“Thanks,” said Coop.
“Have a good trip home,” said Giselle. She closed the door. “And stay there. Please. No more angels.”
“I need an aspirin,” said Coop. “I think they’re in the bedroom.”
“I’m done with beer. I’ll get us a couple of margaritas,” Giselle said.
“Great.”
Coop went into the bedroom and rooted around his duffel bag one-handed. Eventually, he came up with a bottle of aspirin. Which he realized he couldn’t open. He tried using his teeth and pushing on the cap with his thumb. It wouldn’t budge and his thumb slipped, skinning it all the way down. He set the bottle on top of the dresser.
“You might want to wait for your lady friend,” said Phil, back in his head.
“I don’t suppose you have any extra fingers lying around,” said Coop.
“I’ve got a great big one pointed at you right now. Can’t you see it?”
“That’s not in good taste. I’m an ill man.”
“I’m dead. I long to be an ill man.”
“You and Salzman. Always going on about being dead. Being alive isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Say that when Giselle’s around,” said Phil. “I dare you.”
“You dare him what?” said Giselle, coming into the bedroom. She had a drink in each hand.
“He’s daring me to tell you to tell me I’m not stupid for trying to open the aspirin by myself,” said Coop, holding up his injured thumb.
Giselle leaned over and kissed it. “You twit,” she said. She popped the top of the aspirin bottle and handed Coop a couple of pills. He washed them down with some margarita.
“So, I just heard from Dr. Ladybug Head that Woolrich has your first assignment all picked out.”
“Shop talk, tonight?” said Phil.
“What’s the job?” said Coop.
“Apparently, Woolrich heard a rumor about a deed to the world floating around. He wants to get it before the Russians or Chinese do. Or the CIA. Or FBI. You get the idea.”
“Can you imagine?” said Phil. “The things you could do with that.”
“Just imagine,” said Coop.
“Okay. Shop talk is exactly the last thing I want to hear. You’re both boring. Bye,” Phil said and popped out of their heads.
“I wonder what a person would do with something like that?” said Coop.
Giselle looked around the room. “Maybe it’s time to get your own place.”
“Like a palace or something?”
“How about just an apartment?”
“As long as it has a huge TV and a huge bed.”
“You can put this on the mantel,” she said and handed him the Contego stone. He looked at her. She kissed him and they stayed that way for a while. Until Phil popped back into their heads.
“The tentacle twins are in the backyard playing Twister,” he said excitedly. “You’ve got to see this.”
“We’ll be out in a minute,” said Coop, and Phil was gone again. Coop went to a dresser drawer and pulled out a green folder.
“You’re a pretty good pickpocket for an old guy,” said Giselle.
“Lucky is more like it,” said Coop. “The blood and all the dead people were a good distraction.”
The two of them looked over the deed to the world. The first few words read, “The bearer of this document . . .”
Giselle pointed. “You see that? That’s not just for an angel. That’s you, Coop. You’re the bearer,” said Giselle.
“So I am.”
“The whole world. That would be a hard thing to give up.”
“Not so hard,” he said. He took out a cigarette lighter and touched the flame to the bottom of the document. The two of them walked into the little half bath and dropped it into the sink, watching it burn down to ashes.
“Come on, assholes. You’re missing it,” said Phil, popping in and out of their brains.
“He’s right. Let’s go back to the party. It’s a nice night out,” said Giselle.
“Yeah,” said Coop. “It’s a nice night.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANKS TO MY AGENT, GINGER CLARK, AND MY EDITOR, David Pomerico. Thanks also to Pamela Spengler-Jaffe, Jennifer Brehl, Kelly O’Connor, Caroline Perny, Shawn Nicholls, Dana Trombley, Jessie Edwards, Rebecca Lucash, and the rest of the team at Harper Voyager. Thanks also to Jonathan Lyons, Sarah Perillo, and Holly Frederick. As always, thanks to Nicola for everything else.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR RICHARD KADREY has published eleven novels: Sandman Slim, Kill the Dead, Aloha from Hell, Devil Said Bang, Kill City Blues, The Getaway God, Killing Pretty, Dead Set, Butcher Bird, Metrophage, and The Everything Box, as well as more than fifty short stories. He has been immortalized as an action figure, his short story “Goodbye Houston Street, Goodbye” was nominated for a British Science Fiction Association Award, and his novel Butcher Bird was nominated for the Prix Elbakin in France. The acclaimed writer and photographer lives in San Francisco, California.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
ALSO BY RICHARD KADREY
Metrophage
Dead Set
Sandman Slim Novels
Killing Pretty
The Getaway God
Kill City Blues
Devil Said Bang
Aloha from Hell
Kill the Dead
Sandman Slim
CREDITS
Cover design by Owen Corrigan
Cover photograph © Paolo74s / Getty Images
COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Harper Voyager and design is a trademark of HCP LLC.
THE EVERYTHING BOX. Copyright © 2016 by Richard Kadrey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition April 2016 ISBN 9780062389565
ISBN 978-0-06-238954-1
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