Sympathy for the Devil (23 page)

"More 'glamour'?" she asked.

"Precisely."

"It seems you've thought of everything." She did not sound overjoyed at this fact.

"Everything including the brief stop you're going to make before you fetch the priest. Try a hardware store, if you can find one open. Although a big drugstore will serve, I expect."

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be dense, really I'm not. It's just that I've had a lot to absorb, in a very short time. What is it you want me to pick up?"

"Tools, of course. Materials to assure the cooperation of Father Bowles." The grin he gave her was something terrible to behold. "I would recommend a pair of pliers and a blowtorch. Perhaps a bottle of rubbing alcohol, too - you'll be amazed at the effect that has on freshly burned flesh. But use your own judgment."

"How long were you and Senator Martinez...
intimate
, Ms. Sorensen?" The big room was noisy from conversations in two languages, and the smell of Mexican cooking was overpowering - or it may have just been that Nestor Greene was unused to it.

The woman tossed blonde hair out of her eyes and gave Nestor Greene a crooked grin. "You mean, how many times did we fuck? It's hard to say, honey - I'd have to check my diary."

Greene leaned forward a little - whether out of sudden interest, or an increased desire to keep their conversation private wasn't immediately clear.

"You had a diary back then? And you've kept it?" Greene kept the eagerness out of his voice - there was no point in driving the price up. As it was, this bimbo was probably going to end up costing him a substantial chunk of Mary Margaret Doyle's money. But she might well be worth every cent. Especially if there was a diary.

"Sure I did," she said, as if asked whether the sun will rise tomorrow. "A girl has to look out for her future, ya know."

At this point in her life, the word 'girl' could accurately be applied to Ina Sorensen only in its broadest sense. She would see neither forty nor a size 6 again, and the years along the way had not always been kind - nor had her use of tobacco, alcohol, and, doubtless, other substances, softened the blows of Father Time. Judging by the old photos he'd seen of her, she had tried to compensate at some point by having her breast implants replaced by larger ones, but Greene found the total effect less erotic than pathetic.

"What I was asking," Greene said, "was over what period of time were you Senator Martinez's mistress?"

She gave a snort of laughter. "
Mistress
? People still say that?"

Greene shrugged. "Some do. The
Washington Post
, for one. So - how long were you fucking the Senator?"

"See? I knew you could speak English, if you put your mind to it," she said. "He wasn't Senator then, though. Just a State Rep."

"I'm aware of that. It doesn't matter."

Her brows furrowed in concentration. "Well, I worked for his office for just over three years, and I'd been bangin' him pretty regular for about six months before that. So, what's that, three-and-a-half years?"

"Just about. When you worked for him, what was your function?"

"My function?" She gave Nestor Greene a look that village idiots everywhere must get very tired of. "My 'function' was to fuck him, suck his cock, and let him do me up the ass when he was in the mood. Fortunately, he wasn't in the mood for anal too often." She leered at him for a moment. "He's a pretty big boy, Ramon is - know what I mean?"

Greene nodded. "I meant, what was your function in his office?" he asked. Greene worked in Washington, D.C., after all - he was used to dealing with whores of all kinds.

"I just
told
you that, honey. Well, we did it in his office once or twice a week, anyway. Ramon seemed to get a real charge out of screwing me on top of his desk. After everybody went home, I mean."

"What was your
job description
?" Even Nestor Greene's storied patience could fray at the edges.

"No need to get snippy," she said. "My job title was 'Secretary II,' I think. They didn't have a name for what my real job was. Not in the civil service manual, anyway."

"Did you perform any... regular work there at all?"

"Nope. I can't type, and I don't know how to file. Only time I was there was after hours, when Ramon wanted to play 'Boss and Horny Secretary' in his private office."

"Where did you usually have sex, apart from his office?"

"My place. I had a nice little apartment, just off Tenth St."

"Martinez paid the rent?"

"You bet he did. Santa Fe ain't a cheap place to live."

"Did he just give you the money, or pay the landlord directly?"

