“I don’t know!” Con roared back. She was well aware that it didn’t matter one way or another if he wasn’t convinced. Crying and pleading ignorance was always an option; men like Franklin Butler fed on fear, so a woman crying in a locked basement would be like crack to him. The only problem was she couldn’t seem to muster any tears. Ironic, since there’d been no shortage of them in the last few years. But all she felt now was irritation. A deep, pervasive anger. It would have to do. “Maybe it is Gaddis. I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him? I’m just presumptuous meat, right, like all clones? Why would anyone tell me anything?”
Butler recoiled, caught off guard at the ferocity of her reply. It felt good to put him on his heels, so good that she wanted to make him choke on it.
“I’m sick of it. You and Gaddis and the police. You’re all the same. Here’s an idea. Why don’t you sort it out among yourselves and leave me out of it, you psycho?”
Reddening, Butler held up a cautioning finger. “You should remember where you are.”
“Like I could forget. Look, I don’t know why Gaddis is helping me. If he’s your anonymous donor, he sure as shit didn’t share it with me. So, why don’t we just get this over with, huh? I’m tired.”
Butler let a long moment pass, then nodded. “I think I would have liked Constance D’Arcy. I’m sorry she died.” He rose and went to the door.
“Where are you going?” she said, sure that she’d pushed him too far and scared what that would bring.
“I’m going to go have a little chat with your host,” he said cryptically.
“About what?”
“I’m going to take your advice.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, but the door had already swung shut.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Con hunted the greenroom for anything that she could use as a weapon. She didn’t know what advice Butler thought she’d given him, and it sounded too much like a veiled threat for comfort. She’d been in enough negotiations to know when she’d overplayed her hand. But they weren’t haggling over the terms of a recording contract; this was her life, and Franklin Butler was a man who didn’t believe she deserved one. Bluffing and losing wasn’t an option. She was trying to loosen the arm on one of the chairs to use as a club when the door opened and Butler returned. She flinched away from him, but all he did was gather the remaining almonds into his handkerchief and slip it back in his pocket. Almost as an afterthought, he beckoned for her to follow.
“Where are we going?” she asked, not moving.
“Does it matter? Unless you’d prefer to stay here?”
She really didn’t.
“Whatever happens,” he said, “I need you to keep your mouth shut and your head down. Do you hear me? Any urge you have to run that smart mouth of yours? Smother it.”
“Why? What’s going to happen?”
“Taking you out of here is not proving a popular decision.”
“Do you run things or don’t you?” Con said.
“As I said, it’s not that simple. My leadership is not quite as ironclad as the media paints it. Children of Adam is more a loose confederation of independent groups than a single top-down organization. And even then, there are always fringe elements who accuse me of being too moderate, too soft. It took some serious horse-trading before Big John agreed to let you go.”
They went down the hallway and up a narrow flight of stairs, emerging onto a bare postage-stamp stage. The surrounding walls were brick, blackened with age and papered over by a collage of overlapping band stickers and decals. Looking out into the audience, Con had to shade her eyes from the overhead Fresnels, which belched slabs of carmine light across the stage. The club was long and narrow like a budget coffin. Booths lined windowless walls, and a scattering of particleboard tables formed a semicircle around the pit at the foot of the stage. The walls were covered in a hectic mass of license plates, signs, and gewgaws as if a tornado had blown through, and rather than clean up, the owner had simply nailed everything up. Men, perhaps as many as twenty, stood around the bar drinking and arguing. There was an impatient, empty-handed energy to them that made Con’s jaw tighten. When the men saw Franklin Butler and Con, they stopped arguing among themselves and turned as one to face the stage. Con had performed in enough clubs to recognize a hostile crowd when she saw one. She’d also been on enough stages to recognize stage fright, and Butler was sweating. How hard was he willing to push this before he gave her up to save himself?