Chapter Seven: Snicker-Snack!

Marwan lifted his chin towards Martin.

"Miss Fiver, you want, you-know-me, me-to pop-pop-pop, and drag this one out the back, no questions?"

Martin was tired of sucker punches and threats and confusion. He was tired of these strange people talking over his head. He wasn't sure what Cassandra Fiver's answer would have been to Marwan's suggestion. But he knew what his answer was.

"And what should I do, practice falling down?"

Marwan turned on Martin and advanced, his dead eye flaring at Martin insolence. Martin let him get just close enough and then he kicked out with his foot and caught Marwan's shin. Martin let himself smile his lopsided smile as the bald man yelped and crumbled to the floor. Hairlipped Cairo made a move towards Martin but Cassandra Fiver held up a hand.

"Boys. Please, no violence. Marwan, dear, get up off the floor."

Marwan picked himself off the floor with more grace than Martin would have been capable of, if it had been his shin kicked. The bald man spared Martin an evil glance full of promises and then turned his attention to his boss.

"Your idea was sound. If premature. We could murder Claude Rains, here. Or we could spirit him away out the back. Some could argue that I owe that much at least to Lola Wants, my little sister under the mink."

Martin noticed that at the mention of Lola Wants' name the two men seemed to shrink in on themselves, grow pale. Cairo looked like he wanted to vomit. Marwan's sneer was replaced by something closer to panic. Cassandra Fiver made a dismissing gesture with her free hand.

"But I don't think I'm feeling that generous towards her or her current metal carpet. It's their choice of employees that's brought us to this current state of emergency. Kill or Hide, those options are closed because we are dealing with Otto Cherry's creature out there. Butch Pierce would just smell it out and wonder why we did what we did. And then we'd have more trouble."

Martin had to ask.

"Who is Otto Cherry?"

Cassandra Fiver laughed then. A deep throated, full bodied, belly laugh. Her eyes, which upon closer inspection weren't brown but a sort of dark purple-black color, were full of tears. She bit down on her thumb to stifle her laugh and re-examined Martin. Martin had seen that look before. On nature programs. On the faces of jungle cats. She smiled and Martin felt his face glowing rosy and jolly like a Cola-Cola Santa Claus.

"You are cute. To answer your adorable question, though...for our purposes...Otto Cherry is something less than a wizard and something more than a Mafia Don. Can we turn the page now, Claude?"

"Turn it, tear it out of the book, or burn it, sure."

"Thank you. No, we can't kill you and we can't hide you. So, we'll just have to show you off. Wants & Getz's new factotum. And what was he delivering, I wonder?"

She still held the vial of smoky green liquid. Was it liquid, Martin wondered. He still couldn't tell, even this close to it. And he couldn't make out the writing on the label but it reminding him of the Tic-Tac box Lola Getz had given him. Cassandra Fiver handed the vial over to Cairo.

"Take this down to The Warren, Cairo. Marwan, Claude, let's go greet our guests. Feel free to act as tough as you want to. Not that it's likely to impress Butch Pierce much."

Martin watched as Cairo took the vial and walked up to the Mae West's Lips couch. He reached out a hand and stroked the couch in a very delicate pattern. There was a wet, slurping sound as the Mae West's Lips couch open itself like a Venus flytrap. The room filled with a cloying smell. Chocolate. Orchids. Steaks. Sugar. Martin's stomach turned over as Cairo disappeared into the couch's opening. A sort of reverse birth. Now, how the hell does that work, he thought. The couch closed itself with a syrupy pop. Cassandra Fiver clapped her hands twice and broke the spell.

"Everybody neat and pretty? Let's meet our guests."

She took the lead and led both Martin and Marwan back out of the office, down the spiral stairs and into the purple and green lights of the club. Baby armed Red Sturges joined them at the bottom of the stairs. The band was taking a break and music melted out of hidden speakers.

"A woman in the moon is singing to the earth
A woman in the moon is singing to the earth

La la la, la la la la la la."

The wall of television screens had adjusted its theme. Now it showed time lapsed videos of animals decomposing mixed in with clusters of predator attacking prey. Dogs, foxes, cats, and rabbits all collapsing in on themselves into a mass of worms. A crocodile snapped at a baby hippo. A tiger stalked in the grass. A wolfpack manipulated their kill into position. Martin felt like he was looking at mugshots of all the people he'd met today. Butch Pierce. The Lolas. Lionel and Lucifer Beard. Marwan The Cue Ball. Red Sturges. Cairo. And, of course, Cassandra Fiver.

At a booth near the far corner of the club, sat Butch Pierce like he was carved from a single piece of wood. An Indian totem. He looked calm and eternal. A Satanic Buddha. His skin looked like armor. A Bronze Minotaur. Martin remembered the burlap skin and the all-white eyes. The man looked impossible. A Neatherthal refugee. This man slapped a woman and carried her off over his shoulder today, Martin thought, and he's sitting here like it's just any other day.

He had two associates with him, one to either side. They were big men but next to Butch Pierce they looked like small men. Both of them were wearing herringbone suits. They looked like hardboiled history professors. Butch Pierce himself was wearing a suit of no particular. It looks more like it's growing on him, Martin thought.

