Red Delicious

by Kathleen Tierney

  I glanced around to be sure nobody was in earshot. “Kid, you tell me who the Sam Hell you are, or—”

  “Thought you’d be taller,” she interrupted, continuing to glower with those red, red lips. “Taller and paler.”

  “Has all that eyeliner affected your hearing?”

  “And way less uptight. The way Berenice goes on, I was expecting something a little more, I don’t know . . . Anita Blake. Or Sonya Blue. Or, hey, Kate Beckinsale in Underworld.”

  “Who?” Right about here, I was considering shooting her after all.

  She rolled those black-lidded eyes. “Don’t you read? Or see movies?”

  “Are you physically incapable of shutting the fuck up for two seconds?”

  “You keep asking me questions. I can’t very well shut up if you keeping asking me questions. Not if you want answers.”

  I sat back down on the bench, turning my back to her, wondering when the hell I’d grown a fan club. Siobhan Quinn has a motherfucking posse.

  “Chill, okay?” she said. “Berenice sent me, all right? After her baby sister went missing, she’s sort of keeping a low profile.”

  I rubbed my eyes; the contacts always bug me. “And you’re the best she can do in the way of lackeys.”

  “I’m a messenger,” the girl said, sounding supremely offended. Which, of course, had been my intent. “Part of her coterie. Berenice doesn’t have lackeys.”

  “Right,” I sighed. “And the pope doesn’t wear a dress and a funny hat.”

  She sat down next to me, uninvited.

  “You want to talk to her, you’re gonna have to talk to me first.” She took out a BlackBerry and started texting.

  “You gotta name?” I asked.

  “Lenore,” she replied, without looking away from the BlackBerry.

  “Bullshit. I meant an actual name-type name. Whatever’s on your driver’s license, your birth certificate.”

  “So, I tell you that, I can call you ‘Siobhan,’” she said, still pecking at her BlackBerry’s tiny keys.

  I changed the subject. “Who are you texting?”

  “I’m letting Berenice know you showed up.”

  “How did she know I was coming? I didn’t even know I was coming until a few hours ago.”

  Lenore looked at me then like I was the biggest idiot on earth.

  “Right,” I said. “She’s a Maidstone. Never mind.”

  “Yeah, she’s a Maidstone. She’s special. She can do magic, and I mean real magic. Not that phony goddess worshipping, white-light Wicca crap.”

  “Well, la-di-fucking-da. And while you’re talking to her, how about you ask where Shaker Lashly has gone?”

  “Never heard of anyone called Shaker Lashly. You’ll have to ask her that yourself. If she decides to see you.”

  “If? Hey, she’s the one came to my employer for help finding this misplaced sister of hers. If she doesn’t want to talk to me, I’ll go back and tell B the client has had a change of heart. But she should know, whatever he asked for up front, he doesn’t do refunds.”

  Lenore stared at the BlackBerry’s screen a moment, typed in something else, then dropped that mobile handheld device back into the huge, shapeless chartreuse velvet bag she was carrying for a purse.

  “You have to understand,” she told me, “Berenice has good reason to be cautious. Besides, I expected a vampire to be more, I don’t know. Like, patient? You are so not living up to your reputation.”

  I leaned close to her, wishing I wasn’t wearing the hazel-green contacts. I did, however, reach into my mouth and pop out the molded porcelain grill hiding my real teeth. She drew back an inch or so and her eyes went wide.

  At least she looked scared. Hence, I assumed she was.

  “Girly,” I said, “if I wipe that funeral paint off your face, swat some of that attitude out of you, I’m pretty sure I’d find nothing much hiding under there but another pampered white girl recovering from her high-school Justin Bieber fixation.”

  She pointed at my mouth. “Those are real,” she said. It wasn’t a question. “They’re so sharp—”

  “All the better to persuade you to stop jerking me around.”

  “—and they’re wicked cool.”

  Which is when I socked her in the face. Not hard enough to do any real and lasting damage, mind you—just a firm poke—but plenty hard enough that her lower lip split open and her nose gushed. I won’t lie. It felt good.

  Lenore’s head whipped back, and she sort of yelped.

