Bone Dance

How had I done this before? Had there been a routine, a series of actions that made up the dance of trade? I stood with the box in my hand, my mind blank, my heart slamming in my ribs. The box, the box. I lifted it, set it on the desk, and with my index finger slid it across the wood to Albrecht.

“What is it?” he said.

“What you asked for. Open it.”

I realized belatedly that I hadn’t needed to make the tape look like an original. If I was right, he would have settled for a dub, and it would have been reasonable for me to claim that a dub was all I could find. But he pulled the box (cardboard, this time) open, and I watched his hands, his face, for any sign that I’d failed.

In the mellow light of the desk lamp, I thought it was still convincing: the block lettering for the title, the ru

He closed the box. His hands didn’t have the acquisitive curl I was used to seeing in them. But again, if I was right, it wasn’t simple acquisitiveness that had driven him to seek this out.

Frances, have you found your damned monster yet? I would have to leave her there. If I left without her, before she found Worecski, they’d let me go unhindered, unco

He stood up. “Come with me.”

My tongue froze to the roof of my mouth. “Why?” I asked. His expression was neutral, as any good bargainer’s would be. “You don’t think I keep that much in here, do you? Come along.”

So much for maintaining our routine. There was nothing I could do, except follow him and stay alert. He worked a latch on a door set into the paneling behind the desk, and light shot out all around it. I squinted and stepped through.

“Sugar?” said a voice I knew, a woman’s. “You all through — Sparrow!”

She wore a narrow dress of midnight-blue silk that draped like water ru

“Hello, Dana,” I said, and was surprised that my mouth worked. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Her gaze snapped to Albrecht. “Sugar, what’s — Is this — What’s going on?”

“Just a little business, sweetie,” he said, his attention on the cabinet he was opening. “Don’t you worry.” But she’d used a name for me he’d never heard. Or had he? Myra and Dusty had known it.

It was a large room, exquisitely appointed. Dana was sitting in a pose that suggested she’d been lying down a moment earlier, on a cream-colored couch. It was one of two, set in an L shape. A carved Chinese table stood in front of them, scattered with things: a carafe of dark red wine and two partially filled glasses; the remains of a small meal for two; a little silver-stoppered vial half full of something white; a heavy necklace of silver and turquoise medallions. The lighting came from recesses in the ceiling. The air was cool and dry. There was a sky-blue carpet on the floor three inches deep, and a rack of stereo and video gear topped with a twenty-five-inch monitor.

My eyes kept going, past the rack to another shining wood door and the man standing straight and stiff next to it. I didn’t recognize him at first. He wore a high-collared white jacket and black trousers. His blond hair was scraped back from his face, and he looked even more cadaverous than usual. He was trying desperately to look at nothing, and the effort, I could tell, was almost more than he could bear. Cassidy. Uniformed, clearly in Albrecht’s employ, he was having to witness his boss’s seduction of the woman he was in love with. I turned back to Dana and found her watching me.

“Is this one of life’s little jokes on the two of you?” I asked. My voice was unsteady, but not much. “Or did you use your co

Dana flushed. “Honey… ” She shook her head.

I looked again at Albrecht, who was pouring himself a drink from a decanter he’d taken from the cabinet, and then back to Cassidy. His deep-set eyes were wide, meeting mine, even wider than the circumstances would warrant. For an instant, I didn’t understand. Then I did what I should have done long before. I turned around.

There was a fifth person in the room. He leaned at ease against the wall, where the opening door from the office had hidden him as I came in. He was tall and lean, with sandy brown hair that fell forward into eyes so light-colored they were nearly colorless. His white shirt was open over his pearl-gray cotton trousers, and his feet were bare. His smile was full of big, even teeth.

“Howdy,” he said. “I do believe you must be Sparrow.”

Frances, I thought in that long moment when I couldn’t so much as swallow, I found the monster.

Mick had said he was strong, fast, and bugfuck crazy. I could see it, feel it, smell it on him, the madness that, when he had to, he could probably disguise as something else. Now he didn’t have to.

He crossed the space between the wall and me in three strides, grabbed up my stiff right hand in both of his, and shook it, hard. “Mighty pleased to meet you, after all this time. I’ve heard an awful lot about you. Heck, for a while I thought I might miss you completely, but here you are at last.” His smile grew, if possible, wider, and he turned it on Dana. “Your friend don’t talk much. You didn’t tell me that.”

“I’m sorry. I just haven’t had anything to say,” I said. I barely recognized my voice. I sounded like someone talking to a growling dog. “I missed your name.”

“Oh, no, you didn’t.” The smile had changed. I was not going to be able to bluff my way through this. “I didn’t tell it to you. But you know what it is, don’t you? These folks have been calling me Fred, but I want you to call me by the name my momma gave me.” He still had hold of my hand. He squeezed it. “Go ahead. You call me by my name.” He squeezed it ’til the bones pinched together.

“I really don’t—” Harder. A little catch of sound came out of my throat. I saw a movement from Dana, that might have been her fingers going to her mouth.

“Say it,” said the monster, his face close to mine.

“Tom Worecski,” I said. He let my hand drop. I was afraid to flex it, for fear that he’d notice he’d left it attached to my wrist.

“Good for you! Now, you go sit on the sofa there. Babe, come over here and give us a kiss.”

As she passed me on the other side of the table, Dana’s eyes cut away from mine. She went to Tom and put her arms around him. He didn’t turn his face to her, but she kissed his jaw and his neck and the hollow of his collarbone while he smiled at me. It wasn’t Albrecht’s seduction. It was Tom’s. I wondered whether anybody would care if I was sick on the rug.

Albrecht set his glass down on the cabinet. “God damn it, Krueger, she’s not—”

“A. A., if you keep your mouth shut, not only will I let you live, I’ll think about not walkin’ you through Nicollet Market buck naked with your dick in your fist. You got that?”

Tom had raised his voice. Albrecht’s face, i