Part 23 (1/2)

I gave him a grimace.

”Not so good, huh? You going to puke?”

I bit down on some bile in my chest. ”Trying not to.”

He tilted his head toward the butcher block. ”Leonard puked. He also has a nasty bruise on his lower spine from hitting the floor. He's kinda p.i.s.sed off, Patrick.”

Leonard scowled at me.

”What's Leonard's capacity here?”

”He's bodyguard.” Cody slapped my cheek, not too hard, but not too gently, either. ”After you and your friend came to visit that time, I thought I might need some protection.”

”And the WWF was having a yard sale?” I asked.

Leonard leaned over the counter and the muscles in his forearm flexed. ”Keep talking, b.i.t.c.h. Just-”

Cody waved him off. ”So where is your friend, Pat? The big dumb one who likes to hit people with tennis rackets.”

I tried to tilt my head in the direction of the front of the house, but it hurt too much and the nausea kicked in double-time.

”Out on the street, Cody.”

Cody shook his head. ”No, no. We took a walk while you slept this off. There's no one out there.”

”You sure?”

A wisp of doubt flickered in his eyes, then vanished. ”He'd have come cras.h.i.+ng through here by now, I think.”

”When he does, Cody, what are you going to do?”

Cody pulled a .38 from his waistband, waved it in my face. ”Shoot him, of course.”

”Sure,” I said, ”make him mad.”

Cody chuckled, then shoved the gun barrel up against my left nostril. ”Ever since you humiliated me, Pat, I've dreamed of something like this. Gives me a hard-on, to tell you the truth. What do you think of that?”

”I think your erogenous zones need rewiring.”

He pulled back on the hammer with his thumb, dug harder into my nostril.

”So, you going to kill me now, Cody?”

He shrugged. ”I gotta be honest, I thought I'd killed you up in the bathroom. I've never knocked someone out before. I've never even tried.”

”Beginner's luck, then. Kudos.”

He smiled, slapped my face again. I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, both Codys had returned, the transparent one just to the right of the real one.

”Mr. Falk,” Leonard said.