Cherry Bomb: A Siobhan Quinn Novel

by Caitlin R. Kiernan

  “You’re early,” he said.

  “You’re observant,” I replied. “I’m guessing you’re the welcoming committee?” I glanced back over my shoulder at the park, all the trees gone red, yellow, brown, gold beneath that bleak November sky.

  “Barrett figured you might not have the price of admission,” the boy smiled. He was wearing way too much makeup for a cold Tuesday morning.

  “Well, he figured right. But I thought Ballard was the nom du jour.”

  “That was yesterday,” said the boy. “Gotta stay current, girlbaby.”

  “Fuck you,” I said, and he laughed.

  “You’re her,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “You are really and truly her.”

  I held up my left hand, all four fingers.

  “Oh,” the boy said, “you don’t have to prove it to me, girl. I ain’t no blindtard. All that wicked coming off you like thermonuclear fucking radiation, that shit’s cray. I’m the one oughta be wearing the hater blockers, not you.” And he made a V with his right index and middle fingers and aimed it at my face.

  “Yeah, but do you speak English?” I asked, and he laughed.

  “Charlee,” he said. “That two e’s. The pleasures all mine, undoubtedly.” He offered his hand, but I didn’t shake it. Never been a big fan of shaking hands.

  “He’s inside?” I asked, and climbed a couple more steps so I was standing above the boy.

  “That he is,” Charlee with two e’s replied, and he pointed at the bundle in my arms. “Is that what I think it is? Is that the Very Unpleasant News the weirdlies got such a hard-on for?”

  “The weirdlies?”

  “Yeah, you know. Thing One and Thing Two. The diabolical duo. Heckle and fucking Jeckle.”

  I looked down at the bundle, then back up at Charlee, trying to decide if the kid was getting on my nerves, or if maybe I’d finally met one of B’s mollies that I liked. Or, hell, both.

  “You wanna see?”

  He laughed a nervous laugh and shook his head.

  “Fuck no,” he said. “Not in a million years.”

  “Then how about you lead the way to Mr. Ballard—”

  “Barrett,” he corrected.

  “Which the fuck ever.”

  A mother shepherding her two brats passed us on their way down the steps, and she glared at me, silently admonishing my potty-mouthed ways.

  “Hey, listen,” Charlee said, and he reached out and—very gently—laid a hand on my left elbow. Now, I’m not accustomed to being touched by strangers, and I don’t like it. Truth be told, it makes my skin crawl. But this time, well, this time I let it slide. There was something unexpected in Charlee’s unnaturally blue eyes, and whatever it was, it caught me off guard. It sent a bit of a chill up my spine.

  “You’re here to help him, right?” Charlee asked.

  “Whatever gave you that idea? I’m here because a rat with wings interrupted my bath.”

  “But—”

  I frowned and pushed his hand away, climbed a couple more steps towards the heavy brass doors leading into the museum.

  “But nothing,” I said. “Listen, you seem a lot brighter than most of B’s fuckbunnies, so I’m assuming you know how shit went between me and him.”

  “That was almost five years ago, Quinn.”

  “I don’t care if it was thirty years ago. As far as I’m concerned, it was fucking yesterday.”

  Charlee stared down at the scuffed toes of his lime-green go-go boots.

  “He speaks fondly of you, girlbaby,” he sighed. “Just try not to make it any worse for him, okay?”

  My patience, never exactly worth bragging about, was a frayed bit of kite string, pulled way too tight.

  “What’s the story, Charlee? Are we gonna stand around out here all day? ’Cause if we are, I’m gonna sit down and have a smoke. My feet hurt.”

  He looked back at me, and whatever I’d seen in his eyes was gone, replaced by a practiced indifference meant to keep all the world at arm’s length. But I knew what it had been, that glimmer. This kid actually gave a shit about B, beyond the drugs and the money and all the other various and unsavory perks of being the bad man’s toy.

  “Gotta admit,” he said, “hard to believe you’re the notorious badass bitch people go on about. Well, what the fuck, right? You like dinosaurs?”

