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Excerpt
Bram Stoker Award ® Nominated Author
Need to hide something from the fae?
Got a tricky transdimensional delivery to make?
Need a big ball of magic that can destroy the world?
Call Black Box Inc.
The world as we know it is gone. Since the "extradimensional happening,” every creature, monster, and fairy tale goblin has turned Asheville, North Carolina, into their personal playground. An uneasy truce exists between the races, but Chase Lawter’s unique ability puts him squarely in the crosshairs of treachery, feuds, and monsters looking to make a buck on black market goods. Chase is the only known being who can pull material from between dimensions and shape it into whatever he likes—like boxes. Like boxes in which folks hide smoking guns and severed heads. Only Chase can hide the boxes, and only Chase can recover them from the Dim. All for a tidy sum, of course.
His crack team—a yeti, a zombie, and a fae-trained assassin—have his back. What could possibly go wrong?
Jake Bible, Bram Stoker Award nominated-novelist and author of the bestselling
Z-Burbia series, short story writer, independent screenwriter, podcaster, and inventor of the Drabble Novel, has entertained thousands with his horror and sci/fi tales. He reaches audiences of all ages with his uncanny ability to write a wide range of characters and genres. Other series by Jake Bible: the bestselling
Salvage Merc One, the
Apex Trilogy, the
Mega series, and the
Reign of Four series. Jake lives in the wonderfully weird Asheville, North Carolina. Connect with Jake on Facebook, Twitter, and his website: jakebible.com.
"It’s
fast. It’s fun. It’s
colorful, and it’s one hell of a good time. This was my first experience with
Jake Bible, but it won’t be my last.”
—The Royal Library,
spychocyco.blogspot.com on Stone Cold Bastards
".
. . fantastically amazing... I don’t even know what to say. I
was completely blown away... one of the best zombie books I
have ever read.”
—ContagiousReads.com on Little Dead
Man
"Morty
and company burst to life in your mind’s eye. As tension builds and the
violence becomes almost non-stop, it’s impossible to put down.”
—SciFi and Scary.com on Stone Cold Bastards
"You've never seen heroes like this before!"
—Bestselling author John Hartness on Stone Cold Bastards
1
I DIG TAPAS.
However—and I don’t feel like I’m alone here—I do not dig
tapas when a goddamn severed head is plopped down in the
middle of those small plates. The carne asada with ramp pesto (sounds
fancy, but ramps are a local thing in
Asheville) stopped being appetizing as soon as a small bit of severed-head-neck-gristle flew up to join the meat on the fork that was halfway to my mouth.
"You
gotta hide this for me!”
I
sighed and slowly put my fork down.
"Hey!
Lawter! Are you listening? I need you to hide this!”
Chappy
Reginue was a two-bit hustler who got himself into trouble pretty much every
other day. Not our usual clientele, but then usual isn’t our gig.
I
leaned back against the bench seat of my favorite table in my favorite restaurant—Taps
& Tapas. The menu had everything I needed, including a thick, dark stout
and bread that’s even darker. Everything was farm-to-table, handcrafted,
inspired by centuries of culinary masterpieces that span the globe, and priced
accordingly. All of which is great (except maybe the pricing), but I liked the
place because I needed a stiff drink and something tasty to go with it.
Severed
head is not tasty.
"Chappy,
you look upset, pal.”
"Fucking
A right I’m upset!” He practically shouted.
Several
of the patrons turned toward the disturbance. Asheville was known for its
characters and personalities, but they were tolerated out on the streets. Once
you got inside a nice joint like Taps & Tapas, folks tended not to be quite
as accepting. They expected their money to insulate them from the weird that
they’d experienced outside. Chaos was for the street corners, not their dimly
lit tables holding appetizers that cost as much as any entrée in town.
Chappy,
not one to care much for the nuances of tourism’s socioeconomic strata, stared
the gawkers down and flipped them off. "What the hell are you looking at?”
