by David Wong
“But that doesn’t make sense, either. Molech has the gadgets. He’s the one person who had no need to get into the vault. He should be happy, right? You saw the video—he won. He got what he wanted.”
“Well, now he wants the gold.”
“Whatever that is.”
Will finished his drink and said, “He’s apparently going to tell us tomorrow, so there’s that.”
“If he doesn’t just kill us all first.”
TWENTY-THREE
Zoey woke up and for a blissful moment thought she was back home, and was waking up from an exceptionally weird dream. Then she realized she was in some kind of strange bed that she could actually roll over in without running into either a wall or a hot-water heater. Then the dead silence registered, that eerie feeling like she was the last human on earth. Nobody arguing outside, not even the sound of her mom clanking pans around in the kitchen. There could be a war raging outside the gates of the estate and not a peep would reach Zoey’s bedroom.
She had forgotten about the talking toilet, and the startled fart she gave when it spoke up was interpreted as consent to show her the morning’s alarming news. The lead story was the terror threats surrounding the upcoming memorial service in Tabula Ra$a, showing video of the city’s park, where crews were already setting up for what looked less like a funeral service and more like a massive winter music festival. Were they inflating a bouncy castle out there?
The next story was new to Zoey. A ten-foot-tall bronze statue of Arthur Livingston had been stolen from its perch in front of an art gallery (accepting a gaudy statue was apparently the cost of taking a large donation from the man) by a pair of muscular men with some kind of flying apparatus on their backs—neither of them were Molech, but there was no doubt who they worked for. The statue was hauled a few blocks away to the financial district, where there sat a life-size bronze statue of a bull. The two men spent the next hour using blasts of electricity to weld the Livingston statue to the bull, in a position that made it appear he was having interspecies relations with it. The task took much longer than necessary because both men couldn’t stop giggling, or pausing every five minutes to flex for the crowd. Finally, their work done, the men had stuck their arms in the air and zipped off into the sky, trailing tails of electric blue light. One second later, they both went spiraling off in different directions and crashed into nearby buildings. Zoey assumed that hadn’t been part of the plan.
She turned it off, and when she wandered out of the guest room she was immediately accosted by Carlton, asking to make her breakfast. Her stomach was in knots, so instead she handed off to him the job of feeding Stench Machine. If Carlton considered this task below him, he showed no sign. They headed down the grand staircase and at the bottom Zoey found Armando, who was sitting in the lotus position on the floor, cleaning a gun he had taken apart and spread on a dirty towel. There seemed to be a ritualistic aspect to what he was doing, a ceremony to calm the nerves. Zoey didn’t bother him.
She wandered into the kitchen where there was a brown paper package sitting on the bar—the delivery of freshly roasted espresso beans Arthur had flown in every week. Zoey smelled them, swooned, and headed over to the kitchen’s coffee bar and dumped them in a grinder. She didn’t even want espresso, she just wanted to go through the process of making it. She started grinding beans and asked Carlton if he wanted something. He declined, because accepting such a thing from his employer would probably violate some sacred code of his profession. She yelled the same offer to Armando and he said yes, which almost made Zoey giddy. She started warming up the machine.
Armando strode into the kitchen and Zoey asked him, “How many people are going to be there? At the memorial?”
He shrugged. “Over the course of the night, maybe a hundred thousand? It’s open to the public, crowds will wash in and out of the park all night. And a Livingston Drop party has a way of spilling out across the city.”
“A what party?”
“It’s a city-wide festival Arthur would throw whenever he could invent a suitable excuse. It shuts down the whole downtown area, traffic is always a disaster.”
“Still, sounds pretty cool as far as funerals go.”
“Unless you are trying to organize security around a known assassination target, in which case it becomes a logistical nightmare.”
Zoey poured steamed milk into Armando’s drink, drew a dragon into the foam (with the nozzle of the steamer, not a toothpick—she didn’t cheat) and slid the mug over to him.
“There, try that.”
