Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis

they know something we don’t. Maybe it’s in a vault or something. Anyway, I don’t think this counts as adventure.”
    She grabbed me by the back of the hair as I tried to put my pants on.
    “I’m coming.”
    “Yes yes okay fuck ow okay yes.”
    “Good.” She went off to find her boots, muttering.
    Came back. “Mike. They wouldn’t really …”
    “The guy sat in that chair and injected monkey shit into his arm, Trix.”
    “Yeah. Getting boots now.”
    I counted off five seconds.
    “He did what ?”
    “Don’t be judgmental, Trix.”

Chapter 30

    I t was a long drive out under an unforgiving sun. Even with the A/C cranked up in the rear of the car, I was regretting putting on the jacket and tie.
    Trix was in boots, a short skirt, and a vest-top, showing off both sleeves of tattoos. “You think I’m covering up for the fucking Roanokes? I’m going to take a dump in their oven.”
    “Hell, I don’t care. I need to look professional, you can look any way you like.”
    “I like you in suits. You should get a new one, though. That one’s a bit frayed.”
    “Oh, that’s not wear and tear. That’s where the rat would eat at it.”
    “The rat.”
    “The super-rat in my office. One time I put tinfoil on the floor outside his rat hole and hooked it up to a car battery. When he walked out on it, he should’ve lit up like a murderer on Old Sparky. But he stood up on his hind legs like Tony Montana in Scarface, you know? ‘I can take your fucking bullets.’ Soaked up every volt in the battery, jumped up on my desk and had sex with my sandwich until it dissolved. I hate that rat.”
    “Sometimes I wonder how close to hospitalization or suicide you really were before I met you.”
    “Three…maybe four hours.”
    The Roanoke ranch came into view. It gleamed under the sun. The whole complex was painted a brilliant bone white. As we pulled into the driveway, I noticed half of a cow’s skeleton poking out of the lawn, jutting the way you see them sticking out of desert sand in Westerns.
    A little farther down, there was a human skeleton sticking out of the ground in the same way. With a buzzard perched on it.
    As we drove past, I craned to get a better look. The skeleton had been painted white. It could well have been fake. The buzzard, however, was real, and had had its feet wired onto one of the ribs. It had long since given up on escape, and just sat there with its head hanging like a depressed child’s.
    “You see what kind of people they are?” Trix said. “I’m going to flay this guy. You do your job, I’m not going to get in the way of that. But I’m going to just demolish this guy. It’s like being driven into Hell knowing you can totally beat Satan’s ass.”
    It took ten minutes to traverse the driveway into the ranch’s courtyard. It was weirdly silent. As we got out of the car, a tall guy who reeked of bodyguard came out of the main house, looked around very professionally, and walked quickly toward us.
    He put out his hand. “I’m John Menlove, head of security for the Roanoke family. You’re Michael McGill and assistant, correct?” He put just enough force into the wide, careful handshake to measure my strength. I gave him about half a pound less pressure than I had, on reflex. I don’t care if you’re shaking over a contract, shaking with a bar drunk or shaking hands with your grandpa—you never, ever let someone know how strong you are.
    “Please come inside. We have a security procedure to complete before I can introduce you to Mr. Roanoke. He’s extremely protective of his family’s safety, as I’m sure you can understand.”
    We were taken out of the sun into the main residence’s cavernous, galleried hallway. A female security agent was produced, and she and Menlove patted Trix and me down, ran fingers through our hair, and requested to see our teeth. Trix was looking around the place as best she could, rolling her eyes from side to side—and then coughed out, “Holy