Part 12

Anja Krebber

Damning Joe's eyes for giving me such a start I gingerly removed his sticky fingers from my by now equally sticky shirt while sending a silent thank-you note to St.Andrew Arellino for patronage against sudden death and strokes. Joe for his part was telling me roundly what the caterpillar could do with my as yet non-existent progeny. Which reminded me that I had another bone to pick with him altogether.

"You been issuing any liquorice rods to glacier-eyed redheads lately?" I growled.

I could feel Joe's silent chuckle beside me. "Had a nice day didya? Whaddaya think I'm in here for, brother?" Then his voice turned belligerent. "And what business you have wandering around garbage dumps, sluggin' innocent folk, I'll be damned if I know."

"Which way out?" I demanded, thus recalled to my surroundings.

He muttered something under his breath moving away from me. I deemed it prudent to follow. I could hear him pull the door open, which he had apparently left slightly ajar, but the basement beyond was as dark as a pimps heart and I almost fell flat on my face coming through. There was another familiar grunt as Joe ran into some inconvenient piece of the wall, but dim yellow light shone, or rather coated every surface, when he found the switch. I picked myself up counting bones and ineffectually made as if to clean the worst of the debris off my clothes.

I was in the middle of trying to process some evidence Joe had helfully peeled from my right shoulder when the basement door flew open and Haddock strode in purposefully giving me the old baleful eye.

"Hey there, Fish? What's rolling?" I purred. Cool, but not all that diplomatic. He hadn't reacted too well to the name-calling on previous occasions.