I look at Candy and Vincent, but get nothing from them.
“I’m sick of smelling your shit wine. It reminds me of Hell and I don’t need that tonight. What else do the White Lights do with the dead?”
“Entertainment. Spectacle,” she says. “In a show-business town, the big money is in show business. What can ordinary people, with no singing or acting talent, no name and/or status do when they’re dead?”
“Ask me a lot of stupid questions?”
Tykho leans across the desk and speaks quietly.
“Did you hear of an online phenomenon years ago on the Web? It was called bum fights.”
Candy says, “Sure. Frat-boy assholes would pay homeless people to fight. They’d video it and put it online and charge to watch it.”
“Well, imagine what dead souls can do to each other in a dog pit,” Tykho says. “It’s quite a thing to see.”
I say, “Where? I want to see for myself. How do we get in?”
She opens a drawer and tosses an envelope on the desk.
“Here are some passes. They were supposed to be a raffle prize tonight, but you spoiled the party, so you might as well take them.”
I take the envelope and put it in my pocket with Vincent’s knife.
For a minute, I think very hard about killing Tykho. Candy puts a hand on mine.
“Let’s go home. Tykho is more useful with her head on her shoulders,” she says.
“Yes. I really am.”
I have to give it to Candy for keeping her cool. I was two seconds away from putting my Gladius through Tykho’s throat. But like she said, the new Death owes her a favor. How would killing her now hurt her?
I say, “Is there anything else you haven’t told us?”
“Lots,” says Tykho. “But that’s all you get now. You ruined my party and it will take days cleaning and ass-kissing to fix it. Go now and play save the world like you always do. But when you go to the fights and see the slaughter, remember that those people asked to be there. They volunteered their souls.”
“I doubt that,” I say. “No one is going to buy into something like that.”
“You’ve been to Hell. What horrors do you think ordinary people will endure on Earth so that they
don’t have to go into the Abyss? Go see the fights. Educate yourself.”
We leave Tykho’s office. Candy and I have our guns out, but none of the guards bother us. Vincent doesn’t say a word. Not on the drive back to the Beat Hotel or when we drop him off at his room.
“Good night,” Candy says.
He just stares at her with the thousand-yard stare of someone who’s been through Hell and knows that whatever happens, he’s never going home again.
CANDY CALLS JULIE and tells her what we found out at Tykho’s club, without going into details of how we got it. I think. I can only hear Candy’s side of the conversation, so I guess it depends on what questions Julie asks. Not much I can do about it either way. Candy tells her we’re going to check out the bum fights and asks if she wants to come with us. We could use the backup. While they’re talking, Candy looks at me and shakes her head. The last thing she says to Julie is “Okay. We’ll call when we get back. Be careful.”
I’m drinking coffee spiked with Aqua Regia.
“Be careful about what?”
“She says there was a car parked across the street all day, and when she left the office, it followed her.”
I hand Candy a nonspiked coffee.
“Should we go after her?”