Lassa was also eyeing Chappy. He could break Chappy in
half if I let him. Lassa’s a seven-foot-tall,
three-hundred-and-sixty-pound yeti. But shaved bald so he can blend in.
We don’t ever tell him he doesn’t blend in. He hates that. The guy has pride.
And he doesn’t like his dinner interrupted any more than I do.
"Chase?”
Lassa asked, seated to my right. My favorite table was a booth in the back
corner, situated perfectly so our backs were against the wall and protected
while we kept an eye on the entrance.
"Not
yet,” I replied.
"He should lose an eye for being so rude,” Harper
Kyles said from Lassa’s left as she twirled a steak knife between the
fingers of her right hand.
Then the knife was in her left hand. I never saw the
switch. No one everdoes. She used the steak knife to tuck a stray dreadlock of her raven black
hair behind her ear and glared at Chappy with violet eyes. Her deep brown skin
allowed her to fade into the shadows of the restaurant’s low lighting, but
she’d leaned forward so Chappy could get a good look at the scars that filled her face like age lines. Except she was only
in her twenties and far from old.
She’s
human. We think.
"Maybe
both eyes.” Harper made a stabbing motion with the knife. "Pop, pop.”
"Sharon?”
I turned to my right. "Chappy is upset. He’s in a hurry. He ruined our dinner.
And he needs us to hide a severed head.” I studied the head for a second.
"Dwarf? Goblin? Kobold? What the goddamn hell is that, Chappy?”
"Kobold,”
Chappy said. "Royal blood. Worth more dough than I can even count, man.”
"So
that would be more than two, then,” Sharon said.
Lassa
and Harper snorted, then continued eating what was in front of them; blood,
gristle, and whatever else had fallen onto it be damned.
"Chappy has only ruined your dinner, Chase.” Sharon
Spaglioni frowned at
the man standing at our table. "I do not eat this cuisine, of course.”
Being
a zombie, Sharon doesn’t eat what the rest of us eat. Not that the place
couldn’t accommodate her. All the restaurants in the area have learned to adapt
since the extradimensional happening. It was either that or close up shop.
Tourism was no longer limited to the usual brainless human idiots looking for
the hip good time they were promised in some pretentious top-ten list.
Nah,
Sharon would have been eating with us, but the executive chef had wrung his
hands and informed her that the latest shipment of artisanal pig brains had
been delayed due to chupacabra attacks or some crap. Personally, I think the
chef, despite his incredible talents, is a fall-over, piss-his-whites drunk. He
probably forgot to order the brains. I’ll have to talk to the owner.
"What’s
the fee?” I asked Sharon. "Considering.”
"Considering?”
Sharon mused. She rubbed at her rotten chin and hummed along to the Cuban jazz
playing softly over the restaurant’s fine stereo system. "Minimum of five
thousand. But that is only to hide. The charge triples if there is any type of
transportation. That’s the base fee. Mileage and expenses would apply as
well.”
"You
want a hide job?” I asked Chappy.
"I
ain’t got five thousand!”
"What
do you got?”
"Two
and some change.”
"So
you have the five,” I replied, locking eyes with the loser. "Come on, Chappy. I
can smell a lowball when one’s standing in front of me.”
"You
mean slimeball,” Lassa said.
"Pusball,”
Harper added.
"Hairball.”
"Shitball.”
"Lintball.”
"Lintball?”
Harper frowned. "Lame.”
"I
couldn’t think of another one, dude.”
"You
two done?” I asked.
They
shrugged as a loud noise came from up front. Some commotion at the hostess
station. Since we were all the way in the back corner, we had some time for me
to squeeze Chappy some more before whatever was on his tail reached us. If
Sharon said five grand, then the fee was five grand. We all had our roles in
the company; hers was keeping us operating and solvent.
"Listen,
Chappy, I think you’re scum and have zero respect for you, but if you need me
to do a job, then I will treat you like every other client.”
"For
five thousand dollars,” Sharon added.
"What
the lovely lady said, pal,” I said and hooked my thumb toward Sharon.
