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The Magistrate comes around the car.
“Then he is alive?”
“I’m not that dumb.”
“I’ll go check,” says Daja, but the Magistrate lightly touches her arm before she can get on her Harley.
“No. I want you here with Mr. Pitts and myself.”
He waves to a couple of riders in an El Camino covered in Nordic runes.
“Bring back Billy and the father,” the Magistrate says, and they peel out.
I know the Magistrate added Traven to his delivery list just to fuck with me, so I brush it off. Don’t give him the satisfaction or the ammunition.
When the car is gone, the Magistrate gestures for me to follow him over where the residents of the town are gathered. Daja comes, too, hooks her arm around mine, and—smiling like a blushing bride—drags me with her.
The Magistrate waits by a small group of the least pathetic souls in town. That said, they look like they spent the night in the drum of a cement mixer. Tattered clothes hanging off their bodies in gray rags. Dust in every crease on their desiccated faces. They sag in front of the havoc like kids who know they’re about to get a spanking. Another twenty or thirty souls are bunched behind them. They look even worse.
The Magistrate says, “I am a student of human nature, did you know that, Mr. Pitts?”
“It beats beekeeping, I guess.”
He smiles infinitesimally.
“I sent Billy to you knowing exactly what you would do.”
“You sent one of your own people to get his ass kicked? That’s not the way to build brand loyalty.”
“Everyone in the group has their role,” he says. “Some are more demanding than others.”
“You mean, me turning out Billy’s lights was some kind of prize?”
“I told you he wouldn’t understand,” says Daja. “He’ll never understand.”
“She’s right,” I say. “I never got fractions either.”
“Come now, Mr. Pitts. Everyone is a good student with the right teacher and the proper motivation,” the Magistrate says.
He pulls me away from Daja and the three of us go to the group of pathetics. The town council, local Shriners, or something.
“Hold up your hands,” says the Magistrate.
When I do, he puts a corner of the map into each of my hands and lets the rest fall open, facing the pathetics. Great. I have the damned map, but I’m on the wrong side of it.
The Magistrate pulls one of the town council over and gestures to the map. The ragged bastard raises a hand and says something in a language I don’t understand. The Magistrate answers him back in the same language. When he gets fed up with contestant one, he pulls contestant two forward. She’s dressed in a filthy evening gown like she’s heading for drinks at the Copa with the Rat Pack. Again, the Magistrate points to the map and the woman answers. Again it’s in a language I don’t understand—but different from contestant one’s—and again he answers her. How many languages does the bastard speak?
He takes a piece of parchment from a pocket of his duster and shows it to the group. A couple touch it, then point into the distance. The Magistrate speaks to each of them, switching languages when he has to without missing a beat.
Daja stands with me behind the map.
“Having fun, sweetheart?” she says.
“Always with you, dear. Did you book the cruise next year?”
She looks behind us, searching for the El Camino.
“You won’t last that long.”
