“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.”
“I didn’t shoot anyone.”
“Yeah, it was the wrong caliber. I checked. Besides, the kid said it wasn’t you, it was some freak chasing you.”
“What do you know about the freak?” I asked.