  I said, “Wanna play nice and try this one more time, Elvira? You won’t get a third chance.”

  “Fuck you,” she mumbled through the blood and the fingers hiding the bottom half of her face.

  Just for effect, I licked her blood off my knuckles. You know, that kind of over the top, tough guy, unnerve your opponent shit. Most nasties would have laughed at me, but this malarkey does tend to make an impression on mundanes. I realized that my fake choppers were still lying on the bench between us, and with my free hand I slipped them back into my mouth.

  I told her, “Seeing how we’ve moved past the ‘We can do this the easy way, or . . .’ part of our conversation, I want to make it absolutely fucking crystal clear that I do not need you to find Berenice Maidstone.”

  “She’s gonna kill you,” Lenore replied, that warm red gravy dripping between her fingers onto her black jeans.

  “Fine. Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. Fact is, she’ll probably be doing me a favor. Now, listen—”

  “You think I’m joking?”

  Every time she said something, her breath caused a fresh gout of that crimson junk surrogate to spurt towards me. The notion very briefly crossed my mind that I could probably do her, then and there, and most anybody passing by would just think we were a couple of lesbos making out. Wishful goddamn thinking.

  “—we’re going to stand up and walk to my car, which is parked about a block away. You’ll lead, and if you go rabbit on me, I don’t think your boss lady will approve.”

  “You’re good as dead!” she said with enough force that blood actually spattered my T-shirt. Whee.

  “No, honey, I’m way worse than dead.” (Gotta admit, that cornball line was pure Hollywood gold. Or at least TV fool’s gold. True Blood, eat your dippy, white-trash heart out.)

  Lenore glared at me, but it was plain—whatever assurances Berenice Maidstone had offered—I’d sown some serious doubt as to Lenore’s safety.

  “Now, pretty please, get your poseur ass up and head for the gates. And, like I already said, do not run, little girl. I don’t feel like chasing you.” I motioned towards the tall iron gates, and she got up and did exactly as I’d instructed.

  • • •

  Turns out, the missing Ms. Maidstone was holed up in a deserted warehouse on Kinsley Avenue, other side of I-95, just across from the scrubby banks of the Woonasquatucket River. It was a part of Providence I knew all too well. The dirty green water flowing through a man-made desolation of concrete, the rusting heaps of scrap, and boarded up or broken windows. A few strip clubs, some buildings that have been converted into pricey lofts for trustafarians, train tracks, the occasional warehouse that hasn’t yet been abandoned. You get the picture. Of course, there will undoubtedly be those who complain that this is a decidedly unfair portrayal of a neighborhood busy being all spruced up by urban renewal. Those people, they’ll point to the newish strip mall less than a quarter mile to the west.

  This is me totally not giving a shit.

  See, back in my homeless days, before the patronage of Mean Mr. B, when I still drew breath, I’d been made all too familiar with those unforgiving streets. Me and my ever-changing cast-off compatriots—runaways, addicts, runaway addicts, the good, the bad, the ugly, the schizophrenics and panhandlers and petty thieves. All those disreputable ragtag nomads going nowhere except maybe farther down the laundry list of ne’er do wells society tries hard to ignore so it doesn’t have to feel guilty about full bellies, warm home
s, and plasma-screen televisions.

  Once someone who’d called herself Lily and was just about the only person I’d ever come halfway near to being in love with, she’d died in a squat hardly a stone’s throw from the industrial ruins Lenore led me to that evening. Lily was killed by that aforementioned ghoul motherfucker who’d been my first and, as I have already pointed out, accidental kill. She’d been the domino set all the rest to tumbling over. Needless to say, afterwards, I did my best to steer clear of that section of town. I only went there when ordered to do so. There was plenty of present-tense lousiness without going out of my way to dredge up bad memories and regret.

  Lenore—who I’d made drive—parked in front of that warehouse and cut the engine. I peered out at it through the windshield. The shadows were getting long as twilight came on. The sun had turned the sky pink and indigo.

  “Well,” she said (pouting around a wad of Kleenex she’d found in her bag), “this is it.”

  “Cool beans,” I said. “Lifestyles of the swank and infamous.”

