Ah, and the dance began.
“Why I’m here?” Greenmantle said. “I’m more bewildered about why you’re here, since you specifically told me you had stolen my things and run away to West Palm Springs.”
What a day that had been, with Laumonier being Laumonier and those damn Peruvian textiles getting stopped in customs before he ever even got to see them and then the Gray Man shitting the bed.
“I told you the truth first. And that wasn’t good enough.”
Greenmantle butchered a piece of cheese. “Oh right, the … ‘truth.’ Which one was that again? Of course. The truth was the one where you told me that the artifact that had been rumored to be in this area for over a decade and had in fact been traced pretty conclusively back to that loser Niall Lynch didn’t even exist. I rejected that truth, as I recall. I’m trying to remember why I’d do such a thing. Do you remember, treasure, why I decided that was a lie?”
Piper clucked her tongue. “Because you’re not a total idiot?”
Greenmantle shook the knife in the direction of his wife. Spouse. Partner. Lover. “Yes, it was that one. I remember now.”
The Gray Man said, “I told you it wasn’t an artifact, and I stand by that. It’s a phenomenon, not a thing.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Mr. Gray,” Greenmantle said pleasantly. He put a cheese cracker in his mouth and spoke around it. “How do you think I knew what it was called? Niall Lynch told me. Fucking braggart. He thought he was invincible. Can I pour you some wine? I’ve got this abusive red I brought with me. It’s a thing of beauty.”
The Gray Man gave him a cool look. His hit man look. Greenmantle had always liked the idea of being a mysterious hit man, but that career goal invariably paled in comparison with his enjoyment of going out on the town and having people admire his reputation and driving his Audi with its custom plate (GRNMNTL) and going on cheese holidays in countries that put little hats over their vowels like so: ê.
“What do you want from me?” Mr. Gray asked.
Greenmantle replied, “If we had a time machine, I’d say you could zip back and do what I asked the first time, but I guess that ship has sailed off into the sea of clusterfuck. Do you want to open the wine? I always cork it. No? All right, then. I guess you understand that you’re going to have to be an example.”
He crossed the kitchen and placed a cheese cracker on Piper’s tongue. He offered one to the Gray Man, who neither accepted it nor lowered the gun. He continued, “I mean, what would the others think if I let you get away with this? Would not be good. So, although I’ve enjoyed our time together, I guess that means you’re probably going to have to be destroyed.”
“Then shoot me,” the Gray Man said without fear.
He really was a work of art, the Gray Man. A hit man action figure. All his nobility did was prove what Greenmantle already knew: There were things in this town the Gray Man considered more important than his own life.
“Oh, Mr. Gray. Dean. You know better. No one remembers a corpse. I know you are aware of how this works.” Greenmantle cut another piece of cheese. “First I’m going to hang out here, just observing. Taking in the view. Figuring out the best breakfast places, seeing the tourist sights, watching you sleep, figuring out everything that’s important to you, finding that woman you fell in love with, planning the best way to make destroying all of the above publicly excruciating for you. Et cetera and so forth.”
“Give me another one, but not so much cheese,” Piper said.
He did so.
The Gray Man said, “If you are going to dismantle my life anyway, there’s no motivation for me to not just kill you and Piper right now.”
“Talk dirty to me,” Greenmantle said. “Like old times. There’s actually another option, Mr. Gray. You can give me the Greywaren, just like I asked, and then we’ll film a short video of you cutting off your own trigger finger, and then we’ll call it a day.”
He held up his hands like Lady Justice, weighing the cheese in one hand with the knife in the other. “Either/or.”
“And if there’s no Greywaren?”
Greenmantle said, “Then there’s always the public destruction of everything you love. Options: the American Dream.”
The Gray Man seemed to be considering. Usually everyone else looked frightened by this point of this conversation, but it was possible the Gray Man didn’t have emotions.
“I’ll need to think about it.”
“Sure you do,” Greenmantle said. “Shall I give you a week? No, nine days. Nine’s very three plus three plus three. I’ll just keep looking around while you decide. Thanks for dropping by.”
The Gray Man backed away from Piper, gun still pointed at her, and then disappeared through a door behind her. The room was silent.
“Isn’t that a closet?” Greenmantle asked.
“It’s the door to the garage, you piece of shit,” Piper said with characteristic affection. “Now I’ve missed yoga, and what am I going to tell them? Oh, I had a gun pointed to my head. Also, I told you to throw out those boxers months ago. The band’s all stretched out.”
“That was me,” he said. “I stretched it. Get it?”
Piper’s voice remained as the rest of her left. “I’m tired of your hobbies. This is the worst vacation I’ve ever been on.”
Adam was alone in the shop.
In the still-rainy evening, it grew prematurely dark inside, the corners of the garage consumed by a gloom that the fluorescents overhead couldn’t reach. He had spent countless hours working there, though, so his hands knew where to find things even when his eyes did not.
Now he was stretched over the engine of an old Pontiac, the grimy radio on the shop shelves keeping him company. Boyd had set him on the task of changing a head gasket and closing up shop. Dinner, he said, was for old men like him. The long monotony of head gaskets was for young men like Adam.
It wasn’t difficult work, which was worse, in a way, because his unoccupied mind whirred. Even as he mentally went over the details of the major events of 1920s United States history for a quiz, he had plenty of leftover brainpower to consider how his back ached from leaning over the engine, the grease he could feel in his ear, the frustration of this rusted head stud, the proximity of his court date, and the presence of others here on the ley line.
He wondered if Gansey and the others had really gone out in the rain to explore Coopers Mountain. Part of him hoped that they hadn’t, though he tried his best to kill the baser emotions regarding his friends — if he let them run wild, he would be jealous of Ronan, jealous of Blue, jealous of Gansey with either of the other two. Any combination that didn’t involve Adam would provoke a degree of discomfort, if he let it.
He wouldn’t let it.
Don’t fight with Gansey. Don’t fight with Blue. Don’t fight with Gansey. Don’t fight with Blue.
There was no point telling himself not to fight with Ronan. They would fight again, because Ronan was still breathing.
Outside the shop, the wind blew, spattering rain against the small, streaky windows of the garage doors. Dry leaves rustled up against the walls and skittered away. It was that time of year when it could be hot or cold from day to day; it was neither summer nor fall. An in-between, liminal time. A border.