The Book of Death (Bourbon Kid 4)

that Dante
himself had once had to wear during his time as an employee there.
    ‘Mornin’, Benny,’ Dante said
brightly. ‘Lost my room key, can you give me another please?’
    Benito looked reasonably pleased
to see him. The two of them had gotten on well enough in the past. ‘It’ll cost
twenty dollars for a replacement,’ he said apologetically.
    ‘That’s okay. Just bill it to
the room.’
    ‘Sure thing.’
    Benito tapped a few keys on a
keyboard on his desk and then grabbed a keycard from a drawer by his right leg.
He tossed it over the counter to Dante.
    ‘Try not to lose that one,’ he
said. ‘The fine goes up to thirty dollars next time.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    When Dante turned around Kacy
was already heading for the stairs. ‘Don’t you wanna take the elevator?’ he
called after her.
    ‘No. Do you?’
    He pondered the idea for a
second. Elevators were bad news in Santa Mondega. ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘I’m right
behind ya.’
    As he followed her up the
stairs, admiring her ass for most of the way, Dante wondered what they might
find in their hotel room. Would it be as they left it? Would the cops be there
investigating the deaths of Robert Swann and Roxanne Valdez? Were there even
enough cops left alive to investigate anyway? His name was on all the bills and
there was only supposed to be him and Kacy staying in the suite, so as things
stood, there was no reason why anyone would be checking the place for evidence.
When they arrived at their suite he was pleased to see that nothing much had
changed other than the beds had been made by one of the hotel chambermaids.
    ‘Pack only the stuff you really
need,’ he told Kacy, recognising that she would not want to discard too many of
the clothes from her wardrobe.
    Naturally she pretty much
ignored him and set about filling a large suitcase with clothes. She had the
case laid out on the bed and was rifling through a chest of drawers. And she
seemed to be packing everything. Dante on the other hand was happy to fill a
smaller suitcase with just a couple of pairs of boxers, two pairs of jeans and
a few T-shirts.
    ‘Remember you won’t need
anything woolly,’ he pointed out as Kacy picked a brown fleece out of the
drawers. ‘We won’t be feeling the cold much these days.’
    Kacy hesitated a moment, but
then folded the fleece and slipped it into her suitcase. ‘If we become human
again, we’ll need all the warm clothes we can get our hands on,’ she said.
‘What with all the snow and everything.’
    Damn! She had a point. Dante
turned back to a chest of drawers with some of his warmer clothes in and
started rummaging through them. ‘You know, Kace,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I think
you’re even smarter than I am.’
    ‘ Sometimes?’
    ‘Yeah. This is one of those
times.’
    ‘Are you kidding? You couldn’t
tie your fucking shoelaces without me.’
    ‘I don’t wear laces.’
    ‘And I know why.’
    ‘Fine. If you’re so clever, then
how come it’s me that has to come up with a plan for how we’re gonna get
the Eye of the Moon out of that guy’s head?’
    ‘Because you got us into this
fucking mess!’
    ‘So?’
    Kacy exhaled noisily. ‘Maybe
Vanity will have some ideas?’
    ‘We can’t ask him.’
    ‘You can’t, but I could.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘I can turn on the charm with
him a bit.’
    ‘Turn on the charm? How so
exactly?’ Dante asked, more than a hint of suspicion creeping into his voice.
      ‘Not like that. I just mean, he must know
stuff about Gaius. Maybe if I act a bit ditzy I can quiz him a bit? I might
find out something useful.’
    ‘Useful? Like what?’
    ‘Like maybe Gaius has a dog he
takes for walks on his own.’
    ‘A dog?’
    ‘Hey, I’m just spitballing here.
If we have any chance of stealing that Eye, it’ll be when Gaius is on his own,
or even better, when he’s asleep.’
    Dante sneered. ‘That is lame.’
    ‘Fuck off,’ said Kacy, playfully
throwing a pair of rolled up socks at him. ‘I’m just trying to think of some
scenarios.’
    ‘I know, babe. I’m just
kidding.’
    He zipped up his own suitcase,
comfortable that he had packed enough stuff. Out of the corner of his eye he
spotted something in one of the open drawers that contained the clothes of the
now deceased Robert Swann. It was a bottle of clear liquid and a syringe. He
recognised them immediately. It was the bottle containing the serum that had
lowered his body temperature sufficiently enough to walk undetected among