  “Think your zookeeper would be pleased with how you’ve handled this?”

  “Let me worry about him.”

  I took out my gun, checked and double-checked the Glock to be sure it was shipshape. Yeah, I’m paranoid by both nature and experience, and I was beginning to get a weird vibe about this rendezvous. Sure, the goth chick in the car with me was a bad joke dressed up for all tomorrow’s Halloweens, but fuck only knew what sort of unsightly surprises a well-heeled bitch from the Maidstone clan might have waiting in there to be sure Mean Mr. B’s pit bull didn’t get out of line. Plenty enough paranormal mercenary types plenty dumb enough to be swayed by someone offering them whatever the hell satisfies their appetites in return for a little protection.

  “Any surprises waiting for me in there?”

  “I’ll let you worry about that,” Lenore replied, and got out, slamming the door behind her.

  I cursed and followed suit.

  When we got to the reinforced steel door, Lenore rang a buzzer three times in quick succession. My vamp ears heard heavy footsteps approaching from the other side, and I gave myself the silent stay-the-fuck-cool speech I reserve for these occasions. Locks turned, tumblers tumbled, and the door creaked slowly open.

  Eyes like those of a boiled fish stared out at us. Of course it was a zombie. What the fuck else would a Maidstone have as a butler but a goddamn resurrection job?

  Lurch grunted and ushered us inside. We followed him down a very short, unlit hallway—one turn to the left, another to the right—and into the vast, barren interior of the warehouse. The only illumination came from a banker’s lamp with the traditional green shade. It sat on a folding card table before which, in turn, sat Berenice Maidstone. She looked up at us from the Nora Roberts novel she was reading and leaned back in her folding metal chair.

  “Classy digs,” I said. “Guess Daddy isn’t footing the tab.” My voice echoed.

  “It suffices,” she said, laying her paperback down on the table and motioning me to sit in a second chair at the other end of the table.

  “I’m fine standing,” I replied.

  “I really do insist,” she smiled disarmingly. “Take off your coat, and, please, take off that ridiculous cap.”

  Two more zombies stepped out of the shadows behind her. The shamblers were big motherfuckers, and the last thing I was in the mood for was a tussle with mindless goons. One of them took my parka and green Slytherin cap; I walked over to the card table and sat down. Lenore lingered restlessly a few feet away.

  Berenice raised an eyebrow and pointed at the shoulder holster and the Glock. “You brought a gun?” she asked me.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I brought a gun. I do that.”

  She tapped the cover of her paperback once, twice, a couple more times; it was a nervous sort of gesture. “Very well,” she said.

  Here she was, the elder daughter of Edgar Maidstone, and I’d imagined, at the very least, to be confronted with a grim, unnatural beauty. But she was damn near to unremarkable. A looker, sure. No denying that. But nothing much out of the ordinary. Her mousy hair was pulled back into a long French braid. Her lips were a little too thin, and she was a little too skinny, sorta flat-chested. Her eyes were almost the same shade of brown as her hair. She had a slightly haggard air about her that made me think she was well acquainted with insomnia. Her voice was calm, with a certain unflappable quality to it. Only her hands struck me as in any way unusual; her fingers were just shy of conspicuously long and slender, and her unpolished nails were filed to sharp points. Oh, and she had a small red-and-black pentagram tattooed on her left palm. I guess a lot of mundanes would consider that unusual.

  “Much better,” she said as I took my seat. “Much, much better. I’ve heard a lot about you, Quinn.”

  “Mostly bullshit, I assure you.”

  “Yes, well. As they say, it’s not the veracity of our reputations that keep us in one piece. Your left little finger and that toe you gave away not withstanding. Would you like something to drink?”

  “So long as we’re not talking sodas or fruit juice,” I replied.

  “We’re not.”

  “Then, yeah, I’d like a drink.” I was thirsty, and I’m rarely one to turn down alcohol. It’s one of the very few vices from my old life that still does the trick.

  “I’m afraid all I have is Scotch and beer,” she said. “But it’s good Scotch. Glenfiddich, twenty-one-year-old single malt.”

  “Beer’s fine,” I told her, glancing over my shoulder at one of the goons. “These guys really necessary?”

