“Go away,” she said to the vomit. “Please go away.”
The vomit stubbornly remained.
There will be repercussions, she thought. For today. Repercussions. Felt tomorrow. Repercussions. Reaper. Cushions. Reaper-cushions. There will be reaper-cushions.
A soothing male voice that Natalya didn’t recognize said, “We are taking you someplace safe. The police are looking for you and we are going to protect you from them, keep you hidden so they won’t find you.”
“Whaaa?” Natalya croaked uncertainly.
“Unfortunately there is no way to blame anyone else for the murder of your half-brother. But don’t worry; we shall take you someplace warm, someplace tropical. It will be quite nice there—it is a resort of sorts.”
Natalya took another swig of vodka. “Whodafuq?”
“There is one small favor we ask of you; you must confess to murdering Marjaana Kekkonen. After all, you’ll soon be wanted for the murder of your brother. And you did kill Marjaana, didn’t you?”
“Bitchwhorecunt,” Natalya said.
“You don’t want your friend Terri to go to trial for something you did, especially since you are now safe from the police.”
“Cuntwhorebitch.”
“You’ll stream the confession live, from a safe location where they can’t trace you. Not now of course, but later after you’ve been made presentable.”
“BITCHcuntwhore. WhoreCUNTbitch.”
“Does that sound like something you could agree to? Confess to the murder of Marjaana Kekkonen?”
“I killed bitchwhorecunt. Bullet right at ya!”
“Very good. You’ll be doing us a great favor. We really don’t want a trial looking into Terri’s activities. We want this to go away. Everyone wants this to go away. As long as everyone knows that all their problems are going away, everything will go back to the way things were, with no more unpleasant questions.”
“WhoreBITCHcunt.”
“And there is one more thing. It’s one of our most important rules. You have to pick a handle. You see, where we are going we aren’t allowed to use our real names. We need to pick new ones. So you need to think carefully because this is how you shall be referred to in your new home.”
“WhorebitchCUNT.”
The man paused a moment, and then allowed the hint of a smile in his voice as he said, “I believe that name is already taken.”
Natalya looked at the crowbar in her hand. She held it up in front of her. This solid, heavy thing. The rest of the world was just insubstantial ectoplasm. Not this crowbar. Look at what it could do. She looked at the blood and the clumps of hair and little shards of skull and blobs of brains. Look at what this solid thing could do.
“Crowbar,” she said to the voice. “My name ish Crowbar.”
“Crowbar. That’s an unusual name. Are you sure? Perhaps something a little more . . . girly? Like Pony Princess?”
Natalya swung the crowbar hard against the inner wall of the van. It clanged, and there was a satisfying little dent. “Crowbar!” she yelled. She hit the wall again. Some of the blood and brains sprayed off. “Crowbar!” She hit it again. “I am Crowbar!”
Chapter 64
“Well, you’re rich now,” Terri said. She and Conrad were sitting on their park bench, looking at that empty alley. A black luxury sedan was parked nearby on the road.
“I know. I’ve hated rich people for so long I find it hard not to hate myself. I feel strangely conflicted.”
“How was your talk?”
Conrad shook his head. “It’s so weird, so awkward. I can’t call him Dad yet; it just doesn’t seem right. He was obviously uncomfortable. He apologized a lot. He started looking for Dad after all the publicity about 3CV—at that point he knew something was wrong. Years ago, after the two of them had broken up, Dad made Ragnar promise not to contact us. Dad had helped him to create VuDyne. They knew someone was going to make a company to protect copyright, it might as well be in their hands, the right hands. Dad had no legal stakes, wanting to stay behind the scenes. But then Ragnar started working closely with governments and corporations. Dad thought he had sold out. He didn’t want me to be corrupted by . . . by wealth and power. He was a true idealist. Not many of those left.”
“Well, there’s you,” Terri said.
Conrad laughed. Terri smiled and said, “You haven’t laughed in a while. I like your laugh.”
He looked at her. “I like you.”
“Good,” she said, and smiled shyly. “I think we’re the only things that makes sense in this world.”
Conrad looked back at the alley across the street. “What is the universe doing?”
“Hm?”
“Dad’s final words. ‘What is the universe doing?’ It is all so crazy.”
“Well, for one good thing, at least Nose has a new job.”
“I know! Two-Guns is great.”
Ragnar had offered Two-Guns a job in the security branch of VuDyne. She wouldn’t join unless Ragnar agreed to hire Nose as well.
“He’s getting new teeth, and a prosthetic nose. He’s going to look completely different,” Terri said. “He’s lucky he didn’t get any malignant cancer living under the Bergs for so long. Did you realize that he doesn’t have any hair because he has alopecia?”
“No! That’s great. I mean, it’s not great but I thought he lost all his hair because of radiation poisoning.”
“It’s just the way he is. I promised him that we’ll visit his new apartment this week to finish the Harry Potter movies. And yes, he is going to make us some Spam.”
Conrad put an arm around Terri. She rested her head on his shoulder. He felt a slight tremble in her shoulders. He was wondered if she was thinking about what had happened to her, at that horrible hotel. He squeezed her shoulders a little tighter.
“I’d like to know where that dragon came from,” Terri said. “It saved my life. It knew Natalya, it called her a homicidal maniac.”
“It really knew her then. Too bad we let it get away, we could have tracked down the controller. Thanked him.”
“I have a feeling I’ll see it again. It’s my guardian dragon.”
There was a long pause.
“I’m going to have to fix the world,” Conrad said finally.
“That’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself.”
“I was always bashing rich people for not fixing the world. Now that I’m rich I have no excuses. I have to fix the world.”
“You don’t have to fix it right now, do you? Maybe we should have lunch first. You can take me on a date.”
“A date? Like a date date?” He grinned at her. “Ragnar said I can use one of his private jets. I could take you to Paris if you wanted.”
“I was thinking more like going to Danny’s for some pizza.”
He put his hand on her face and stroked her cheek. “As you wish,” he said, and they kissed.
Girl in a Fishbowl (Crowbar Book 1) Page 29