Eight Million Ways To Die

And I could have talked to Calderón before he did his disappearing act. I'd asked for him on my first visit to the hotel, then forgot about him when he proved temporarily unavailable. Maybe I couldn't have gotten anything out of him, but at least I might have sensed that he was holding something back. But it didn't occur to me to pursue him until he'd already checked out and headed for the woods.

My timing was terrible. I was always a day late and a dollar short, and it struck me that it wasn't just this one case. It was the story of my life.

Poor me, poor me, pour me a drink.

During the discussion, a woman named Grace got a round of applause when she said it was her second anniversary. I clapped for her, and when the applause died down I counted up and realized today was my seventh day. If I went to bed sober, I'd have seven days.

How far did I get before my last drink? Eight days?

Maybe I could break that record. Or maybe I couldn't, maybe I'd drink tomorrow.

Not tonight, though. I was all right for tonight. I didn't feel any better than I'd felt before the meeting. My opinion of myself was certainly no higher. All the numbers on the scorecard were the same, but earlier they'd added up to a drink and now they didn't.

I didn't know why that was. But I knew I was safe.

Chapter 26

There was a message at the desk to call Danny Boy Bell. I dialed the number on the slip and the man who answered said, "Poogan's Pub."

I asked for Danny Boy and waited until he came on the line.

He said, "Matt, I think you should come up and let me buy you a ginger ale. That's what I think you should do."

"Now?"

"What better time?"

I was almost out of the door when I turned, went upstairs, and got the .32 out of my dresser. I didn't really think Danny Boy would set me up but I didn't want to bet my life that he wouldn't. Either way, you never knew who might be drinking in Poogan's.

I'd received a warning last night and I'd spent the intervening hours disregarding it. And the clerk who gave me Danny Boy's message had volunteered that I'd had a couple of other calls from people who'd declined to leave their names. They might have been friends of the chap in the lumber jacket, calling to offer a word to the wise.

I dropped the gun into a pocket, went out and hailed a cab.

* * *

Danny Boy insisted on buying the drinks, vodka for himself, ginger ale for me. He looked as natty as ever, and he'd been to the barber since I last saw him. His cap of tight white curls was closer to his scalp, and his manicured nails showed a coating of clear polish.

He said, "I've got two things for you. A message and an opinion."

"Oh?"

"The message first. It's a warning."

"I thought it might be."

"You should forget about the Dakkinen girl."

"Or what?"

"Or what? Or else, I suppose. Or you get what she got, something like that. You want a specific warning so you can decide whether it's worth it or not?"

"Who's the warning come from, Danny?"

"I don't know."

"What spoke to you? A burning bush?"

He drank off some of his vodka. "Somebody talked to somebody who talked to somebody who talked to me."

"That's pretty roundabout."

"Isn't it? I could give you the person who talked to me, but I won't, because I don't do that. And even if I did it wouldn't do you any good, because you probably couldn't find him, and if you did he still wouldn't talk to you, and meanwhile somebody's probably going to whack you out. You want another ginger ale?"

"I've still got most of this one."

"So you do. I don't know who the warning's from, Matt, but from the messenger they used I'd guess it's some very heavy types. And what's interesting is I get absolutely nowhere trying to find anybody who saw Dakkinen on the town with anybody but our friend Chance. Now if she's going with somebody with all this firepower, you'd think he'd show her around, wouldn't you? Why not?"

I nodded. For that matter, why would she need me to ease her out of Chance's string?

"Anyway," he was saying, "that's the message. You want the opinion?"

"Sure."

"The opinion is I think you should heed the message. Either I'm getting old in a hurry or this town's gotten nastier in the past couple of years. People seem to pull the trigger a lot quicker than they used to.

They used to need more of a reason to kill. You know what I mean?"

"Yes."

"Now they'll do it unless they've got a reason not to. They'll sooner kill than not. It's an automatic response. I'll tell you, it scares me."

"It scares everybody."

"You had a little scene uptown a few nights back, didn't you? Or was somebody making up stories?"

"What did you hear?"

"Just that a brother jumped you in the alley and wound up with multiple fractures."

"News travels."

"It does for a fact. Of course there's more dangerous things in this city than a young punk on angel dust."

"Is that what he was on?"

"Aren't they all? I don't know. I stick to basics, myself." He underscored the line with a sip of his vodka.

"About Dakkinen," he said. "I could pass a message back up the line."

"What kind of message?"