  Berenice had dispatched a sullen Lenore to get my beer (and had also told her to wash the blood off her face; neither of us had been asked how her face had gotten that way). She seemed to consider my question, and then slowly nodded her head.

  “Sure. We’re all friends here,” she said, and smiled that disarming smile. A few words of French, and Lurch and the other two shamblers melted into the shadows.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Lots.”

  “Then I’ll stop wasting your time and get down to business. I assume you know about Amity, and how I’d prefer to have this incident resolved without it ever coming to our family’s attention.”

  I leaned back in my chair, one hand on the edge of the table, balancing on two legs. “That’s just about all I was told. Which leaves quite a few questions I’ll need answered if I’m going to be any help whatsoever. Also, there’s the matter of Mr. Lashly to be resolved.”

  She gave me a confused look, then said, “Excuse me?”

  “Shaker Lashly? B sent him before he sent me. In fact, he sent me because he can’t find Shaker.”

  She chewed her lower lip.

  “Quinn, I’m afraid I’ve never heard of the man, much less have I spoken with him.”

  “Then” I said, “someone’s got their wires crossed. Do you mind if I smoke.”

  “No,” she replied. “Please. Be my guest.”

  I paused to light a Camel. The smoke hung in the air between us, heavy and gray in the lamplight. There wasn’t an ashtray, but I doubted she’d mind me tapping ash on the cement floor of the warehouse. I offered her a cigarette, but she declined. Said she didn’t smoke. Kids these days, right? Lenore returned with my beer, a bottle of Heineken (which I fucking despise, but didn’t say so). She’d made a half-hearted effort at washing her face, which had, at least, removed most of the Death makeup. Her nose and lip were beginning to swell, and there was a Band-Aid pasted to her chin. I took a drink of the shitty beer, and Berenice pointed at Lenore’s face.

  “Was that really necessary?” she asked me, jabbing a thumb towards her “messenger.” Lenore was staring at her own feet.

  “Seemed like it at the time. Want me to apologize?”

  Berenice Maidstone sighed and shook her head. “That won’t be necessary,” she said; then she shooed the girl away on some errand or another. I don’t remember just what.

&n
bsp; “You gotta understand, Ms. Maidstone, Shaker isn’t someone B wants to lose track of, or just write off as an occupational hazard. The guy’s a valued asset. Can’t have him falling off the face of the earth.”

  She didn’t ask me to call her Berenice.

  “I understand that, Quinn. But I don’t know what else to tell you. I’ve never met the man.”

  I shrugged and let the front legs of my chair bump back to the floor. Ain’t no point in my putting a spin on this so I come off like some brilliant judge of character, like I can spot a lie from ten paces. I’d told B I wasn’t a detective, and that’s the fuck’s honest truth. Near as I could make out, Berenice was telling me the truth. Which meant she could be lying her ass off. An undead polygraph machine I ain’t. Mostly, I was asking and hearing her out because I had orders to do so, and because I needed to have something to tell Mean Mr. B when I checked in with him. About the only part that made me suspicious was that insistence she had no idea who Shaker was.

  Then again, those of us who work for B—the few, the just shy of expendable—we had a habit of making the worst sorts of enemies. You’ll recall how B told me that up front, and it was gospel. For all I knew, one or another of those folks Shaker had pissed off caught up with him before he’d had a chance to meet with Berenice. Made sense. I moved on.

  “Fine. Then let’s talk about your sister.”

  Which is what we did. We talked about Amity Maidstone for the next hour, until well after dark.

  “Sure,” Berenice said, “we’re not angels, either one of us. But my sister, I sometimes believe she has a talent for dreaming up brand-new vices, and that she does it just to piss off Daddy.”

  If I wore a watch, I’d have been checking it right about then. Instead, I made of show of looking at my bare wrist. I’d heard enough to write a biography about Amity Maidstone.

  I said, “Me, I’d have thought a man like your father, he’d be proud to have his offspring wreaking havoc, getting down and dirty at every possible opportunity.”

  Berenice had started batting the Nora Roberts paperback back and forth, sliding it from one side of the table to the other. Made me think of a cat toying with a mouse.