Holy Terror by Graham Masterton

sardonic
pfff!
of amusement and Sebastian waved one of his sleeves at him in annoyance.
    â€˜A whiskey would be fine,’ said Conor. ‘Do you think I could use your phone to call Lacey?’ He knew that Slyman wouldn’t yet have had time to set up a wiretap.
    â€˜For sure.’ Sebastian handed him a mobile phone in a quilted gold cover. Conor’s legs were beginning to tremble and he sat down in one of the large cushioned armchairs. Sebastian went to the cocktail cabinet and filled up a huge cut-crystal goblet with ice.
    The phone rang for a long time before Lacey answered.
    â€˜Hi. It’s me. I just made it to Sebastian’s place.’
    â€˜Sorry,’ said Lacey, in a cold, abstract tone. ‘He’s not here right now.’
    â€˜Is Slyman still there?’
    â€˜All right, then. I’ll tell him. Is everything OK?’
    â€˜I’m fine. A little knocked about, but nothing serious.’
    â€˜Good. I’ll let him know you called.’
    Conor switched the phone off. ‘The police are still round there. I’ll try calling again later.’
    â€˜Well, do,’ said Sebastian. ‘I’m simply itching to know what this is all about. Hang on, I must get another bottle of wine out of the icebox.’
    While Sebastian went into the kitchen, Conor turned to Ric. ‘So you’re a dancer,’ he said. ‘Modem or classical?’
    â€˜Whatever I can get. Tap, mainly.’
    â€˜Have I seen you in anything?’
    Sebastian swept back in. ‘Ric was
in A Chorus Line
, weren’t you, Ric?’
    â€˜Oh sure I was. In Buffalo. And what do you think the mathematical odds are that Conor ever saw
A Chorus Line
in Buffalo?’
    â€˜Stranger things have happened, sweet cheeks,’ said Sebastian, handing Conor a huge Jack Daniel’s. ‘Besides, you were in
Vaudeville Days
, too, and that was on Broadway.’
    â€˜Oh, yes. I forgot that starring role. I held a hoop so that a chihuahua could jump through it.’
    â€˜Why do you always bring yourself
down?
How are you ever going to make any progress in show business if you’re always so self-deprecating? Show business is all about
confidencel
Pizzazz!’
    â€˜God, you sound more like Deanna Durbin every day. Show business has nothing to do with confidence. Show business is all about freaky strokes of luck and kissing the right rear ends.’
    â€˜You’ll have to forgive Ric,’ said Sebastian. ‘He’s the victim of an excessively well-balanced childhood.’ He sat down next to Conor and crossed his legs. He was wearing strappy gold sandals with little bells on them. ‘Now why don’t you tell us how you got into such a mess?’
    Slowly, Conor did. He felt exhausted now, shattered, and the events of the day were all jumbled up in his mind. But Sebastian thought it was all enthralling, especially the Brinks-Mat truck crashing into the Pond.
    â€˜It
is
a mystery, though, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Those two people waiting outside your door. Do you think they had any connection with the robbery?’
    â€˜Hell, Sebastian, I don’t know what to think. I haven’t any idea what they were doing there or what they wanted. All I know is that I started to talk to them and I lost twenty-nine minutes out of my day.’
    â€˜That’s so
weird
,’ said Sebastian. ‘Maybe they were aliens. You have to be so careful about aliens. They take you up to their spacecraft and perform all kinds of strange sexual experiments on you.’
    â€˜Oh, really?’ said Ric. ‘And how do
you
know? Has that ever happened to you?’
    â€˜Me? I should have such luck.’
    â€˜But wait a minute,’ said Conor. ‘Remember that Darrell Bussman met them, too, in another department, and he lost some time as well. Not as much as I did, but a few seconds maybe. One moment he was talking to them, then they were