Warren Ellis - Crooked Little Vein

“Bullshit.”

Brom prickled. “Do you know why I became a lawyer? Do you? Because I wanted a say in the shape of society. If I have to join the Pirates—”

“The what?”

“That’s what they call themselves. The Pirates of the Pacific. A bunch of them were in Skull and Bones at Yale—”

“Oh my God,” yelped Trix. “I’ve heard of them. I think three or four presidents have been in Skull and Bones. All kinds of weird political conspiracy stuff, you know?” She turned to me. “Skull and Bones was implicated in the opium trade, and they’re considered racist and proslavery, Mike. A bunch of Yale’s residential colleges are named after slave owners. We’re gonna walk into this party and find three or four pretty black kids waiting to get raped.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Why are you suddenly being cooperative, Brom?”

“If you do something to disempower the Pirates,” said Brom, “then by default the younger generation, like me, gains more power in town. I’ll give you all the help you need.”

I smiled at Brom. “You fucking maggot.”

“Hold on,” said Trix. “Give me a second here.”

She looked at Brom. He withered a little under her intent gaze. And then she looked across at me.

“Why aren’t we just calling the cops, Mike? I mean, yes, I know, powerful people, political clout, friends in high places, I get all that. But why aren’t we just feeding Brom to the cops and letting them get the story out of him?”

Brom cleared his throat. “These people run L.A.’s legal—”

“I said I get that, Brom. I’m saying that even the cops can’t ignore a confession from a legal player like you. Why don’t we feed him to the cops, Mike?”

I pulled out another cigarette. I’d been using an expensive-looking modern-art sculpture thing as an ashtray. “Can’t do it, Trix.”

“Because of what Brom says?”

“Because we’d lose the book. We can call the cops once we’re in there. We do it now and that book’ll disappear into some secure location we’ll never find. And I want this ended.”

“Mike, that’s really dangerous. And I don’t mean for us. They’re going to have sex on kids. If we get there late, if we can’t get to a phone, if the cops don’t listen…something awful’s going to happen to them.”

“I know. The only thing in our favor is that they’re not going to be expecting anyone to break into a very secret, very private party. There’ll be security, but it won’t be heavy, because heavy security draws attention of its own. And the last thing they want is attention.”

“Mike, I don’t think the book matters anymore.”

“It does. It does to me. I want out of this, and the book gets me out. I’m starting to look back with nostalgia at the middle-aged ostrich fuckers, Trix. Help me out with this and you never have to see me again.”

“What makes you think I never want to see you again?”

“Giving me shit about the case and sleeping with the white slaver here were clues. I’m a detective.”

“Mike…” Trix sighed and leaned over in her chair until her head was touching her legs. “Mike, I told you and told you. This is how I choose to live. It doesn’t affect us at all.”

“It affects me. And you already think I’m a monster for wanting to hand over the book.”

She studied me, tiredly. “I don’t care anymore. I just want to be done with this. You’re exhausting me. This is exhausting me.”

“Yeah.” I flicked ash onto the rich carpet, quite deliberately. “Now, Brom. I’m going to uncuff you, and you’re going to draw me a little map of the offices we’re attending. And then you’re going to tell me how the entrance procedure works. Trix, you want to start getting ready. Time’s ticking away.”

Aftersome extended foraging through that stupidly huge house that probably took me into another time zone, I found Brom’s liquor cabinet. A walk-in liquor cabinet. In there, cobwebby, was a whiskey that was old enough to be Trix’s mother. I poured myself three fingers and sat down alone with Brom’s map. It wasn’t bad. Too detailed to be a complete fabrication. It was a new building, he’d said, barely two years old, and gave a pretty good description of the environs. Good enough for me to figure out a remarkably stupid stunt, anyway.

Two elevators served the offices. He’d marked the positions he’d noticed security agents in, the last two times he’d attended the place. The bullpen area was cleared as party space. Islip’s office was fairly distant from it. There’d be a sequence of locked doors to defeat, of course, but one thing you’re taught as an investigator is how to, well, commit crimes. I’d taken a couple of things from the kitchen that, with some judicious bending and twisting, would serve as tools for breaking and entering.

The last few days had either made me a better detective or a better criminal.

Getting to the elevators. Using the elevator without detection. Getting to Islip’s office without detection. I wasn’t overly worried about the safe. I knew where it was, and there’s no such thing as an uncrackable safe. I was worried about getting out. If I had to hurt someone to get up there, I’d have less than fifteen minutes before the flags went up. And despite what I’d said to Trix, I knew that calling the cops wouldn’t do a goddamn thing unless I got very creative.

The whiskey was shivering in the glass. My hand was shaking. I polished off the last of it and placed the glass upside down on the nearest table.

Theride into Beverly Hills was dark and hot. The black handheld in my jacket pocket jabbed into my chest for most of the way there. I cradled the unloaded Ruger in my hands, thinking furiously. Running every possible move and outcome in my head. My heart was hammering, and my nerves jangled with stress. I found myself grinding my teeth, and forced myself still. I wanted a cigarette. I wanted a cigarette and, stupidly, pemmican. I read all the James Bond books as a kid, and, in one of them, Bond prepares for an infiltration by holing up someplace until night, smoking cigarettes, and eating wedges of pemmican. I wanted cigarettes and pemmican and to be James Bond. Instead, I was sweating myself to death in the trunk of a lawyer’s car en route to Beverly Hills.

Brom finally popped the trunk. I sat up sharply. We were in an underground carport, dark and cool. Like a good boy, Brom had parked far away from the elevators, several whitewashed concrete stanchions obscuring us from whoever might be over there.

I pulled the ammunition from my jacket pocket and began to reload the Ruger. “How many?” I whispered.

“Just one, by the elevator. There’s a restroom around the corner from that.”

“Good. Brom, when all hell breaks loose, and it will—you grab Trix and you get the hell out of there. That’s all you have to do. Is that clear?”

Cogs worked in Brom’s brain. “You’re going to let me get away?”

“Get Trix out of there and no one needs to know you were ever involved. And I’m sorry about the crack on the head and all, but I was kind of pissed.”

Brom stuck out his hand. “So we’re even?”

My face must’ve changed significantly, because he instantly went pale. “No, Brom, we’re not even. I am simply choosing not to care about you. And if you don’t get Trix somewhere safe, you don’t get to live until the end of the week. Are we clear on that?”

He stuck his hand in his pocket.

I clambered out of the car. Trix waited beside it, very quiet.

“Just stick to the sidelines,” I said to her, “and get the fuck out of Dodge when it all goes off. I’ll get your money to you in a couple of days.”