Warren Ellis - Crooked Little Vein

I walked out of the living room, put the front door on the latch, and sat down on the porch outside.

“It’s Zack. The creepiest thing just happened, dude.”

“What?”

“Two isweartogod Men in Black just left, with an old guy in tow. They asked me about you.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“What was that about? It wasn’t a raid. Hell, the old guy asked if we did any medical-fetish porno and I gave him a DVD.”

“That, Zack, was my client.”

“Damn, Mike. I’ve met some weird people in this town, politicians and lawyers, but I never had anything like this.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I have no idea how that happened. If it helps, they’re in no position to drop the boom on you. You’re cool.”

“If you say so, dude. But damn that was weird.”

“Listen… You’ve dealt with lawyers?”

“Oh, they’re the worst. I have to chase them out of here with a broom. Sick stuff, lemme tell ya.”

“Do you know an outfit called Islip Sinclair Collis?”

“What the fuck are you into, Mike?”

“Zack, please.”

“I won’t deal with ’em. Life’s too short. And those parties of theirs, Jesus.”

I pulled a cigarette. “Tell me about the parties, Zack.”

“First I’m going to send a configurator to your phone. You carrying any other Internet-enabled devices I should know about?”

Iwalked quickly through the living room into the kitchen. Opened the drawer I wanted, threw out the false bottom, and took out the Ruger. Loaded it, slowly. Walked back into the living room with the Ruger heavy in my right hand. Grabbed Trix’s hand with my left, yanking her up off the sofa.

“Where’s Brom working?”

“What?”

“Now, Trix.”

I dragged her into the hallway, where we heard the clicking of a keyboard. There was an expansive home office at the back of the house. Brom was working at a big black desktop computer on a big black desk. He spoke without looking around. “Anything you need?”

I hit him in the back of the head with the butt of the Ruger. He slid off the chair like a sack of hammers.

Trix punched me in the shoulder with her free hand. “What the hell? Mike!”

I looked at her. She got scared in a way I didn’t like. But I didn’t have time for anything else.

“Get up,” I said to Brom. Blood was trickling out of his hair onto the back of the T-shirt.

“Christ,” he groaned. “I’m sorry I had sex with her, all right? I’m sorry. Fucking lunatic.”

“Trix, you need to tell me you had protected sex with this man.”

“Of course I did. Mike, we can talk about this. Don’t, don’t do whatever’s in your mind. We can fix this.”

“Brom, you need to tell Trix all about this party at Islip tonight.”

He twisted around on the ground to face me. “Fuck you.”

I stamped on his balls. As he convulsed forward, I kicked his head to the ground and put my foot on the side of it. Going down on one knee, I pressed the Ruger to his temple and pulled the hammer back.

“I don’t particularly like having turned into all the assholes I’ve been dealing with since I started this case, Brom. But you’ve done it to me. All of you. All of you monsters. So now I’m like you. Now either you can tell her what these parties are, or I can put a bullet through your brain, have the White House chief of staff sanitize your murder and this location so it becomes like you never even existed, and then tell her myself. Tell me what happens next, Brom. Tell me if I’m killing you.”

“They’re sex parties.”

“What kind of sex parties, Brom?”

“Sex parties with…with teenagers.”

I screwed the muzzle of the gun into his temple until the skin broke. “Stop fucking with me.”

“With kids. Okay? With virgin kids. Kids who don’t have HIV.”

“Yeah,” I said, mostly to myself. “Falconer. That goddamn Falconer was right. Who’d’ve thought it?”

I felt Trix go cold in my hand. “Brom. What are you talking about?”

“The upper ranks of power in this town…You try getting laid in this town without having a current HIV test. You can’t. Sex parties, forget it. Once you’ve been around a while, herpes is the best you can hope for. If you like group sex, unprotected sex, hurting people…Look, it’s something I have to be part of, okay? If I want the power in this town to be able to change anything, I have to be part of the system.”

“They call them roulette parties, Trix,” I said quietly. “They get two or three pretty kids, drug them to their eyeballs, and then everyone at the party screws them. And then they place bets on which of the kids will end up HIV positive. That’s why I needed to know if you had protected sex. Because I doubt that this is the first invite Brom’s gotten.”

“I’ve only been to three! Three!” Brom shrieked.

“Now, Brom. My life is a mess of shitty coincidences. So you tell me now: Is there anything special about tonight’s party? I didn’t like your reaction when you told me Frank Islip would never traffic in stolen goods. Because I didn’t give you a name. I gave you the firm’s title. And when I gave you an out, you took it so fast I couldn’t see your ass for dust.”

“They bought something. An antique. Something that’ll give the community political leverage in Washington. I don’t know what it is. They’re showing it off tonight.”

“And we know what that is, don’t we, Trix?”

I let go of her hand. She didn’t move away.

“Yeah. We do. Your ticket’s plus-one, Brom?”

Brom didn’t answer.

Trix’s hand reached for my gun. Our eyes met. I slipped the gun into her hand.

She moved the gun muzzle around his face, and slowly pushed it into his eye.

She ground out the words. “Plus-one?”

“…yes.”

“Well, I’d love to come to the party with you, Brom. But we need to figure out a way for Mike to get in, too.”

Idrew the living room curtains, put my foot through the phone in the room, and unplugged it from the wall just to make damn sure. Trix found some fur-lined handcuffs in his bedroom, which I decided not to think about, and we put a dining room chair in the living room, sat Brom down in it, and cuffed him to it.

I sat in his armchair and looked at the big Ruger Super Blackhawk in my hand. “This thing’s going to be a problem,” I said.

“Are you going to take it?” Trix said. She didn’t like looking at it. She’d handed it back to me like it was a dead rat once we’d gotten off Brom in his office, and washed her hands in the kitchen sink afterward, looking a little nauseous.

“It makes too damn much noise. These things go off like God punching the world. Did you never see Dirty Harry? Everyone else’s guns go bang bang, and his gun goes pow. I fire this in an office building and everyone’s going to see the windows rattle.”

“Are you expecting to have to use it, is what I’m saying, Mike.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am. I’m not going to be able to bluff my way into the building. They know Brom, he said he’s been there before. What’s the parking situation there, Brom?”

Brom had pretty much given up, and sagged there like jelly. “Underground car park. Security at the elevator, security at the thirty-third floor. Where the party is.”

“Okay,” I said. “Not as bad as I expected. I’m just wondering where they’ll be keeping the book.”

“Frank Islip’s office. His personal safe. I’ve seen it. He keeps his good stuff there. Likes to show people things.”

“Why are you being so helpful all of a sudden?”

“Because I’m not the bad guy here.” He looked at Trix. “I’m not a bad guy. I do what I have to in order to remain in a position to help people.”