Despite
the necrotic state of her body, she was actually quite lovely. I could only
imagine what she looked like back in her dimension when she was alive. She
would have been a looker. Before she was chased down by the undead that ruled
her world and turned into one of them. But that was the great thing about the extradimensional
happening. It not only allowed specific pockets of humanity on Earth to get a
glimpse into other places, but afforded those from other places the opportunity
to come here and start a new life.
In
her dimension, Sharon had been another rotting, shuffling brain junkie. But
here she was a brilliant, beautiful undead businesswoman with a knack for
keeping me, Lassa, and Harper from getting into too much trouble. She credits
her intelligence to all those brains she ate in her dimension, which didn’t do
shit for her intellectual capacity there, but seemed to kick in and up her
mental game exponentially in our dimension.
You
are what you eat.
"Five
thousand dollars and that dinner interrupting head goes good-bye. Never to be
seen again until you give me the order to bring it back,” I said.
"Sweet
Jesus, Lawter.” Chappy looked over his shoulder toward the four very large men
scanning the restaurant while an alarmed hostess tried to tell them to get
lost.
The
great thing about Asheville, North Carolina, was you could go into the fanciest
restaurant dressed in cutoffs and flip-flops and no one would bat an eye, but
if you were a dick, you’d be tossed out on your ass first thing.
The
fact that portals were now opening into other dimensions didn’t change the
unbreakable rule of service in our wonderfully weird corner of the world. We
were weird—and liked it that way, even before the portal. We had the ubiquitous
tourist-town street performers and buskers. But being Asheville, we also had
plenty of hippies with their nightly drum circles, men dressed as nuns and
riding ten-foot-high bicycles, free hugs and free love. A slice of the 1960s,
reimagined in the 1990s, then updated for the twenty-first century.
All of that brought money. Tourism dollars that began to
change the face of Asheville. Greed started to overtake weird, and everything
was going southfast.
Then
the portals to other dimensions opened, and the weird came back with a
vengeance.
Now,
if you’d ever read about a creature in some fairy tale, it existed and could
probably be seen walking Pack Square or by the Flatiron Building. The monsters
were real, and they wanted to buy overpriced grilled cheese sandwiches and even
more overpriced pints of craft brew, just like every other damned human
tourist.
And
if the creatures were dicks, they’d be tossed out on their asses, the same way
anyone else would.
"Tickety
tockety, Chapster,” Harper said as she chewed a green olive, then spat the pit
out into a small dish set halfway across the table. The pit landed dead center
with the other pits. Harper didn’t miss. She also never lost a fight. Like
never. Winning fights was her thing.
The deceptive part of our group was that Lassa may have
looked like the muscle,
but Harper was the real danger. Lassa handled transportation and logistics.
Harper handled security and protection. Having a seven-foot-tall yeti next to
her made Harper’s job easier. Everyone expected the attack to come from Lassa,
and they never saw Harper coming until the blade had already pierced flesh.
She
stared at Chappy like a house cat stared down a baby bird outside the living
room window. Except there was no window between her and Chappy.
"Fine,
fine, five thousand,” Chappy snarled at us. I knew he was well aware of
Harper’s role, and I had to applaud his sense of self-preservation, which was
about the only amount of sense the scumbag possessed.
"Do
you have the money on you?” Sharon asked. She opened her purse and pulled out
her phone, then a handheld printer. Always prepared. "We need payment upfront.”
"Yeah,
I have the cash on me,” Chappy said and shoved his hand into the front pocket
of his jeans.
He
yanked out a wad of cash and threw it at Sharon. I held up my hand as both
Lassa and Harper started to get up from their seats.
"We’re
good,” I said. "Chappy is upset. I’m sure he didn’t mean any disrespect.
Right, pal?”
The
four men up front caught sight of our table and shoved the hostess out of the
way, then marched toward us, ignoring the chaos and disruption swirling in
their wake.
"Chase?”
Harper asked. "What’s the call?”
