Free Trickster by Jeff Somers Page B

a pissy mood because we’d been cooped up in the motel for three days now, smelling each other’s farts and acting like sunshine burned. I pulled the bottles from the bag and inspected them, wondering what the nutritional value of cheap booze was, how long we had before we turned yellow and our teeth fell out.
    “That was our last forty bucks,” he said from the bed. “I didn’t want to waste it on food.”
    I closed my eyes and started twisting the cap on the off-brand bourbon he’d brought in. Going underground wasn’t easy. It sounded easy, but cash was a dying breed and the world that mattered at the moment was wide-awake watching out for assholes likeus. Cal Amir and his boss didn’t need electronic receipts and surveillance cameras to find us. Mika Renar would slit a half dozen throats and fucking materialize in the room, thunderbolts in her withered old hands. Hiram had made fun of me for even suggesting going into hiding.
    “My boy,” he said, shaking his head, “if your name comes up connected to this, where will you hide that an enustari cannot find?”
    This encouraging bit of mentoring had occurred while we were dumping the body of the Skinny Fuck, whose name I still didn’t know. No one thought their names. I had a fading impression of him, his inner monologue, everything that had been him, but he’d never once thought his own fucking name. Everyone was I in their heads. We’d put him in the river and Hiram had bled for thirty seconds, muttering a spell that would keep the body in the dark water forever. I’d swayed next to him. ready to pass out, wishing for a cigarette.
    I almost hadn’t noticed Hiram palming the udug . I didn’t need to see it; Hiram stole everything.
    “Mr. Vonnegan, if Mika Renar wishes to find you, she will find you. You should be thinking about how to appease her.” Hiram had turned to me, wrapping his hand delicately in a bandage, his white beard looking silver in the moonlight. “Find the girl. Bring her to Renar, or her apprentice. Beg forgiveness, claim ignorance. Everyone will believe you.”
    The fucking bastard, with his twinkling eyes. He’d never forgive me.
    I took a long swig from the bottle Mags had brought. It was terrible. Wincing, I choked it down, and it bloomed into a believable spot of warmth in my belly. I turned and leaned against the dresser, bottle in hand, and looked at Mags. He was stretched out on the musty floral bedspread, his suit tight and wrinkled on him like a snakeskin about to slough off, his stocking feet wiggling in the air. He jabbed at the remote control every three or four seconds, grimacing at each new offering. He looked about thirty seconds away from hurling the remote at the TV. Which meant he was about an hour and thirty seconds away from telling me, in a singsongy, tiny voice, that he wished there was another TV to watch.
    I took another swig.
    It was time to go. It was time to make an excuse, put on my shoes, steal a towel from the bathroom, and walk out into the night and leave Mags behind. Pitr wasn’t bright, and I’d been kidding myself that I’d been taking care of him all these years. Here we were, broke again, on the run. We had nothing to show for anything, and it was all my fault. The worst part was how easy it would be. I could wait for Mags to fall asleep, or just tell him I was going out for a smoke. Step out, crack a scab and cast a quick Glamour, make everyone’s eye skip over me, and just walk away. He’d be better off without me.
    I brought the bottle into the bathroom and closed the flimsy wooden door behind me. I was, as usual, wearing everything I owned. I set the bottle on theback rim of the sink and leaned forward, staring at myself. Sunken eyes, limp, greasy black hair, an uneven, sallow sort of face with a crust of beard. I looked like someone who’d lift your wallet and cry if you caught him. I was twenty-nine and I’d had Mags for eight years, and here we were. All the fucking power of the