“I’m sorry,” Chelsea said, “but Mr. Kingsbury wants to see Chief Luz alone.”
“Yeah,” said Pedro Luz. As he rolled off the bench, he made a point of clipping Churrito with a casual forearm. Churrito didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. His eyes grew very small and he stared at Pedro Luz until Pedro Luz spun away, pretending to hunt for his sweatshirt.
Churrito pointed at the scarlet blemishes on Pedro Luz’s shoulder blades and said: “You all broke out, man.”
“Shut up before I yank your nuts off.”
Backing away, Charles Chelsea thought: Where do they get these guys?
Francis X. Kingsbury offered a Bloody Mary to Pedro Luz, who guzzled it like Gatorade.
“So, Pedro, the job’s going all right?”
The security chief was startled at Kingsbury’s genial tone. A ration of shit was what he’d expected; the old fart had been livid since the burglary of his private office. The crime had utterly baffled Pedro Luz, who hadn’t the first notion of how to solve it. He had hoped that the mission to Eagle Ridge would absolve him.
“I took care of that other problem,” he announced to Kingsbury.
“Fine. Excellent.” Kingsbury was swiveling back and forth in his chair. He didn’t look so good: nervous, ragged, droopy-eyed, his fancy golf shirt all wrinkled. Pedro Luz wondered if the old fart was doing coke. The very idea was downright hilarious.
“She won’t bother you no more,” he said to Kingsbury.
“You made it look, what—like muggers? Crack fiends?”
“Sure, that’s what the cops would think. If she calls them, which I don’t think she will. I made it clear what could happen.”
“Fine. Excellent.” Kingsbury propped his elbows on the desk in a way that offered Pedro Luz an unobstructed view of the lurid mouse tattoo.
“Two things—” Kingsbury paused when he spotted the bandage on Pedro Luz’s finger.
“Hangnail,” said the security chief.
“Whatever,” Kingsbury said. “Two things—some assholes, the guys who stole my files, they’re blackmailing me. You know, shaking me down.”
Pedro Luz asked how much money he had promised them.
“Never mind,” Kingsbury replied. “Five grand so far is what I paid. But the files, see, I can’t just blow ’em off. I need the files.”
“Who are these men?”
Francis Kingsbury threw up his hands. “That’s the thing—just ordinary shitheads. White trash. I can’t fucking believe it.”
Pedro Luz had never understood the concept of white trash, or how it differed from black trash or Hispanic trash or any other kind of criminal dirtbag. He said, “You want the files but you don’t want to pay.”
“Exacto!” said Kingsbury. “In fact, the five grand—I wouldn’t mind getting it back.”
Pedro Luz laughed sharply. Months go by and the job’s a snooze—now suddenly all this dirty work. Oh well, Pedro thought, it beats painting rat tongues. He hadn’t shed a tear when the mango voles were stolen.
Kingsbury was saying, “The other thing, I fired a guy from Publicity.”
“Yeah?” Watching that damn tattoo, it was driving Pedro silly. Minnie on her knees, polishing Mickey’s knob—whoever did the drawing was damn good, almost Disney caliber.
“You need to go see this guy I fired,” Kingsbury was saying. “Find out some things.”
Pedro Luz asked what kind of things.
Kingsbury moved his lips around, like a camel getting ready to spit. Eventually he said, “The problem we had before? This is worse, okay. The guy I mentioned, we’re talking major pain in the rectum.”
“Okay.”
“As long as he worked for us, we had some control. On the outside, hell, he’s a major pain. I just got a feeling.”
Pedro Luz gave him a thumbs-up. “Don’t worry.”
“Carefully,” Kingsbury added. “Same as before would be excellent. Except no dead whales this time.”
God, thought Pedro Luz, what a fuckup that was.
“Do I know him?” he asked Kingsbury.
“From Publicity. Joe Winder’s his name.”
“Oh.” Pedro Luz perked up. Winder was the smartass who’d been hassling him about Dr. Koocher. The same guy he’d sent Angel and Big Paulie to teach a lesson, only something went sour and Angel ended up dead and Paulie must’ve took off. Next thing Pedro knows, here’s this smartass Winder snooping around the animal lab in the middle of the night.