At least Ignition, the lounge on the edge of the casino, was open for business. A bar circled a central pylon, and plush chairs and two-seater tables radiated out all around it like the ripples of an explosion. Slow lights shifted across the cherry-red carpet, painting the tourists in simulated fire, while chimes and shrill melodies burst from the gaming floor.
Caitlin came in two minutes after me and disappeared into the crowd. She’d be there, watching. Close enough to move if Harry pulled his gun? Probably not, so I’d just have to make sure he didn’t. Or if he didn’t leave me any other choice, take him down before he got the chance. I found an open couple of chairs, staked my territory, and got as comfortable as I could. I looked around, taking it all in. The construction made me think of the American, my own little piece of Vegas. The principal construction was done and now it was all down to the detail work before our grand opening. Details, and the liquor license I still didn’t have. I almost got lost in minutiae, making mental lists of the calls I needed to make, the cash I had to shuffle around to make this opening happen, when I spotted my guest pushing through the smoked-glass doors.
Harry Grimes had shed some of his rock-star flamboyance from the party. He’d traded the skintight leather pants for battered jeans and thrown a tank top on. One arm was still sheathed in blue Viking runes from his shoulder to his wrist; apparently the tattoos were real. He swaggered to the two-seater and dropped down across from me. Before I could get a word out, he held up two fingers to a passing waitress.
“Jack,” he said, “neat.”
“Jack and Coke, please,” I added.
He snorted at me as she headed to the bar.
“A real man doesn’t have to cut his liquor.”
“A real man drinks what tastes good,” I told him, “and doesn’t worry about what other people think.”
“Oh, you care. You care plenty. Client told me that little crazy act at your party would rattle you good. You were all twisted up, not sure how to come at me. And in the end you buckled, just like they said you would.”
“Let’s talk about your client,” I said.
“Let’s not,” he shot back. “I’m a professional.”
“A professional would have taken me out. I showed you my back and you stood down.”
“As if I was going to make a move in the middle of that crowd?” He laughed at me. “They would have torn me to shreds. I needed you to swing first. That’d leave my hands clean. Us lowly cambion have to abide by the letter of the Cold Peace, after all. Even when it means the higher-ups can do whatever they want, up to and including hunting us for sport.”
“Is that what this is about?”
“Not your problem to worry about. Oh, no, Daniel Faust, a pure human, not one drop of demonic blood, and you get a knighthood.”
“That’s what this is about.” I sat back in my chair. “You’re jealous.”
“Wrong. I don’t want a damn thing you’ve got.”
The waitress came around. We stared in silent détente while she drew the battle lines on the laminated table between us, laying down napkins and drinks. Harry didn’t move a muscle. Apparently, I was buying. I paid cash, added a ten on top, and told her to keep the change.
“Do you even know who I am?” I asked him.
“Sure. You’re the hound’s pet human. Oh, and you think you’re a tough guy because you’ve got half the gangs in this city ready to fight for you. And that’s your problem. You’re insulated. You’re fake.”
“Okay.” I sipped my drink. Tiny icebergs clinked against the glass, floating on a caramel sea. “First of all, I’ve never described myself as a tough guy. If people want to put that label on me, that’s their problem.”
He looked down his nose at me. “Got that right.”
“Second of all, is that all you know? Do you even remember me? From the Wellness House.”
“You kidding me, man? That’s why I took this contract, once I saw who the target was. Once I saw how soft you’d gone…biggest disappointment of my life, right there.”
I shook my head at him, feeling like I’d lost the plot.
“How do you mean?”
“You stood up for me in that shithole,” he said. “More than once.”
Memory tricks again. I only remembered the one time, but I’d take his word for it. Felt like something I would have done, at that age.
“Sure,” I said.
“You remember what you told me? I was this sniveling, pudgy little nothing, and you took me aside and said that unless I started standing up for myself, unless I started punching back, those guys would keep jumping me.”
“It’s good advice.”
“You told me that I had to stop being afraid—afraid of losing, afraid of getting hurt—that I should take all that fear and get angry. Get so angry that I didn’t feel anything but angry, and then hurt those fuckers. Fists, teeth, fight with anything I had, any way I could. Cripple them if I could. Kill them if I could get away with it.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, “I wasn’t exactly healthy back then. We were kids in a bad place.”
He waved an incredulous hand at me. “See? That’s what I’m talking about. Why are you apologizing? You were right.”
“I wasn’t right. Yes, you should have defended yourself, and I’m glad you did, but that was some messed-up stuff to say to a twelve-year-old. I didn’t know any better back then. I do now. You can’t let anger rule you; it’s a tool, not your master.”
“I got out, and I hit the road.” He tossed back a swig of Jack. The five-o’clock shadow glistened above his lip. “Found out that philosophy worked everywhere. Stoke the anger in me, put the fear in everybody else. If somebody got in my way, bang. If somebody stepped to me, bang. Turns out, when you’re a genuine, no-nonsense tough guy, the world’s your oyster. You can take anything you want. Do anything you want.”
He raised his glass to me and pounded back the rest of his liquor.
“And I owe it all to you,” Harry told me. “You made me the man I am today.”
34.
The waitress came around and Harry ordered a second glass of Jack, neat. I was still nursing my first drink. Not that I didn’t want it—and two or three more chasing right behind the first—but I needed to keep my head on straight.
“See,” he told me, “when I realized how pathetically neutered you are, I said to myself, ‘he’s gotta go.’ It’s like putting down your pet dog when he gets too sick to walk. Has to be done, and after what you did for me back in the day, I wouldn’t want anyone else to do the job.”
“You’ve got a weird definition of ‘neutered.’”
“Do I? You didn’t get that knighthood because you’re tougher than anyone in Sitri’s court. You got it by sleeping your way to the top. And this ‘New Commission’ garbage? So, what, you sit behind a desk and send other people to commit crimes? What kind of bullshit is that? That’s no way for an outlaw to live. And don’t get me started about how your little friends come running every time the heat is on, all ready to bail you out.”
The casino vents gusted cool air across the backs of my hands. My fingers tightened, ever so slightly, on the leather arms of my chair. I felt like I was wearing a jacket of ice. Buried deep underneath, a serpentine vein of angry heat started to pulse. And grow. I took a slow, deep breath, keeping it under control.
“The party,” he said, “that was all the proof I needed. After I talked shit about you, your girl, and your entire court? A real man would have thrown hands right there on the spot. You’re weak.”
“Have you ever heard the phrase ‘when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail?’”
Harry squinted at me. “What about it?”
“You said you hit the road when you got out of the Wellness House. I’m guessing you didn’t have a family to go back to.”
“Not one I wanted to go back to. I stopped back a few months later, just for one night. Just long enough to thank my dad for all that ‘strong parental discipline’ he showed me for so many years, and my mom for letting it happen.”