Page 28 of Bishop's Flight
“Not a lot, but when one of the bosses is in town, they’ll usually go to Gavin’s other place” —Justine smiled— “the onewithoutthe bull, if you know what I mean. The bosses go there to talk business, and some of the soldiers hang out here. They like girls in tight outfits and cowboy hats.” She put on a Russian accent. “Very, veryAmerican.”
Bernard smirked. “Thanks, Justine.”
“Anytime, Bernie.” She winked at him. “Gavin tells me Rose and Agnes need a favor, we’re always happy to help. We like things nice and boring here in our little corner of the desert.” The crowd whooped as another person went flying off the bull. “Our version of boring anyway.”
“You said something about the door guards?” Carwyn asked.
“Sure.” She slid out of the booth and held out her hand. “Let me take you over.”
“Oh yeah, I remember her.”The guard was a burly human with a thick neck and tattoos on his neck, but these reminded Carwyn of the designs he’d seen among Latino men in Los Angeles, not Russian gang tattoos. “Anna something?”
“Not Anna,” his partner said. “Alina but call herAngel.” The man smirked. “Typical bite bunny. They usually pick some kind of name that’s going to sound more exotic. Like the vamps care.”
Bernard glared at the man and growled.
The human stepped back and his puffed-out chest deflated a bit. “I just mean the girls who want a vampire to notice them, they don’t want to go by Suzy, you know?”
Carwyn put on his soothing voice. “I understand your meaning, but I’ll bet she stood out anyway, didn’t she?”
“I thought maybe she was albino because of the skin and the hair, but her eyes were really blue.”
“And she had roots.” The other guard handed the picture back. “I noticed them the last time she came in. She definitely dyed her hair.”
“Contacts?”
Both men shook their head. “No idea. Her ID was Russian; we could read the birthday. That’s all we care about.”
“Passport?”
“Yeah, but I noticed she had a US license too, so I don’t know if she’s been here for a while or it could have been a fake license.”
“State?”
The men exchanged a glance.
“Not Nevada,” one said. “Not California or Arizona either.”
The other man snapped his fingers. “It was the one with the red, white, and blue flag in the corner.”
“The United States?” his friend asked.
“No, dumbass, astate.”
“Texas,” Bernard said. “Was it Texas?”
“Yeah,” the first guard said. “That was the one. She had a Texas ID.”
Carwyn immediately stepped away and turned on his phone.
Lee answered, and he had clearly been sleeping. “Carwyn, I told you—”
“Alina,” he said. “Look for Alinas with Texas driver’s licenses. There can’t be that many of them. There’s not a huge Russian community in Texas.”
“Alina’s a pretty common name.” The man sighed. “I will start on it first thing in the morning. I can hack into the Texas DMV no problem. Their security is shit.”
“Good. Go back to sleep.”
“This could have been a text, Carwyn.”
