Page 87 of The Furies

And then the rat laughed.

CHAPTER XIX

I arrived at Angel and Louis’s apartment shortly before 1 p.m. Louis answered the door and told me that Angel was lying down.

“Is he ill?” I said. Angel’s health remained a matter of constant concern for both Louis and me, despite the most recent all-clear. Angel also remained prone to tiredness, as well as periods of deep depression. But in common with a certain type of invalid, he hated being asked about his health or having it remarked upon, and so we watched him while pretending not to watch, and worried for him in silence.

“He’s hungover,” said Louis. “He drank a few bottles of some ale called Dinner last night, and woke up this morning looking like he’d been hit by a train, or possibly two, both heavily loaded with alcohol.”

I was impressed, albeit in the way one might be by a rank amateur who had decided to go a couple of rounds with the champ. Dinner came from the Maine Beer Company in Freeport, and was an Imperial IPA, which was basically an IPA that had been put on a course of steroids. I seemed to recall that it was more than 8 percent ABV, and felled grown men the way lumberjacks felled trees.

“Where is he?”

“On the couch, dying.”

I entered the living room to find the patient as described.

“Put me out of my misery,” Angel whispered.

“Any last words?” I said.

“None that I’d want to be remembered by.”

He managed to open one eye.

“My world is coming to an end,” he said. “I consider it a mercy killing.”

“I need your help,” I said.

He closed the eye again.

“I had a terrible feeling,” he said, “that you were going to say something along those lines…”

* * *

ANGEL MANAGED TO DRAG himself to the kitchen table. Louis cooked up some bacon and eggs, which Angel kept down, along with a couple of glasses of water, a handful of ibuprofen, and a concoction that combined two types of ginseng, ginger, brown sugar, and borage oil. I was conscious that time was limited, but I cared too much about Angel to force him to face the day without a fighting chance. At the end of it all, he admitted to feeling better, if only because the chances of feeling worse were relatively slim. By then I had brought them up to speed on Melissa Thombs and Sarah Abelli.

“So,” said Louis, “Nate Sawyer’s widow. Do you pick your clients solely on the basis of how many people would like to see them dead, or do you also take into account their ability to pay?”

“I don’t think the Office wants Sarah Abelli dead,” I said.

“Only because she can’t pay up if she’s a corpse,” said Angel.

“She says she doesn’t have the money her husband stole.”

“And you believe her?”

“For now. She wants those relics of her child returned to her. I think that if she had the money, she’d pay the asking price for them. But she’s right to be skeptical about the likelihood of getting those possessions back, whether she ponies up or not. The Office may not be set on making a corpse of her, but they’d be happy to see her suffer for her husband’s failings.”

“Assuming the Office is involved,” said Louis.

“Which is what I need to find out before this turns any nastier.”

“I hate Providence,” said Louis. “Always have, even before the business with Mother.”

“Any news on that front?” I asked.

“From what I hear, she never leaves that big old house of hers, and her people have deserted her. Someday someone will come by and find her dried husk curled up in a corner. They can just set fire to it, save the cost of a funeral.”

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