Free No Rest for the Wicked by A. M. Riley Page B

son of a bitch,” he rasped.
    The ice-cream truck rocked back and forth as we tossed each other around inside it. Drew drove on, blissfully unconcerned. Truth was, Caballo and I got into fights pretty regularly. About once a week one of us drew down on the other over something. Maybe it was some kind of violent vampiric urges. Maybe the fear of any of these mofobags getting anywhere near Peter.
    Maybe I just liked sitting on top of him.
    “Fuck, man.” Caballo ducked, then came around in a scissor kick that knocked my head into the side of the van. That quelled my homicidal urges a bit and I sat down hard, ears ringing.
    “You're an asshole,” I told him, holding my head to make it stop vibrating.
    “Yeah. Well.” Breathing hard, Caballo threw himself back into the chair, picking up his game again and resuming play, despite a swollen eye and split lip. “Takes one to know one.”
    “I don't ever want one of you bastards anywhere near him.”
    “Got the message loud and clear.” Caballo grinned. “Hell, he must be something else.”
    “He is,” I said quietly.
    Caballo gave me a look with his one good eye. “Listen to me. You know why I hook up with a different one every night? I don't want to get attached to them.”
    “Them?” What the hell was he talking about?
    “Mortals, man. Life is short, Adam. Really short.”
    My lip was bleeding. I touched it with the back of my hand and said, “Asshole. Just stay away from him.”
    The van lurched to a stop, and Drew turned around in his seat, calling through the tiny window, “We're home, boys.”

Chapter Six
    Betsy gave Caballo and me the eye when we walked in bloody and disheveled, but all she said was, “Have a seat.”
    Betsy's dark hair, dark eyes, and diminutive frame were not the only things about her that reminded me of a rat. She was a hoarder. Headquarters was filled with the various objects she'd ferreted out of dumpsters or found abandoned by the curb. The only reason the rooms weren't an intolerable rat's nest of her treasures was Drew, who would surreptitiously cart the trash out again. One night, Betsy had scavenged a long folding table and some really uncomfortable chairs from somewhere. Unfortunately, Drew hadn't been able to dispose of these yet, and periodically Betsy would make us all sit at the table and have a meeting.
    It reminded me of the murder room at the old Hollywood station, actually. We even had a patch of moldy carpeting and a water stain in the asbestos tile hanging overhead. As I sat there watching Drew and Betsy set up, I remembered a night years back when I was still working with Peter in Hollywood Homicide, when the rain had come right through the tile. Peter and I had been going over a case with Leroy Smith and Bernice, back before Bernice had been made adjutant to the chief. We were closing the files. We had the guy and were now involved in the lengthy process of dotting all the i's for the DA's office. Peter and I had just discovered that we batted for the same team, and I looked up and saw Peter gazing at me across the top of a file, his eyes hot. And I was just thinking that maybe tonight I should follow him home when the steady drip drip of the rain outside suddenly became a rushing noise, and then the whole wall behind Peter was covered with bits of asbestos tile and dirty water.
    “Adam, are you listening?”
    I snapped to attention, pulling my feet off the table and leaning forward so the chair righted itself and both my feet hit the floor. “Yeah?”
    Betsy leveled a murderous look down the long table. “You're the one who wants us to work with the cops. Least you could do is pay attention.” Frank sat in a chair near her elbow, and she put a hand on his head. Betsy had dressed him in an overly cute rose-colored shirt with a smiling cat on it, and she'd styled his hair. He vibrated continuously, the whites of his eyes showing every time he glanced at Caballo. He resembled nothing so much as one of those