"I see," I said, tapping the button to my recorder again, stopping the recording. I had what I needed. "Still Knave, you seriously fucked up. Now, I'm not the sort to be overly vindictive, despite my reputation. So I'm not going to kill you."
I could hear the relief in Pressman's voice as he exhaled, followed by a quizzical tilt of his head. "If you're not going to kill me, then what?"
"Well, you've got a job I want you to do," I said. "You're going to go to Sal, and tell him everything we talked about tonight. Tell him that Tabby Williams is protected, plain and simple. Next time she gets messed with, I kill five Confederation soldiers for every scratch on her body. If any of Owen Lynch's men mess with her, I kill five Confederation men and five of Lynch's men, so make sure the message is passed along."
"Okay, okay, I can do that," Pressman said, nodding like an eager puppy. He was just glad he was going to survive the night. I could understand the sentiment. He had a few things going for him. First off, my reputation was never as being always a killer. I had let victims go before. I was an enforcer, a person who applied force, not just a killer.
"I'm not finished," I said, pulling out my dart gun from my coat again. "Next thing is, you are going to retire. In fact, I'm retiring you tonight. Hold still, this might sting a bit otherwise."
I shot Pressman in the chest with the dart before he could ask what I meant. The dart was much larger in dose than the first one, a special concoction that was based a bit on LSD, a bit on the drugs used in chemical castration, and a few other darker items that I wasn't sure were in the list of drugs any pharmacist or doctor in the city knew about. I saw Pressman's head roll back and forth as the hallucinogenics started to take effect, and I pulled the last item from my jacket, a carefully prepared and designed mp3 player with headphones that I taped in. I then injected another syringe of the mix into his right thigh, just to make sure there was enough to do what I wanted. I hit the play button on the player, and walked out, locking the door and closing the security grate behind me.
Chapter 11
Tabby
When Scott didn't call me Sunday morning like he said he was going to, I at first wasn't worried. After all, we'd basically spent the past three days together, and I was still physically exhausted from our passionate lovemaking the day before. I was so exhausted, in fact, that I rolled over and stretched my arms over my head for the first time at nearly eleven in the morning. The sun was shining, and I swore I could hear songbirds twittering outside my window. All you need is some violin music and you sound like a fairytale princess, I said to myself. God it's good to be in love.
The words stunned me. In love? Already? I mean, I know the last few days were amazing, but love? Was I really in love with him after just three days? I lay back and closed my eyes and knew the answer. If I wasn't in love, I was already ninety-nine percent of the way there, that was for sure. I'd never felt that way about anyone, man or woman, before.
The thought made me smile, and I lay there on my sofa for a good ten minutes, a silly little half smile on my face. I was tempted to just lay there, sure that my prince would come and find his willing lady lying ready for him on the couch, but after about twenty minutes, my grumbling insides forced me up and to the kitchen. A girl has to eat, after all.
I finished slicing up the apple I had found when I saw that both of my cell phones were flashing. I'd missed at least one call, and most likely from Sophie, since she was the only one who had that number. I opened my regular phone, and saw that not only had she tried with her Sophie Warbird phone, but also with her old Sophie White phone. Concerned, I immediately picked up the secure phone that Marcus had given me and called her back.
"Sophie, it's Tabby. What's wrong?"
Sophie's voice sounded both tired and concerned. "Tabby, we need to talk. Can I come over to your apartment?"
"Sure," I said, looking around. "I can have this place kinda ready for company by the time you get here. Anything in particular we need to talk about?"
"That would be better discussed in person,” Sophie said. "So please, just you and me, okay? I'm coming over alone."
"All right, see you when you get here," I said, hanging up the phone. While her tone of voice somewhat concerned me, I was still so over the moon about Scott that I barely heard her tone of voice. Instead, I flittered around my apartment for the next twenty minutes or so, making sure my stuff was kind of picked up, and eating my apple as I did. I had just tossed my crumpled up jeans into the hamper when Sophie knocked on my door.