Internecine by David J. Schow

grabbed her upper arm. “I need a better story. Less vague . . . and in English. I think you’re going to have to talk to my associate, Ms. Butcher.”
    I realized she assumed I was pointing a weapon at her already.
    “You unplug me, it still doesn’t stop them,” she said, eyes front.
    “Yeah, I know—it’s not your fault. Maximum deniability, and all that.”
    “I just came because Varga called about the gig. What do you want from me?”
    I wasn’t sure, exactly, but by that time, Dandine was behind us. The train pulled smoothly into the stop at the intersection of Sunset and Vermont.
    “This is our stop,” announced Dandine, startling her.
    Now we were three.
    Slight pause for a snapshot of me, admiring my own cool.
    Mr. Butcher had turned out to be a Ms. In a world where nothing happened by accident, I had accounted for this ploy in several phases. First, I made sure not to repeat the stupidity of being distracted by anything feminine. I did not want to make the Celeste mistake again. I had not hesitated to threaten or grab roughly, instead of hanging back with fake courtesy that could cost me my life. I had tried to channel Dandine instead of defaulting to the helplessness that makes people call the police too late to do any good.
    Still, this woman’s manner reminded me of myself just hours earlier. Unsure of what she had stepped in; positive she did not want it on her shoe. I had to caution myself not to cut her any excess sympathy that might provide her with an unfair advantage.
    Of
course
she looked great. She was
supposed
to look great.
    Now consider the last human being that caught your eye. We poor Homo sapiens have nothing to go on, no place to start, except our genetically ingrained mating checklist. The attractive stranger in the restaurant, the hot number hailing a cab. You flash forward through whole scenarios in an instant—what would they be like? How do they look naked? It’s always the same.
    Except. Add the notion that this delectable stranger made a call or had a meeting earlier in the day, a decided plot whose purpose was to erase you. Kill you. Now how would you feel?
    Only a fool tries to charm a rattlesnake.
    Hollywood isn’t a city. It’s another subsection of Los Angeles, distinct from downtown, which retains the old 213 area code. With the Los Feliz district to the east, it ends where West Hollywood and Beverly Hills begin, both of which are incorporated as cities and have their own police forces. In Hollywood, if you call the cops, you’re calling the LAPD. Every so often, a secession is attempted for assorted pocket-lining political reasons. I always thought it would be cool to see actual “Hollywood police”—just think of the uniform patches, and imagine what the patrol cruisers would look like.
    Dandine laid out the rules as we approached the first of the subway stations actually inside the boundaries of what is called Hollywood.
    “Listen carefully,” he told the woman. “You can alert police on the platform or in the station, but if you do, they’re history. They’ll hit the ground a couple of seconds after you do, because your life will be done. I’m not trying to frighten you. I am frightened for my own life. All I want to do is ask you a few things and try to get a better map of what has happened to me tonight. Now, answer
yes
or
no
. Do you understand?”
    “Yes,” she said. No protest. No excuses.
    “Do you work for Varga?”
    “No.”
    “But you contacted Varga and paid ten thousand dollars?”
    She swallowed, but didn’t falter. “Yes.”
    “Are you working on behalf of Alicia Brandenberg?”
    Another pause, barely perceptible. “Yes.”
    “So your job was to act as intermediary for a slightly less-than-legal assignment in order to protect Ms. Brandenberg?”
    “Yes.”
    Dandine cut her no mercy, and would not permit her to avert her gaze, or otherwise dissemble. “If you’re telling me the truth, you have absolutely nothing to be afraid