Hard Bitten - Chloe Neill [89]
He smiled slowly, like an eager hyena. “As it turns out, yeah. I would like to hear what you think.”
“You had the forethought to keep any trace of V out of your house. I think that makes you an incredibly smart and resourceful man. The question, then, is where you’re keeping the drugs . . . and who you’re getting them from. How’d you like to fill me in on that?”
Paulie Cermak stared at me, wide-eyed, for a moment before erupting with laughter, the belly-aching kind that soon had him coughing uncontrollably.
When he finally stopped guffawing, he wiped tears from the corners of his eyes with fingers that were longer and more delicate than I’d thought they’d be. Like the fingers of a pianist, but attached to a shortish, barrel-chested drug pusher.
“Oh, Jesus,” he said. “You are gonna give me an embolism, kid. But you are a kick, you know that? And you aren’t exactly shy, are you?”
“Is that a no?”
“The business world is a very delicate place. You’ve got higherups. Middlemen. And everyday, run-of-the-mill vendors.”
“Such as yourself?”
“As you say. Now, if I draw too much attention to those other levels, the entire balance gets thrown off, and that makes management unhappy.”
“Is McKetrick your management?”
He went quiet for a moment. “Who’s McKetrick?”
I couldn’t be certain, but I had a sense his confusion was legitimate, that Cermak really didn’t know who McKetrick was. Besides, he’d all but admitted he was selling drugs. Why start lying now?
A thought occurred to me—and not the kind of thought that was going to help me sleep better at night. I was the granddaughter of a cop, and a vampire with connections to Cadogan House. Why wouldn’t he lie to me, unless he thought vampires couldn’t touch him . . . or whomever he worked for? And who was the only woman the GP wouldn’t let us touch?
I had to inquire, but I didn’t want to make him—or Celina—skittish.
“Do you work alone?” I asked him.
“Most of the time,” he carefully said, as if not sure where the question was headed.
“With vampires?”
“Honey, I’ve got a carotid. Given the nature of the merch, I prefer to get in and get out with as few fangs as possible.”
“You were spotted with a vamp named Marie.”
Paulie stared back at me, refusing to respond. Maybe he hadn’t noticed the security camera.
Brave as he might have been about the V, Cermak apparently wasn’t willing to admit to Celina’s involvement. I wasn’t sure what that signaled, if anything. And I was running out of ideas.
“I know what you think it stands for,” Paulie said.
“What?”
“V,” he said. “The name of the drug. You think it means ‘vampire,’ right?”
I paused for a moment, surprised he was willing to be that overt about it. “It had occurred to me,” I finally got out.
He pointed a finger at me. “Then you’d be wrong. Stands for veritas. That’s a Latin word meaning ‘truth.’ Idea is, it’s supposed to remind vamps what being a real vampire feels like. The old-school, flying-bats, Transylvania, horror-film bloodlust. The good kind of bloodlust. And battling. No wussy, pansy human bullshit. Getting out there and mixing it up. It’s a gift, V, to the vampires. Veritas. Truth,” he repeated. “Personally, I appreciate that.”
That was an awfully philosophical explanation. “And what makes you so generous toward vamps?”
“I’m not generous, kid. I’m not saying I’ve seen V, but if I had, it ain’t the kind of thing I’d get involved in out of the goodness of my heart. It’s more the kind of thing I’d consider making a living from.”
“Who would?”
Paulie snorted. “Who do you think would have the motivation to do something like that? To make vamps crazy for blood, to make them want to act like ‘real vampires’?” He shrugged. “All I can say is, you gotta go higher in the chain than me, doll.”
Another hint about Celina? Or maybe another higher-up in Chicago’s Houses? I needed more info. “You wanna point me in the right direction?”
“And take the chance of reducing my income? No, thanks, kid.” An old-school telephone rang from somewhere in the house. Paulie glanced back at it,