We
held equal shares in our little company—Black Box Inc. But they’d gotten into
the habit of looking to me to make the call when necessary. Reminding them that
we were a team of equals had absolutely no effect on their behavior. I was the
de facto boss whether I wanted to be or not.
"No
fighting,” I said. "We talk this out. I’m not getting blacklisted here. Not
happening.”
"Hurry
up!” Chappy barked.
"Not
until payment is counted,” Sharon said, her gray fingers busily facing and
sorting the wad of cash that had fallen into her lap. "Give me a moment.”
I leaned in close to her and whispered, "We don’t have a
moment. Guess.”
"I
never guess when it comes to payment,” Sharon whispered back.
"Give
Chappy the benefit of the doubt. If he’s short, we’ll get the rest from him
later. With interest.”
"Twenty-five
percent,” Sharon said to Chappy.
"Twenty-five
percent what?” Chappy asked. There was a crash of plates hitting the floor,
and Chappy turned to watch the men charging toward our table.
"Twenty-five
percent interest on any amount you are short of the five thousand,” Sharon
stated.
"Better
listen to her,” I said.
"Fine!”
Chappy said.
"Then
we are good,” Sharon said and began typing into her phone. "I’ll prepare the
invoice while you make the box, Chase.”
"Order
another round of food and six pints of stout,” I said to Lassa. "Rush jobs
always make me hungry.”
Lassa
raised his hand to get the waitress’s attention. Wasn’t too hard since all eyes
were turned our way. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to see where the toughs
were headed as they slowly wound around the maze of tables crammed into the
space to maximize profit. Another reason I liked the place, no easy way to get
from one end to the other quickly.
I
took a deep breath and closed my eyes. It wasn’t hard to pull from the Dim when
in a hurry, I only wanted to put on a show for Chappy. I mean, I only needed a
small box. A head-size box. Piece of cake. Simply reach into that space between
dimensions and grab me some of the Dim to play with.
Boxes
weren’t all I could do with the Dim. I had a few more tricks. But, for the
moment, it was box-crafting time.
I opened my eyes, held my hands out palms up, and
proceeded to shape the
box. Smoke of the deepest black drifted up from my hands and took form. A thin
panel about one foot square was joined by a second and third panel as more
smoke came from my palms. Then I added a fourth and fifth panel.
"Sharon?”
I asked.
The
lovely Sharon gingerly picked up the kobold head and dropped it into the box. I
created the sixth and final panel, sealing the box right there, and the head
was gone. The box landed on the table like it was made of nothing. I scraped a
nail across the top and tore off about an inch of black. I held the inch up as
the four men arrived at the edge of the table. Two lifted Chappy off his feet
by his arms and the other two faced me.
"Give
us that key,” they said in unison.
Dopplers.
Ugh. I hate dopplers. They don’t look exactly identical like you’d think they
would, which is one reason I hate them. The name was derived from
doppelgänger. Doppelgängers should be identical. But dopplers aren’t. Close,
but there are enough slight differences in appearance that it becomes
distracting. Maybe they’re called dopplers because they share a brain via a
psychic link? Mental doppelgängers? Sometimes I want to punch whoever comes up
with these terms. But they came through the portals with the name attached, so
nothing to do about that shit.
Whatever
the origin of their name, all dopplers were moronic muscle of the worst kind.
The One Guy uses them exclusively, and I am not a fan of that gentleman.
"Sharon?”
I asked.
The
quiet sound of a laser printer ejecting a receipt was all that could be heard
over the Cuban jazz and the faint sounds of kitchen activity coming from the
very back of the restaurant. The entire dining room watched us.
Sharon
held up the piece of paper the printer ejected and said, "Could you hand this
to Mr. Reginue, please?”
The
two dopplers stared at her for a second, then one reached out, took the
receipt, and gave the piece of paper to Chappy.
"Thank
you,” Sharon said. "We are done here.”
"Hear
that, boys?” I said to the dopplers. "We’re done here.”
