Rock of Ages by Timothy Hallinan

Author:Timothy Hallinan [Hallinan, Timothy]
Language: spa
Format: epub
Publisher: Soho Press

15

This Gun Feels Like It Would Float to the Ceiling

The chat had to be faced sooner or later, and I was running out of later, what with the second evening’s concert approaching. Even if I’d had a week between performances, though, I would still have wanted desperately to get out of that building, preferably before I had to listen to any more music and before what was supposed to be my weekend with Rina was over and lost forever. So even though I didn’t actually feel prepared to take them on, my rationalization was, essentially, what the hell, let’s piss them off, make them nervous, make them distrust each other even more than they do already, see who shoves whom. With such limited hopes, this time seemed as good as any other.

It took me a little more than three minutes to get Cappy’s office set up the way I wanted it: four chairs in a row, facing the front of the room, schoolhouse style, with the desk pulled front and center, right where the teacher would be. The effect was heightened by how teacherly the desk was. I had everything but a whiteboard and an eraser.

I wasn’t as successful with Rina, who cinched her case by saying she’d go to the popcorn room if I insisted, but that she’d wait seven minutes and then come back into Cappy’s office and take a seat.

In the end, I assigned her to the armchair Sparks had occupied the first time I’d been here. I told her that if she got up or interrupted or sneezed or cleared her throat or did anything at all that drew their attention, I’d call the whole thing off and take her straight home. The best thing about the armchair was its position; once I’d lined up the chairs the guys were going to sit on, they’d literally have to crane 180 degrees to look at her.

“What are you going to do?” Rina asked, settling into her assigned seat.

“This is just one of the reasons I prefer to work alone,” I said. “There’s no one to ask me questions I can’t answer.”

She wrinkled her nose. “This chair smells like it smokes a pack a day. But you must have some idea what you’re after.”

“Normally by now,” I said, “I would have asked at least a few questions of everyone who has anything, even remotely, to do with this thing. But they’re all crooks, and crooks tend to be good liars, and they’re also more likely than members of the population at large, so to speak, to tell me to go fuck myself, sorry about the language. Or shoot me. But we’re at the tipping point, I think.”

“What does that mean?”

“I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t ask. There’s a show tonight, and this place is absolutely rancid with resentment. It would be nice if nobody else got killed.”

“Oh,” she said. “But, I mean, actually killed . . .”

“You saw Boomboom. You saw the rope. You have to trust me that when I saw it last night it had been cut with a very sharp knife.

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