Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Hitting send, he set the phone faceup on his thigh. “He’ll get back to me.”
As he and Butch both stared at the closed door, he wondered whether he could take her up there himself, and then remembered that his mate and Payne’s wouldn’t let her leave before they had done a thorough assessment of her physical condition.
“Who’d she heal?” Butch asked.
“Old guy. Who worked at the pharmacy.”
As he recalled the way the father and son had embraced, he wondered why life seemed determined to show him clips of family wholesomeness when he had no interest in it. He so wasn’t looking for Tim the Tool Man Taylor to come and make his little Jonathan Taylor Thomas feel better about things.
Aware that he had mixed up the reference, he quit it with the trying to find metaphors.
“I was right, you know,” he said. Because sometimes, when you were feeling shitty, getting superior about something even when no one was competing with you for top dog made you feel better. “Whoever broke into that pharmacy went there with a purpose.”
“As a former cop, I can tell you that nine out of ten crimes are committed with a purpose.”
“Is that like nine out of ten dentists recommend?”
“If you’re talking about fluoride, yes.” Butch put another chip in his mouth. “And do you need a Snickers?”
“No, I’m actually most myself when I’m hangry.”
“Remind me why I live with you again?”
“Because I can fix the wireless router when it goes out.”
Butch held up his forefinger. “Oh, right. It’s coming back to me now.”
“Anyway, whoever broke into that pharmacy needed medical supplies, not shit to cook up dope with. That was the reason.”
“We’re never going to find that prison camp.”
V frowned. “And you’re the one who wears the Jesus piece.”
“I’m just saying, if they want to stay hidden, they will.”
“Not acceptable.” V picked up his phone and went to the Internet. “They’re going to need a place big enough to house, what, three or four hundred people minimum—underground or in a sufficiently stable structure to protect the prisoners from daylight. It’s going to have to have some mod cons so that they can conduct business. Like they’ll need cell phone access or at least a landline. Rudimentary electricity and running water. A perimeter fence and guard stations.”
“So they’d want an abandoned prison, for example.”
“Exactly.” He continued typing. “Because the chances of them finding another underground facility like the first location? Very small.”
“There isn’t one in New York State. Vacant prison, that is.”
“How do you know.”
Butch pointed to his own chest. “Cop, remember.”
V frowned at the results he got. “There isn’t an abandoned prison, by the way.”
“Do you ever listen to anybody. Like, ever?”
“We need to look at other places. An abandoned museum. Old mansion. Sports complex, library, city hall.”
“Well, that’ll narrow it down, if you’re looking through the entirety of New York State. Sure. How many are there, like, a thousand or two?”
“Think positively.”
Butch crumpled the bag. “This coming from you?”
Both of them looked up at the same time. Then they turned their heads to the left.
Lassiter, the fallen angel, was stepping out of the glass-fronted office, and as he came down to them, his long strides covered the distance with an impressive alacrity. And, hey, he wasn’t in pink zebra print today. Surprise!
“How’s she doing?” the angel asked.
For once, his blond-and-black hair was pulled back, and he was super serious. Which was a little like Mr. Bean trying to give a TED Talk. You just kept waiting for the guy to go off on a tangent that involved putting his head in a Thanksgiving turkey.
V shook his head. “She needs to go to the Sanctuary and heal up there.”
“The recharging will help.” Lassiter glanced at the closed door. “They’re in with her now? The docs.”
“Yeah.”
“I can wait.”
“Please don’t. She didn’t look so hot.”
Lassiter bent at the waist in a bow. “I’ll take care of it right now.”
V opened his mouth to say something. But then he closed it as the angel went through the door and the panel shut in his wake.
It was hard to be a douche to the guy when he was actually helping. Even though Payne had done the healing thing before, and had fallen into similar states of molecular exhaustion, it seemed like there was some kind of cumulative effect on her, each intercession on her part taking her closer to an edge nobody wanted her anywhere near.
“What the hell happened to that angel,” Butch murmured. “It’s like he’s running out of battery strength.”
Shaking his head, V went back into his phone. “Betty White did die. Maybe that’s why he’s in a decline.”
“Yeah, that’s got to be it. The last thing we need is more turnover in that role. I wonder who he would turn your mother’s job over to.”
“Not me.” V started thumbing through results of his Internet search. “I am not in the running for that thankless position.”