Creem pulled out the jerky. “Doggie treat. We found a warehouse with a whole pet-supply shipment that never went out. I don’t know what’s in this thing, but it’s food, right? Will give me a lustrous pelt, clean my teeth and all that.” Creem barked a few times, then snickered. “Cat food cans keep for a good long time. Portable meal. Taste like fucking pâté.”
“Food is food,” said Gus.
“And breathing is breathing. Look at us here. Two bangers from the projects. Still hustling. Still representing. And everybody else, the ones who thought this city was theirs, the tender souls—they didn’t have no real fucking pride, no stake, no claim; where are they now? The walking dead.”
“The undead.”
“Like I always say, ‘Creem rises to the top.’ ” He laughed again, maybe too hard. “You like the ride?”
“How you fueling it?”
“Got some pumps still flowing in Jersey. Check out the grille? Just like my teeth. Silver.”
Gus looked. The front grille of the car was indeed plated in silver. “Now, that I like,” said Gus.
“Silver rims are next on my wish list,” said Creem. “So, you wanna get your backups out here now, so I don’t feel like I’m gonna be ripped off? I’m here in good faith.”
Gus whistled and Nora came out from behind a tool cart holding a Steyr semiauto. She lowered the weapon, stopping a safe thirty feet away.
Joaquin appeared from behind a door, his pistol at his side. He could not disguise his limp; his knee was still giving him grief.
Creem opened his stubby arms wide, welcoming them to the meet. “You wanna get to it? I gotta get back over that fucking bridge before the creeps come out.”
“Show and tell,” said Gus.
Creem went around and opened the rear door. Four open cardboard moving cartons fresh out of a U-Haul store, crammed full of silver. Gus slid one out for inspection, the box heavy with candlesticks, utensils, decorative urns, coins, and even a few dinged-up, mint-stamped silver bars.
Creem said, “All pure, Mex. No sterling shit. No copper base. There’s a test kit in there somewhere I’ll throw in for free.”
“How’d you score all this?”
“Picking up scrap for months, like a junk man, saving it. We got all the metal we need. I know you want this vamp-slaying shit. Me, I like guns.” He looked at Nora’s piece. “Big guns.”
Gus picked through the silver pieces. They’d have to melt them down, forge them, do their best. None of them were smiths. But the swords they had weren’t going to last forever.
“I can take all this off your hands,” said Gus. “You want firepower?”
“Is that all you sellin’?”
Creem was looking not only at Nora’s weapon but at Nora.
Gus said, “I got some batteries, shit like that. But that’s it.”
Creem didn’t take his eyes off Nora. “She got her head smooth like them camp workers.”
Nora said, “Why are you talking about me like I’m not here?”
Creem smiled silver. “Can I see the piece?”
Nora brought it forward, handed it to him. He accepted with an interested smile, then turned his attention to the Steyr. He released the bolt and the magazine, checking the load, then fed it back into the buttstock. He sighted a ceiling lamp and pretended to blow it away.
“More like this?” he asked.
“Like it,” confirmed Gus. “Not identical. I’ll need at least a day though. I got ’em stashed around town.”
“And ammo. Plenty of it.” He worked the safety off and on. “I’ll take this one as a down payment.”
Nora said, “Silver is so much more efficient.”
Creem smiled at her—eager, condescending. “I didn’t get here by being efficient, baldy. I like to make some fucking noise when I waste these bloodsuckers. That’s the fun of it.”
He reached for her shoulder and Nora batted his hand away, which only made him laugh.
She looked at Gus. “Get this dog-food-eating slob out of here.”
Gus said, “Not yet.” He turned to Creem. “What about that detonator?”
Creem opened his front door and laid the Steyr down across the front seat, then shut it again. “What about it?”
“Stop dicking around. Can you do it for me?”
Creem made like he was deciding. “Maybe. I have a lead—but I need to know more about this shit you’re trying to blow. You know I live just across the river there.”
“You don’t need to know anything. Just name your price.”
“Military-grade detonator?” said Creem. “There’s a place in northern Jersey I got my eye on. Military installation. I’m not saying much more than that right now. But you gotta come clean.”
Gus looked at Nora, not for her okay but to frown at being put in this position. “Pretty simple,” he said. “It’s a nuke.”
Creem smiled wide. “Where’d you get it?”
“Corner store. Book of coupons.”
Creem checked on Nora. “How big?”
“Big enough to do a half-mile of destruction. Shock wave, bent steel—you name it.”
Creem was enjoying this. “But you wound up with the floor model. Sold as-is.”
“Yes. We need a detonator.”
“’Cause I don’t know how stupid you think I am, but I am not in the habit of arming my next-door neighbor with a live nuclear bomb without laying down some fucking ground rules.”
“Really,” said Gus. “Such as?”
“Just that I don’t want you fucking up my prize.”