"He used to write checks, payable to the company that owned the building. Couple of times, he wrote out a check and left it with me, and I'd drop it off at the realty office the next day."

"You don't happen to remember which bank the checks were drawn on, do you?"

She shook her head. "Nope, sorry. I can't remember stuff like that. Not back that far."

"No, I imagine not."
I bet you remember the serial number of the first hundred-dollar bill a man ever gave you
,
you greedy cunt
.

"But I made Xerox copies of them, before I paid the landlord." Ina Sorensen shrugged. "Like I said, a girl's gotta think about her future."

Chapter 22

"It may be a while before I actually
get
another job," Morris said, changing lanes to pass a tractor trailer. "Word's probably been getting around that I've 'retired.'"

"You've been turning down work?" Libby said. "What a great day for the Forces of Evil." She smiled as she said it, but only a little.

"I've tried to farm out as much as I could. Refer clients to some folks I trust."

"Really? I don't you recall sending any to
me,
" she said, with a touch of mock indignation.

"Yeah, I know. Sorry about that. Nothing came along that I thought might be in your line, really. And, besides..." Morris made a face. "I guess I couldn't stand the idea of you working with anybody else but me."

"Awww." Libby laid a gentle hand along the side of Morris's face for a second. "So, if not me, then who have you been giving referrals to?"

"Well, there's Anita. I sent a couple of people her way."

"Oh.
Her.
"

Morris gave a snort of laughter. "You said that the way I bet Dracula used to say 'Van Helsing.'"

"Not for the same reason."

"She's good at what she does, Libby."

"Well she
used
to be. But from what I hear lately, she's more interested in
who
she does than
what
, if you know what I mean."

Morris grinned at her. "Moral judgments, Ms. Chastain?"

"I'm not a prude, Quincey, you know that. But if the stories are true..." She shook her head.

"Different strokes. In Anita's case, I grant,
very
different. And lots of them. But she's not the only option. A few months ago I came across a lady in the business who I hadn't been aware of. And I thought I knew everybody."

"Really?"

"Name's Jill Kismet. Lives in New Mexico. Superbly trained, and tough as nails - toward the bad guys, anyway."

"I'd like to meet her, sometime. She sounds a little like our old friend Hannah Widmark, rest her soul."

Morris bit his lip for a moment. "Um, yeah, about that."

Libby turned and looked at him closely. "What?"

"I meant to tell you, but with all the drama since you got here - which is my fault, entirely - I clean forgot. Thing is, I got kind of a funny card, last Christmas."

"Funny ha-ha, or funny strange?"

"Definitely on the strange side," he said. "Paris postmark. On the outside of the card, it just said
Peace,
with a little image of the Eastern star underneath. Inside, it was blank, except where somebody'd written,
S. Clemens was right about those
rumors
. And it was just signed
H
."

There was silence in the car. Then Libby said, "Samuel Clemens was the real name of Mark Twain. And Mark Twain once said - or wrote, I forget which - 'Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.'"

"Yep, he surely did."

"Dear Goddess," Libby said softly. "Hannah's
alive
? How can that be possible?"

"Well, her body was never positively identified, we knew that. Everybody - every
thing
- in Grobius's compound was pretty much burned to a crisp. And nobody could find any dental records on Hannah to make an ID that way. Maybe she had perfect teeth, and never needed a dentist."

"But, as you just said, everything there was incinerated. You barely escaped yourself."

"Yeah, and even I got a little souvenir on my neck to remind me of the experience."

"I wish I could do more to help you with that, Quincey, I really do. But burns are really hard to treat, even with magic. It's specialist work, and even then it doesn't always succeed. In fact -" Libby stopped speaking suddenly.

"What's wrong?" Morris asked.

"I was just about to say that the Sisterhood has a medical facility that has been doing some good work in developing treatments for burn victims." She looked at Morris. 'It's just outside Paris."

"Well, now. I just wonder..."

"Hannah knows the Sisterhood pretty well, after Idaho," Libby said. "And vice-versa."

