Technomancer (13 page)

My eyebrows shot up. Right away, I was wondering why Robert had vanished. Was that what she wanted to happen? I didn’t voice the thought, but she caught the look in my eye.

“No!” she said. “It wasn’t like that! It only works with things that are very close—it has a short range. And you have to be thinking about what you want—and most importantly, it only changes small, physical things. Like dice or cards.”

I nodded. “Sounds useful in Vegas.”

“Right. But not if you overdo it. There’s one other critical thing. The bad side. The ring makes others around you have
bad
luck.”

“Ah, I see. That’s why I was losing so badly, hand after hand.”

“Sorry,” she said.

“No problem. I started betting on you and made all the money back.”

“You also alerted security. Now, tell me the story of these sunglasses.”

I did so, as best I understood them.

“What’s the downside?” she asked when I was finished.

I shrugged. “As far as I know, there isn’t one.”

She stared at me and shook her head slowly. “There’s always a downside. Robert told me that in no uncertain terms.”

Frowning, I took out the sunglasses and rotated them slowly with my fingers. I wondered what evil these were doing without my knowledge. I supposed it couldn’t be too bad, like giving me cancer or something. Tony had seemed to live life fully enough—at least up until its abrupt ending.

I decided to try not to overuse them, all the same.

I’d gotten as much out of Jenna as I could, and it didn’t make sense for me to stay, not with her stretching out semi-provocatively on the king-sized bed while she drank coffee. Besides, I had things to do, and she was devoted to that hotel room, still convinced Robert might come back or call her—if he wasn’t dead.

“Thanks for helping out, and for being a gentleman about it,” she said as I left, and that made me feel good. She’d promised to stay put and I’d promised I would report back if I found out anything.

I called a cab, shelled out a twenty from my thick roll of bills, and got a ride to an all-night convenience store. It took me three stops, but I finally found one with disposable phones. I felt eyes on me as I entered the store, but put it down to nerves.

The convenience store was typical of its breed, but, typical of Las Vegas, had lottery tickets in unusual abundance
and variety. There was a slot machine in the store, an old one that let you play draw poker for a quarter. I smiled at that. People would pay money to play a repetitive card game against a computer—as long as they thought they had a chance of winning money. Gambling was a powerful incentive.

I located the phones, called “dealer phones” on the street, near the poker machine and pulled one off the rack. No point in trying to get a real cell phone. I had the feeling I wasn’t going to impress anyone with my burned-down house and lack of identification at a cell phone store.

That’s when a casual glance toward the cloudy front window sent a chill through me.
A shadow, quickly moving away.
I was definitely being followed. The question was, who was doing the following? Cops? Rostok’s goons? Bill collectors? I had no idea, but despite the fact the streets were nearly empty at dawn, I’d been seeing that same blue Buick at every store I went to.

Rather than heading back out to the street, I asked the kid behind the counter if he had a bathroom.

“It’s only for employees,” he said. He was a tall kid with the triple whammy of braces, glasses, and acne.

“I’m gonna puke. Long night.”

He looked at me unhappily. I still had some healing cuts on my face and I had been up all night long. I looked the part of a sick tourist who’d overdone it in Sin City.

“All right,” he said, sighing. “There’s a key hanging behind that little sign beside the door.”

I walked toward the back without thanking him. I’d heard a door crumping closed outside. Apparently, my stalker felt I’d taken too long in here. I ignored the bathroom and the key, and instead put on Tony’s shades. I twisted the stockroom’s locked door handle. The door rattled, groaned, and
then opened. I walked inside and let it click shut behind me. One bad thing, I realized, was I couldn’t lock the door again behind me. The shades got me through locked doors, but they opened them for everyone else too. Not ideal when being pursued.

I found the exit that led into the alley behind the place, threw the door open, and stood to one side of it. I snapped off the lights, stepped behind the open door, and froze. I waited there, barely breathing.

It took a full minute. This guy wasn’t too bright, I surmised. Eventually, he found his way into the stockroom. I peeped around the edge of the door with one eye. The glare from outside hid me from the intruder’s point of view. I didn’t recognize the face, because I didn’t see one. He had a mask on. My heart thudded when I saw his hands. There was blood on them, and they held a dark object. A gun? Was he really here to rob this place, or to get rid of me?

I stared at his hands and the object in them. Yes, it was a gun. But that wasn’t why I kept staring for an extra second or so. It was that hand. It was gray, and it had ridges on the back of it. No—they were more like spurs. Curved, bladelike hooks that resembled tiny shark fins.

I stayed behind the door while he trotted past and out into the alley. I imagined him out there—whatever he was—looking around in confusion. He didn’t say anything, not even muttered curses. I pushed the door quietly shut behind him. The door clicked and he was locked out, as I hadn’t used the sunglasses on this one. Like most alley doors at the back of convenience stores, it locked automatically when you closed it.

He didn’t make a sound. He didn’t say a word. I’d expected cursing, but I didn’t get any. The door handle rattled vigorously, however. When he gave up on that, an odd,
spitting sound erupted. He must have had a silencer. I’d been ready for him to shoot through the door and hadn’t stood in front of it. Bullets punched holes through the steel, leaving three white circles of light.

