Sleeping with the Fishes (19 page)

"Uh," Fred said. "What?"

"There wasn't," King said, looking startled.

"I thought you said it'd be cheaper to just dump the stuff straight to the harbor—"

"It
is
."

"—and
nobody'd
be able to tell it was us."

"They can't!"

That's true, Fred thought. They didn't have any hard evidence yet.
Which might be problematic.

"Before you get any wise ideas," she added, suddenly
very
glad there were two men on her side, and they were Thomas and
Artur
, "we told at least a dozen people about this today before we came over here."

"Your hair is still wet," King observed.

"Yeah, but—" She cast about for a convincing lie.

"Miscreant!
You admit your wrongdoing? Then be prepared to pay the penalty!"

Which
Artur
completely ruined.

"You guys are way too
mob
chic," Thomas said, staring at the men. "Don't even tell me you got laundered crime money to help you build the hotel."

"Of course I did," King snapped. "Where else would I have been able to raise the money so fast? Get the building up so quickly? Get around certain pesky rules and regulations on waste treatment?"

"He's only telling us this," Fred explained to
Artur
, "because he's going to try to kill us. Just so you know."

"Is that a custom in your world? Talking,
then
killing?"

"Yeah, I'd say so—Thomas?"

Thomas nodded. "That's the way we bipeds do it."

"You three, go wait in my office. I want to hear more about my ex. And you guys—wait!" For all the other men were standing, getting coats, grabbing suitcases, and generally making the noise of men about to leave. "There's no need to cut the meeting short. I've got charts that show just how profitable a whole
Sleepytime
chain, could be and there's no reason why we can't—"

"A chain?"
Fred gasped, horrified.

"We'll see how you handle this problem first," one of the shiny-suited men told him. "Then we'll be back.
Maybe."

Fred watched with relief as the mobsters left. She had no desire to explain to
Artur
about gunfights.
Or organized crime.

Phillip King opened the door connecting one room to the other and disappeared.

"I guess, he's going to his office," Thomas said.

"Then let us meet him on his own territory,"
Artur
announced, striding after him.

"Oh, yeah, I'm sure he just wants to chat," Fred muttered, following the men. Still, King was just one guy—a biped, as
Artur
would say—and there were three of them. She wasn't especially worried now.

She walked into a brightly lit office with blueprints plastered on every wall (no doubt plans for the mighty
Sleepytime
empire
) and looked at King just in time to see him point something shiny at them.

"Down!"
Thomas shouted, and batted her sideways so
hard,
she flew back into the conference room. At the same instant, or so it felt to her, there was a loud
bang
and a chunk of wood where her head had just been leapt from the wall and fell on the carpet.

Thomas shoved her under the table, yanked
Artur
down, and in a few seconds all three of them were crouched beneath the conference room table while King screamed things like, "I'm turning that whore's water zoo into a shit hole!" and "It's her fault I'm in debt up to my eyeballs!" and "Why couldn't she just look the other way like a normal wife?" Each rant, of course, punctuated with a gunshot.

"Uh…"

"He's nuts," Thomas said, squinting up from beneath the table. "And that is my professional opinion as a water fellow."

Her phone rang and, out of pure dumb habit, she flipped it open.
"Yeah?"

"Call the cops on that thing!" Thomas hissed.

"You bipeds and your odd loud weapons."

"It's possible," came Jonas's pant, sounding like he'd just run the two hundred, "that her ex is emotionally disturbed."

"
Now
you tell me. Say, could you send the police to his hotel, if it's not too much trouble?"

"Why? What'd you do to him?"

"Nothing!
Except possibly disrupt his illegal funding. But seeing as how he's
shooting
at us,
maybe
you could finish
boinking
my
boss
and
call
some
authorities
." She slapped the phone shut. "Jonas is calling the cavalry. I think.
Now what?"

"Well. It looked like a revolver to me.
Six shots.
I've counted four so far."

"Super.
A water fellow who knows about guns."
To
Artur
, "That means he has two left."

"Two what?"

"Two small pieces of metal which his weapon will hurl at us so fast, if it hits a vital organ it will kill us."

Artur
made a face.
"A distasteful way to fight."

"Hey, let's talk him into stopping, I'm all for it.
Any actual ideas?"

"We hope he fires off two more shots in his hysteria, which, if they're anything like the last four, won't come near us. We wait for the police and let them deal with it." Thomas was ticking their options off on his fingers. "Or we goad him into using his last shots. Or we try to take the gun away from him."

"Cowering in terror while we hope he wastes his last two sounds good to me," Fred said.

"Or you could goad him while
Artur
and I try to sneak in through the other door and jump him."

"
Naw
."

"Yes,"
Artur
said. "You excel at goading. And hiding does not befit royalty. Come, Thomas."

"Wait a minute!" Fred hissed. But they were already crawling to the other end of the table and slipping out the door. "
Dammit
!"

She thought for a second. Then took a breath and yelled, "Hey, King! Did I mention your ex is fucking my best friend?"

Long silence, followed by, "That's a lie. Barb's frigid. She hates sex."

"Sex with
you
, maybe.
Either that or my friend cured her because brother, she's already done it twice today. And it's not even…" She looked at her watch. "Three o'clock! Guess she's not missing you too much, huh?"

