Page 35 of Joker's Ghost
“This shit really happened. It was fuckin’ weird, and you were talking about having a meet-up with Warrior, only he was young, and that fuckin’ Nomad we offed was alive.”
“Look, why don’t you go home, rest up, and we can talk about all this tomorrow?”
“I’m telling you, if this didn’t really happen, then maybe it’s some kinda sign it will happen.”
“Just go home and rest.” Cobra digs his hand in his pocket, pulls out the keys to the Escalade and hands them to Daisy.
“You probably shouldn’t be riding your bike. I’ll have one of the prospects drop it off later.”
“Great. Now you’re fuckin’ treating me like a five-year-old.” I push off the bar stool and glare at Cobra. “Fuck you all. I’m out.”
JOKER
I was silent the entire way home, and as usual, Daisy read my mood and didn’t push me. When we enter the condo,Derek and Deana are on the couch watchingFinding Nemo, one of Deana’s favorites.
“You’re home early,” Derek observes.
“Your father had a little accident.”
“Accident? What happened?”
“He fell down the basement stairs of The Gold Mine.”
“Shit, those stairs are concrete. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, and I didn’t fall. I was pushed.”
Derek raises his eyebrows. “Who would’ve pushed?—”
“Forget about it.” I cut him off and head for the bedroom because I don’t feel like explaining myself or seeing the looks Derek and Daisy are exchanging.
“C’mon, Deana, it’s way past your bedtime.” Daisy leads our little girl into her room.
Ten minutes later, I’ve downed four Advils and taken off the jacket vest and shirt of that damn three-piece suit. Hard to believe people wore so many damn fuckin’ clothes. I dig in my pocket and come up with the black stone wrapped in the umbilical cord, but I don’t have the silver feather.
I stick my hand in the other pocket, then in the back pockets. No silver feather.
“Deana’s in bed, and Derek’s in his room,” Daisy informs me as she slips out of her beaded dress.
I quickly stuff the black stone into my nightstand drawer, then sit on the edge of the bed trying to put it all together. Then I remember . . . the Nomad took the silver feather then warned me. I concentrated but couldn’t come up with his actual words.
“And don’t get too comfortable in bed, because you heard what Doc Henderson said about falling asleep.”
“I’m fine,” I tell Daisy even though my heart is beating double time as my logical brain tries to come up with the Nomad’s exact words or a logical reason for all this bullshit.
“You keep saying that, but I don’t think you are. You havea weird look on your face, and you seemed jumpy even before you fell.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Python said you were talking about seeing some old clipping from 1939.”
“Yeah, well, Python should mind his own damn business.”
Daisy changes into her maternity sleep shirt, then joins me on the side of the bed. “Then why don’t you tell me what happened?”
“You’ll think I’m crazy too.”
She stares at me with a look that calls bullshit. A look that isn’t going to let me off the hook.
