Free Internecine by David J. Schow Page B

humor. Oh, and (3) He was holding an automatic pistol that dwarfed his big hand. He nodded with recognition at Dandine.
    “How’s the music biz, Thule?”
    “Sucks, man. Who’s the bread sandwich?”
    “My associate.” I tried to duplicate Dandine’s deferential nod, and look anywhere but into Thule’s deep-set, unblinking, judgmental eyes.
    “We gotta do the thing,” said Thule.
    “Absolutely,” said Dandine, raising his arms for a poke-and-pat. It was no different than going to the airport, these days. When Thulewas done with me I was sure he could name the brand on my underwear.
    (American Male, full briefs, gray. As good as Calvins but less expensive. I’m glad I don’t usually have to go into this much detail. Now, I thought, I could get wiped out by a speeding bus, and the only way paramedics could identify me was by checking my underwear, and they’d write
American Male
in the box for my name. In the last few hours, I had thought about death more than I ever had before. Personality Modification Checklist Item #1: I really needed to shunt more effort into not being ridiculous.)
    Dandine had made a point of wearing a single gun for the benefit of Thule’s search, leaving the rest of his personal hardware in the trunk after shuffling some of the payoff currency into separate envelopes. I had neglected to ask why. I was learning to save my tyro-sounding questions for, you know, the good stuff.
    We were ushered past a few more homicidal-looking dudes with a lot of piercings and tattoos—half of them looked mildly high—into an office where most of the furnishings were stacks of paper and boxes. The dust layer was nearly an inch thick. This was the room with the window shutters. The centerpiece was a banged-up, metal office desk the size of a big refrigerator laid on its side. There were seven separate multiline phones on the desk, and what I took to be some “drug paraphernalia,” based on what I’d seen in movies.
    Seated behind a fly-vision bank of security monitors was Varga, who resembled a generational dime-a-dance mix among Asian and Mexican partners, with some of our darker brethren stirred in to cool his gaze. The sclerae of his eyes were completely yellow. He was shaved bald (you could see the pattern lines on his pate) and had a gold stud in his upper lip, as though to plug a small-caliber bullet hole.
    “You the last motherfucker I expected to see,” said Varga, not standing. His hands were knobby, callused, and prearthritic; he kept both in plain view on the desk blotter. “Who’s the luggage?”
    “This is my associate, Mr. Lamb.”
    I realized he was talking about me. I stood back, partially in shadow from the feeble throw of the desk lamp, folded my hands, and tried to hang tough.
    “What’d you do to his head?”
    “Bizarre flossing accident.” Dandine indicated the monitors. “You expecting celebrities?”
    Varga was keeping his gaze on the multitude of tiny TV screens, speaking to us without looking at us a whole lot, his eyes scanning left to right, giving each screen about three seconds in succession, then back to one.
    “Things have been weird for a couple hours now,” he said.
    Dandine got right to it. “Alicia Brandenberg—I need to know everything you know about her.”
    “Who?” Varga grinned, finally looking at Dandine for the first time that counted. It was part of the jockeying.
    “Shit,” said Dandine, looking to the side, disappointed. “I didn’t want to waste any of your time, and here
you
are, wasting it anyway.” He blew out a long sigh and sank both hands into his pockets.
    “Careful,” said Varga. Two goons appeared to bracket the door, like djinn, gently summoned from a bottle.
    Dandine withdrew his hands and showed them in the light, front and back. “Anyway. Alicia Brandenberg, spelled the same as the town. A political pain in the ass that needed tweezing. Except she found out, and she called some guys, who called you. And you sent home