Danilo shrugged. “As well as can be expected. For Whirligig, anyway. You saw. Vagabond picked him up and just threw the man. Went through five good-size trees and a retaining wall. That armor of his brushes off just about everything, but he feels the impact. He’s in that stasis-whatever. Auto-repair.”
“Did anybody ever find that gun?”
“Are you nuts? Colton was at supersonic speed when he threw it!” Danilo said, pantomiming a herculean gesture. “It’s in the next time zone, babe!”
Benji rose, stretching. “When, at least it’s out of the picture.”
“I’ll say. Some little kid probably found it and is taking it to show-and-tell right now.”
“Thank you for that.”
“You don’t suppose that thing can be traced, can you?”
Benji froze. “Oooooh.”
“Let’s hope it was stolen.”
“Look, one disaster at a time, ok?” Benji groaned, loping over to the cabinets.
Danilo sighed again. “So. What exactly are you trying to get Sanjay to eat? Three-course dining isn’t usually reserved for crazies.”
“I got a ton of protein powders. I figure something liquid would be easier. Got your beer bong?”
“Right here!” Came the innocent, sing-song reply. Danilo was a hard-core party-boy. Of course he had a beer bong.
“He won’t be able to bite through that, will he?”
Danilo looked at the tubing. “With enough time and effort, maybe. Not in one chomp, if that’s what you mean.”
“Good enough for me.” The other man plugged in the blender, then took town several tubs of things with the words “Ripped!” and “Shredded!!” and “POWER!!!” in bright lettering. Benji threw in a veritable pharmecopia of vitamins, the powders, some eggs, fruit, and let the blender do its magic. “You can get that down his throat and not his windpipe, right?”
“I’ve done this a lot. Trust me.”
“Not even a little.”
Hmph. “You know,” said Danilo, eyeing all the high-tech, top-end…“everything” Benji had throughout the room, “it really amazes me you bought all this in cash.”
“Comes with the biz.”
“The exciting life of an escort.”
Benji shrugged. “Like hell. My calendar’s been blown to pieces ‘cuz of all this. Next week’ll be a nightmare. AND college starts up in a few weeks. And that’s ‘high-end escort,’ thankyouverymuch.”
“Heh. You’re lucky Quartz is such a good broker.”
Benji switched the blender off, removed the lid, peered inside, shook it, frowned, put the lid back on and let the mixture go a few more rounds. “Falsed IDs, falsed bank accounts, falsed tax returns—I am the Falsed Man.” He rubbed his eyes again, red though they were. “Gotta stay off the ‘Net. S’why I never did porn. I can afford to have my face splattered all over the Internet.”
“Not just your face, sweetie.”
“Hee-hee. Ha-ha. Ho-ho.”
“You really think they’d find you that way? You think they’d be checking out the porn sites at that…,” Danilo’s voice dwindled into a cough. He just went there. “Um. That place?”
Benji fought off the creepy feeling with a shudder. “Can’t take the chance.” He turned off the blender. “Face-recognition software. Even if they aren’t physically looking for me, they have computers doing it. Romeesha told me all about it. Freaked me totally.” Benji leaned onto the counter, looking at the beautiful day outside. For a moment, he allowed himself to remember. “ We’d better suit up. No skin-to-skin contact with Sanjay, remember.”
“Yeah, yeah,” What he wanted to ask, right before the moment passed, was that if he wanted to “stay off the ‘Net,’”then why was he in an industry where you never knew what was on the other side of the damn door? “I brought my ski shit. Think that’ll work?”
“Not that orange monstrosity.”
“I like orange.”
“Yeah, and when Sanjay sees that coming at him?”
“It’s Carmen Miranda after the sex change and steroids! Chico Chico!”
"DAMN IT! WILL YOU GET FUCKING SERIOUS!"
Danilo froze in mid-Carmen Miranda.
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