"Who's your friend?"

Fred wasn't sure which was scarier: when he was out of control and firing a gun at random people he'd just met, or when he was scarily calm and trying to think his way out of a hole.

"Put the gun down and maybe I'll tell you.
Heck,
put the gun down and I'll bring you to him.
Them.
Did I mention my friend—his dick is about a foot long, according to legend—gave Dr. Barb a makeover? She looks awesome. Did you know that dark blue is her color?"

"White is her color! She buttons her lab coats all the way to the top!"

"Not today, pal. Today I bet she doesn't even know where her lab coat
is
. You know how it is, young love and all that…"

King snorted. "My ex is a lot of things, but young isn't one of them."

Gotcha
.
"Well, maybe, but that doesn't bother my friend. He loves older women. Literally! As in, I'm pretty sure
he's loving
one right now. She's got to have fifteen years on him."

"She's fucking… a younger guy?"

"Multiple times," Fred assured him, no longer having to fake cheerfulness.
This is kind of fun. The guys were right: goading is my gift
. "I hope they're using birth control, because Dr. Barb's not exactly ready for the nursing home yet."

"She's on 'the pill' for her cramps," King replied absently.

"Oh, well, no bouncing babies for her right now. That's okay; with her career, and my friend's career, and all the hot monkey sex they're having, they
prob'ly
aren't ready for kids."

Silence.

And more silence.

Fred cautiously looked up and saw King framed in the doorway between his office and the conference room. He was pointing the gun straight at her. The barrel, from her standpoint, looked awfully big. She raised her hands and slowly climbed to her feet, thinking,
Damned
if I'm going to die on my knees
.

"I'm a big fan of shooting the messenger," he said. "And you're another frigid bitch, if memory serves."

"Why does that not surprise me in the least?"
Come on, guys, what are you waiting for
?

As if in answer to her prayers, the other office door splintered down the middle. But King didn't look around. He didn't even jump. Instead, he shot Fred with his last two bullets.

There were three things Fred would never forget from that afternoon.

Number one: When you're shot, you don't stagger dramatically backward or plunge out the eleventh story window. You just stand there.

Number two:
Artur
can break a man's neck with one effortless twist, and it sounds like the sound ice makes when you crunch it between your teeth.

And number three: Thomas carried a switchblade.

"Uh," Fred began, as King's body was falling, as
Artur
went red with rage, as Thomas was trying to get her to lie down. "I think I'm—uh—shot."

"You are shot, Fred.
Twice."

"Why are you pushing me?"

"Because I want you on your back while I'm getting the bullets out."

She removed his hands. "I really don't like the sound of that." She felt she was being calm and reasonable, and didn't understand why Thomas was as pale as
Artur
was purple. It didn't hurt at all. And the bad guy was dead.

"
Artur
!
That cabinet over there.
Bring me one of the bottles with either white or brown liquid in it." Thomas swept his foot beneath hers and knocked her off balance, then knelt on her chest to keep her on the floor.

There was the sound of glass breaking, and then
Artur
was kneeling beside her. "Will these assist you, Dr. Pearson?"

That's the first time
Artur's
called him Doctor.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Fred yelled, wriggling beneath his knee. "He's not a
real
doctor! I mean, he is, but he's not a medical doctor. He's a water fellow."

"I got my M.D. before I went back for my Ph.D. I just found out I had zero interest in triple shifts and other benefits of residency. I don't like working
too
hard to save people's lives."

"You sound like a real winner, doc."

"Fred, you're never sick. And you said you have an incredibly fast metabolism. So I'm betting your bullet wounds will be all healed over tomorrow." He wiped his blade on the carpet, and then on his pants.

Artur
was kneeling beside them and, at some odd prearranged signal she must have missed, suddenly tore her shirt straight down the middle.

"Hey!"

Thomas ignored her. "So we can leave the bullets in you, which would be bad, or we can take you to a hospital for removal, where they'll do all sorts of tests, which would be bad. Or I can take them out right here before they heal over." He unscrewed a bottle of Jack Daniels, thumbed the button on his switchblade, and poured booze
all the
knife and his hands.

"But—"

"Hold her down," Thomas said shortly and went to work.

Jonas and Barb were sitting at the bar in the Presidential Suite, drinking wine (eh, Thomas was rich, he could afford a bottle of Chardonnay) and having a perfectly nice chat about how they planned to spend the rest of their lives together, when the front door rattled.

"Fortunately we're fully clothed," Barb teased.
"Finally."

"I still say we should have gone over to your ex's hotel and caught the ruckus. I mean, there were a million sirens a while ago. I bet it was cool."

Barb shook her head. "If the police require a statement of course I'll cooperate. But best to leave things to the professionals."

Fred stomped
in,
looking like somebody had worked her over pretty good. Jonas was off the stool and on his feet before he was aware he'd moved. She'd been his sparring partner more than once, and taken full kicks in the face without
so
much as a bruise. But now Fred was wearing a blood-stained bra and her favorite (and now also bloody) pair of track shorts
..
And how many times did he have to beg her not to wear tennis shoes without socks?
Yech
.