Morris rubbed his chin for a second. "I reckon if Hannah
is
alive and wants to get in touch again, she will. Maybe she doesn't want any visitors. Could be she was scarred a lot worse than I was."

"Well, I think I'll start sending a few prayers in the general direction of Paris every night. Couldn't do any harm," Libby said.

"I think I'll say a few myself." Morris tapped the fingers of one hand on the steering wheel. "Actually, I suppose it's possible I could have some work in the offing. Remains to be seen."

"Really? Do tell."

"Before we left, I got a call from a guy I know named Masterson. His first name's Hugh, I think, but everybody calls him Bat."

"Like the Old West lawman?"

"Exactly. This one's a lawman, too. I first met him when he was a cop in Ohio, but these days he works for the U.S. Secret Service."

"What does he want you to do," Libby said, "help him protect the President?"

"He's not guarding the President these days. They've got him protecting some Senator who's
running
for President.

"So, what does he want you for? To help keep an eye on this Senator?"

"He didn't say. He did tell me that he's come across something that's 'really fucking weird,' to use his words, and he wants to talk about it. He's flying in tomorrow."

Libby was quiet for a few seconds before saying, "Are you sure you're ready to go back to work, Quincey? Emotionally, I mean."

"I think so, since you've helped pull me out of that downward spiral I was in. It was a good week, Libby. Thank you."

"You're quite welcome. You're pretty good at Scrabble."

"Not as good as you."

"Nobody is," she said. "In the absence of Scrabble, try to keep up with the meditation - it's a far better stress reliever than booze, drugs, or sex."

"I hear you. Anyway, Bat coming out doesn't mean I have to jump back into work, if I don't think I'm ready. The guy just wants to talk. I mean, how bad can it be?"

An hour or so later, as they lay in a tangle of sweaty sheets and scattered pillows, Ashley said lazily, "You don't smoke, do you?"

"No, I don't." Peters glanced at her. "Does that mean you do?"

"Not really," she said. "But the image of the two of us lying here smoking just seems so cinematically perfect. Very French New Wave."

"I don't know how a cigarette, or anything else, would make what just happened more perfect than it was."

She rubbed his bare leg. "More flattery. I love it. You show promise, Peters."

"So, what's the deal?" he asked her. "Does Astaroth run an escort service as a sideline?"

She laughed lightly. "Not quite - although I
am
here at his bidding."

"Did he, um, hire you? Are you a professional escort?"

"No, honey. In that regard, I retain my amateur status. I'm here more in the nature of a favor."

"Oh." Peters thought for a while. "So, you do favors for Astaroth? Have you... known him long?"

Her voice was suddenly cold and bleak as she said, "I've known him a very, very long time."

Peters wasn't sure what he ought to say to that. Before he could come up with something appropriate, she said, in a more normal tone, "He didn't explain his motives to me all that clearly, but it is unlike Astaroth to have one simple reason for doing anything."

"Yeah, I have no trouble believing
that
," he said.

"One purpose of my little visit is pretty obvious, I think. I'm here as a reward. You've been working quite diligently on this little assassination project, I understand, and Astaroth decided some recreation was allowed. I trust you will agree that I am
first-class
recreation."

Peters was shaking his head. "Nope, I'm not buying it. I know enough to understand that the words 'gratitude' and 'demon' don't go together. Not ever."

"I'm not suggesting that Astaroth is motivated by benevolence. That
would
be a stretch, wouldn't it? No, it's just that he considers himself something of a behaviorist."

Peters closed his eyes for a moment. "Now you've really lost me."

"Motivation, sweetie. Stimulus-response. Fear is a fine motivator, but Astaroth believes the stick is more effective when combined with a carrot, and furthermore - why are you laughing?"

Peters clamped down on the laughter, which threatened to rise into something very like hysteria. "Sorry. I was just having trouble viewing you as a root vegetable."

"Oh, you'll find that both are good for you, if eaten on a regular basis."

"So, that's it? You were sent to give me the best sex of my life because I've been a good boy?"