Dragonfly by Erica Hayes Page A

what seemed like an age, and my stomach grumbled for lack of real food. A beer would sure go down well.
    Dragonfly and Bastie clinked glasses and chugged. Bastie’s went down fastest, but not by much. He smacked his lips, broken teeth shining. “Showing your age, kid. You not drinking, miss? He never said you were one of
those
.”
    Dragonfly gave that annoyingly handsome, smack-his-face-in smile. “If only I’d known. It’s hard to get good help these days.”
    I flipped him off and gulped down my beer. The cool malt liquid sparkled down my throat and settled happily in my stomach. My eyes watered. Yum. Almost as good as food. I wiped froth from my lips, burping.
    When Bastie refilled all three glasses with a laugh, I stifled a groan. I needed to keep my wits about me. The last thing I needed was another heavy night. But Dragonfly just sipped a mouthful, then pulled a smeared glass notescreen from his pocket. He scribbled swiftly on it.
    “This is what I want.” He slid the screen across the table.
    Bastie took it before I could see, and inwardly I cursed.
    Bastie glanced at it and his florid face paled. “Kid, your handwriting sucks.”
    Dragonfly just waited.
    Bastie took a swallow of beer, his fat throat bobbing. “So it’s on, then,” he said, and his voice rang quieter, his thick Brit accent less pronounced. Like he’d forgotten to keep up his act in the face of what Dragonfly was planning.
    My curiosity itched. Even a billion-ruble heist hardly seemed worthy of that. Maybe it was what he planned to do with the money that turned Fat Bastie so pale.
    Dragonfly shrugged. “Talking doesn’t get the job done.”
    I resisted squirming in my seat. Talking hadn’t done the job on Urumki Mor either, the night he’d massacred Mishka and my friends without so much as a surrender-or-die. The prick was too calm, too off-handed. I wanted to smash his face into the table.
    Bastie sighed and erased the writing with a swipe of his thumb. Damn. Maybe I could recreate it later with a magnetic probe, but unlikely. Dragonfly was too paranoid. He’d probably burn the glass to molten dribbles with atomflash before I had the chance.
    The fat man pushed the blank screen back across the table. “Well, I don’t wish to say I told you so, old boy—”
    “Then shut up. Can you get them?”
    Bastie snorted. “Of course I can get them. This is me you’re talking to. Know a chap who knows a chap and all that.” He tapped the side of his fat nose with a conspiratorial wink in my direction. “Know a lot of chaps, me. You ever want a chap, I’m the man to see.”
    I smirked. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
    Dragonfly finished his beer. “
Está bien.
Can you bring them by? You know my timeline.”
    “Es-tah beeyen. No pro-bleemo, ya ratty Espan moo-chacho. But it’ll cost ya extra, and it’ll be a day or two. I gotta pick up some crew while I’m here.”
    Dragonfly twisted his little finger in his ear with a grimace. “Can I have it without the rotten accent? Would that be cheaper?”
    “To the core, my friend.” Bastie mimed stabbing himself in the heart. “I’ll have you know I learned your annoyingly pronoun-challenged language from the best.”
    “A toothless lady of the night in a street brothel on Sevilla Nueva is not the best.”
    Bastie winked. “Al contray-rio, kid. You should get out more. So, are you excellent fellows on for a capital evening of frivolity and excess? Somewhere in the galaxy it’s Friday night, after all.”
    “Tempting.” I smiled, thinking hard.
    Bastie was the only person I’d met who had any idea what Dragonfly was planning, and though he acted like a blustering idiot, a beady glint in his eyes said he wasn’t so dumb as to let anything slip while he was sober. But I eyed his imposing bulk and florid nose and thought twice about a drinking contest. He had to weigh two hundred kilos. It was hard to fake drinking that many rounds of beer, and my chances of wheedling anything out of