Double or Nothing (Daniel Faust Book 7)

by Craig Schaefer

  He met my gaze. “Did you come here to say sorry, or did you come here for absolution? This about me, or is it about you?”

  “Both,” I said. No point lying.

  He raised his mutilated hand and made the sign of the cross.

  “Sin no more,” he told me, a humorless smile on his lips. His hand fell limp at his side. “I’m not mad at you, Dan. I was. When it was happening, he just kept telling me, you know, telling me he was only doing it to get at you. That you were the reason he was here—”

  “He wasn’t lying.”

  “I know. But I had a lot of time to think in the hospital. It was either think about stuff or watch shitty TV, you know? So I thought about stuff. Fact is, when you get into this life, this world, you run certain risks. It’s the price of doing business.”

  “You weren’t a combatant,” I said. “You, Doc Savoy—you should have been untouchable. There are rules.”

  “C’mon, Dan. I’m a professional forger. I’m a criminal. I supply products and services to other criminals. You can talk about the rules all day long, but the second somebody who doesn’t feel like following ’em comes along…” He held up his pincers. “What I’m saying is, it could have been him, or it could have been some other guy with a hate-on for some other regular client of mine. I’m not saying it’s my fault. Not saying it’s yours, either. It just happened, and what happened could have been a hell of a lot worse. I’m still breathing. So, the guy. Is he…?”

  “Not breathing,” I said.

  “Thanks for that.”

  I gestured at the claw. “That’s the best thing the hospital could give you?”

  Paolo laughed. “Give me? Man, I don’t have health insurance. I was lucky they gave me a couple of aspirin on my way out. I bought this piece of crap myself. Got it on eBay.”

  “Well, look up whatever the top-of-the-line model is, because that’s what you’re getting. The Commission had a talk: you took a hit for us, getting dragged into our war, and we owe you. We can’t fix what happened, but you’re gonna be taken care of.”

  “Yeah, Jennifer told me. I appreciate that.”

  “Well, seeing as.”

  I paced the floor, taking in the vacant storefront, the empty light fixtures overhead. An entire life, moved out, over.

  “Seeing as?” Paolo said.

  “I mean, he took all this.”

  Paolo blinked at me. “Wait. Wait a second. Did you think I was really out of business?”

  “You aren’t? Your hands…”

  He cracked a smile, a genuine one.

  “Come on back,” he said. “I wanna show you something.”

  I followed him into the stockroom. A single dangling bulb cast stark light across the empty shelves. His old rig, the real center of his business, was still set up: two folding tables laden with a twenty-seven-inch iMac, a digital tablet made for artists, at least three different printers, and stacks of paper in every conceivable weight and color. The bloodstains had set into the concrete floor, their long black smears the only reminder of what had happened here. Paolo stepped over them, pulled back a rolling chair and sat down.

  “Art was always my bag,” he said, reaching for the tablet. The pincers caught on the edge and slipped. Then slipped again. I wavered on my feet, wanting to help, not wanting to insult him by helping. Eventually he latched on, dragging the bulky plastic rectangle front and center.

  “I remember,” I told him. “You almost went upstate for trying to sell off a bogus Renoir.”

  Paolo shrugged. “Hey, how was I supposed to know the guy already owned the original? After that, I realized the real money was in fake paper. The safe money, anyway. Steady work and happy customers. But art…that’s how I taught myself. Sitting in a gallery with a pencil and a pad, learning how to draw what I saw. Style, texture, layering. I put in the work, and it made me who I am.”

  He leaned over and turned on the iMac. I stared at the picture on the screen, vivid azures and shades of yellow bursting to life. A black, jagged tower rose up in the foreground, a village stretching out below. And above, half-finished, currents of blue and white swirled in a sky studded with lemon lights.

  “Is that Starry Night?” I asked.

  Paolo picked up a plastic stylus with his pincers. He held it over the tablet and made slow brushstrokes. Clumsy at first, almost fumbling, then more confident. The sky painted itself, coming to life before my eyes.

