Part 28 (1/2)
A pause. ”She's better. She still doesn't know who I am, not really, but I've got an apartment set-up for us in the Quarter and I hope to move her in there soon. I've got some of her managers handling Nameless for us, so at least that will stick around for her in case she regains her memory soon.”
”Well that's great,” I told him. ”You can still go drink your face off for free.”
Perry rolled over to face me. ”Tell him I say hi.”
”Perry says hi,” I told him. ”She also says you're ugly.”
”Shut up,” she said, hitting me again.
”So violent,” I mouthed at her.
”You need to get a room,” Maximus said.
”We have one, you're the one intruding.”
Silence. He cleared his throat.
”Have you told her about me?” he asked. ”I mean, what I am?”
My eyes nervously flitted over to Perry who was back to watching the DVD. ”No,” I said carefully. ”I haven't. I was planning on it one day, when things calm down a bit here.”
”Good. I reckon she should know the truth. About everything.”
He was meaning the baby thing too, the holes in the Thin Veil. I had no plans to tell her that part, not for a long time. There were some things she just didn't need to know. Not yet.
”Well, listen,” I started.
”Yeah, I should get going. Just wanted to see how you were holding up.”
”Almost fully healed. Back to full f.u.c.king capacity.”
”Now, I'm not sure if you mean the capacity to f.u.c.k or...you know what? I don't want to know.”
”No, I don't think you do.”
”Have you spoken to Jimmy yet...I haven't called him.”
”We'll be dealing with him soon. You just take of Rose. Give her our love, okay.”
”Will do.”
I was about to hang up the phone but quickly said, ”Bye, ginger b.a.l.l.s” at the last minute. Things were going back to normal.
It turns out that even though Maximus left us under n.o.ble circ.u.mstances, that didn't mean that Jimmy saw it that way. In fact, Jimmy was right p.i.s.sed off (though that was no surprise).
”I don't f.u.c.king believe it,” he muttered into his hands. Perry and I were sitting across the table from him in his office. We'd decided we had to tear ourselves away from our marathon s.e.x session to finally have the meeting and fill Jimmy in on what happened. I hadn't given him the footage yet, wanting to torture him a bit with Maximus's sudden departure from the Experiment in Terror team.
”Well, that's the truth,” I said matter-of-factly. ”He's staying in New Orleans to look after his sick ex-girlfriend. Kind of f.u.c.king n.o.ble, if you ask me.”
”No one is f.u.c.king asking you, Dex,” he grunted, face still buried.
Perry and I exchanged a look. She didn't even want to come to the office, saying we could just tell him over the phone, or at least I could go in by myself. I knew she was afraid of him, but I wanted to prove that we really were a team. And to be honest, I wanted to prove more than that.
But first things first.
”So, this is great,” he went on caustically. ”All this sponsors.h.i.+p and we once again have nothing to show for it. Do you have any idea what this means? They won't want to deal with Shownet again.”
”Who are the sponsors, anyway?” I asked out of curiosity.
He sighed, his breath fluttering the papers on his desk. ”Enerbomb. An energy drink company.”
I snorted. ”Well nothing says ghost-hunting like having a f.u.c.king cardiac arrest. Are you sure Jack Daniels wasn't interested?”
He looked up at me sharply. I'd never seen his eyes so viper-like. His gla.s.ses should have been fogging up. ”Is this the time to make jokes, Dex? You've ruined the show. You've ruined me.”
”Don't be so dramatic,” I said pulling out the USB stick from my pocket and sliding it across the table. ”Here. This is what we shot. You can show your Red b.a.l.l.s sponsors that.”
He picked it up like it was a wriggling insect.
I nodded at it. ”Go ahead, take a look. We'll sit here and wait.”
Jimmy shot me a wary look but did as I suggested. He put the USB into his laptop and went through it. Maximus had already picked out all the shots before we left NOLA, so it was easy putting it all together. It wasn't everything, just cropped shots of the exterior of the house intersected with NOLA stock footage and Perry's narration, then everything we'd shot in the interior, ending with the zombie coming after Perry. We ended it in a fade to black, fudging the truth a little and saying that Perry was attacked and then the zombie ”ghost” just disappeared in front of our eyes. It was a little bit better than saying he was a real person who jumped out the window to his death for the second time. RIP, Tuffy G.
When he was done, he looked over at us in awe. Well, maybe ”awe” was a slight exaggeration. But he looked more impressed than he did ten minutes ago.
He took off his gla.s.ses and rubbed at his eyes. ”So,” he said slowly, ”are you telling me that you finally got something amazing and the person who's responsible for it is now gone?”
I grinned, knowing he would say that. ”No. Because Perry and I have always had the power to make this amazing. I hate to say this but Maximus was good, he actually was, but it wasn't him that made this work. It was the extra help. It was the extra camera. Just having someone else there. Perry and I, we're too busy staying alive, we can't be worrying about everything. An extra person on our team would make everything run a lot smoother. All the shows will be like the one we just showed you and your sponsors will be cracked out and happy.”
He squinted at me, not trusting a word I was saying. ”Okay. So if you're right about this, then who would the third person be?”
Perry spoke up, ”Let us work on that tonight and get back to you about it.”
He directed his disbelieving gaze to her and to her credit she didn't shrink in her seat as she usually did.
”What?” she added. ”We have someone in mind, we just don't want to say anything until it's official.”
He grunted something. I took that moment to push the envelope further and I put my arm around Perry.
”Don't worry about Jimmy, baby, it always takes him a while to come around.”
I smiled as I bit my lip and relaxed in my seat, enjoying the sight of his eyes widening as he put everything together.
”What the h.e.l.l is this?” he asked.
I shrugged. ”What is what?”
”You two are an item now?”