My antennae went up with the readiness of a radar system locking onto a mark. “Where?”
He chuckled. One thing you had to hand the guy. He didn’t let the stresses of this job get to him. “Well, you are not going to believe this, hermano. That pinche guey with the dissolving jaw posted his resume on LinkedIn.”
It was as though Slayer were speaking Russian. Linking a resume? Did sicarios even have resumes? “What the fuck is that?”
Slayer closed his eyes with patience. “LinkedIn. It is a very lame and corny place where only pinche gueys would bother going if they want to network with other pinche gueys in a business atmosphere.”
I sort of got the picture. But not really. “So he posted his resume?”
Slayer guffawed. “Yes, isn’t that unbelievable? But not under the name Phil Din, naturally. He used the name Jim Fell. Ladies, ladies. Not now.” He smiled indulgently at the snatches in the background who had become bored with each other. They draped themselves over his shoulder, causing his handheld camera to shake. Another minute was wasted while he set his phone on a table and detached the women.
I was snorting with exasperation by then. “If he used the name Jim Fell, how’d you know it was him? Did his resume say ‘expert in ordnance, military grade weaponry, and snuffing out innocent people’?”
Slayer was suave. “Of course not. No, this gilipollas went ahead and”—he closed his eyes while he held his stomach and chuckled with mirth—“he goes ahead and—”
“Slayer.”
His eyes popped open. “Oh. Sorry. He goes ahead and posts his photo to LinkedIn.”
Even I had to laugh at that one. “His photo? Good one. That mug is a one in a billion.”
“Yes, you could easily tell it was him from the way the inside of his mouth was showing on the outside. Have you ever seen his forearm? It seriously looks like someone applied zombie makeup. You can see through to bones and tendons. Who would hire someone who looks like that? Hard to believe someone can still be alive and look that bad. He was wearing one of those narco polo shirts.”
We were both silent for a few seconds, the implication being that Phil Din would not be alive for much longer. There was no loss in that. The life expectancy for a Krokodil addict was two years at the outside.
“Okay, so how does this help us figure out where he is?”
Slayer once again chuckled jovially. “He mentions in the comment section that he’s currently staying at the Atomic Inn in Beatty, Nevada.”
“Beatty? Didn’t we pass that on the way up?”
“You are correct. It is exactly an hour and forty-one minutes north of Vegas. So I need not add, you must act fast. I will send you the phone number he posted, although it only pings off the nearest cell tower which, in Beatty, Nevada, of course is of no help.”
The implication was that Din was hot on my trail too, since he’d moved from Pure and Easy to Beatty, directly in the path to Winnemucca.
I said, “The Atomic Inn is good enough for me. I owe you one, Slayer.”
“Pshaw,” said Slayer, making a gesture of wiping the slate clean. “You can show me a good time next time I am passing through Winnemucca.”
Indeed, the Kindly Sicario hung up then without any more fanfare, and I was left staring at a blank screen.
Spinning around, I looked for Pippa. Of course, she was nowhere in sight. Could I fucking blame her? She was probably on the phone to her handler giving him my cell number, real name, and license number. Hell, she was probably going first thing in the morning to the FedEx office to send him my Ben Wa ball for fingerprinting.
But there was no fucking need for that since I’d given her my real name. What an asshat. I strode quickly back to the bonfire which was showing signs of flaming out now. The charred skeleton of the Harley started to crumble. I saw Tuzigoot and Brunhilda, and Faux Pas and Sapphire, but none of them had seen Pippa. Ploughing on ahead, I asked Ford and Maddie, Speed and Tess, coming up empty-handed. Where the fuck had she gone between stalking off in a rage and now?
I backtracked, rooting through a few bars that fronted the square. I found Wolf Glaser and Tracy playing pool with Roman and Gudrun. Nothing. If anyone had seen Pippa it would have been Tracy, who seemed to be her new bestie.
I had to get the fuck out of town, get down to Beatty before Phil Din got the drop on me. One last thing I did was ride to the motel where someone had booked a block of rooms. No Pippa Lofting. No Flavia Brooks, no single woman anywhere.
Who the fuck hadn’t I spoken to? I ran through the Bare Bones roster in my head. I’d seen Russ Gollywow practically humping some Bone Licker in a different bar, different pool table. Sax Saxonberg and Bee had been waiting in line at a roach coach with the late-night munchies. Kneecap had been in the same line, looking like he’d gone back for thirds. Who the fuck hadn’t I seen? I could think of no one.