  “From memory,” Paolo said. “So the details are off, but it’s close enough for practice. When van Gogh painted the original, he was in an asylum in southern France after cutting his ear off. This was what he saw when he looked out his cell window.”

  “You’re teaching yourself. Starting over.”

  “Not starting over. I still got the basics, the fundamentals. The stuff that takes years to lock down, I got that. I just gotta learn a different way of doing things. A different way of doing almost everything.”

  He turned toward me, swiveling in his chair.

  “It ain’t easy. It’s so beyond not easy I don’t even know where to start. I mean, just living like this…it’s rough, and life ain’t ever gonna be easy again. But I figure, look at Vincent. Man was mutilated, depressed, he had voices in his head, he was locked up, and he kept painting. If he did it, I can do it.”

  I started to open my mouth. He held up his two-fingered hand, silencing me.

  “And please,” he said. “If you’re about to say something about me being brave, don’t. I’ve been a cripple less than a month and I’m already well past sick of that shit. You get hurt and everybody and their brother wants to tell you how brave you are for living on. Like, what, as opposed to dropping dead? Because those are my only two options. Same two choices everybody else gets.”

  “Can I tell you you’re pretty cool?” I asked.

  He cocked a smile. “Yeah, I’ll settle for cool. Honestly, though, it’s just who I am. It’s what I love. I love my art. So I’m not gonna let these fucked-up mitts stop me from doing what I want to do. I figure anything worth having is worth fighting for, right? The more you want it, the more you gotta fight. That’s what makes us human.”

  I held out my hand. He held out his. We clasped them together, as best we could.

  “So rejoice,” Paolo said. “When you inevitably fuck up and burn that new identity I spent so much time working on, just like last time, I’ll still be open for business.”

  “Your confidence is duly noted,” I told him.

  * * *

  Darkness fell over the city. The city responded by firing up its own sun. The Strip blazed to life and I inched through molasses-thick traffic while the world became a whirl of flashing neon. My destination was farther afield: Fremont Street, and the Tiger’s Garden.

  I parked a couple of blocks from Fremont, in a bad patch of neighborhood where the tourist crowd—if they were smart—didn’t stray. It was also Bishops turf, so I wasn’t worried about leaving my rental car at the curbside. If anyone was dumb enough to steal it, I’d have it returned with an apology, a wash, and a wax job by tomorrow afternoon.

  I had to admit, I was feeling all right. The idea of pulling a heist for free still didn’t sit right with me, but if we sprang Cameron Drake along with his lottery millions, we might make out like bandits. And the last thing the Enemy expected from me right now, I had to imagine, was a direct attack. We could hit the ranch, snatch Drake and the dagger right out from under his nose, and win an advantage. It wouldn’t be easy, but it wasn’t impossible.

  Things were actually starting to go my way.

  “Faust!” shouted a voice from the alley, across a desolate and dusty street. I stopped in my tracks.

  David Gosselin looked like he’d just stepped off a Broadway stage. He wore painted-on black satin pants and a lacy white poet’s shirt, his immaculate dark hair slicked to one side. He pointed at me.

  “You have something that belongs to me.”

  “Dressed like that,” I said, “I’m guessing i
t’s your self-esteem.”

  “Canton’s top hat. That hat cost me a million dollars. One. Million. Dollars.”

  “Which you make in what, a day or two? Go back on TV and make the White House disappear again. I could watch that trick all day long.”

  “You violated the sanctity of my museum,” he seethed. “You locked me in a milk jug—”

  “The twins did that. You know, the ones you were trying to have sex with? Hey, you took ’em home, not me.”

  “I will have my revenge!”

  He raised one hand before him and a wind, desert-hot and gritty, rose with the curl of his fingers. It swept along the empty street, kicking up a flurry of plastic bags and crumpled newspapers.

  “Are we doing this?” I asked. “I mean, right now? Are we really doing this? I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

  David’s other hand swooped high. Clouds of white fog billowed down the alley, capturing his silhouette while he struck a pose. Then great, shadowy rotors began to spin at his back, the fog spreading across the street like an ocean of foam.

  “Prepare yourself.” His hair shone and his poet’s shirt ruffled in the wind. “Prepare yourself to experience…the magic of David Gosselin!”

