The Living End Read Online Free PDF

bread?”
    She shook her head. “I’ve been checking other soup kitchens, the shelters, calling hospitals about the handful I have real names for. They’re not there. They’re not
anywhere
.”
    “At the risk of sounding morbid, have you called the morgue? Seen if there’s an upswing in John and Jane Does?”
    “Of course I did,” she said. “I did that
first
. And no. They’re not dying. They’re disappearing. These are marginalized people, Faust. Do you know what the crime statistics are like among the homeless? Not crimes committed by them, committed
against
them. Compared to other citizens, the rates of hate crimes, beatings, rapes—”
    I held up my hand. “I hear you. So lay it on the table. What’s your guess as to where they’re all going?”
    “I don’t know. My skill set is all digital, okay? But my regulars live off the grid. It’s like the city streets just opened and swallowed them up, and I don’t even know where to start. I was hoping you could…do your thing. Look, I can pay you. Just name a figure.”
    I pinched the bridge of my nose. I felt a headache coming on. Or maybe it was a bad idea disguised as a headache.
    “Christ, Pix, I’m not going to charge you
money
for this. Let’s just call it a favor for a favor, okay?”
    She eyed me the same way I’d eyed my new lawyer.
    “I’d feel safer just paying you,” she said.
    “Favor for a favor, and you can pick the favor. I’m trying to hold out an olive branch. Will you just fucking take it already?”
    Her lips pursed as she weighed a question. Then her eyes went diamond hard.
    “What happened to him, Faust?”
    “Who?”
    “You know who,” she said. “Ben. The guy I helped you set up. A whole lot of you went out into the desert that night we stole that ring from Lauren Carmichael’s house, and not everybody came back again.”
    I folded my hands on the table and leaned close.
    “Why are you asking me a question you already know the answer to?”

Four
    “B ecause,” Pixie said, “you told me we were the good guys that night. Then I find out that while I was slipping out through the tunnel under Carmichael’s house, there was a
slaughter
going on in the dining room. Then, what, you dragged Ben out into the desert and put a bullet in his head? I was part of that, damn it! You didn’t tell me anyone was going to get killed. You told me we were doing the right thing.”
    “We
were
doing the right thing,” I said flatly. “And it didn’t go down like that. First of all, don’t be fucking naive. Lauren and Sullivan went in planning to stab each other in the back. When I exposed their game, what did you think was going to happen? They’d have a big laugh about it and go play checkers? You knew damn well there’d be a fight. All we did was even up the odds and give the Choirboys a fighting chance against Brand’s mannequins. We
saved lives
. I didn’t hear you protesting at the time.”
    “That was before I had time to think—” she said, but I cut her off with a wave of my hand.
    “Second, the plan was to let Ben go into exile with his buddies in the Redemption Choir. He pulled a gun instead. That was his choice, not mine.”
    Ben had been a dead man walking, and he knew it in the end. Emma took him down when he tried to run. We’d agreed, between her and me and Caitlin, that the truth needed a little creative editing for her daughter’s sake. The new version involved a gun in the room and self-defense, and the killer was me instead of Emma. I had enough real blood staining my hands that I didn’t mind splashing on a little more, if it made things easier between Emma and Melanie.
    Pixie stared down at the table. Her jaw slowly unclenched.
    “It was easy,” she said slowly, “to go with the flow when we were in the thick of it. I didn’t have time to think. It was only when it was all over and done, and I tried to go back to my old life…”
    I reached across the table and rested my hand over hers. She