Page 21 of Relics of the Wolf

He raised his eyebrows.

“For you, I mean. I don’t have any plans involving your equipment.”

“That’s disappointing. It likes to be used.”

We reached the back door of the bar, found it locked and without a handle on that side, and had to go around to the front again. The music still played, but fewer of the tables were occupied, and the back area with the pool tables and axe-throwing alley had cleared out completely. All of the brutes were gone.

Francisco eyed us warily as we approached and waved at the broken pool sticks littering the floor. “It would have cost me less if youhadcome to collect taxes.”

“Sorry,” I said and reached for my purse, feeling compelled to offer to pay. But which of my budgeting envelopes would I extract the money from? It was hard to classify that experience asentertainment.

Duncan noticed me opening my purse and stopped me with a hand on my wrist. He held up a finger, withdrew a billfold, and laid a couple of hundreds on the bar top. I glimpsed more bills with large denominations inside and decided that he might make more than I’d thought selling his rusty finds.

“Who were those guys, Francisco?” Duncan asked casually. “We weren’t expecting to get jumped when we were examining the community board.”

The bartender shrugged. “They come here a lot, fromup north, I hear them say sometimes. But they’re surly dicks, so I don’t talk to them. I only serve them the drink they like.” He waved to a glass at the end of the bar that hadn’t been picked up. The pink liquid inside bubbled and smoked.

“That looks like Pepto Bismol simmering on a Bunsen burner.” I couldn’t imagine wanting to drink it.

“That’s one of the ingredients.” Francisco lifted a bottle of the pink medicine off a shelf under the bar. “Then a number of powders I get from my druid supplier, and of course the tequila is what makes the medicine go down.”

“That sounds loathsome.” After hearing the rest of the ingredients, I could imagine drinking the concoction even less.

“Rue mentioned one of the side effects of that potion was stomach upset, didn’t she?” Duncan asked me quietly.

“It fixes that right up,” Francisco said. “And, if you have too much cactus juice—” he waved toward a row of tequila bottles on the shelf behind the bar, several labels not in English, “—I’ve got some hangover drinks for the morning. Stuff to help you concentrate on your spells too.” He nodded toward the Dungeons and Dragons table, though half the cloaked drinkers had disappeared during the fight. “There’s a reason this place is popular with the paranormal.”

“With Pepto Bismol mixed with tequila, how could it not be?” I muttered.

Missing or ignoring the sarcasm, Francisco nodded firmly.

Duncan and I moved away from the bar.

“I need to find somewhere to buy new tires,” he said, “in case you want to call someone for a ride home. I don’t thinkup northis enough to go on, as far as locating those men, or whoever hired them, so we’ll have to do more research.”

“Well, Tacoma is south, so we at least know they’re not selling their stolen magical artifacts to the person hiring cauldron unloaders.”

“Likely not, but if my van keeps getting ravaged while I’m in the area,Imight have to take that gig.”

If he could move a pool table with a hulk shoving against it, lifting crates of cauldrons wouldn’t be a problem. I almost asked again about his unusual strength, but he’d already dodged that question, and he would probably continue to do so.

“It might be healthier for you and your tires if you didn’t stay in town,” I said as we walked back out into the night. “If you told Chad to F off and aren’t looking for the case anymore, what’s keeping you here?”

“A gentleman doesn’t use vulgarities or curse words when resigning from a job.”

“You should have. It’s the only language he understands. That and a punch to the nose.”

“Physical maiming is hard to deliver over the phone. Ididtell him that he has a woefully inadequate tallywacker if he couldn’t come to you and bargain for access to his artifact himself.”

“Tallywacker?”

Duncan lifted his eyebrows. “You haven’t heard that term? Perhaps you’re more familiar with trouser snake. Meat puppet. Or pork sword.”

“Pork sword,” I mouthed, then shook my head. “Next time you talk to him, at least tell himItold him to F off. And to stuff his tallywacker up his ass.”

“Women are blunt in this country.”

“Yeah, we like our vulgarities. Especially we middled-aged, jilted women who’ve learned to fend for ourselves.”

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