Page 74 of Demons Dig Donuts

“Be thankful you’re not Luke’s dessert,” Mr. Heiss continued briskly. “You’re only alive because I need someone to run this ridiculous little operation. Either embrace your promotion quietly or feel free to leave this world as a bowel movement.”

Jimjam fumed but obediently spat out, “Yes, sir.”

“Now.” Mr. Heiss smiled. “Where’s the rat?”

Jimjam led them into the arcade section of the establishment, and the neon patterned carpet brought back a wealth of memories for Indy—cheating at Skee-Ball, cheating at basketball, cheating at pretty much every game if it was possible to cheat. He’d had his tenth birthday at a place like this, but it was more pizza and cowboys, not so much pizza and rats.

Speaking of rats, there was a literal rat seated on the end of a Skee-Ball machine. It was a person in the full Chuck E. Cheese costume, big creepy plastic smile and all, and he promptly snarled when he saw Mr. Heiss and his would-be entourage approach.

“Hey!” the rat snapped, a masculine voice that was very gruff though muffled through the head of the suit. “Where’s Kevin?”

“Kevin is not available,” Mr. Heiss replied calmly, glancing over at Luke. “Very soon, you will not be either.”

“What the fuck?”

Mr. Heiss smiled.

The rat zoomed through the air, hit the ceiling, and came back down against the scoreboard of the Skee-Ball machine. He groaned in pain, and the machine beeped angrily, the digital numbers flashing to display only zeroes. Mr. Heiss repeated the attack multiple times before the machine spat out a ridiculous coil of tickets.

Azazel kept his distance from Mr. Heiss, but he watched the rat warily.

The tingle in Indy’s thumb was red, so another demon. Probably an imp judging by how it was muted. They were monsters born in the darkness of the Celestial, considered demonic but not at the level of a demon such as Mr. Heiss or even those like Tanze and Underwood.

The rat weakly swatted in Mr. Heiss’s general direction. “I will… fucking gut you… and use your intestines to braid… an oven mitt…”

“I want to know how you are being paid and how you’re moving the product without anyone seeing,” Mr. Heiss said, ignoring the threat entirely. “Kevin swore that he’d reviewed the camera footage and saw nothing, but we know there have been several transactions right here in this very building, don’t we?”

“It’s the suit,” the rat mumbled. “Okay? When I do walk arounds? During parties or whatever, people want selfies and hugs. I get approached, someone asks me for a special hug, and we make the trade right there. They stuff the money in my pocket and pull the product out of my head. That’s it.”

“How much?”

“It’s ten grand.”

“How many times a week?”

“Was just once or twice, but now it’s, like, every day.”

“And what do you do with the money?”

The rat shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe I just shove it up my ass. Wanna come take a peek?”

Mr. Heiss chuckled. “Oh, it’s going to be like that, is it?”

“Fuck yeah, it’s gonna be like that.” The rat huffed. “If I tell you, I’m dead—”

“You’re dead right now if you don’t.”

“How about I shove this plastic sneaker up your ass and do the hokey pokey?”

As entertaining as it was for Mr. Heiss to be threatened by a guy in a rat suit, Indy found himself drifting. He was tired, still not fully awake, and yes, fine, he was a little hungover. He was almost out of coffee, and that was the real problem here. He purposefully took several steps away from Luke, who was casually cleaning the manager out of his teeth with a toothpick.

Fuck it.

The place wasn’t even open.

There was an arcade game behind him, some sort of massive safari machine with a surfboard and stairs that led up to the saddle of a giant giraffe. The stairs area was closed in like a fort on a playground, and Indy first thought it looked like a great place to make out in public and not be seen.

Then he realized it was also the perfect place to sit the hell down.