Free Poison Sleep by T. A. Pratt

let him take a vacation he was nearly killed.”
    “That wasn’t a vacation. It was a business trip. Come on, we’ll talk on the way. Oh, wait.” She knelt by the small safe behind her desk, spun the dial a few times for the look of the thing, and then subvocalized the
real
command that opened the lock. She reached into the safe for a banded wad of cash, turned, and tossed it to Ted, who managed to catch it with minimal fumbling even with the keys and shoebox in his hands. “You’re a consultant, so we don’t do any of that tax withholding crap. You’re responsible for reporting your own income to the government. Or not. Though I’m sort of a government myself, and I encourage people to be community-minded and pay up.”
    “You’re…a government?” Ted said, still staring at the wad of cash in his hands. It was probably a lot of money, Marla supposed, though it was just the take from one slow evening at one betting parlor down by the bay. Marla ran a lot of rackets.
    “It’s complex, Ted,” she said, shutting the safe. “Stick the money in your pocket or something and let’s go.” She led him through the club, pausing briefly to smile at the sound of Rondeau cursing in the bathroom. “Rondeau!” she shouted. “Ted’s driving me to Langford’s, so I can talk to him about that thing!”
    “How nice for you!” Rondeau said. “I’ll just be here wrestling the Skatouioannis!”
    “I trust you mean that metaphorically?”
    “Go away! I need some alone time!”
    “Skatouioannis?” Ted said as they got on the freight elevator.
    “Greek word. Means ‘Shitty John.’ It’s like a demon made out of crap.” Marla stabbed the button for the parking garage, a real subterranean bat cave sort of place, with a tunnel that came out of a garage a few blocks away. “I’ve never actually
encountered
one, don’t even know if they exist, but Rondeau read a story about one once, and now he’s convinced that’s the reason the toilets are always backing up.”
    Ted quirked an eyebrow. “This is a very odd workplace.”
    The elevator doors opened, and the silver Bentley gleamed before them, sleek and seemingly long as a yacht. Even after a morning’s hard drive over salted roads, it was spotless—just a little enchantment laid on the car by its former owner. It was probably the world’s only all-terrain Bentley. Marla wasn’t particularly into cars, but she could appreciate fine workmanship, and this car was an unsurpassed blend of engineering and magic. It couldn’t actually fly, but riding in it, you got the feeling it
wanted
to. “Yeah, it’s a weird place to work,” Marla said. “But there are perks. For instance, you get to drive a car like
that
.”
    Ted drove safely and sedately out of the city center, which pleased Marla, even though she was in a hurry. The Bentley was nigh indestructible, but she was glad to see him treat it with care. “Do you mind if I ask where we’re going?” Ted said.
    “To see a consultant who does some work for me. Guy named Langford. He has a lab uptown.”
    “Ah,” Ted said. “I’m still not clear, exactly, on what business you do.”
    “I’m not into organized crime, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Marla said. Which wasn’t exactly true—she’d inherited a few not-strictly-legal businesses from her predecessor, Sauvage, including several betting parlors and some drug trade, though limited strictly to gentler substances, like hallucinogens and pot. Those could be abused, sure, but they weren’t a debilitating cancer on a city the way crack or meth or heroin could be. But she wasn’t involved with the mafia or any of those hard-core types, which was what Ted was probably worried about. “I own a lot of real estate and some local businesses, and I’m heavily into civic pride. I deal with important people in city government and do my best to protect the best interests of Felport. There’s not really a name for the job I do.”