“All right,” Burt said. “Jesus, will you lay off? I’ll talk, but you ain’t gonna like it.”
“I don’t handle disappointment well, Burt.” I tapped the glowing ember tip of the blasting rod down on his countertop for emphasis. “I really don’t.”
Burt grimaced at the black spots it left on the countertop. “Skirt comes in asking for bloodstone. But all I got is this crap from South Asscrack. Says she wants the real deal, and she’s a bitch about it. I tell her I sold the end of my last shipment to Caine.”
“Woman pisses you off,” Murphy said, “and you send her to do business with a convicted rapist.”
Burt looked at her with toad eyes.
“How’d you know where to find Caine?” I asked.
“He’s got a discount card here. Filled out an application.”
I glanced from the porn to the drug gear. “Uh-huh. What’s he doing with bloodstone?”
“Why should I give a crap?” Burt said. “It’s just business.”
“How’d she pay?”
“What do I look like, a fucking video camera?”
“You look like an accomplice to black magic, Burt,” I said.
“Crap,” Burt said, smiling slightly. “I haven’t had my hands on anything. I haven’t done anything. You can’t prove anything.”
Murphy stared hard at Decker. Then, quite deliberately, she walked out of the store.
I gave him my sunniest smile. “That’s the upside of working with the grey cloaks now, Burt,” I said. “I don’t need proof. I just need an excuse.”
Burt stared hard at me. Then he swallowed, toadlike.
“SHE PAID WITH a Visa,” I told Murphy when I came out of the store. “Meditrina Bassarid.”
Murphy frowned up at my troubled expression. “What’s wrong?”
“You ever see me pay with a credit card?”
“No. I figured no credit company would have you.”
“Come on, Murph,” I said. “That’s just un-American. I don’t bother with the things, because that magnetic strip goes bad in a couple of hours around me.”
She frowned. “Like everything electronic does. So?”
“So if Ms. Bassarid has Caine scared out of his mind on magic . . .” I said.
Murphy got it. “Why is she using a credit card?”
“Because she probably isn’t human,” I said. “Nonhumans can sling power all over the place and not screw up anything if they don’t want to. It also explains why she got sent to Caine to get taught a lesson and wound up scaring him to death instead.”
Murphy said an impolite word. “But if she’s got a credit card, she’s in the system.”
“To some degree,” I said. “How long for you to find something?”
She shrugged. “We’ll see. You get a description?”
“Blue-black hair, green eyes, long legs, and great tits,” I said.
She eyed me.
“Quoting,” I said righteously.
I’m sure she was fighting off a smile. “What are you going to do?”
“Go back to Mac’s,” I said. “He loaned me his key.”
Murphy looked sideways at me. “Did he know he was doing that?”
I put my hand to my chest as if wounded. “Murphy,” I said. “He’s a friend.”
I LIT A bunch of candles with a mutter and a wave of my hand, and I stared around Mac’s place. Out in the dining area, chaos reigned. Chairs were overturned. Salt from a broken shaker had spread over the floor. None of the chairs were broken, but the framed sign that read ACCORDED NEUTRAL TERRITORY was smashed and lay on the ground near the door.
An interesting detail, that.
Behind the bar, where Mac kept his iceboxes and his wood-burning stove, everything was as tidy as a surgical theater, with the exception of the uncleaned stove and some dishes in the sink. Nothing looked like a clue.
I shook my head and went to the sink. I stared at the dishes. I turned and stared at the empty storage cabinets under the bar, where a couple of boxes of beer still waited. I opened the icebox and stared at the food, and my stomach rumbled. There were some cold cuts. I made a sandwich and stood there munching it, looking around the place and thinking.
I didn’t think of anything productive.
I washed the dishes in the sink, scowling and thinking up a veritable thunderstorm. I didn’t get much further than a light sprinkle, though, before a thought struck me.
There really wasn’t very much beer under the bar.
I finished the dishes, pondering that. Had there been a ton earlier? No. I’d picked up the half-used box and taken it home. The other two boxes were where I’d left them. But Mac usually kept a legion of beer bottles down there.