We were in and out in a half hour, and the clerk, a somewhat pimply faced high school kid, didn't even ask to see my ID. I filled out the form with total lies, and we walked out with a little web capable phone. As soon as we got to my truck, we plugged in the charger to my USB port I had replaced the cigarette lighter with, and turned it on. Two minutes later, Sophie was on the web, loading her mail. "The service here really sucks," she said as we drove down the road. "I mean, this thing is loading slow."
"Well, what can you expect for a hundred dollars. Probably the phone's cheap as hell too. Glad you're good with a stylus."
Sophie nodded, her head stilling as she loaded her message. "Mark, pull over."
"What is it?" I asked, pulling into a dry cleaners and putting the truck in park. "What's wrong?"
Sophie handed me her phone, which had an e-mail message up. "They took Tabby."
Miss White,
If you're reading this, then you've decided not to disappear as completely as I'm sure Mr. Snow advised you to. Our benefit, your mistake. We have Miss Williams with us, staying as a guest of our organization. She would like to have you come visit her. Even though we keep telling her that it can't rain all the time, she insists that you are the best person to help her. We tend to agree. Just remember Sophie, this is the really real world, there ain't no coming back. If you wish to visit, give Tabby's cell phone a call, she'll be happy to pick it up. We know you must feel like a little worm on a big fuckin' hook right now, but hey, are we having fun or what?
Friends of Mark Snow
"What's with all the cheesy lines?" I asked as I handed the phone back. "Nobody I worked with talked like that."
Sophie nodded and sighed. "A sign that they actually have or know Tabby. Back when we were in college Tabby went through a bit of a Goth-lite phase. She watched that old Brandon Lee movie The Crow at least twenty or thirty times on her computer, to the point that we could both quote lines to each other constantly. Last time I was over at her place, she still had a Brandon Lee poster and a copy of the DVD."
I didn't want to tell Sophie what I knew, which was that for any of the senders of the e-mail to get that information, they most likely tortured Tabby for it. I reached across the table and took her hand in mine. "What do you want to do?"
Sophie squeezed my hand and looked me in the eye. "Can you save Tabby?"
I thought it over, then nodded. "Maybe. I'd need some help and some luck though."
"If you can't save her, what can you do?" she asked quietly, her eyes intense and her mouth tight. I squeezed her hand and looked her straight in the eye.
"If I answer, and you ask me to, you'll never be the same," I replied. "I'm not joking at all. I told you, I've got my own little corner of Hell on reservation. I'm willing to deal with that. Are you?"
Chapter 8
Sophie
I looked Mark in the eyes, and spoke from my heart. "You've done a lot of wrong things, Mark. They may not have been innocent, but you still helped men even more evil than the ones you handled to get stronger. You built up a huge debt, my love. And I will love you, no matter what. But in my opinion, you need to start paying off that debt. I don't know if you can ever fully repay it. We can start by saving Tabby, and making those bastards pay. If that damns me alongside you in the process, so be it."
We were on the road back within fifteen minutes, Mark letting me drive while he napped in the passenger seat. He hadn't slept at all the night before, even after the exhausting sex, staying awake to keep watch over me. I kept my eyes glued to the road, letting Phil Collins keep me company for the next three and a half hours back to the city. I pulled off across the river from the Tunnel, filling up on gas and waking Mark up. "Okay, we're close to the city now. Where do you want me to take us?"
"I'll drive," Mark said, yawning and stretching. He did a few jumping jacks, squats and other exercises while the gas filled up, and chugged a huge black iced coffee after we paid. "I'd go for a Monster or a Rockstar, but they tend to leave my hands jittery. That is not what I need right now," he explained as he grimaced and shot gunned the rest of the cup. He pulled into the driver's seat and started up the engine, pulling back into traffic. As he drove, he talked.
"I set up around the city five different bases of operation in addition to my condo. Three of them I used on a regular basis, the fourth I used rarely, and the fifth I set up, but never went to after initial setup. It was my emergency base, the one that I prepared for one reason only, and that was betrayal from inside the Confederation. We'll be going there, it's the safest place I know in the city."
"Where is it?" I asked, watching as the Tunnel gave way to Central Avenue. "And how do you know it is safe?"