Seven Demons Aidan Truhen (reading an ebook TXT) 📖

I do. I feel like they really understand more than we know I mean Doc—now Doc tells me that pigs are real smart and they form emotional attachments and so on—but you know Doc is more of a dog person. She has Tycho and they have a special bond and I do not really do those. I mean I do them with people you know this. I feel for you guys you are my guys but I do not understand how anyone would vest that level of affection in a dog. It is a dog. But these pigs…I come out here Rex and I see something in their eyes. Not like a human something but a pig something that is still very real and meaningful.”

“Huh.”

“Does that seem strange to you Rex?”

“Kinda I guess.”

“O it does?”

“Yes sir. Weird as shit but that is life I guess. Other people’s lives are weird. I mean your relationship for example with the Doctor that is weird to me also. Like she is this terrifying evil doctor, and you are you, and you scare one another and you drive her crazy and then you do weird sex things and that makes you happy. In my life that would not be a sound basis for a relationship but I tell myself: other people’s lives. So that I get but talking to pigs is a little beyond me.”

“Huh I really—you do not talk to the pigs at all?”

“No sir I just come out here and I watch old war movies on my telephone.”

“…Uh.”

“I am very much a fan of Cross of Iron sir directed by Sam Peckinpah.”

“I did not see that coming.”

“He was a man who understood the truth of armed conflict in a way which cannot be equaled by generations thereafter. Few of the modern school for example were in Vietnam or Iraq they are tourists.”

“I guess that is true.”

“But after then when it’s real quiet out here and dark and I—well I talk to Billy sometimes.”

“Uh-uh.”

“I figure I have some stuff to make up for on his account sir. Atonement I guess.”

Billy is Rex’s brother who was shot by Fred the Head. Fred was trying to make a point to me and indeed at the time Fred and Doc were still working together. What happened to Billy is one hundred percent on Fred but Rex and I avoid discussing it in general lest we encounter areas of personal friction and compromise our smooth working relationship. This kind of polite reserve is the heart and soul of shared criminal enterprises in an environment in which people have a professional history which will not always be aligned. It is just best practice.

In this present situation however with Rex talking about atonement it behooves me—and I do not, do NOT like to be behooved in this way—but it behooves me to probe the mood a little because in general anyway you do NOT want your criminal colleagues to be talking about atonement and also well because Rex did know we were coming here and could theoretically have alerted Hans Eiger to our arrival. I would not like to think that Rex was responsible for Volodya’s death but maybe he might could have intended me or Doc to die instead and of course when you are dealing with an old white guy—Hans Eiger—he will very often assume that the old white guy in a given group is the guy in charge and shoot him first even when perfectly clearly the boss is the younger and more attractive person in the middle.

No, not Doc, me. I am talking about me.

I do not think Rex sold us out.

But I have responsibilities. I am behooved and here we are.

Rex asks me if I think it is odd that he talks to his dead brother in the middle of a pigsty in the middle of the night with only a hyperviolent robot door for company. I say that I do not.

“No Rex that is—we have never really talked about Billy.”

“That’s fine sir.”

“I—I’m not real good at processing emotions and shit like that Rex.”

“No sir it is not masculine sir.”

“Uh-huh. No. Definitely it is the masculinity which prevents me from doing that you are right. But I guess…I liked Billy. He was my friend. I’m not going to say he was always easy to be around what with the depilation and the coke and so—”

“He was a tremendous asshole and would always hit on my girls when we were kids together but I loved him and I miss him now he is gone and sometimes on the one hand I just need to make sure he is okay with it that I—that I am here with you sir.”

“Because I was part of what happened.”

“O not that I just figure he would say REX YOU ASSHOLE YOU ARE RICH AS SHIT NOW GO TO VEGAS IN A LIMO.”

“That is true he would totally say that. He would think we were all assholes for not doing that all the time. Do you—do you want to go to Vegas in a limo? Or we could totally go to Monte Carlo it’s close and it’s pretty much the same.”

“It is?”

“Stuffier I guess. But still basically everyone is for sale and no one wakes up looking as pretty as they go to sleep.”

“I was never much of a one for gambling and—that actually was I guess one place where Billy and I would argue—like there are limits and you know fun is one thing, but at a certain point just a hug—I mean I like breasts as much as anyone sir but there’s a limit to the number you can actually do anything with.”

“I guess there is, Rex.”

“I figure that number is probably six.”

“…Huh.”

“But sometimes also I think of the Cause sir. Billy was a soldier of the Cause even though he did not know it.”

(In fact obviously there is no Cause as such and Billy was therefore completely right that he died for nothing except my cocaine business,