Free Dead Mann Running (9781101596494) by Stefan Petrucha Page B

tones eliminated by the pitch shift. It sounded like a drunken toad. When I didn’t answer right off, the toad repeated the question, so slow I heard his lips smack between words.
    “How smart a chak are you?”
    “Not smart enough to avoid getting stuck in the middle of this. Where’s Misty?”
    He ignored the question. “Someone thought you’d know what to do with the case. Any idea who brought it to you?”
    “No. Where’s Misty?”
    Another smack. “Any theories?”
    “No.” The only thing I did know was that by the time he reached me, there wasn’t much left of him. But why share everything with an anonymous toad?
    “If you find out, I’d really like to know.” I think he believed me.
    “Same here. Where’s…?”
    He cut me off. “Do you know who this is?”
    That game again. “No, but you know me pretty well, right? You told your boys I wouldn’t be much trouble. So, maybe you’ll believe me when I say I didn’t kill your man. We were attacked.”
    “He’s dead?”
    Stupid, stupid, stupid. He didn’t know until I’d told him. Dizzy with frustration, anger, and fear, I lowered myself onto the mattress. It was like sitting on a relief map of the moon.
    “Yeah, unless he can survive on his own with a severed jugular. I’m telling you it wasn’t me. I’m no trouble, remember?”
    “Who, then?”
    One wrong word, I’d lose him, and maybe lose Misty. “I didn’t ask for a name. A freak in ninja robes, someone fast, well trained.” I felt like I was trying to describe Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. “Whoever it was, they were better trained than the fake cop you sent to my office, and that guy was pretty good. You should’ve gotten him a better car, though.”
    “He wasn’t mine. My men picked up his car later.”
    “Then that makes at least three groups after this stuff.”
    “How so?” asked the toad.
    “I usually get a fee when I work, but under the circumstance,tell me where Misty is and I’ll share my deepest thoughts, okay? That is, if you know where she is.”
    There was a buzz and a click, like he’d swallowed a fly. “I do know, more or less. I’ll tell you depending on how the conversation goes.”
    “More or less?”
    “Nothing in life is certain.”
    “Except for death and taxes, right? And these days it’s just taxes. Fine. If the cop doesn’t work for you, that’s two. He was killed by the same ghost who got your boy, which means they don’t work for either of you. That much math I can do.”
    “A zombie telling a ghost story. Interesting.” There was a pause. “Unless you killed them in both cases. Convince me otherwise.”
    “Geez. Think about it. Even if I did manage to overpower a liveblood with some serious muscle tone, why the fuck would I go after your guy while Misty was in trouble? If you know me, you know that, being dead, I don’t care about much, but one of the only things I do care about used to be in this room. What would I have to gain?”
    “Maybe everything.” An electronic hiss came from the cell’s speaker as the voice shifter tried to compensate for the silence.
    “What?”
    “You don’t know what’s in the case?”
    “Two vials of blue liquid. They could be the plans for the Death Star or the one true ring. I don’t care.”
    I started pacing. Every minute I played word games with the toad was another minute Misty was alone with Flat-face.
    “Such emotions, from a chak. Do they hurt the waythey did when you were alive, or is it more like a cut? Is it a throbbing or a stabbing pain?”
    Of course it hurt. My whole body was pulsating in a sickening way. There was something familiar about the line of questions, too.
    “Another fucking sadist! What is this, a club?”
    “You’re confusing me with my employee. I’m only trying to figure out whether to believe you or not. She’s alive. Safe depends on your definition. Her host is regrettably unpredictable.”
    I squeezed the phone like it was a neck. “I’m through with