“Let him up. Right now.”
I pull the guy out of the water and heave him across the canal to some nearby steps, where I throw him down on his back. He’s spitting up water and vomiting, and when he’s finished doing that, I give him a well-judged punch to knock him out cold.
“You okay, Mr. Black?” someone shouts. I glance up to see a man dressed in jeans and a shirt, holding a gun on the unconscious gondolier. Security?
“I’m fine,” I say, but then I look down.
The water didn’t have so much red in it before. Did it? Finch splashes over to me, hyperventilating.
“I’mfine,” I reassure him, and try to touch the wound in my side. I hiss between my teeth.
“You’renotfine,” Finch says, his eyes wide, a darker green than I’ve ever seen them, like shadows in a forest.
The man with the gun comes stomping over. “We gotta get you to the hospital,” he shouts, like I want the whole of fucking Vegas to know my business.
“Absolutely not,” I tell him. “And who the hell are you?”
“Call an ambulance,” Finch says over the top of me, and slaps his hand hard over the wound on my side, making me yelp. He presses in hard, trying to stop the flow of blood. “Hey, you,” he says, glancing at the man. “You listen tome, okay? Not the guy bleeding out. Call an ambulance.”
“I’m notbleeding out,” I insist, and I pull Finch’s hand away and tug up my shirt to look at the wound. The bullet ripped open my flesh, which isn’t great, because God knows what’s in this water, but it was only a glancing shot. No actual bullet wounds and no internal damage. “I asked you a question,” I say, and look up at the guy again.
“Private security, courtesy of Mr. Vegas.” Well, that explains that. “Mr. Vegas has a medic on standby for his, uh, special guests—”
“Fine,” Finch and I both say.
“And this dude here, you want me to take care of him?”
I glance at the gondolier, picturing the red dirt and boulders of the canyon I visited yesterday. Yes, I want his bones picked clean and bleached in the Nevada sun. But I want information first.
“Lock him up so I can pay him a visit later. Understand?”
The man hesitates, but then nods. “Might be best to keep the LVPD outta this one. I’ll tidy him up and hand him over to Mr. Vegas until you’re ready for him.”
“I appreciate your discretion.” I don’t like the idea that Sonny Vegas is having us followed, but on the other hand, it’s not unexpected.
“We’ll keep things quiet for you, Mr. Black, sir. You can count on it.”
* * *
Sonny’s muscleorganizes us a car back to the Blue Luna, where Finch and I get hustled through a side door and back up to our room. We get a visit from a wizened old man who says nothing, just patches me up and gives me a packet of antibiotics.
Finch is too quiet, and I don’t know what to say to break the silence. He only says one thing, as I get up from the bed on which I’ve been lying.
“Were you really going to kill him?”
I put a hand to his cheek. “It’s the only way to deal with those situations, baby bird. This kind of thing, it’s like the gladiators in ancient Rome. Two men enter; one man leaves.”
He squinches up his face. “Isn’t thatMad Max?”
He might be right there. “Same sorta deal. But to answer your question, yes. Yes, I will always eliminate those who try to kill us. It’s the way it has to be. And sometimes I will kill them with my own hands. I’m sorry you had to see it.”
“It’s not that. Iknowwhat you are. The kind of things you’ve done.”
I take Finch into my arms and do my best not to wince at the pain in my side. “I hate to think I’ve scared you, baby bird.”
“I’m not scared. It’s just—everything around us seems so black. There’s nothing…nothinggoodfor us, not anywhere. We fled New York because of Death, only to find him waiting here for us, too.”
“Too much death?” My heart shoves its way into my mouth as I wait for his reply.