I ran back out into the store. I found the kid who’d been nice enough to let me into his bathroom. He was lying in a bloody pool. I sighed and frowned. I hadn’t meant for that to happen. I touched his neck and felt a thready pulse. He might make it. I called emergency as I left, dropping the phone I’d bought into a trashcan after I reported the shooting. I took a fresh phone off the rack. The cops would be hunting for the one I used to call in the shooting, and I’d already answered enough of McKesson’s questions.

The alley didn’t open up anywhere close to this store, which left the gunman outside a long run around half the block to get back here. Deciding I had a bit of time, I grabbed a box cutter from the counter and sank the right front tire on the blue Buick. Then I got back into the cab, which had been patiently waiting for me out front. I’d been feeding the driver twenties as we drove around town, and cabbies were like stray cats when you fed them twenties.

The driver wasn’t happy with me when I climbed back into his cab, however. “No way, man,” he told me. “I saw what you did in my mirror. That tire is going all the way down. Get out and walk.”

I thought about pulling my gun on him, but he’d never done me any harm. If it came to that, I would rather shoot it out with the asshole in the alley. So I tried cash instead.

“Two hundred bucks, two miles,” I said, “but decide fast.”

“Crazy mother,” he muttered, then gunned the cab.

I gave the driver Holly’s address and we were flying down the street in seconds. I figured if I’d been followed from the casino hotel, Holly’s place was safer. As we left, I sank down
in the backseat, looking this way and that for the gunman, who had to be truly pissed by now after his little jog around the block. But I didn’t see him.

A few minutes later, I stood on Holly’s doorstep in the pink glow of dawn, the cab hauling ass away behind me. I’d asked the cabby to wait, but I couldn’t blame him. He knew trouble when he saw it.

I tapped on the door and waited. After half a minute, I did it again. Still nothing.

After the fourth set of knocks, I put on my sunglasses and twisted the knob, which squeaked as the lock relented. I let myself in.

“You’ve got balls,” Holly said, standing inside in a long pink T-shirt and little else.

“People keep telling me that,” I said, smirking. I could tell she’d heard my knocks, checked the peephole, and decided to take a pass. I didn’t hold it against her. After a long night, I probably looked like hell.

She had a tattoo on her bare thigh I hadn’t noticed before. It looked like a hummingbird hovering around a flower. Right then, I thought I wouldn’t mind watching her pole-dance. It must be quite a show.

“What are you doing back here?” she asked. “At frigging daybreak, no less?”

“Sorry,” I said, “but I’ve got new information and I was wondering if I could crash here. I’m dead tired.”

“Get a room. You’ve got the cash.”

“Hotels in this town want plastic.”

“Not the crappy ones.”

“OK,” I said. “I shouldn’t have come.”

Holly stared, then shook her head, sighing. “OK, you might as well come in, since you have already turned my lock into Jell-O.”

“It will turn back, as long as the lock hasn’t been twisted to an impossible position,” I said.

“I know that.”

After ten more seconds of hesitation, she finally stepped out of the way and let me in. I sank onto her couch with a sigh.

“Look,” she said, standing over me with her fists on her hips, “we both have Tony’s money, and we had a nice chat yesterday. But we aren’t roomies. You got that?”

“Yeah.” It was a good pose for her, so I admired the view.

“What did you do, anyway, kill somebody?” she asked after staring at me suspiciously for a few long seconds.

I squirmed a little. I must have had that kind of look on me, the look of a hunted, worried man who was grateful to be in a relatively safe place. I had to wonder how often she’d seen it before.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

Holly began rubbing her temples. “I don’t believe this,” she said.

“You got any beer?” I asked, knowing that she did.

She got me the beer and slammed it down on the coffee table. “You’re like one of those bums my mom used to let move in with us,” she complained. “I never should have fed you.”

I chuckled. I drank the beer and ate the open bag of chips she tossed onto the couch beside me a minute later. The beer was lite and a little warm. The chips were half-stale, but I was hungry. After a breakfast of champions, I fell asleep on her couch.

Coming to her place and crashing was becoming a habit—one I didn’t half mind.

I woke up to the sound of a ringing phone. It wasn’t a traditional ring, nor was it a traditional phone. It was a cell phone, and as I blearily opened my eyes, I saw it was buzzing on the coffee table.

I groaned into a sitting position and reached for it. Holly showed up and snatched it away.

“It’s mine,” she said.

I shrugged, leaned back, and stretched. I looked for a clock and found one on the TV set, which decorated one wall of the apartment. It was four thirty in the afternoon. I’d been out for a long time.

“Hello? What?”

I looked at her curiously. She stared back.

“I don’t believe this,” she said. She handed me the phone. “It’s for you.”

I took the phone and looked at it dubiously. Who knew I was staying with Holly? I wasn’t happy that
anyone
knew I
was here. My last unknown contact had fired three rounds through a door to kill me. I thought about waving the phone away, but she’d already blown it by handing it to me.

I put the phone to my cheek. “Hello?”

“Draith? It’s McKesson.”

“Of course it is. How’d you know I was with Holly?”

“You were both at the Tony Montoro event. Call it a lucky guess.”

I frowned at his use of the term
event
to describe a murder. “What do you want?” I asked.

“Were you at the liquor store this morning?”

I hesitated. I kicked myself for that hesitation. “What liquor store?”

“That’s a confession in my book. The kid lived, in case you wanted to know.”