Andrew Klavan - Damnation Street

Bishop nodded politely, but he didn't believe it for a second. He thought if Adalian had another life, he'd want to come back as Adalian only with even more money.

"But let's be realistic here," Adalian went on. He sat back now in his chair, hooking a thumb in his belt, making little motions in the air with his free hand. "I'm not that guy. And-and this is the point I'm getting to-neither are you. I mean, come on, what is that? What kind of small-ball life is that for a big-league player like yourself? Are you starting to see what I'm saying?"

"No," said Bishop.

"I'm saying you should be working for me."

Well, this was a day full of surprises. Bishop wasn't expecting that at all. "Oh," he said.

"This," Adalian said, with another grand gesture at the crummy little room, "this is what you might call your natural habitat. Being my guy is the job you were born for. So I'm gonna give it to you. That's how I'm gonna pay you back for rescuing my piss puddle of a son."

Bishop sat still, in his usual slouch, with his usual ironic half smile on his face. He gazed at Adalian's hawklike features through his pale eyes and gave nothing away. But he was interested. He was thinking: Yeah. Maybe. Why not? He was out of work. He couldn't survive forever without a paycheck. He couldn't even survive a very small part of forever. And Adalian was probably right. This was probably the sort of thing he was made for in the end. It was like his fate catching up to him or something like that.

"What kind of job are we talking about?" he asked.

Adalian made that little motion-a little circular motion in the air-with his hand. "What do you mean what kind of job? A job for me. Doing what you do. Being who you are. Expressing your inner Bishop, whatever. Good money too. Real money. Genuine happy-time cash. Plus whatever else you feel like. Girls? I run girls'll suck your dick so hard, your socks'll come through it. You like to travel? I got business in Thailand, Russia, China now, the Middle East. Plus there'll be plenty of the kind of psycho violent stuff you get your rocks off on, and you won't have Weiss hanging over you, wagging his finger or whatever. Plus the next time that what's-his-name, the nigger, Ketchum-next time he rousts you, you can beat the living shit out of him on me, and he won't be able to do a goddamned thing about it. How's that sound?"

Bishop was still sitting in that way he sat, still smiling that way he smiled. And the truth was, it sounded pretty good. The way he was feeling-fuck Weiss, fuck Ketchum, fuck everything-it sounded like just what the doctor ordered.

"Come on, Bishop," Adalian said. "You don't belong with a guy like Weiss. Guys like Weiss, they mess with a man's head. They think they make the rules of the world. I mean, I'm talking philosophically here, if you can understand me. A guy like Weiss: you cut a man's heart out for the fucking government, he gets all misty-eyed, calls you a hero. You do it for me, suddenly you're the bad guy." He gave an elaborate shrug and made a sound with his lips like pffft. "Where the hell is that written? It's just him. It's just the way he looks at it. So you look at it another way; I look at it another way. So what? He got on you about that bitch, I'll bet, didn't he? That bitch in the papers who got charged with murder. I'll bet he got way down on you for that."

For all his self-control, Bishop couldn't keep the answer from showing itself in his eyes. Not that Weiss had said anything to him about the girl, but he didn't have to. Bishop figured he knew where Weiss stood.

Adalian pointed a finger at him and laughed. "Eh? Eh? What did I tell you? He gets in your head; he fucks with your brain. Weiss, see, he's not open-minded. He needs to be more open-minded. This is San Francisco, right? This is a very open-minded town. That's why I've done so well here."

Bishop frowned, considering. He had often thought similar sorts of things himself.

Adalian sat back in his chair, folded his hands over his belly as if he'd just finished a satisfying meal. "So what do you say? Good work. Good money. Good-bye bullshit. What's not to like?"

Bishop wasn't sure why he hesitated. It wasn't anything that Ketchum had said about his dying in prison or anything. He was already pretty well sure he was going to die in prison one way or another. This way might be fun, at least. It sounded like his sort of thing. He took to heart what Adalian said about Weiss and his stifling rules and his dis- approving attitude. That had always bothered him. Still, he hesitated. This-this job Adalian was offering him-this was exactly what Weiss had been trying to keep him from. This was exactly where Weiss had seen him going when he'd dragged him out under the Golden Gate Bridge that night and beat him senseless and advised him not to live out his life as a piece of shit. Bishop got pissed off at Weiss sometimes, but Weiss was all right, more or less. Somewhere deep down, he sort of hated to disappoint Weiss after Weiss had gone and made a project of him and everything.

So he didn't answer right away. He sat there thinking.

That made Adalian impatient. Adalian was a busy man. He only had so much time for this back-and-forth shit. You were either in or out. He leaned forward on the desk again. He dropped his voice to an intimate just-between-you-and-me tone. "Hey," he said. "Let me be frank with you on another score. Speaking strictly careerwise? Weiss is not exactly a long-term proposition anyway."

Bishop shifted in his chair. He worked the corner of his lip under his teeth. "What do you mean?"

"I'm just saying. If you're looking to invest in the future, his is limited."

"What do you mean?" Bishop said again.

"How clear do I have to be?" said Adalian.

"Clear," said Bishop. "What do you mean? You mean there's a whack on him or something? There's a contract out on Weiss?"

Adalian only shrugged, as much as to say, You said it, not me.

Bishop fell silent again another second or two. This also was news. And it probably had a much different effect on him than Adalian intended. It bothered him. It bothered him more than he wanted to admit or even to feel. An electric sense of urgency fanned out from his belly, up through his chest. He was worried about Weiss, about Weiss getting whacked-just the sort of ordinary human emotion he never expected from himself, that always caught him off guard. Only his natural instinct for cool allowed him to speak in his usual ironic drawl. "Hell, what's that about? Is this because he put you away? You gonna whack him because of the seven months he put you away for?"

"What?" said Adalian. "Oh no, hell no. I'm not like that. I'm not a spiteful person. Weiss did his job, that's all. Me, I move on, I look to tomorrow. This isn't about me."

"So what's it about? What, did you hear this?"

"Sure. A man in my position. You know, I pick things up; I hear things, yeah."

"So it's a rumor," said Bishop. He was inclined to disbelieve it. Aside from the hookers, Weiss was clean. You never get hit if you're really clean, or almost never.

Adalian still didn't really understand how this was working on Bishop. He thought if he could prove what he was saying, Bishop would see there was no future with Weiss and take the job with him. "You know the Frenchman?" he said.

"The Belgian guy, sure."

"I referred a guy to him."

"So?"

"A guy I know. A guy who did some work for me."

"A specialist," said Bishop. "A whack guy…"

"He was stocking up for a job."

"Did he say it was Weiss?"

Adalian slowly shook his head. "We didn't talk particulars." He relaxed back into his chair again, a little knowing smile on his lips like a cat sitting by an empty goldfish bowl. He waited for Bishop to figure it out.

And Bishop did figure it out, some of it anyway. He figured out which specialist they were talking about. He knew how much Weiss wanted the guy, and he knew how much the specialist wanted Weiss. He knew about the missing whore too, some of it. He knew the whore was between them. He knew if they were going to come down to it, it was going to be over the whore.