  “Not especially,” I told him.

  “Then you’re sadly SOL, sister dick. Follow me.”

  Which I did. We threaded our way through the noisy crowd, the school groups and tourists, and took the elevator up to the fourth floor, where we found Mean Mr. B waiting beneath the Tyrannosaurus. And I thought then, and I still think now, that if I hadn’t been expecting him, I might not have recognized the man sitting there. To roll out a cliché, he was a ghost of his former self. At best. Had I passed him on the street, I might have had no idea whatsoever that he was him. I looked at Charlee, wishing now that I’d taken time to hear him out back on the steps. No, strike that. Wishing I’d ripped the seagull’s head off its neck before it had a chance to utter a single goddamn word.

  “What the fuck?” I whispered.

  “Please, Quinn. Just don’t make it any worse,” Charlee whispered back. “You just promise me that.”

  I didn’t promise him anything.

  I can think of a lot of words to describe how B looked that Tuesday morning: wasted, broken, diminished, et cetera. But none of them seem quite up to the task. It was like seeing someone who’d folded in upon himself. I’d never known the man to be anything except fastidious, a seedy sort of dapper, but he appeared not to have shaved for days, and his gray pinstripe suit was wrinkled, like he’d been sleeping in it. On a park bench. His black hair, usually swept back and pomaded, hung limp and stringy. And he seemed to have aged far more than three years since the day I told him I’d had enough and walked away; B looked like an old man. He was slightly hunched over, sort of hugging himself. I looked at Charlee again and shook my head, and then I got it over with.

  “She’s here,” Charlee said, clearly trying to sound happy about it. B looked up and squinted at me. His eyes were the color of dirty dishwater.

  “Kitten,” he said, “lose the scarf. You look perfectly ridiculous.”

  “You don’t look so hot yourself,” I said and sat down on the bench next to him. Charlee remained standing. I left the scarf on.

  B smelled like cheap aftershave, sour sweat, whiskey, and stale cigarette smoke.

  “How’d you find me?” I asked him.

  “Are we trying to be funny now?” he asked me. “Do you read the papers or watch the news? Have you heard of the internet, kitten? You’re a star, after a fashion. Next time you want the whole world to look at you, hold a press conference.”

  “The wolf? It was an accident,” I said.

  “It usually is, isn’t it?” He managed a weak, unsteady smile and pointed up at the Apatosaurus. “They’ve ruined this place,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The museum. Used to be like going to church, it did, coming to visit the ol’ Brontosaurus. Now . . .” and he motioned to the shiny, brightly lit displays, the funhouse clutter of glass and chrome. “It was solemn. Put a right sense of awe into a bloke. Don’t know when the arseholes decided to cock it all up, but this, this is so . . . cold, yeah? Sterile, yeah? And the rug rats, they knew how to behave themselves back when. But that was before your time.” He stopped pointing at the dinosaur and waved his hand at a group of kids giggling over a computer terminal.

  “Jesus, B. Never knew you to be the sentimental sort,” I said.

  “Yeah, precious, well, there’s a lotta me you ain’t ever seen.”

  Neither of us spoke for a few moments. There was just the noise of all the rowdy children, echoing about the crowded exhibit hall.

  “B, what’s going on?” I a
sked finally.

  He laughed a tired laugh. “Good day to you, too, Quinn. Long time no fucking see, yeah? How is every little thing?” Then he looked up at Charlee and nodded at me. “Didn’t I tell you? This cunt, she’s all fucking business, through and through. Don’t give a tomtit for pleasantries, our Miss Quinn.”

  I wanted a smoke. I considered lighting up. Then I’d be thrown out of the museum, and I wouldn’t have to talk to the shade of Mean Mr. B. I’d be free to careen into the next brand-new and improved flavor of What the Actual Fuck.

  “Sorry,” I said, not meaning it in the least.

  “Nah, you’re not, kitten. But that’s your charm, as they say. Fine, let’s cut the pleasantries and auld lang syne, shall we?”

