******
Las Vegas: The Mirage
It was late afternoon by the time Ray and Angel got back to Vegas and had dinner at an all you can eat buffet. At first he tried to keep up with her, plate for plate, but gave it up after the fourth helping. She could eat like a bastard. It was a good thing, he thought, that she was so frigging active, otherwise she’d look like a balloon.
After dinner they’d gone down to the police station and tried to get an interview with Dagon, but the local donut chokers went coy on them. They wanted an order from Ray’s superior, and since Ray didn’t particularly want them to know who his current superior actually was, they left the station saying they’d come back. But they didn’t.
They didn’t know where the kid would be for at least a day, so the only constructive thing Ray could think of was to try to get Angel into the sack, but it would have been easier to break into maximum security to interview Dagon.
Ray lay in his bed in the Mirage alone, trying hard not to think of Angel on the other side of the connecting door. It had been a long, not very productive couple of days. Sure, he’d gotten to kick some ass, but those frigging Allumbrados had managed to get away with the kid, Peregrine was laying in a hospital somewhere with tubes stuck into her arms, and as yet he hadn’t even managed to get a chuckle out of Angel, let alone a civil word.
That Witness, though...
Ray added his name to the list of jerks whose ass he’d like to kick. He didn’t like the way Angel had looked at him when they’d first come face to face. He especially didn’t like the way the pretty boy had treated her. It’s one thing to best someone in combat. It’s another thing to humiliate them. Ray hated bullies, and it was clear that this Witness was one.
But maybe Angel had learned a lesson. She’d done okay after initially putting herself in a hole by letting the Witness get the upper hand. Ray had thought about stepping in to even things up a bit, but he knew how he’d feel if someone had done that to him. It wouldn’t have made him happy.
And speaking of being not happy, Ray thought. He leaned over to the phone, suppressing a groan as his still unknit ribs scraped against each other, and got an outside line. He dialed a number he knew well, and it was picked up on the second ring.
“President Leo Barnett’s office.”
“Alejandro?” Ray asked. Of course it was the kid. Who else would answer in that irritatingly perky manner? “Gimme Barnett.”
There was a brief silence. “Uh, sorry, mis—uh, Billy. No can do. He’s in closed conference with Sally Lou.”
Ray was about to ask, At this time of night? but instead grinned sourly at the phone. “Is that what they’re calling it now?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” Ray said. “Listen, you been following events here?”
“Yes, sir,” the kid said. “President Barnett’s not real happy.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve smiled more in my life,” Ray said. “What’s the latest news?”
“There’s not much in the way of recent developments. It’s not general knowledge, but we found out that Peregrine’s husband had her flown out of Vegas on a medivac Lear, back to New York. Thought they could do a better job for her at the Jokertown Clinic than in the Vegas hospital. John Fortune’s still missing. So’s his bodyguard.”
“His bodyguard’s a shapeshifter,” Ray informed the kid. At least, it seemed likely from the info he’d gleaned from Osiris’s tale. “So I figure he impersonated Butcher Dagon—who’s in a Vegas lockup —and took off with the kid.” Ray frowned into the phone. He had to keep his kids straight.
“Well, that’s something,” his kid said. “What happened to Dagon?”
“I kicked his hairy ass,” Ray said. “Angel helped,” he added, to be fair.
“Boy, she’s something,” the kid said.
“You got that. Listen. Tell Barnett that me and Angel are taking the first flight tomorrow morning to Tomlin.”
“How come?” the kid asked.
“We have a line on Fortune,” Ray said. “Something that weird old fart Osiris told me. He’s not sure where Fortune is right now. He thinks he may be in New York City—which at least narrows it down a little. But soon the kid—Fortune, that is, is gonna show up in some summer camp in a whistle-stop called New Hampton, just north of the city. Angel and I will be there to meet him.”
“Okay,” the kid said. “You got it, Billy. Gee, I wish I could be with you and the Angel doing something useful instead of sitting around here in the office while President Barnett takes meetings.”
Ray shook his head. “No you don’t, kid,” he said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this one. Besides, I’m not really sure we could use your talents. Yet.”
“Ah, it’ll all work out fine, Billy. You’ll see.”
“Yeah.”
“But you and the Angel be careful, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Say Hello to the Angel for me?”
“Yeah.”
“Good ni—”
“Good night, kid,” Ray said, and hung up. He still had things to do, and he didn’t want to spend twenty minutes getting off the phone. He called the airport and got reservations for two on the first plane in the morning headed east. It was an early flight which didn’t leave much time for sleep. He sighed, called the desk for a five o’clock wake up call for him and Angel both, and settled back down on the bed. He wasted most of the night thinking about Angel in the room next to his, while his body went about the business of repairing itself, muscle, bone, sinew, and nerve.
It was quite used to that, by now.