Killing Pretty (Sandman Slim 7)
“Yeah, but they wouldn’t be looking for her. They’d stake out her place and look for the two idiots that went after them.”
“Still, if they know where to find Julie, that’s bad.”
“Call her,” I say. “And tell her to get out of there.”
“What are you going to be doing?”
“Nothing. I just want you to call. She’ll be nicer to you when you tell her about her maybe getting shot.”
“She knows you attract trouble.”
“We do, sweetheart. We. It was a doubles act the other night, so you get to give her the good news.”
“Lucky me.”
Vincent pops a couple of his pain pills and dry-swallows them. I can’t say I blame him.
CANDY IS STILL doing more computer research in the morning, so I go over to the office alone. Julie is pouring coffee when I get upstairs. She brings both mugs over to her desk. I sit down across from her and take the cup she pushes my way.
“Thanks.”
“Of course,” she says. “I thanked Chihiro for the call about the shooters. I slept with my Glock under my pillow last night.”
“You might make a habit of it for a while.”
“Trust me, I will.”
She takes a couple of sugar packets out of a desk drawer, shakes them, and dumps the contents into the mug.
“You sticking to coffee during working hours?” she says.
“Pretty much. The Augur offered me a drink on his boat. It seemed unwise to turn him down.”
She nods. Sips. Sets down the cup.
“That makes sense. This morning, Chihiro told me more about what happened last night.”
I pick up a paper clip from her desk. It’s an odd shape. Round, the metal spiraling down to a point. I start unwinding it.
“I wish I could have gotten my hands on those White Light pricks.”
Julie says, “Has anyone ever talked to you about PTSD?”
“No. What’s that?”
“Don’t play coy. You know exactly what it is. In this case, it’s you running after a carful of people with guns.”
I stop fiddling with the clip.
“At the time, I didn’t know I was unarmed.”
“The point still stands. Your reactions aren’t always those of a normal person.”
What the hell did Candy tell her? I go back to tormenting the paper clip.
“Exactly which normal part of my life are you talking about? The normal part where I spent eleven years in Hell? Or the normal part where my father told me I wasn’t even a human being, right before he was murdered by an angel. Maybe it’s the part where I live with a dead man’s head and I have to beg for my cigarettes from the Devil. Or maybe it’s how I can’t even look at my girlfriend without seeing a stranger’s face. Which of these normal things in my life are you referring to?”
Julie takes her coffee cup in her hands and leans on the desk.