not—then maybe it’s just as well I’m getting a good look at you now. Give me the handheld.”
“What for?”
“I want to take some pictures and upload them to my photo-hosting site.”
Why the hell not. I took it out of my jacket and dropped it on the carpet by her.
“Do what you like, Trix. If you really, honestly think I was talking about us, when the whole conversation had been about the job…then fuck it. I’ll get my stuff and find a hotel. And you can do what you like. This is a stupid argument. You’re talking yourself around in circles and I just want to get done with this job that has scared the shit out of me and go back to some semblance of a life. With you, if you can get past the fact that it’s you I care about and not the endless parade of assholes, freaks, and crapsacks I meet every day. Without you, if you really believe my lack of love for the animal-humping community is a good enough reason to throw us away. I’m going out for a walk. You do what you like.”
Chapter 45
I walked for an hour before I realized I no longer remembered what I was so pissed about. By which point I was totally lost and had no idea how to get back to the house.
So I lit up a cigarette (and I knew I was smoking too much), slowed down, and just strolled for a while, to see where the broad sunlit streets led me. Every now and then I stopped at a corner and looked around for a cab, reminding myself each time that I wasn’t in New York and that this wasn’t a civilized city.
Occasionally, a private car would go by, and I’d see faces pressed to the windows, staring at me like I was an alien. It eventually hit me that I was the only pedestrian I’d seen the whole time I was pounding the sidewalk, and that I stood out like a cheerleader in Riker’s.
I just walked. After a while, houses gave way to low, broad industrial units. I stopped on a corner to light another cigarette, just because I really was in that kind of a mood. It took me a moment to register someone yelling at me. I was about to yell back that smoking was still allowed outdoors when I realized the guy doing the shouting, standing at the entrance to the nearest industrial building, was waving an unlit cigarette. He was stocky, midthirties, glasses, and a Star Wars T-shirt that looked like it’d been printed when the first one came out. He was scratching at his short brown hair like a little monkey that’d been kept in a cage too long. I wandered over.
“Please tell me you’ve got a light,” he said in a strangled voice. “My lighter died and I swear no one in the entire building smokes anymore.”
I flicked my lighter and cupped the flame for him. He sucked at his smoke like a dehydrated kid putting a straw to a lake. None of the smoke came back out of him, as if his body had just absorbed the entire load. “Thanks, man. I was dying. People always said these things would kill me.”
“No problem.”
He stuck out a stubby-fingered hand. “Zack. Zack Pickles.”
“Mike McGill.” I nodded at the building. “This your business?”
“Yep. Welcome to the Farm.” He had a goofy, childlike grin that made me kind of like him right off the bat.
“What kind of business?”
“Internet business. You?”
“I’m a private investigator.” I laughed as he instantly turned paler than ghost shit. “Relax. I’m not from around here, I’m already on a case, and I never heard of you. I’m staying with a friend of a friend…hell, somewhere back over there, I’m a little bit kind of totally fucking lost at this point. And it’s a lost property case. So, you know, go me. You can restart your heart now.”
“That obvious?”
“’Fraid so. Whatever your business is, I give you my word I couldn’t care less.”
He blew out a breath, sagging in his skin. “Jesus. This is why I don’t leave the server room. You’re from out of town?”
“Manhattan.” I struggled my wallet out and gave him one of my few remaining business cards. The ones that survived going around the washing machine six weeks earlier. “The trail led me here, though I don’t hold out a hell of a lot of hope. And, well, I think I just fucked things