"Give
us the key,” the two said.
"No,”
I replied. "The key will belong to Chappy and Chappy only. He has a receipt to
prove it. Once I hand it over, the key will only work for him. When he gives
the key back to me, then I’ll retrieve the box and open it.”
"You
open it now,” they said.
"Listen,
pals, I wouldn’t be in business for long if I went around opening boxes
clients pay me to make to keep stuff safe that they don’t want guys like you to
get their hands on, now would I?”
It was a long sentence. It confused them. So, instead of
answering, the two lunged
for the box in the middle of the table. But I was faster. I snapped my fingers,
and poof—gone. The dopplers’ hands landed in the mess that Chappy had started.
I ended up with a good amount of goat cheese-smeared crostini with wild
blueberry jam on my face as one of the small plates was flipped end over end.
"Dammit,”
I muttered as I lifted my napkin off my lap and wiped my nose and cheeks. "I
hadn’t gotten to try that yet. Assholes.”
"There
was kobold on it,” Harper said.
"We’re
getting more anyway, remember?” Lassa waved at the waitress again.
She
looked frightened at first, then resigned, as she walked to our table. A person
had to get used to the unusual when living in this town. At least if that
person wanted to make any kind of living. And especially if that living relied
on tips.
"Yes?”
she asked, trying to ignore the dumbfounded dopplers sprawled across our table
and the ones still holding Chappy. "Can I get you anything else?”
"If
you could bring us one of everything again, that would be super,” Lassa said.
He
flashed his sharp-fanged grin and gave the waitress a wink. She pretty much
melted. When he’s shaved, Lassa is possibly the most attractive being on the
planet. He may have been an extradimensional being, but the guy set panties,
and boxers, on fire.
So,
in spite of those scary fangs (possibly because?), she melted.
"Are
the gentlemen staying?” the waitress asked, eyeing the two dopplers splayed
across the table as she managed to tear her eyes away from Lassa.
The
dopplers looked so sad and lost as they blinked at the spot where the black box
had been only a finger snap before.
"You
guys hungry?” I asked. "Thirsty?”
"Thirsty,
right, my bad,” Lassa said and reached out to pat the waitress on the forearm.
She shivered from head to toe. "Six pints of stout for Chase and I’ll have
another whiskey sour. Harper?”
"Bloody
Mary, extra bacon,” Harper said. "Two.”
"Two
portions of extra bacon?” the waitress asked.
"No,
I meant two Bloody Marys, but yeah, two portions of bacon per.”
"I’ll
eat some of that,” I said.
"I
figured,” Harper replied.
"I’ll
take a Bloody Mary also, if you have any congealed blood left behind the bar,”
Sharon said. "If my last drink, which is now dripping off the table, used the
remainder of your blood stock, then nothing for me.”
"I
believe we received a new batch of blood this afternoon.” The waitress didn’t
even shudder as she mentioned the congealed blood. A true professional. I
liked that. "I’ll get the food order in and then have the bartender work on
the drinks. And a towel. I’ll bring a towel.”
"A
couple towels,” I said. I stared at the dopplers. "Guys? Are you staying or
what? The nice waitress... ?”
"Brynn,”
the waitress said.
"Brynn
is trying to do her job, and you two acting mute is not helping.”
"No,”
the dopplers replied.
"Nothing
for them,” I said to Brynn. "Just our order, please.”
"And
the towels,” Sharon added.
"And
the towels.” I smiled as I spread my hands out. "Don’t worry. We’ll take care
of this mess.”
"I appreciate that, but I can get a busboy to handle it.
As for...” Brynn eyed the dopplers again. "Should I call someone?”
"They
are leaving,” I said. "Right, gentlemen? You don’t have any reason to stick
around, do you?”
The
dopplers on our table finally pushed back and stood upright. They tried to wipe
the food off their suits, but only smeared the crap around more.
"Good
job,” Harper said.
"They
should make a sitcom with only dopplers,” Lassa said.
"I’d
watch the shit out of that.”