He took a sip, completely failing to noticed the design she had etched into it, and said, “Oh, wow. That’s has a … kick.”
“It’s a café mocha with cinnamon and a dash of cayenne pepper. The liquor is right over there if you want to Irish it up.” She started wiping down the equipment when she had a thought. “I wonder if I should call in for work on Monday.”
Armando said, “Work?”
“Well I’m supposed to open at the Java Lodge Monday morning. They’re not open on Sunday so if there’s a good chance I’ll get killed tonight that means I need to call today to get somebody to trade with me.”
Armando just stared.
Zoey dug out her phone and dialed. She got the voice mail of her manager, Arya, and said, “Hey, this is Zoey, I’m still in Tabula Rasa for that funeral, and, um, there’s a chance I won’t be in on Monday morning, can you see if Chel can cover for me? Tell her, uh, I’ll give her ten thousand dollars. That’s not a joke, tell her if she gives me her account number I can send the money at any time. Oh, and tell her to remember to change the floor sign, all the holiday flavors go back to regular price this week except for the peppermint. Good-bye.” Zoey hung up, thought for a moment, then said, “I wonder if I should call my mom? Ah, I think it’d just freak her out. I mean how do I say good-bye without scaring her?”
Armando said, “Zoey, we are going to do everything we can to—”
Zoey turned her back to him and said to Carlton, “Will you take care of Stench Machine?”
“I’m sorry?”
“My cat, that’s his name. If I don’t come back from this thing, will you feed him? And find him a home if you don’t want him? Cats were never my mom’s thing.”
“Well, I could—”
“He doesn’t just need a roof, he needs to be with someone who loves him. He’ll want to sleep in the bed with you.”
Before Carlton could formulate a response to this—it was clear that he and Armando both wished they could just flee the room—Budd, Will, and Andre filed in.
Zoey asked, “Where’s Echo?”
Will said, “At the park, installing about seven million dollars’ worth of hardware.”
Zoey asked if they wanted coffee. Will said no. Budd asked for Folgers’ Crystals, black. Andre asked for six shots of espresso with three shots of peanut butter cheesecake syrup, with whip cream and chocolate shavings on top. Zoey got to work.
Will said, “I showed them the video.”
“And?”
Budd said, “Real name is Chet Campbell—”
Zoey said, “Oh, I was so close.”
“Son of Rex Campbell. Arms dealer. I ain’t seen him since he was a boy, but it’s him.”
Armando said, “I’m not familiar.”
Budd said, “Rex was before your time. Douche bag gunrunner from Oregon, used to specialize in makin’ exotic guns and ammo for high-end thugs, gold-plated assault rifles, shotgun shells full of acid, that sort of thing. Crazy survivalist type, came here in the early days to flood the streets with military surplus iron. Wound up skimming from a deal with the Russian mob. They caught him and cut off his head, stuck it on the front of his Marauder four-by-four like a hood ornament. He would have left a nice chunk of change behind for Chet, though. And plenty of connections for him to pick up the family business.”
Will said, “The tech he stole from Arthur will make him more money in five minutes than dear old dad made in his whole gun
running career.”
Armando said, “Frankly, I am surprised the mob left Chet alive at all. Boys in that situation tend to grow up angry. You would prefer they not appear at your door ten years later.”
Budd said, “Oh, they tried to take him out. Chet couldn’t have been more than twelve at the time. He not only got away but stayed gone. Everybody just assumed they got ’im at some point, but then all these years later, sure enough, we start hearing about a lot of dead Russians with exotic wounds. People start whisperin’ the name ‘Molech.’ Little Chet Campbell, all growed up and makin’ a name for himself.”
Zoey said, “Exotic wounds caused by exotic gadgets that you gave him. I just want to reiterate that this is Arthur Livingston’s mess we’re cleaning up here.”
Will said, “And we will clean it up.”
Budd said, “Even though cleaning up Arthur’s messes is such an unusual and alien experience for all of us.”
