Just think of it like this: you’ve got two options, and you have to pick one. I held out my hands, palms upward, juggling them up and down like the arms of a scale. Free money? Bullet in the head? Fre...
It’s you, Pix. You and everybody like you. Everybody who reaches out a hand when they don’t have to. Everybody who helps somebody get up on their feet, or gets in the way of a fist so somebody weaker...
It’s not all sex work, of course. Any business of that size needs support and grounds staff— Gee, Mom. Melanie’s voice dripped with sarcasm. Can I get a summer job there? I’ll be the best jizz-mopper...
I smiled. Hey, ‘Eve,’ I said. Think you’ve got some uninvited guests. Now they were on three monitors. Teams of men in uniform black, huddled down behind riot shields, forcing their way into the Encla...
I promised Coop two things before he died, I said. One, I’d get his cut of the score to his wife. Two, I’d send Stanwyck to hell where he belongs. I’m keeping those promises. The latter, Caitlin said...
I nearly dropped my fork. Say that again? Human servants, so we can go where— No, not that, the second part. The stupid part. You guys are actually Satanists? Like real, no-kidding, play your heavy me...
I didn’t murder Carl Holt, but to be fair, I had been planning on it. My girlfriend got to him first. She snapped his neck and left him dead on his partner’s kitchen floor. I just burned the house dow...
I chuckled. Yeah, okay. He relaxed, sinking back in his chair, mirroring my smile. But you know the old saying, I told him. His brow furrowed. What old saying? Two people can keep a secret, I said, if...
Hope for the best, plan for the worst,
Have you ever considered, for even a moment, the list of things I’m not allowed to do because some bitter old men say so? I can’t lead a mass, can’t earn the greens of a priest, let alone claim my bir...
From the looks on his follower’s faces, I’d done a decent enough job of creeping them out. Two of them looked nervously at the duffel, as if they’d just found out I’d brought a piñata stuffed with ant...
Do you have the soul? Where is it now? she asked, a little too urgently for my liking. Stashed someplace safe, I told her. That someplace was the trunk of my car parked out in the driveway, but I didn...
Do I look Lithuanian to you?
Buy up the land it’s on and the twenty acres around it in every direction. Post a permanent guard. Satellite scans show a small village within that radius. Shame, the Smile said. The drug cartels are...
Apocalypso dancing! Sunday Sunday Sunday! You’ll want to cut your wrists with the whole knife, but you’ll only need the edge!
Alchemist’s…clay? What is that? It’s a special kind of clay, I said. And it won’t set off the metal detectors? I stared at him through the slot. No, I said. Because it’s clay.
A fresh bottle of Jack waited on the end table, but for the first time in weeks I didn’t feel the need to pour a nightcap. The music was better.
A couple strolled by behind my chair. For a moment, they got between us and the closest light, casting Freddie in a patch of shadow. As the light peeled away, so did the facade. A desiccated corpse re...
Manager, he works late two nights out of five, but there’s no way to predict which ones. What I do know is his home address, the names of his wife and their two little girls, and what their bedroom wi...
Your traveling companion is a highly successful narcotics dealer. I held up a finger. Point of order. She was arrested for marijuana possession twice, growing it once, and all three times the charges...