"Watch
the shit out of a sitcom.”
"Shitcom.”
They
chuckled together, but their eyes were on the still-uncertain dopplers, and
their bodies were tensed, ready to do what needed to be done even though I’d
said no to fighting. They knew that my no was conditional. We were far from
being pacifists.
"Guys?”
I said to the dopplers as Lassa and Harper continued to grin. "You can go.
Really. We got a good mood right now. Don’t turn the mood into a bummer, okay?”
"We
want that head,” the dopplers said.
"What
head?” I replied.
That fried their psychic link. You could almost see the
thoughts feverishly trying to connect across their shared brains. But they
couldn’t quite process the question.
"We want the head,” they said again. "Tell us how to get
the head.”
I sighed.
"Guys, listen, I don’t talk about client business with
strangers,” I said. "I’m a professional. No one would hire me—.”
"Eh hem,” Sharon coughed.
"No one would hire us if I went around blabbing
confidential information to every moron who came drooling up to me,” I
continued, giving Sharon a pat on the leg. "My apologies, Sharon. Us.”
"Apology accepted,” she replied.
"We want the head,” the dopplers repeated. "Now.”
Lassa and Harper stopped grinning.
"And the mood is gone.” I shook my head and stood up.
So much for not fighting. Too bad.
Smoke shot from my palms and formed into thick, two-foot-long
rods. Rods that were good for the cracking of doppler heads.
"No!”
I sat my ass back down, as the main reason I liked this
restaurant flung open the kitchen door, letting the thump of the door
against a wall punctuate her order to stand down. My Dim rods poofed out of
existence, which confused the dopplers even more.
Iris Penn could only be called a force of nature. The owner
of Taps & Tapas was dressed in a black pencil skirt and black silk blouse,
buttoned perfectly so men noticed and women were slightly jealous, but not so
jealous they didn’t want to come back. Five foot six with gray eyes, black hair
pulled back into a simple ponytail, and more energy than a herd of pixies
hopped up on cotton candy, she was something to behold.
She was the main reason I insisted that the place be our
hangout when we weren’t at the office. The food was great, but there was a lot
of great food in Asheville. There was only one Iris.
"You do not shit where you eat, Chase!” she yelled.
And that mouth was the coup de grace for me. I hate to use
the word, but I was smitten. Smitten bad.
Iris? Not so much. I tended to be trouble, and Iris did not
like trouble. She liked order. She liked organization. She was a lot like
Sharon in that way, except Sharon preferred not to be the focus of attention.
Iris was always the focus of attention. Always.
"Does that need to be said?” Lassa asked. "Do humans have a
habit of shitting where they eat?”
"If they’re on the toilet,” Harper said.
"People do that? Eat on the toilet?” Lassa replied. "Dude,
that’s gross.”
"You two! Sit the fuck down!” Iris yelled as she stormed
over to our table. "I said sit!”
Lassa
and Harper looked at each other, confused.
"We
are sitting,” Harper said.
"Stay
that way!” she snarled. "Move an inch and I rip you a new one!”
"Iris,”
I said. "These guys were on their way out. I wasn’t going to do anything.
Lassa and Harper weren’t going to do anything. I promise.”
"Yeah,
you were,” Harper said. "So were we.”
"I
was intending on splitting open at least one skull,” Lassa said. "Perhaps
disembowel two of them. Maybe all of them. I haven’t performed a good
disembowelment in weeks.”
"What
about the Boulder gig last Thursday?” Harper asked.
"That
was hardly a disembowelment,” Lassa said. "I barely cut into that man’s belly
fat. Dude, a proper disembowelment has to include the ripping out of entrails.”
"Good evening, Iris,” Sharon said. "My deepest apologies
for all of this.Please add whatever you see as fair to our bill. We’ll invoice Chappy for
extra.”
"Me?”
Chappy cried.
"Really,
Chappy?” I said. "You want to argue the point? Here?”
"How
much we talking?” Chappy asked.
