the quiet became uncomfortable, and I volunteered to go for the beer myself.

“Okay, but I’ll go with you. I don’t feel much like being here alone.”

There was a knock at the door.

“You expecting company?” I asked her, stubbing out my cigarette.

“Not really,” she said.

I didn’t much care for the way she was looking at the door.

“Selwyn, I take it you’re thinking this isn’t a social call,” I said. She was buttoning her sweater and combing her hair with her fingers.

“I don’t get those,” she said. “Leastwise, not very frequently. And never this early.”

“So, what, then? A customer?”

“That’s not the way it works. I don’t tell clients where I live.” She stood watching the door, wary as a cat that’s just heard a barking dog. Whoa, three cat similes so far. Anyway, whoever our visitor was, they knocked again, harder and more insistently than the first time.

“I hope you aren’t so naive you think that means they can’t find out. You’re not that naive, are you, Ms. Throckmorton?”

“Shit,” she said.

“Want me to get it?”

“I told you I can take care of myself,” she replied, but it came out even less convincingly than it had the night before.

“Fine. Then how about you answer the door before they huff and puff and blow the damned thing down.”

She rubbed at her forehead and glared at me.

“Hey, I was only joking.”

“Who is it, and what do you want?” she shouted at the door, her blue eyes still fixed on me.

“Ms. Smithfield?” a gravelly male voice shouted back.

“Ms. Smithfield?” I asked.

“I’ll explain later,” she muttered. Whoever was at the door knocked a third time. It was starting to sound like they were using a claw hammer on the wood.

“Yeah. Hold your horses. I’m coming.”

Selwyn threaded her way through the maze of books and boxes, relics and furniture, and when she reached the door, she peered through the peephole. There were three dead bolts, along with two sliding chains and a steel bar brace for good measure. She didn’t touch any of them.

“I told you never to come here,” she said.

“You promised a week,” the voice on the other side replied. “It’s been a week and a half.”

She looked over her shoulder at me. I raised an eyebrow and shrugged. She could take care of herself, right, and I wasn’t the one making promises I couldn’t keep—or couldn’t be bothered to keep.

“Don’t think he’s a happy camper,” I said, not the least bit helpfully. And that’s when she stooped down and opened an old cigar box only a foot or so from the threshold. What with all the junk, I hadn’t noticed it before. Selwyn took out a revolver, a snub-nosed S&W .44 Magnum. She opened the cylinder, checked to see that the gun was loaded, then closed it again. She slowly pulled the hammer back.

The way she held the gun, I could tell she’d never fired it.

“It’s been a week and half,” the man in the hall reminded her. “Mr. Snow is not a man of infinite patience. You assured him that you know the whereabouts of the Madonna.”

She had another look through the peephole. “You tell him there’s been a complication. You go back and tell him I’ll be in touch when I know more.”

I lit another cigarette and glanced at my gym bag, lying next to the sofa. But from what I could hear and smell, the man was just a man, and if worst should come to worst, I wouldn’t need the guns or the crossbow to stop him.

“That wasn’t the deal, Ms. Smithfield.”

“Hey, buddy,” I shouted at the door, pitching my voice low, filling it with anger and the assurance of violence. “Why don’t you listen to the lady and fuck off!”

Silence. Maybe thirty seconds of the stuff.

“You’re not alone?” the man asked. “Who is in there with you?”

Selwyn didn’t answer but only looked from the door to me and back again. I noticed she was holding it with its barrel aimed down towards the floor.

“You’re gonna blow your foot off,” I sighed. She licked her lips, then raised the pistol, pressing the barrel against the