"Jem," Erainya said. Jem scootched to a stop, reined himself back to his mom's side. He didn't stop grinning.
"It's late," Del reminded us. "Let's talk business."
Erainya said, "So this is all you got?"
"Right now. We can also repair any old units you got."
She nodded toward the Cro-Magnon man looming behind me. "You always need him in the room?"
Del glanced at Bo Peep, then at me. He apparently decided the security risk was not high. "Get a Nehi, Ernie. We'll be in the office."
Bo Peep drifted away. The rest of us followed Brandon out of the warehouse. "You got to understand about Ernie," Del said as we crossed the yard. "Guy's gone state-to-state with the carnies so long, on the lam, he's just about fanatical to me for giving him a settle-down job, no questions asked. You worked the road long?"
"I know Ernie's type," Erainya assured him.
We walked up the office steps between the plaster horse and the blue elephant. Both glistened with hysterical smiles.
Inside, the reception area was no more than seven feet square, rafter beams lower than a miner's cabin, walls so old and dim and brown it was impossible to tell what they were made of. Whatever it was, it was solid enough to accept nails, which is how the majority of things were posted — an old Hung Fong's calendar, some company notices, photographs of workers at the shop, pictures of the rides. Up along the top of the walls were ripped fragments of old party decorations in several different colors. A truly impressive collection of gimme caps hung on more nails behind the receptionist's desk.
The receptionist, in fact, was about the only thing that wasn't nailed to the wall. She was flat on her back on the desk, snoring. After what I'd already seen of Del Brandon's business practices, it somehow didn't surprise me to find his receptionist in this condition, still in the office at midnight. She was Latina — minute size, frizzy red hair, improbably large bosom, and much spandex. In sleep, her little pointy face twitched and slanted like the drunken dormouse from Alice in Wonderland.
Brandon walked past her and swatted her knee. "Jesus Christ, Rita."
She stopped snoring instantly. "Yeah, Del, like you don't want me horizontal."
Brandon glanced back at us, his face pained. "She's got a lousy sense of humor. I got a wife."
Rita snorted. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, then focused on Jem and grinned.
"Hey. A cutie." She groped in the drawer behind her and came up with a smushed box of Mike and Ikes. "Want some?"
Del grumbled something about Rita getting to work, then led us down a short hall into a somewhat larger office. The carpet was threadbare sulfur. The fluorescent lights gave everything a greasy hue. Lined along the floor next to Del's desk, like luminarias, were leftover Taco Cabana bags filled with aluminum foil wads and smelling of old carne guisada.
Behind the desk was a framed, poster-size black-and-white photograph of Jeremiah Brandon, Our Founder as a young man, leaning against a half- dismantled printing press. The shot looked straight out of a World War II-era Life — the happy industrial worker laboring for Democracy. Except for the youthful softness in his cheeks and neck, Jeremiah looked not much different from the other picture I'd seen of him in middle age. Still the buzzard's face, crooked smile, a merciless light in his eyes that spoke of past poverty and a determination to avoid it in the future. Jeremiah's fingers were long, resting on the rubber-coated rollers and steel gears of the printing press like they were keys of an organ. His arms were black with machine grease up to his elbows. Grease speckled his collarless white shirt, his trousers, his cap. I had a feeling the liquid could've been blood and Jeremiah would've smiled just the same way.
I looked from the photograph to the real-life Del Brandon.
You couldn't miss the contrast. Del looked like his dad after twenty years of Prozac and eclairs — a fatter, duller version of the original, the ferocious hunger in his eyes watered down to a kind of unfocused discontent.
Del sat down at his desk, which was absolutely empty — no pens, no paper, nothing. The desk of an untrustworthy man.
He spread his arms. "Well?"
Erainya patted Jem's head. "Why don't you go play with Rita, honey?" Jem ran fearlessly into the other room — a lot more fearlessly than I would have if someone suggested I play with Rita. Erainya shut the door behind him, then sat in the only free chair. I leaned against the wall by the desk. Del sat back in his chair, waiting.
"Mr. Brandon," Erainya said, "we're private investigators."
Del had been about to prop his boot up on the desk. He missed, dropped the foot to the floor, and sat up. "Come again?"
"I'm a private investigator, honey. I need some information about your brother."
Brandon's eyes got very small. "Did Arno tell you to fuck with me like this?"
"I don't know Arno."
"You said—"
"No, I didn't. You assumed."
Del opened his mouth, looking back and forth between me and Erainya. When the color came back into his face, it came a little too quick. Maybe he wasn't really planning to go for his side arm, but when his hand started slipping toward the edge of the desk both Erainya and I had the same idea. Erainya pulled her 9mm from her purse. I walked around the desk, lifted Del's hand, and removed his .38 semiauto from its holster.
Del didn't object. He took the intrusion calmly, like a man who was used to being disarmed. When he spoke again, he addressed Erainya.
"You think this is a good idea? You think you can treat me like this?"
"We don't want you getting stupid, honey. That's all."
I ejected the gun's magazine into the trash can. I checked the desk, found no other weapons, then nodded to Erainya.
She put her 9mm back in her purse.
"I yell now," Del warned, "that kid of yours will be Ernie's lunch. What are you thinking?"
"All we want is to ask a couple of questions, honey."
"You tricked me."
"I do what's easiest. Tell me about your brother."