  “Okay,” I sighed. “So we’re doing this.”

  13.

  I couldn’t shoot David Gosselin. Technically, I could—I mean, I had the Colt, it was loaded, and he was standing right across the street—but I would have felt bad about it. The man was a national treasure. Besides, he was actually in the right, seeing as I did steal his million-dollar hat. I would argue that he didn’t do a good enough job protecting it, but I understood why he might not share my point of view.

  My cards crackled in my breast pocket. I could wing him, go for his leg—and then he’d be out of action while he healed up, have to cancel a week’s worth of shows, and probably come at me twice as hard next time. No, this was definitely one of those “only way to win is not to play” situations. I flexed my wrist. Canton’s wand dropped into my hand. David wasn’t the only one who could summon fog. I’d done it twice before, battling Ecko and the Outfit, and a little cover was exactly what I needed to slip away without a fight.

  I waved the wand, and…nothing happened. It sat dormant in my grip, as powerless and silent as any other stick of wood. David wasn’t waiting for me to make a move. He spun his arms, raised them high, and a swarm of white blurs burst from the fogbank. They fluttered under his arms and streaked straight for me.

  Doves.

  “What the fu—” was all I had time to say before the first one hit me. Wings flapped in my face, a tiny beak slamming against my forehead like a stapler drilling into my skin, and I flung up one hand to ward it off before it could go for my eyes. A second dove buffeted my shoulders, flapping frantically, and pecked at my neck. Doves trilled in my ears, swarming around me like I was a birdseed buffet on two legs.

  I did the only dignified thing a man could do in this situation. I ran for it.

  Beaks hammered at the back of my skull. I waved them off, bending low as I sprinted along the sidewalk, catching a cut across the back of my hand.

  “Ow. Stop it.” I hooked a sharp left, taking a shortcut along an alley as the white fog rippled around my feet. “Dove bastards.”

  The lights of Fremont Street loomed up ahead. The fog dwindled, dropping low then vanishing, as the last dove made a half-hearted attempt to peck my ear off before winging away. David knew the rules as well as anyone: no magic—no real magic—in public view. And Fremont was about as public as you could get.

  Fremont was a carnival by night, a street packed with sound stages and open bars, thousands of tourists toting plastic margarita cups and moving to the rhythm of an ’80s hair-metal cover band. LEDs flared and fired streamers of light across an overhead canopy. Tonight’s light show had a patriotic flavor, a cascading dance of lasers in red, white, and blue. I got lost in the crowd. Then I lost my waking mind, pushing aside my pounding heartbeat and the irritating sting on my forehead, slipping into a meditative trance.

  I walked, but with no destination. My eyes were open, but beyond the glow of the light show and the churning, confusing crowds, I saw nothing. I wanted to go to the Tiger’s Garden. Thanks to the enchantment laid on the place—or a curse, we weren’t quite sure—the only way to find the entrance was not to look for it.

  A brass bell jangled. Suddenly I was pushing through a door, past a grubby welcome mat and onto faded and cigarette-burned carpet. No crowds, no blaring music, just seventies-era wood paneling and a short bar strung with tiki lanterns. The stench of body odor and cheap beer vanished, replaced by the warm, welcoming aroma of naan and hummus.

  Around the corner, in the dining room, my family shared drinks around the table. Jennifer raised her bottle of Amstel as I stumbled across the threshold. Mama Margaux was on her left, sipping some mammoth tropical concoction that matched the orange of her dress. Judging from the empty glasses, Bentley was on his third martini. Corman, the stocky, broad-shouldered Oscar to Bentley’s Felix, nursed a straight bourbon.

  “Hey, Dan,” Jennifer said. She pointed at her forehead. “You got a—a thingy.”

  “Yeah.” I pulled back a chair. “Ran into David Gosselin on my way over here.”

  Corman furrowed his brow. “What’d he do, hit you?”

  “He threw doves at me.” I shook my head, still processing it. “He threw doves. Who does that?”

  Margaux stirred her frosted goblet with a straw. “I thought doves were supposed to be nice birds.”