"I
want these thugs out of my restaurant. Now,” Iris snarled. "Now, Chase.”
"Okay,”
I said.
I
gave Iris my warmest smile. She gave me her coldest frown.
"Guys,
let Chappy go,” I said to the dopplers. "He doesn’t have what you want.”
"He
can get it,” the dopplers said.
"Not
right now, pal. I still have the key. I’m not going to give him the key unless
I know he’s out of your hands. After that, if you can catch him, he’s all
yours. Hand him over to the One Guy for all we care.”
"Once
he pays the invoice I’ll be sending him in the morning,” Sharon said.
"Yes,
we’d appreciate he pay that first,” I said. "But after that, you can rip him
limb from limb or whatever your boss wants done to him.”
Chappy
made a sound between a yelp and a squeak. A squelp?
The
dopplers thought hard on what I’d said. Man, it looked like they were in agony
as that one thought worked through them.
Then
they let Chappy go, turned, and stomped out of the place.
"Sorry,
folks,” I called out to the other patrons. "Round of drinks on me.”
There
was some cheering, a little bit of grumbling, and a raspberry noise in
response. At least I knew one local was in the joint. Locals expected two
rounds of drinks gratis. It was one of many unspoken rules locals have.
"Chase?”
Sharon asked.
"We’ll
bill Chappy for the round of drinks,” I said and decided what the hell. "Two
rounds on us.”
"Damn right,” a voice from the opposite end of the restaurant
responded.
"Excellent,” Sharon made a note in her phone to bill
Chappy for the drinks.
That
only left Chappy to deal with. I held out the key.
"They’re
gonna grab me, man,” Chappy said.
"Then
run. Fast,” I said. Chappy looked like a lost puppy. A mangy, disgusting,
creep of a lost puppy. "You want the key or not? We can hang on to it, but I’m
pretty damn sure we will have to charge you.”
"Let
me calculate the amount,” Sharon said.
Chappy’s
hand shot across the table, and he snagged the key. "No more fucking charges.”
"What
do you say, Chappy?” I asked.
"I
ain’t saying thank you,” Chappy snarled, then fled. Out through the kitchen.
Smart choice.
"Owner
lady is still here,” Lassa said sotto voce as we watched the kitchen door swing
closed behind Chappy’s scrawny butt.
I
dig that term. Sotto voce. Pretty damn sure Iris didn’t. The glare she gave
Lassa proved that. Not that the glare was on him long. Hard to stay too mad at
Lassa. He had that casual ski-bum vibe going for him. So, she rounded on me pronto.
"Right,
Iris, I am so sorry for all of this,” I said as a busboy came up and started to
clear away the mess.
Yeah,
not so much a boy as a ghoul. They were a short, hunched-over race. Gray
skin, ropy muscles. Stank of carrion. Hard workers, though. You could pay them
almost nothing, and they didn’t care. They pretty much worked for leftover
rotten meat. The meat had to be at least two weeks old, so payday was a bit
stinky, but you couldn’t beat kitchen scraps as wages.
Iris
was a master of the hard glare. Man, she was giving it to me good.
"How
about I make it up to you and take you out to dinner tomorrow night?” I said.
"You name the place. Doesn’t have to be here in town. I can get us to Charlotte
in ten minutes. I know a guy.”
"He
knows a guy,” Lassa said.
Lassa
was the guy. Transportation logistics and all that.
"Kiss
my ass, Chase,” Iris said and stormed off.
"This
is the time you pick to ask her out?” Harper said. "Chase, Chase, Chase.”
"Oh,
Chase, sweetie,” Sharon added.
"Want
me to go talk to her?” Lassa offered. "Warm her up a bit? I flash the pearly
fangs and she’ll be a little more receptive.”
"No,”
I said.
"I
don’t mind, man,” Lassa said.
"Drop
it.”
Our
replacement food started showing up. The drinks were right behind, and I
downed two stouts before the other four pints had been set on the table. Six
pints wasn’t gonna cut it. I knew that already.