Free Roadkill by Rob Thurman

something you don’t, can you?” I commented as I passed into the sun and headed for the Jeep. “Where’s Salome?” Robin had picked up the carrier at the door, but it was empty.
    He didn’t answer me any more than I’d answered him. He did manage to call me every equivalent of jackass he could think of, keeping it all in English so a nonbilingual moron like me could understand each one. I nodded, snorted, and gave him the occasional “good job” when it was a really filthy one. When we got back to the Jeep, Robin still didn’t have his answer, but I had mine. It turned out Salome had beaten us back to the Jeep. She was batting a revenant head around the floorboards with waning enthusiasm. To a cat, it was no fun when they didn’t wriggle and squirm. She yawned when she saw us, her teeth suddenly much bigger with the gray furless lips peeled back, then went to her usual grin.
    “No, no. Absolutely not,” Goodfellow told her. “You are not taking that home and rolling it across my finely crafted floors. Do you realize how hard it is to remove blood from marble grouting? I thought not.” He tossed the head into the water as he slid behind the wheel while holding the carrier. He picked up Salome whose Egyptian dusk eyes narrowed. “Yes, very fearful. You’re the feline fatale. Take a nap.” She was deftly popped in the carrier and it was placed on the backseat.
    “Do dead cats nap?” I asked, although at the moment I wasn’t particularly curious, but I was hoping to distract Robin. I should’ve known there wasn’t much chance of that, and there wasn’t.
    “So obviously you feel this is a need-to-know situation. I and my ruined wardrobe can both assure you that I need to know.” He started the Jeep as I settled into the passenger seat.
    “Oh, I know you need to know. Can’t stand not knowing. Are flat-out dying to know.” I closed my eyes and crossed my arms. I didn’t know if dead cats napped or not, but I did. “But guess what? You’re not getting to know.” I ignored him as his cursing escalated and I closed my eyes tighter against the bright daylight.
    Hell, I wished I didn’t know.
    But in the end I did tell him. He was right. He deserved to know. It was safer for him if he did. After I told him, the swearing stopped and he squeezed my shoulder sympathetically. “I am sorry, but I would be lying if I said I hadn’t seen it coming.”
    I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t admit the same thing. I’d learned in the past where lying to myself got me . . . in a world of hurt. Instead, this time I kept my eyes shut and did everything I could not to think about anything. No lies, no truth—nothing at all. As most things tended to do when you needed them the most . . .
    It didn’t work.

3
    Cal
    Abelia-Roo and her clan were at a campground in the Catskills. They would be tucked away in a less scenic and more private corner of the RV park where they could avoid any contact with outsiders, gadje . That wasn’t to say they weren’t running some cons, doing a little tarot or palm reading; Abelia- Roo wasn’t the best role model or leader, but they’d be more likely to do that in the nearest town. Wouldn’t want the natives having a map to the front door of your Batcave, or considering Abelia-Roo, to your volcano hideout complete with lasers for toasting the genitals of your luckless hero.
    It was a two-and-a-half-hour trip late that same afternoon and Niko actually let me do the driving. We retrieved his car from where Robin let us park it at his lot, although in the back, far separated from the other cars like the old days of leper colonies. To give Goodfellow credit, it did look contagious: patches of different-colored paint, older than either Niko or me; no MP3 player; no disk player, cassette player; not even an eight track player. I wasn’t exactly sure what that last was, but it would have to be better than the AM radio, which is all we managed to get. And with that luxury option, the