Grade had been intimidated by Russian gangsters and drug kingpins—well, third or fourth in the line of succession at least. If they’d not been able to push him into doing slipshod work, his own brain wasn’t going to sabotage him now.
Once the floor was clean, Grade sprayed it down again and left the bleach to soak into the grout. At least it was tiled and not carpeted. There had been a rug crumpled up under the dead man, but Grade had cut it into strips to get rid of later. He dragged his kit bag over the damp floor to the floor-to-ceiling wine racks that decorated one wall of the cellar.
The door into the cellar opened, and a second later Harry came down the stairs, coat draped over one arm. He had remembered to pull the pair of blue paper bootees Grade had given him over his boots. The tail end of a cashmere scarf trailed down the steps after him. He had the grace to at least try and look sorry he’d missed most of the job.
“Turns out the coat check guy is also the weed hookup guy,” he explained. “Half the guests and most of the staff were going in and out. I had to hang back and wait for a lull in business before I went in.”
Grade pushed his hair away from his forehead with the back of his wrist. “Christ. This town’s getting worse,” he said. “Now the drug dealers need a side hustle?”
Harry just shook his head and made a long leg to skip over the last, still bloody step.
“Weed’s a seasonal market round here,” he said. “Particularly for a small-business owner. He probably makes bank when the hunters are in town. What do you want me to do with these?”
He waved his armful of outerwear. Grade pointed at the bodies. “Put them over there.”
Harry looked and pulled a face. “Ah, man, they look like spring rolls. That’s just wrong.” He skirted the edge of the bleach and headed over to the corner. “I don’t know how you’re not a vegetarian.”
“I never get that,” Grade said.
“What?”
“You break people’s fingers for a living—”
“That’s not all I do,” Harry protested. He hesitated for a second and then set the stuff down on the floor next to the bodies. “Don’t diminish my role in the organization. I’m a vital cog in the machine.”
“Dory said that, last week at the Slap, you literally broke the manager’s fingers by smashing them in his desk drawer.”
“Caught him with them in the till,” Harry said. “And if I ever need to look for a new job, that’s going on my resume as being a loss-prevention officer.”
“My point,” Grade said as he started to wipe the sticky mix of baking soda and toothpaste off the wine racks, “is that violence doesn’t bother you.”
Harry turned his mouth down at the corners in a facial shrug. “I wouldn’t say that. I don’t enjoy it,” he said. “It’s just part of the job, and not like it comes as a surprise to any of them. If you get into this line of work, you know that a slap on the wrist is going to leave you in a cast, not with a performance-improvement plan.”
“But you get squeamish over some dead people that don’t care what I do with them?”
“Yeah,” Harry said, “I do. People like pork, but no one wants to see the sausage being made.”
“Good news for you, then,” Grade said as he wiped the last shelf down. The cloth was thick with paste, and the cleaned wood looked rich, as well as cinnamon-scented. He used to grab his own toothpaste on the way out to a job and left everything minty fresh. Then he’d had the idea to grab the cinnamon stuff. He’d no clue why anyone wanted to brush their teeth with it, but the smell was more… woody. “We’re not making sausage tonight. Everyone stays in one piece.”
Harry puffed out both cheeks with a relieved sigh. “Great. That means I don’t have to worry about God striking me down when I take my grandma to church on Sunday. So what are we doing?”
Grade stuck the paste-stiff cloth in his back pocket and started to slot the bottles of wine back into place. He’d left the dust and cobwebs undisturbed as much as possible—wine collectors liked the bottles to look old; it was part of the aesthetic—and the ones he’d needed to wipe blood off were set out on a nearby table as if ready for a tasting.
“I guess you could say,” he said, as he paused with a bottle of Chateau Margaux hefted in one hand, “we’re going to dress the pig up and put on a show?”
Harry grimaced. “OK, found a way to make it worse,” he said. He tilted his head toward the two bodies. “How do we get Mr. and Mrs. Spring Roll out of here?”
There was a spot of blood on the cork of the wine. Grade should have caught that on the first go-over. He sighed and stuck the bottle between his knees as he worked the cork out.
“Thirsty?” Harry asked.
Grade ignored that. “Go upstairs and see if you can find two big rugs. Six foot wide at least.”
For some reason, Harry looked disappointed. “Seriously?” he said. “That’s a bit old school, isn’t it?”
Grade worked the cork free, caught the spill-over on his sleeve, and held the bottle out to Harry.
“Old school still works,” he said. “But first, drink some of this.”