“The point,” said Andre, “is that this is what we do.”
Candi appeared in the room and said that there were five men with very large guns at the gate insisting they were associates of Armando Ruiz, along with a flamboyantly dressed man named Tre who insisted that he was Zoey’s personal fashion designer. Zoey wasn’t sure which of those alarmed her more.
Andre clapped his hands, picked up his mug, and said, “All right. Let’s get ready for a funeral.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Andre said, “Zoey, this is Tre. My brother. He’s gonna fix you up. He does all our suits, Ling’s outfits, too.”
They were all up in Arthur’s hidden third-floor suite, standing in the massive “closet” that could have comfortably accommodated a dozen more people. Armando, as always, watched the door. Tre’s own outfit was not inspiring confidence in Zoey—he was wearing a suit made of crimson leather, the shirt unbuttoned to his navel. Several gold chains were draped across a well-muscled and well-waxed chest.
He said, “Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Ashe.” To Andre he said, “Damn, you was right. Gonna have fun dressin’ her.”
Will said, “We’re going for confidence here. I don’t want her dressed like she’s coming in nervous, or armored, or ready to run. I want her dressed like she’s going to a party without a care in the world. We want to sew doubt about why she’s so confident. I’d suggest something tight, with heels.”
Zoey said, “I think you’re blurring the line between strategy and your own perverse fantasies, Will.” He wouldn’t take the bait, choosing instead to lean in one corner and engross himself in his phone.
Andre rolled his eyes. “I’m going to leave y’all to it. Now Zoey, keep in mind, Tre’s not gay. Don’t let him linger with the measuring tape: he’s just using that as an excuse to put his hands on you. He’ll act like he forgot the numbers, don’t fall for it.”
Tre said, “I resent that. I’m a professional.”
“You resent it because it’s the truth.”
Andre left and Armando said, “Do you want me to close the door?” Meaning, with me on the other side of it?
“No, you can stay, in case Tre turns out to be an assassin. Just turn your head if there’s nudity.”
This prospect seemed to alarm Armando quite a bit.
Tre said, “So, I brought a selection with me and if you don’t like what I’ve got, I’ll go get more. You trust me to take your measurements without feeling you up, or has my brother already poisoned the well in this relationship?”
“Can I not just pick out something on my own? I’m not six years old, I can dress myself.”
“Girl, please don’t take this as an insult because you are a lovely young lady and it is people with a rich inner life and transcendental spirit who tend to neglect their outer appearance. But that said, you’re wearing eight items of clothing, and at least two of them don’t fit you. The other six are including your shoes and socks. Your shirt hangs like a maternity dress. You’re goin’ out in public, gonna be people watchin’ from all over the world, you got to show off the goods.”
“I absolutely do not have to do that. And it’s not my fault nothing fits, I have a weird body. This shirt isn’t supposed to be this low cut, it’s just that everything is designed for somebody six inches taller. So what’s a dignified neckline on a normal woman makes me look like I’m supposed to be in a parade in Rio.”
“And that’s why you got Tre. You don’t got to buy off the shelf no more, that’s the point—we’re gonna take what I got and we’re gonna make it so it fits Zoey Ashe and nobody else on earth. Only thing is, you gonna realize all at once how much all your other clothes were made with somebody else in mind. Soon you won’t want to put on pajamas without pickin’ up the phone and callin’ Tre to tailor ’em up. Now, let’s be frank, I’m obviously gonna start with them titties. See, we dress the girls first, then we can take in the bottom part. Bring out them curves.”
“Wow. I don’t even…”
“Hold still, I’m gonna measure you up.”
“My mom would be so disappointed. She—”
“Hold out your arms. There.”
“She used to say I should pity people who obsess over this type of thing.”
“Who’s obsessing? You just wanna make a splash, that’s all.”
“Okay, again, I absolutely do not want to do that.”
“Better to be looked over than overlooked. You want to walk into that funeral and have every dude in that room whip their head around and say, ‘God-damn them is some fine-ass titties. I got to find me a divorce lawyer in the next five minutes.’”