  And that’s when I saw the stump where his left hand had been. What remained of his forearm was encased in a plaster cast, but—oddly, I thought—he wasn’t wearing a sling. He saw that I saw, saw that I was, I won’t lie, staring. He held up the stump, as if I needed a better look and he was willing to oblige.

  “Jesus, B . . .”

  “Yeah, Quinn,” he said. “What about that? Ain’t it just the dog’s bloody bollocks? Always fancied I’d stay two or three steps ahead of my just comeuppances, slippery as an eel in jelly and the devil take the hindmost. But will you just have a gander at that? Bastards didn’t even have the common decency to kill me. See, they’re the sort to take trophies and leave a man alive to contemplate his indiscretions and misdeeds.”

  “Who?” I asked, though I already knew full fucking well who.

  “Same fucking berks you’ve gone and gotten yourself tangled up with, kitten. Isaac fucking Snow and that minjer sister of his, that’s who.”

  I turned away. I reached into the dead girl’s coat, the pilfered peacoat of my last square meal, and took out a cigarette. I didn’t light it, just held it between my fingers and stared at the polished stone floor. I noticed how scuffed and dingy B’s calfskin loafers were. Before, I’d always been able to see my vamp’s reflection in them.

  “Small damn world,” I said.

  “About as big as a canary’s willy,” he replied. “Just about that big and no more.”

  “What’d you do to piss them off?”

  “That how it is, then?” he asked. “Guilty until proven otherwise?”

  “Yeah, B. That’s how it is. This ain’t no tearful reunion, all is forgiven, and oh, hey, let me kiss your fucking boo-boo.”

  I glanced up, and Charlee was glaring daggers at me. I figure, if he’d had a stake right then . . .

  “Fine,” said B, “I might have antagonized Mr. Snow a bit more than was strictly sensible. He was looking for something, something he was of the belief was hidden somewhere in Providence.”

  “He hired you to find it for him,” I said.

  “That he did, love.”

  “Some sort of ghoul artifact?”

  “Ain’t polite, beating me to the punch like that. How about you tell me what’s in your lap?”

  Of course, what was in my lap was the Basalt Madonna, still wrapped in one of Selwyn’s T-shirts.

  “I have a hunch you know perfectly goddamn well what it is, B.”

  He sighed and nodded his head, brushed some of his oily hair back from his face.

  “Unser Mutter von der Nacht,” he whispered. “Das Herz der schmutzigen Lektion, Gegrüßet seist du Maria, voll der Gnade.”

  “I don’t speak German, you asshole,” I muttered, and he laughed that raggedy, tired laugh again. “Is this what he had you looking for?”

  B didn’t answer right away. He chewed at his chapped lower lip, and I realized then that he was also missing a couple of teeth up front. He kept his eyes on the bundle—and fuck it but I’m tired of using that word, bundle, but what the hell else would I call it?

  “No,” he said finally, and went back to watching the dinosaurs. “Not that, precious. I like to think I’d have had the cobbler’s awls to tell them to sod off, if they’d come to me to find that horror. But here you are, just strolling around with it tucked snug under your arm. How’s that work, kitten? Are you of a mind you keep it safe, hand it over to those two, you’ll get your lady friend back?” he asked, then scratched at the stubble on his cheeks.

  “Pickman said—”

  “Pickman?” B asked, and there was a spark in those gray eyes, half a second when I almost saw the old B. “And you believe that old devil’s porky pies?”

  “B, way I see it, I don’t exactly have an overabundance of options, do I?”

  He shrugged and glanced up at Charlee. “Will you be a sweetheart?” he asked. “My mouth’s gone dry as a hag’s Morris Minor.”

  When we first met, B’s penchant for cockney rhyming slang had yet to manifest. I’m not sure exactly when he’d decided to add it to his repertoire of mannerisms, his slipshod persona. I still don’t believe he was even British.

  Charlee fished half a roll of spearmint Life Savers from a jeans pocket and passed one to B.

