I’m talking about. I feel very bad about having to kill her, because she’s such a nice lady who has her heart in the right place, but I need to cover my tracks.”
“We know what you did, Goodfellow,” I said. McGoo and I both kept our weapons aimed directly at him. “We’ve got crystal-ball security camera footage that proves you murdered Snazz the gremlin, and we know you killed Maximilian Grubb in the office.”
“Yes, I killed them, but it was for a good cause.” Goodfellow blinked at us, apparently baffled that we didn’t understand. “You aren’t seeing the forest for the trees here.”
I spoke for all of us. “I’m confused.”
Still ready to smash Jerry’s heart and soul on the cement, Goodfellow said, “The gremlin would have revealed that I’d bought all the hearts and souls if you tempted him enough. I couldn’t allow myself to be in that position. The whole Quarter would suffer if people stopped thinking of me as a good person. Do you believe altruism, benevolence, and philanthropy comes easy to a person? What kind of freak do you think I am?”
Mrs. Saldana squirmed and tried to shout something through the sock. Her face was screwed up in an expression of distaste, either from the sour foot sweat or from the revelations Irwyn Goodfellow was making.
“You have to understand,” he continued, “I’m really a rotten guy inside—bad blood, you might say—but I just didn’t like myself. After the falling piano almost killed me, I vowed to change. There’s no law against self-improvement. I should be commended.”
Considering the murders Goodfellow had already committed, I was glad I’d never met the unimproved version.
“But I masked my predilections by buying up other people’s hearts and souls, which gives me all the kindness and generosity I need. I’m an artificially good person, but a good person nevertheless.”
Robin was appalled. “You can’t just buy kindness and generosity from other people! That has to come from inside yourself.”
“That’s what the books say, but I didn’t have time for that. I’m a busy, important man. I needed a shortcut. After my epiphany, I knew I needed to do good works—I really did!—but altruism and good intentions weren’t enough. I needed to stack the deck.” He snickered. “Missy was so embarrassed, she convinced me to use her assistant Angela as a proxy, a buffer so that I wouldn’t put another white mark on our family name. And Angela didn’t mind the overtime.”
He gave us his warm-fuzzy smile. “After I bought the first heart-and-soul combo pack from the pawnshop, I felt so positive, so happy with a rush of kindness! I realized that was the key. And look at all the good I’ve done since then. I put in a standing order with Snazz and started buying all the hearts and souls I could get my hands on. That way, I truly felt the joy of giving.”
McGoo kept his revolver pointed at Goodfellow as he stepped into the storage unit. “Well, the joy’s over. You’re under arrest for the murder of Snazz the gremlin, the murder of Maximilian Grubb, and kidnapping—for starters.”
“I can come up with a lot more,” Robin said. “Give me a few minutes.”
Goodfellow let out an exasperated sigh, growing more impatient with how thickheaded we were. “But those other people didn’t deserve their hearts and souls. They pawned them—they were practically new, barely used!”
“Jerry pawned his heart and soul so that Mrs. Saldana could do good work,” I said. “And now he wants them back.”
Goodfellow’s face twisted with rage that we could be so dense as to continue threatening him. “Well, he won’t get it back if I smash this jar on the floor! You are going to let me walk out of here, free. Give me a small plane so I can fly off to a small country that doesn’t extradite . . .”
“Yeah, we’ll get right on that,” I said with a snort.
“Oh, never mind, that’s too much trouble. I’ll just use one of the Smile Syndicate travel agents to set it up. But either way, you can’t stop me. I am getting out of here.”
“Not gonna happen, Goodfellow,” McGoo said.
“Then I’ll shatter the jar—and you know what happens when you suddenly release a contained soul?” His eyes glittered. “There’ll be nothing left of this whole storage complex except a giant glassy crater.”
McGoo hesitated and glanced at me. “Is he right?”
I shrugged. “Hell if I know.” I looked at Robin. She didn’t know, either.
The corrugated metal wall in the back of