Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

to his poor little brother. Didn’t come off quite the way Hamilton had planned, but effective enough in its own way. Congratulations.«
    »He hurt Trish, didn’t he?« I asked. »My friend. What did he do to her?«
    Sartorius smiled. Another one of their attendants wandered through the music room from the front, stopping directly behind Sartorius. »That’s the one sad aspect of the whole situation,« Bennett said. »But when Kennedys are involved; the innocent always suffer. Although from what we know about your friend, we feel fairly sure she led him on. Certainly she was the one who convinced him to fall off the wagon.« Bennett put his foot back down on the floor. »Fell pretty hard, I’d have to say.«
    »Where is she?«
    »Lenox Hill,« he said. »Don’t know if she’ll come out of it, though. The other one never did. This time around there was a little more press, of course. We made sure of that.«
    »Where’s Martin?« The bruiser had such a grip on Eulie that I thought he was going to break her arm; she stayed remarkably calm, considering. For the first time since I’d seen her, I’d have been very happy if Chlo had been able to come along for this ride.
    »Oh, him,« Bennett said. »Martin chose to resign his position. The department requested that he resign, I should say. Certain records turned up.« He made with the rut-tuts. »Very disconcerting. You just never know who’s who if you’re not careful. Don’t worry about him, Walter. As far as I know, he’s probably getting used to his new home.«
    »Bennett –«
    »He played a little fast and loose when he hired freelancers, after all. Now that I’ve taken over his responsibilities, there’ll have to be some changes made.«
    »What kind of changes?«
    »You’ve covered your tracks very well, Walter,« he said. »Nothing, nowhere. But we just have that feeling. You know how it is.« He looked at Eulie, whose face remained expressionless. »As for your friend here, her status is clear as the nose on her face.«
    Sartorius and the two thugs accompanying them laughed.
    »You know a little more than we’d like you to know,« Bennett said. »So –«
    He reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a small bottle and a plastic case; when he opened the case, a hypodermic lay gleaming in the slot. »You’ve never been much of one for narcotics in the pure sense, have you?« he asked, slipping the needle into the apparatus. »This is about as pure as heroin gets. Medical quality. This should do both of you fine. When your bodies are found, I doubt that anyone will be surprised. Walter, don’t look at me like that. I’d think you’d appreciate my thoughtfulness in selecting a style of exit that fits you best.«
    »I’m not looking at you like that,« I said.
    »What then?« he asked, stabbing the needle into the top of the bottle’s cap. I gestured, slightly, towards the wall behind him. Where it had been covered completely with chipped and cracked yellow plaster, it had now been stripped down to the bare brick. I’d also gotten a new refrigerator during the previous second or two; this one was four times as large as the one I’d had, made of what looked to be burnished chrome. When he glanced behind him he looked as bumfuzzled as Sartorius and the thug standing behind him. I felt the one holding us loosen his grip, slightly, but not enough to allow us to get away. For the first time in his life, Bennett seemed at a loss for words.
    »Walter,« Eulie said, shaking her head at the music room. Looking over, I spotted my ghost, still on his own. At the first moment I saw him he appeared as crystalline as he always had, floating some few inches above my broken records. Though Eulie was seeing him, I couldn’t tell if the others had spotted old see-through yet. That would happen soon enough, I knew. As we watched he began to fill with colour. His jacket and pants took on the dirty-white look I’d seen when I’m glimpsed him between worlds; his hair turned brown, his skin took on a pinkish tone. At last I saw his shoes; they were black as a 78. It didn’t take him more than ten seconds to solidify; the moment he did, they all saw him. I felt the bruiser behind us let go as he thrust his hand into his jacket. Bennett dropped both bottle and needle as he backed up against the sink. Sartorius blinked, once; his associate wasn’t able to do that much before Jake, back in a world he knew, if not his own, made his move.
    » Scheiss –!!«
    It