“Wow. I’m just going to leave…”
“You want every girl in that place to be murderous with jealous rage. Like, I got to get my man outta here before he sees that, and leaves my skinny ass. Why are you laughing? I’m serious.”
“I know you’re making fun of me.”
Armando remained silent across the room but clearly wanted to be literally anywhere else. Will worked his phone, seeming to have completely forgotten anyone else was in the room.
Tre said, “I’m just trying to relax you, honey. I’m measuring your butt, don’t be alarmed.”
“I don’t even know why I’m laughing, I’m probably going to die tonight. Get me a dress that won’t make me look ridiculous when they show my body on the news, that’s all I want.”
“You got dark thoughts, girl.”
Tre started sorting through a rolling rack of dress bags he’d brought and as he was grabbing one, Zoey said, “Don’t give me anything that doesn’t have pockets.”
Tre paused, put it back, then pulled out a different bag that turned out to be a surprisingly dignified black blazer and skirt.
Zoey said, “Oh. Well that’s not too bad.”
“Thank you for believing in me. Can you try this top for me? I can leave the room while you change if you don’t want me to see you in your bra but, for real, I am a professional here. Think of me like a doctor, I do this every day.”
“It’s fine.” She made a twirling motion at Armando, who not only turned his head, but turned his whole body to face the wall. Like a little kid. Will kind of had his back to them anyway, hunched over his phone and muttering something to Echo’s worried, holographic head. The other three people in the room could form a naked human pyramid and it’d take him an hour to notice.
Zoey pulled off her T-shirt and immediately Tre said, “Damn! Them’s the type of titties they write songs about.”
Zoey covered her chest with the shirt and said, “Okay, you’re not actually a designer, are you?”
“Go on, I’m just playin’. By the way, make that three items of clothing that don’t fit you. Oh—what’s that? On your shoulder?”
Zoey glanced at her back in the mirror, but didn’t need to see to know what he was referring to. Her rainbow scar. Four curved lines of pale knotted flesh swooping from her shoulder blade to her armpit.
“What does it look like? Guess.”
“It’s a scar, right?”
&nbs
p; “Well, duh. What kind? What does it look like?”
“Like a big animal clawed you. You get in a fight with a bear?”
“No. See how it’s perfectly round? Like the burner on an electric stovetop?”
“What, did you fall on the oven while it was on?”
“Sort of. One of my mom’s boyfriends, he held me down on the kitchen counter with a steak knife to my throat. Shoved me on the burners, leaned all his weight on me, and turned it on. Then we both laid there while it got hotter and hotter. Burned through my shirt, burned through my shoulder. There was actual smoke. Caught my hair on fire, too. It set off the smoke alarm. And he just laid on top of me, grinning, the whole time. He wasn’t a nice guy.”
There was silence all around, as there always was when she told this story. Even Will had glanced up from his phone, to try to figure out what drama had stopped the room. Without turning away from the wall, Armando said, “This man, is he still around?”
“Don’t know. This was several years ago. He went to jail—not for that, but for something related—but I’m sure by now he’s probably gotten out and then got put back in for something else.”
Armando asked, “What was his name?”
“Why? You think you know him?”
Armando shrugged. “Maybe I want to get to know him. Maybe I should drop in and say hello. Maybe show him what a hot stove feels like against his scumbag face.”
“Ha, then we all go to jail.”
“When a billionaire makes a career scumbag disappear, no one goes to jail. A man like that, I could do him in the parking lot of the police station and they would send me a fruit basket at Christmas.”
“Anyway, that’s why I can’t wear tank tops.”
Tre said, “Bet that saves you a lot of time shaving them armpits. You ever wear a shaping top like this? No? It’s gonna feel weird, just roll that down to your hips, like you’re putting on a giant rubber. It’s a polyurethane blend that’ll kind of shape itself to your—yeah like that.”