Peace Talks by Jim Butcher;

Author:Jim Butcher; [Butcher, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House LLC
Published: 2020-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

* * *

I got dressed and made a call in Michael’s spartan, organized office. Once I shut the heavy wooden door, the sounds of the television out in the family room and the rap of wood on wood coming from the backyard were muted to nothing.

“It’s Dresden,” I said when he answered.

“Oh boy.”

“I need your help,” I said.

“With what?”

“Good cause.”

He sounded skeptical. “Oh. Those.”

“There’s a cute girl.”

“I like that.”

“You can’t have her,” I said.

“I like that less.”

“In or out?”

“Usual fee,” he said.

“I only stole so many rocks.”

He snorted. “So, get someone else.”

“You’re killing me, man.”

“Only if it’s for a good cause. Tell me about this girl.”

I told him where to find Justine and what she looked like.

“You get that she’s obviously a femme fatale, right?”

I arched an eyebrow. “She’s . . . kind of not.”

“Uh-huh,” he said.

“She isn’t.”

“Customer’s always right. What result do you want?”

I shuddered a bit. It wouldn’t matter to him, personally, whether or not I asked him to save her or kill her. But the more experience I had in the world, the more I had come to think that monstrousness or a lack of it was a little less important than whether or not the monster would keep his word.

This one would.

“Covert surveillance. Make sure nothing bad happens to her.”

“Am I a spy or a bodyguard?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. You’re floundering.”

I was definitely not floundering. “I am definitely not floundering,” I told him in a tone of perfect confidence. “I . . . just need more information before I can act appropriately.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. Only more annoyingly. “Opposition?”

“Unknown,” I said.

He was quiet for a moment.

“To you,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Now.”

“Yeah.”

“Here.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” he said. “Super.”

“If I get an easy job, I can call a temp agency.”

“I don’t do politics,” he said. “The good causes mostly aren’t.”

“I’ll handle that part,” I said. “Your concern is solely the girl—and the baby. She’s pregnant. Keep them safe from harm.”

“Ah,” he said, as though I had just simplified his life. “Rules of engagement?”

“Well, I think you should—”

“Trick question,” he said, and hung up on me.

I eyed the phone.

Then I got into my pocket, got out the dollar bill that had been stuck in a pocket on a ride through the laundromat and was now a wadded block of solid pseudo-wood. I put it in an envelope, sealed it, and wrote GREY on it in pink highlighter. I stowed that in a pocket. That’ll put marzipan in your pie plate, bingo.

Then I got up and headed outside.

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