Read Spiritwalk for Free Online Page B

sighed off.
    GOOD NIGHT, JAMIE.
    Directly under that, the cursor flitted across the screen, leaving behind the words, GOOD NIGHT, BLUE.
    Sighing, Blue got up and went to bed. He had the feeling that tomorrow was going to be a long day.
    6
    The night was almost gone when two men walked down into Central Park from where they’d parked their car on Bank Street. They settled on a bench that gave them a long view of the south side of Tamson House. One of them took out a pack of Export A and shook a cigarette free.
    “What do you think, Joey?” Chance asked as he lit up. “Is that some place or what?”
    He tossed the match onto the pathway in front of the bench and leaned back, smoke drifting from his nostrils. His hair was long and slicked back from a high forehead, his eyes a pale blue and close-set. He wore jeans, a tan cotton shirt open at the neck and a summer-weight sports jacket.
    “It’s something all right,” Joey replied.
    At six-foot-four and two hundred and sixty pounds, Joey Martin topped his partner by four inches and outweighed him by eighty pounds. He was dressed similarly, though on him the clothes were more serviceable than stylish. His hair was cropped short in a military style.
    “Got to be two hundred rooms,” Chance said, shifting his weight so that he was leaning forward now. “I mean just
look
at the place.”
    “When’re we gonna start breaking heads?” Joey wanted to know.
    “Be cool, Joey. This is just a recon, nothing more. I just wanted to check the place out. We got a job to do and that comes first. Fact that Farley’s the local watchdog is just icing on the cake—now you remember that.”
    “Yeah, but he owes you.”
    “Course he owes me,” Chance said. “Everybody owes me something. I just choose my own time to collect it, that’s all. So don’t push me, Joey. I don’t like being pushed.”
    Chance turned to face the bigger man. For all his size, Joey looked quickly away, hunching his neck into his shoulders.
    “I didn’t mean nothing,” he mumbled.
    Chance pushed him lightly on a meaty shoulder. “I know that, Joey. You just get excited.” He took a final drag on his cigarette and flicked it out onto the grass. “But you have to learn how to be patient. See, we’re businessmen now. We’re wearing our colors in here now”—he tapped his chest—“where only we can see them. We don’t just go wading into places and break heads anymore. We think things through. We’re looking for the profit, now. The percentages, Joey.”
    “I don’t know about that kind of shit,” Joey said. “All I know’s breaking heads and partying, Chance. That’s all I know.”
    “And that’s why you’ve got me,” Chance said.
    Joey nodded happily. “So when’re we breaking some heads?”
    Chance sighed. He let his gaze follow the length of Tamson House. “Soon enough,” he said. “But not right now.” He stood up and shook loose another cigarette. “Right now it’s time to see if this gizmo that Our Lady of the Night gave us can do its job.”
    He took a small oval stone from his pocket and pointed it at the House, panning slowly along its length. When it was pointing near the O’Connor Street end, the stone began to glow softly. Chance looked down at the pale golden glimmer and smiled as he put it away.
    “Bingo,” he said. “She’s there.”
    “I don’t like working for these fags,” Joey said.
    “They’re not fags, they’re Faerie,” Chance told him.
    “Same difference—they’re all queer, right, Chance? I’d like to break their heads.”
    You’re like a big dumb dog, Chance thought, looking at his partner. You don’t understand shit, all right, but I wouldn’t swap you for the world.
    “Come on, Joey,” he said. “Let me buy you a doughnut.”
    “A chocolate doughnut?”
    Chance lit his cigarette, then led the way out of the park to where their car was parked on Bank Street. “Sure,” he said. “Any flavor you want, Joey.”
    He looked back at