“Listen. If this thing falls apart, it’s not just on you and me. There’s other people too. Julie. Brigitte. Allegra and Vidocq.”
“Aren’t you maybe leaving someone out?” says Kasabian.
“I was getting to you, Iron Man.”
“I thought we discussed no more nicknames.”
I ignore that.
“I know you think I’m a drag sometimes, but there’s a lot at stake here.”
“I know,” Candy says quietly.
“I saw you dead once. I don’t want to see that again.”
“I wasn’t really dead, dumb-ass.”
“You sure looked like you were.”
“That’s ’cause I’m such a good actress. Me and Brigitte are going to star in a remake of Thelma & Louise.”
“As I recall, that didn’t end well.”
“In our version the car is a Delorean time machine, so we just drive off and have adventures with pirates and robots.”
“Or Lethal Weapon,” says Kasabian. “You could do a girl-girl remake.”
“Or Bill and Ted,” she says.
She looks at me.
“I need another drink. You have supplies upstairs?”
“You know it.”
I step aside and let her lead the way.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
It’s a man’s voice coming from the storage room.
I look at Kasabian.
“Lock the front door.”
“Sure. It’s not like we’re a place of business or anything.”
As he does it, Candy and I knock on the storage room door.
“You all right in there?”
“Where am I?”
I open the door. He squints and pushes himself back to the farthest corner of the cot I set up for him, huddling there like a bug.
He says, “It’s too bright.”
Candy and I go inside and close the door. It’s ripe in here. The guy wasn’t clean when I met him. Add an extra week to that. We’re in a cheese factory.