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“Good afternoon,” I said into the receiver.
“Can you get over here?” Deborah said. “We have some work to finish up.”
“What sort of work?”
“Don’t be a jerk,” she said. “Come on over,” and she hung up. This was more than a little bit irritating. In the first place, I didn’t know of any kind of unfinished work, and in the second, I was not aware of being a jerk—a monster, yes, certainly, but on the whole a very pleasant and well-mannered monster.
And to top it all off, the way she hung up like that, simply assuming I had heard and would tremble and obey. The nerve of her. Sister or not, vicious arm punch or no, I trembled for no one.
I did, however, obey. The short drive to the Mutiny took longer than usual, this being Saturday afternoon, a time when the streets in the Grove flood with aimless people. I wove slowly through the crowd, wishing for once that I could simply pin the gas pedal to the floorboard and smash into the wandering horde. Deborah had spoiled my perfect mood.
She didn’t make it any better when I knocked on the pent-
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J E F F L I N D S A Y
house door at the Mutiny and she opened it with her on-duty-in-a-crisis face, the one that made her look like a bad-tempered fish. “Get in here,” she said.
“Yes master,” I said.
Chutsky was sitting on the sofa. He still didn’t look British Colonial—maybe it was the lack of eyebrows—but he did at least look like he had decided to live, so apparently Deborah’s rebuilding project was going well. There was a metal crutch leaning against the wall beside him, and he was sipping coffee. A platter of Danish sat on the end table next to him. “Hey, buddy,” he called out, waving his stump. “Grab a chair.”
I took a British Colonial chair and sat, after snagging a couple of Danish as well. Chutsky looked at me like he was going to object, but really, it was the very least they could do for me. After all, I had waded through flesh-eating alligators and an attack peacock to rescue him, and now here I was giving up my Saturday for who-knows-what kind of awful chore. I deserved an entire cake.
“All right,” Chutsky said. “We have to figure where Henker is hiding, and we have to do it fast.”
“Who?” I asked. “You mean Dr. Danco?”
“That’s his name, yeah. Henker,” he said. “Martin Henker.”
“And we have to find him?” I asked, filled with a sense of ominous foreboding. I mean, why were they looking at me and saying “we”?
Chutsky gave a small snort as if he thought I was joking and he got it. “Yeah, that’s right,” he said. “So where are you thinking he might be, buddy?”
“Actually, I’m not thinking about it at all,” I said.
“Dexter,” Deborah said with a warning tone in her voice.
D E A R LY D E V O T E D D E X T E R
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Chutsky frowned. It was a very strange expression without eyebrows. “What do you mean?” he said.
“I mean, I don’t see why it’s my problem anymore. I don’t see why I or even we have to find him. He got what he wanted—won’t he just finish up and go home?”
“Is he kidding?” Chutsky asked Deborah, and if he’d only had eyebrows they would have been raised.
“He doesn’t like Doakes,” Deborah said.
“Yeah, but listen, Doakes is one of our guys,” Chutsky said to me.
“Not one of mine,” I said.
Chutsky shook his head. “All right, that’s your problem,”
he said. “But we still have to find this guy. There’s a political side to this whole thing, and it’s deep doo-doo if we don’t collar him.”