Cassandra Fiver sat down across from Butch Pierce with a flourish. Marwan and Red Sturges positioned themselves to either side of her, to match up with their counterparts. Martin stood to the side of Marwan, unnoticed. Cassandra Fiver smiled her heart breaking smile even though Butch Pierce didn't portray one facial twitch of caring about a beautiful woman looking at him that. To her credit, she held the smile beautifully anyway.

"Butchie, dear-heart, I was begininng to think you had traded me in for breaking bones down at General Wonderly's."

Butch Pierce ignored that and launched into business.

"Mister Cherry has asked that the ornaments decorating your office be returned. He thinks it might help with the search for the girl."

"I couldn't even think of parting with it, Butchie-love. And it would be doing Mister Cherry a disservice. Those two were glammed within an inch of their lives They have oem coming out of their eyeballs. They'd be useless when it comes to tracking the girl down."

Martin remembered the couple up in Cassandra's office. Naked, wearing gasmasks. The placard underneath them that said: CALL ME OLD FASHIONED, A COUPLE. But who is the girl, Martin thought, not Maddy. Unless she somehow escaped. Was that possible?

"Regardless, Mister Cherry thinks different. He wants them back."

"They were gifts. They are mine. What's it to me if Mister Cherry finds the girl or not. She's making such beautiful things now that she's out from under his thumb."

Butch Pierce smiled then. His teeth looked like stone tablets, ancient laws could have been written on them. Taboos. Cave paintings.

"One day, Mister Cherry is going to tell me to burn this place down."

"But not today, Butchie."

"Tell your deformed flunkies to bring the ornaments to me or I will have Georgie and Kaspar thin out your clientele with a gross display of violence."

Cassandra Fiver pulled into herself like a little girl. Her head tilted down and she reached across the table and touched Butch Pierce's arm. Her voice was a honeyed whisper under the music.

"I had hoped to hide this from you, Butchie. Truly. I didn't want you and Mister Cherry to have to clean up my mess. But the Lolas' new factotum stabbed the ornaments just minutes ago. He came in here under the guise of a white flag from the Lolas and once he got up to my office...he produced a knife and quick-as-a-bunny, they were gone. I was going to have Marwan and Red Sturges take care of him but now I think you and Mister Cherry might have some questions for him."

Butch Pierce turned his head with glacial slowness. Martin could almost hear the tectonic shifting of his vertebrae. Those all-white eyes settled on him, just like they had this morning. Only this time, Martin felt Butch Pierce's recognition like a warm net wrap around him.

"The man from the red pagoda. The hero."

Martin started to back up but tripped over Marwan's outstretched foot. He fell in a clump of shoes elbows and trenchcoat and legs. Like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Georgie, grab the hero, and let's be on our way."

Georgie walked over to collect Martin from the floor but Martin thrust his left hand into Georgie's face, forcing him back, giving himself a moment to stand back up. He didn't do it very gracefully. The finger gun stayed trained at Georgie but it wobbled enough that Marwan and Red Sturges positioned themselves in front of Cassandra Fiver. Neither Butch Pierce or Kaspar moved at all.

"Where is Maddy MacGuffin?"

Butch Pierce studied Martin for a moment. His Old Testament smile graven on his caveman face.

"Georgie, there are people who pull triggers and people who don't. Little heroes think just because some witch gives them a vorpal sword that they'll be safe from all the big bad wolves out in the night. But what if the wolves don't know the fear of such weapons? What if the wolves only know the fear of failing someone worse than all the witches and bullets and brave little heroes? What then? Georgie, disarm the little hero, please."

Georgie took one step.

BANG!

A red circle the size a dime appeared in the center of Georgie's forehead. He took one jittery step forward and then crumbled to the floor. In the distance, Martin could sense people running for the exits. He could hear people yelling and screaming but it sounded like it was coming from underwater. Cassandra Fiver, Marwan, and Red Sturges were gone. Vanished. Martin looked at his left hand. The tip of his pointer finger was blackened. The Roman numeral on his palm was changed. V. I think I just shot a man with a magic bullet, Martin thought.

Suddenly, Butch Pierce was in front of him. One huge hand wrapped around Martin's index and middle fingers while the other held his wrist. Tight and strong. Cement. Super-glue. Steel. How did he move so quick, Martin thought. With a savage motion, Butch Pierce jerked Martin's fingers backwards.

SNAP!

Martin once again fell to the floor, holding his mangled hand to his chest. Some hysterical part of his mind screamed that it had lost track of the number of times he'd ended up on the ground today.

"Snicker-snack, little hero."

And then Butch Pierce's boot came down on his head and there was inky blackness and random images. The floor and the ceiling. Above him, a million miles away, the last thing he heard was Butch Pierce's voice, it sounded watery and wrong in his ears.

"Kaspar, gather up Georgie. Let's see what the hero has to say to the villain."

Then everything went black and purple and quiet.

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And now we are in the thick of it....keep your breath bated for the next chapter in our saga....Chapter Eight: The Emperor Of Ice Cream.