Free Known Devil by Matthew Hughes Page A

help run operations there – he held quite a responsible position, I understand. Charlie has not forbidden his son from engaging in this attempt at expansion, but he has declined to bankroll it.”
    “What the fuck’s the kid doing, then,” Karl said, “putting it on his MasterCard?”
    “The source of Ronnie’s funding is something of a mystery,” Loquasto went on. “But it seems abundantly clear that he has found a backer.” He gave an expressive shrug. “Perhaps in one of the other Northeast families.”
    “The fucker probably promised them a cut of the profits on that new drug,” Calabrese said. “That’d get their attention.”
    Louis Loquasto was probably the only man, living or undead, who could get away with the hard look that he gave Calabrese right then. The Don had just said something he wasn’t supposed to – and judging by the expression on his face now, Calabrese knew it, too. Maybe the attempted assassination attempt last night had affected him more than he wanted to admit. Even vampires have nerves, you know.
    Things at the table went very quiet. I let the silence go on for a little while before saying, in a conversational tone, “Oh? And what new drug might that be?”
    Calabrese looked at Loquasto. The consigliere was usually a hard man to read, but this time the small shrug, combined with his facial expression, said clearly, You might as well – we can’t go back now.
    Calabrese hesitated a few seconds longer before he looked at me and said, “On the street, they call it Slide.”
     
    I can’t say I was exactly blown away when he said “Slide”. It was pretty damn unlikely that two new drugs were being sold in this town.
    “Sounds like that name’s something you guys recognize,” Calabrese said.
    “I heard it for the first time just a couple of nights ago,” I said, “from an elf I was questioning. We busted him and one of his buddies when they tried to take down Jerry’s Diner. Turns out they wanted the money to buy more of this Slide.”
    “Our sources tell us that it’s been on the street for about a month now,” Loquasto said.
    “Something like that’s not supposed to exist,” I said. “A drug that addicts multiple species of supes.”
    “Yes,” Loquasto said. “We find it very puzzling – not to mention unprecedented.”
    “I know that elves can get hooked on it,” I said. “I’ve seen that with my own eyes. But I also heard a rumor that it has the same effect on vampires – I didn’t know whether to believe that one or not.”
    Calabrese and his consigliere exchanged a look. Whatever passed between them ended with Calabrese saying, “Yeah, it affects us, alright. And fuckin’ weres, too.”
    Karl whistled softly, which must have been hard to do through his fangs. Then he looked at me and said, “Worse and worse.”
    I said to Calabrese, “And this shit is coming from the new guys – the Delatassos. Not you.”
    “You got that right,” he said grimly.
    “Takes some pretty big balls,” I said. “Selling stuff like that, right under your nose.”
    “Yeah, well, there’s one thing about having big balls,” Calabrese said. “They’re easy to find when you’re ready to cut ’em off.”
    “So that’s how the war started?” Karl asked. “Delatasso Junior sent some people into town, who started pushing Slide. And you… objected.”
    Loquasto started to say something diplomatic and non-incriminating, but Calabrese interrupted him. “Yeah, we objected , alright,” he said. “We got hold of two of those guys, tied ’em up good, then left the fuckers in a field to meet the sunrise.”
    I swallowed. Vampires exposed to sunlight burst into flame. What Calabrese had done, or ordered someone to do, was the equivalent of pouring a gallon of gas over somebody, then dropping a match on him.
    “How’d you know they worked for Delatasso?” Karl asked.
    “We had a little conversation before they went out to that field,” Calabrese said. “One of