  “They are, normally,” I said. “I think he recruits his from bird reform school. No. Gangs. Bird gangs. One had a switchblade.”

  “I hope you didn’t hurt him too badly,” Bentley said. “I know how you feel about the man, but he is a national treasure.”

  “See, that was my line of thinking—” I paused as Amar swooped in, bearing a brass-rimmed tray. Amar was the Garden’s sole employee, its waiter, bartender, presumably the chef, and possibly the owner. He was notoriously tight-lipped when it came to anything but the tiny restaurant’s menu. He’d come bearing gifts: the Jack and Coke I was just about to order, and a white napkin. I took the drink, tossed back a swallow, and pressed the napkin to my forehead.

  The door jangled. David steamed into the room like a freight train on a collision course. Amar got between us, fast.

  “This isn’t over,” David snapped, trying to sidestep around him.

  Amar didn’t let him. His voice was soft velvet with a steel core.

  “There is no violence in the Tiger’s Garden, sir.”

  Jennifer leaned back in her chair. “I’d listen to him, sugar. Bad rule to break.”

  “For God’s sake,” Bentley sighed into his martini, “it’s a hat. Let it go, David.”

  “I expect better from you in particular,” David said, turning his ire on Bentley. “You and Corman have pedigrees. The fact that you’d defend this cheap little hustler—”

  “Hold up.” A warning hung on the edge of Corman’s gruff voice. “You’re talking about our kid, Dave. Watch it.”

  Amar stepped closer to David, locking eyes with him.

  “Sir. It would be best if you stepped outside for some fresh air. You may return when you can conduct yourself as a gentleman, at which time we will happily serve you.”

  David took a step back. Then he looked my way.

  “I’ll be waiting outside, Faust.”

  He stormed for the door. As the bell jangled I called out, “The exit moves, dipshit.”

  “Sir,” Amar told me as I sank into my chair, “far be it from the staff to speak to our favored clientele about their personal lives, or make any course of recommendation…”

  “But?” I asked.

  “But you should give his hat back.” Amar held his tray and stepped back behind the bar.

  Margaux pointed at him with the tip of her straw. “He’s right, you know.”

  “It’s rapidly becoming a matter of pr
inciple,” I said. “Besides, I’m starting to get a clue about why the Enemy is fixated on snapping up all of Howard Canton’s old stuff. I think Canton is still around somehow. Me and Caitlin ran into a little trouble out in Albuquerque, and his ghost stepped in to give me an impromptu magic lesson.”

  Bentley frowned, mentally walking the timeline. “They couldn’t have known each other. If we understand correctly, the Enemy was trapped in that prison dimension until Dr. Payton’s unfortunate and ill-advised experiments set him free twenty-odd years ago. Canton was long dead before that.”

  “Got me,” I said. “But on that note, Naavarasi’s calling her marker due.”

  I gave them the abridged version of our sit-down with the rakshasi queen. They listened, sipping their drinks, and Bentley had me backtrack a couple of times to go over the finer details.

  “I could believe the knife used to belong to her,” he mused, “or that she had some theoretical connection to Damien Ecko, explaining why it was in his safe. The notion that she followed the trail to Cameron Drake’s doorstep is plausible, beyond the detail about the photograph. But.”

  “But that’s a ten-clown-car-pileup of coincidences,” Jennifer said. “I don’t like it. Too many connections being drawn between people who ain’t got any business knowing each other.”

  “And it’s Naavarasi we’re talking about.” Margaux finished her drink. She held the empty glass out to her side. In a heartbeat, Amar snatched it away and set a second frosted goblet—this one neon blue—in front of her.

  “She does fancy herself the spider at the core of a tangled web,” Bentley said. “She has also, sad to say, boxed you into a corner quite effectively.”

  “If I pull this off, though, we’re square,” I said. “This is the first and last favor she’s ever gonna get out of me. So that’s the score: grab the knife for her, grab Drake for us, and learn anything we can about Fleiss and the Enemy. You want in?”

  Margaux eyed me over her glass. “You really think Drake’s gonna share his lottery winnings if we snatch him away from that place?”