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“Thanks a lot, Mike. I owe you for this.”

“If you want to pay me back, forget you were here. I don’t need trouble right now.”

“Don’t worry. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going and I won’t.”

“Cool,” he says. Then quietly, “Still, I’d love to see the workshop that came out of. Rose always had the best of everything.”

“It would take someone with heavy money to set him up, I bet.”

Mike’s eyes widen a little.

“The kind of work he does, just his equipment is going to run four or five million dollars. That doesn’t include the workshop itself, materials, and maybe an assistant.”

“I’ve got the picture. Thanks again.”

“How’s the arm skin working out for you?” he says, touching his left arm.

I flex the fingers on my Kissi arm.

“I’m not wearing it now, but it’s really come in handy.”

“That’s great to hear. Let me know if you need more.”

“You’re a prince, Mike.”

I wave to his cousins as I head for the door. Pavel follows me out and locks the gate behind me.

“Do svidaniya, Pavel.”

He laughs. I put my hand to my heart, wounded.

“I didn’t say it right, did I?”

“You say it right for parrot or little sister’s talking doll.”

“Take it easy, Pavel.”

He waves a hand and goes back into the shop repeating “do svidaniya” to himself, adding little bird squawks every now and then.

I get on the Hellion hog and head home.

So, someone in town has a pet Tick Tock Man on the payroll, maybe turning out more angel boxes. But who are they for? It has to be Wormwood and some of their lackeys. How much black milk is there floating in L.A.? My guess is not too much. If we were rolling in the stuff, Karael would have mentioned it to me when he gave me the sample. And that psycho angel wouldn’t have had to carve me up like an Easter ham. That means whoever has Rose on the payroll is getting ready for more of the black stuff to hit town. That’s one problem.

The other is that I still don’t know what the hell they’d use it for. Allegra put one tiny drop too many on the slide and it wiped out her swimming meat. No one is getting high off the stuff, that’s for sure. And unless someone is doing a magic act teaching pork chops the flying trapeze, no one is using it to reanimate dead things.

So forget the milk for now. What about the drill? If I can figure out who’s got Rose on the payroll, I’m sure it will get me the rest of the information. Good-time Charlie is the logical suspect. He’s got the money and he had the drill. But Abbot is right. I can’t touch him for now. If I’m wrong, going for Charlie will send whoever has Rose underground, and that’s the last thing I want.

Shit. This means I have to think and be patient, my two least favorite things.

When I get home, Candy is curled up in bed. I go in and kiss her and she wraps an arm around me.

“You should hear me play now,” she says sleepily. “I’m goddamn Rick Derringer.”

“You always were, baby.”

“Fucking A. I’m the king of the wild frontier.”

A second later, she’s back asleep.