Blind God's Bluff A Billy Fox Novel - By Richard Lee Byers Page 0,56
was spooning globs of whipped cream on top of some kind of parfait. Her face turned funny when she saw me coming. It was like she was scared and relieved at the same time.
“Time for your break,” I said. I took her by the forearm and led her to the start of the dark, dusty section where she’d hidden the finheads. “Now hand it over.”
Unlike her buddy out at the desk, she didn’t try to play dumb. She reached inside her tuxedo jacket and brought out the handkerchief with the drop of my blood.
I stuffed it into my hip pocket. “Now the pipes.”
She blinked. “They’re all I have from my family.”
“At this point, do you think I give a rat’s ass?”
She brought them out.
I reached to take them, and then, like somebody flipped a switch, I was just sick of the whole situation. Even with a damn good reason, it was just no fun being mad at her.
“Never mind,” I said. “Keep them. Just don’t use them on me anymore.”
She tucked them away. “Thank you.”
If I was going to go soft, I might as well mush out completely. “Have you heard from Georgie? How is he?”
“He’s all right. The Ones Who Linger are almost impossible to kill. I guess that if Death decides he doesn’t want you, it’s hard to change his mind.”
“Good. I’m glad he’s okay.”
“I’m glad you are.”
I snorted. “Said the woman who helped bury me alive.”
“I know it must have been awful, but I swear, it was to keep you safe as much as anything. Did you rescue Victoria?”
“Yeah. She’s all right, too.”
“Good.” She took a breath. “Look, I know you don’t have any reason to believe this, but I really am sorry.”
“I believe it,” I said, and it was true. I could hear regret in her voice and see it in her face.
But maybe she didn’t believe me, because she kept on in the same way. “It was wrong, especially after you helped Rufino. It made me no better than Timon.”
“Come on. That’s not true.”
“All I can say is that I won’t to do anything like that again. I can’t promise for the others, but I can for me.”
“Thanks. And not that it’s worth anything, but I wish I was the guy who has the fix for everybody’s problems. That would be nice.”
After that, we kind of ran out of things to say. And so, even though I didn’t feel much like dealing with Timon, it didn’t seem like there was much point in putting it off any longer.
I found him on the mezzanine as usual, with Gaspar guarding the door to the meeting room. When I walked in, he was sitting with a deck of cards spread out on the table in front of him, and holding one up right in front of his face. He turned in my direction, sniffed three times, then showed it to me.
“Is this the five of hearts?” he asked.
“Deuce of diamonds,” I replied.
“Damn it!” he whipped the card at the floor, and I got a better look at the wet lumps in his eye sockets. I could make out pupils now, though they weren’t the same size or completely round. I could also see speckled streaks where irises were trying to separate out from the whites.
“Even if you could make the cards out when you hold them that close,” I said, “it wouldn’t be good enough. You need to be able to see them when they’re in the middle of the table.”
“I know that!” he snarled.
“So why torture yourself? Are you that desperate to get back to the table? There’ll be other games.”
“Not like this one. Not if you don’t win!”
“I am winning.”
“So far. But where were you this afternoon?”
I sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does if you were off making a deal with one of the others. And how do I know if you won’t explain yourself?”
“Fine,” I said, and told him the story, sort of. I left A’marie, Georgie, and Lorenzo out of it.
Unfortunately, the edited-for-TV version left Timon frowning. He might look like a pile of greasy rags and smell like ass, but he wasn’t dumb. “That story doesn’t account for all your time,” he said.
“Sure it does. Vic and I had to wait a long time at the clinic.”
He leaned close to me and sniffed. “You smell of graveyard earth.”
Shit. “All right. I didn’t tell you everything. But you don’t need to know the rest.”