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“I always wondered about that. How do you keep people from bootlegging your wares?”
I get out another disc, an original cut of The Magnificent Ambersons, and show him the runes inscribed around the edge.
“The discs are hexed. They know when they’re being copied and melt down like a nuke plant, killing themselves and whatever machine they’re in. We have an alarm rigged up that goes off when it happens. Store policy is that you kill my disc, well, you know.”
“You kill them?”
“Don’t be stupid. I can’t kill off my customer base. No, I just cut off their fingers and feed them to Kasabian.”
From the back room Kasabian yells, “I heard that. Fuck you.”
“See? A barely controlled beast.”
“Take it easy, Stark,” says Eye Patch. “How long do we have the movie?”
“Three days. After that, it’s a hundred-dollar-a-day late fee.”
The short vampire gets their umbrellas from the bin up front.
“You’re a fucking thief, you know that?” he says.
“Wrong. I’m P. T. Barnum. You want to see the Fiji mermaid, I’m the only one in town who has one and no one gets in free.”
“This movie better be fucking great.”
“If you don’t like it, come back and you can exchange it for one of these.”
I hold up my middle finger.
Eye Patch laughs. When his friend takes a step toward me, he puts a hand on his shoulder and he backs down. Yeah, the short one is new to the bloodsucker game. Anxious to show off his power. Good thing he’s got Eye Patch looking out for him. He might actually make it to New Year’s.
The Lyph comes over and asks for Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible Part 3.
“You have good taste,” I say.
She lays down a hundred.
“You too,” she says. Her horns are still a little damp. Rain beads on them like she’s glued rhinestones there too.
“You okay getting home with your radar showing?”
She realizes I mean her horns and grins.
“I’m fine. The umbrella has a glamour on it.”
She picks it up and instantly looks like the kind of sweet old lady who spends her days baking apple pies for orphans.
“Nice trick.”
“Thanks,” she says, setting the umbrella against the wall. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“Why do you wear that one glove?”
I hold up my left hand. The prosthetic one. Flex the fingers.
“I paid good money for this manicure. I’m not messing up my cuticles around here.”
