Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim 2)

There’s a tarnished knocker on the door. I use it. A woman opens the door. Another marshal. She’s in the female equivalent of Wells’s men-in-black chic.

“Evening, ma’am, I’m collecting for UNICEF.”

“Stark, right? Get in here. Marshal Wells is waiting.”

“And you are?”

“No one you need to know.”

She lets me inside. The interior of the place is as rotten and decayed as the outside. She leads me into the kitchen.

“Nice. Defensiveness and moral superiority in two-point-four seconds. A new land speed record.”

“Marshal Wells said you liked to talk.”

“I’m a people person.”

“Is that before or after you cut people’s heads off?”

“I only cut off my enemies’ heads. I break my friends’ hearts.”

“So, that’s, what, zero hearts broken?”

“The night’s still young.”

She stops by the door. Where the back porch would be, if it hadn’t collapsed back when Columbus took his big cruise.

“Wells is in the study.”

“Thanks, Julie.”

“How did you know my name is Julie?”

Her heartbeat just spiked. I’m here in the middle of the night and being underpaid because of Wells. I don’t need to take it out on her. I smile, trying to look pleasant and reassuring.

“It’s nothing. Just a silly trick.”

“Don’t do it again.”

“It’d be a little stupid guessing someone’s name twice.”

Marshal Julie listens to something coming through her earpiece.

She says “Got it” into her cuff and looks at me.

“Is that your Thunderbird across the street?”

“No.”

“But you drove it here.”

“Yes.”

“You came here in a stolen vehicle?”

“Define ‘stolen.’ It’s not like I’m keeping it.”

“I don’t suppose you have the keys?”