  “Why am I here?” I asked.

  “Come after a ball of fire, did we?” B mumbled around the spearmint Life Saver. He clicked it about in his mouth, then scratched at his stubbled face again. “Might be,” he said, “I want to help you, Quinn. Lend a hand, as it were. Mind you, not out of the goodness of my heart.”

  “No offense, B, but . . . you don’t even look like you’re in any shape to help yourself, much less me. You want my advice, cut your losses and sit this one out.”

  “Did he say he wants your advice?” Charlee asked, and the way he asked it left no doubt that he was getting angry. I began to wonder if maybe this kid was more than arm candy. Maybe. Or maybe he only had aspirations.

  Either way, he was pissing me off.

  I said to him, “Charlee with two e’s, you want to remind me how this shit’s any of your business?”

  “Now, now,” said B. “Let’s all be friends.”

  “I didn’t come here to make friends, and I think your twink needs a shorter leash.”

  Charlee made half an admirable stab at shooting me a withering glare, and I showed him my middle finger. Nice try, boy, but no banana. B sighed, sucked on his Life Saver, and checked his wristwatch.

  He said, “You and me, kitten, seems like we’ve perfected the fine fucking art of finding ourselves between a rock and a hard place, Scylla and Charybdis, demons and the deep blue sea. And this time, well, here you have those inbred albino lunatics up in Beantown, got it in their collective fucking loaf they’re gonna see some ancient prophecy come to fruition, yeah? Believe they’re the chosen ones, gonna lead all the wee little downtrodden ghouls to the pearly gates of Kingdom Come.”

  He stopped talking just long enough to spit what was left of his Life Saver onto the floor.

  “While on the other hand, you’ve got the venerable Mr. Pickman and his merry band of counterinsurgents, the agnostics in this right holy Barney the Snows are trying to incite, and that lot figure what they got now is better than reopening old wounds and picking a losing battle with the Djinn. Id est, the plonkers you appear to have aligned yourself with, my darling dear.”

  “B, I haven’t fucking aligned myself with anyone. I’m just trying to get Selwyn back. And I’m gonna assume you know who she is.”

  “Indeed, I do. Your aforementioned heart’s desire and lady love,” he replied. “And do let me pause to congratulate you on having found that special someone. I was tickled pink at the news, I was.”

  Right then’s when I realized there were a couple of kids, a boy and a girl, watching us from just a few feet away. They looked to be seven, maybe eight. Eight at the most. Small wonder they were the only ones giving us the hairy eyeball.

  “I haven’t taken a side,” I said again.

  “Why didn’t Pickman hold on to the Madonna?” B asked, and now he was staring back at the two kids.


  “Beats the ever-loving shit outta me. Why’d the twins cut off your hand? You get greedy and try to pull a double cross with them?”

  “I had unexpected expenses,” he said, speaking very softly now, still watching the two children who were watching us. “It happens. I’d underestimated my out-of-pocket, tried to renegotiate the terms.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

  Then B leaned forward a bit, towards the two kids, and he rolled his eyes back in their sockets until only the whites were showing. Actually, the whites were a little yellow, like possibly B’s liver was reaching the end of its rope and jaundice was setting in. Also, he smiled. For a human, B’s got a creepy fucking smile. I have, on occasion, speculated he might have a dash of infernal blood from a few generations back; it would explain a lot. Like that smile.

  The two kids promptly stopped staring and melted into the crowd flowing by between the dinosaurs.

  “Neat trick,” I said. “Though, I do wonder why you thought meeting here was a good idea.”

  “Lately,” he replied, “I’ve sort of developed a fondness for crowds, if you get my drift.”

  “Well, hey, then that makes one of us. What do you want, B? You’re charming as ever, but I’m getting tired of sitting here.”

  He took a deep breath and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. And when he answered me, he almost sounded like his old self.

  “What I want, precious, is my fucking hand back. But seeing as how that’s not in the sodding cards, I’m looking to settle for revenge. I want those two freaks dead.”