The Perdition Score by Richard Kadrey Read Free Book Online

it.”
    â€œThere’s no Nobel Prizes around here. Just tamales.”
    â€œIt’s time for you to call the missus. Tell her I’m going to die sorting discs.”
    â€œGood. More tamales for us.”
    â€œAnd once again, you’re not allowed down here. Go upstairs and stay out of my way.”
    â€œYes, boss.”
    I go upstairs and pour myself some Aqua Regia.
    If Abbot is right and Wormwood is playing games up here and Quay is doing business down there, it makes sense that they’re connected. I wonder if he’s the source of black milk? But how would he make money off it? And who else could be working with him? Maybe David Moore. He’s dead and had connections through a talent agency run by the Burgess family—Wormwood heavyweights. But that wouldn’t help Kasabian. He wouldn’t recognize Moore. Fuck me. I should have brought more peepers with me when I came back from Hell that last time. Just another in a long series of mistakes. Maybe there’s some other way I can see Downtown like Kasabian. Who could help with that? Maybe go back and ask the powers that be in Piss Alley? Maybe not. When they gave me the power to sidestep for a week, it aged me enough that I’ve got a few gray hairs. Who knows what price they’d want next time?
    I go into the bathroom, strip off my clothes, and get into the shower. I need to wash the fight and as many lies off me as I can.
    When I get out, I can hear Candy and Kasabian talking downstairs. She comes up and the first thing she says is, “Kas says you have a black eye. Are you all right?”
    If Kasabian wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him tonight.
    â€œI’m fine. I just bumped my head getting off Abbot’s damned boat.”
    â€œPoor baby,” she says, and drops her vinyl eyeball bag on the kitchen counter.
    She comes over and kisses my bruised eye.
    â€œMaybe I can take your mind off all the pain.”
    Candy opens the eyeball and pulls out the record Alessa Graves gave her. She puts it on the stereo and cranks up the sound. The trembling rumble of surf guitar fills the room.
    Reaching under the towel, she begins to massage my cock, then kisses me hard. I lean against her, smelling her hair and neck. She pulls off my towel and pushes me down on the sofa, keeps pumping me with her hand. I pull her on top of me and start to roll her over when she says, “Wait a minute.” She throws off her short dress and underwear and pulls me inside her.
    â€œFukaku hamekonde chodai, ” she whispers.
    I have no idea what that means, but I don’t think it has anything to do with tamales. When she wraps her legs around me, I have the strange feeling it’s the music more than me that’s driving her, but it doesn’t seem like the right time to ask.
    T HE GOOD NEWS is that we don’t break any furniture we care about, just a secondhand lamp that was here when I moved in. I know that if I get another lamp, Candy will conveniently lose it and replace it with something horrifying. Something that spins and has talking robots or waving tentacles.
    Candy crawls into bed and we divvy up the tamales. I take some down to Kasabian, and when I come back upstairs, she’s propped against a pile of pillows digging into her dinner. I take my plate into the room and join her in bed.
    â€œHey, do you remember me bringing home a folder or packet of some kind when I went to work with Abbot?”
    She nods, holds a hand over her mouth, and chews.
    â€œIt’s on the floor next to the bureau. You put it there and I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to ask about it.”
    â€œYou looked inside?”
    She nods, looking a little guilty.
    â€œSorry. A big envelope from the augur. How could I not look? Besides, knowing you, it was a check for a million dollars and you forgot about it.”
    I mix some beans with rice and swallow a mouthful.
    â€œI guess I don’t have a