The Murdered World 25

The liquor cabinet was in the den on the fourth and lowest level, which Angel had clearly intended as a home away from home. Unlike much of the rest of this utilitarian space, it was lushly furnished, with Turkish carpets, velvet curtains breaking up the bare walls, mounted heads from Angel’s hunting trips—a completely masculine, hedonistic space. Christina felt a bit naughty to be in it, like she was drinking her parents’ wine.

“Thank God I found this,” Emma said, setting a quarter on the table.

Christina took a bottle of Casamigos Mezcal from Angel’s stash. There were plenty of shot glasses. She filled twelve of them, which would probably kill her or her sister if one of them had a run of luck in the drinking game, but it was the Apocalypse. How lucky could either of them be?

“You couldn’t find any tequila?” Emma asked.

“Tequila has to be chilled.”

“Right now, I wouldn’t care if you put it in with an IV.”

Christina parked her bare ass in a Savonarola chair, flush with crimson brocade, that she remembered going missing after she’d auctioned for it. Angel must’ve hijacked it for this private space just to spite her over some long-forgotten disagreement. He probably could never have admitted that her taste outdid his own. And now he never would.

“So what’s the game?” Christina asked.

“Pretending we’re not alcoholics.”

“Seriously.”

Emma dragged a loveseat, deep with cushions, over to the writing desk they were using as a table. Christina resented her energy. She was that thin and that strong, with no ugly muscles to mess up her girlishness. It wasn’t fair.

“Quarters,” Emma told her.

Christina wore a bemused expression. Emma crinkled her nose in disbelief.

“You don’t know how to play quarters? College was not that long ago for you, I just got out of it…”

“I didn’t play drinking games,” Christina reminded her. “I got my masters.”

“And you ended up a gangster moll,” Emma reminded her. “Crazy job market we’ve got these days, huh?”

Christina narrowed her eyes. “Are you going to tell me how to play the game or what?”

“It’s simple. You take an empty shot glass…” Emma picked up one of the glasses and knocked back the Mezcal in it. “Shit! Mezcal sucks. Why didn’t I bring some weed with me?” Emma tossed the quarter down. It hit the table, bounced, and landed in the drained glass. “Crowd goes wild. Now, since I won, I say who has to take a drink. Emma.” She picked up another glass and upended it. “Good job, Emma. Now I throw again.” She hit the table with the quarter again. It bounced the wrong way and landed next to the shot glass. “This game’s shit. Okay, your turn.”

Christina picked up the quarter and bounced it off the table. It hit the lip of the glass and glanced off it. “This game is shit.”

“Don’t say that just because you lost.” Emma bounced the quarter and made it. “Emma, take a drink!”

“Don’t you think you ought to pace yourself?” Christina asked her.

“And when you score, you can tell me not to drink then.” Emma tossed the quarter. It made it in. “Okay, take a drink.”

Christina made an exaggerated ‘who, me?’ gesture before going through with it. She wheezed out the Mezcal’s burn.

“You know what the shittiest thing about Mezcal is?” Emma asked her.

“Celebrity endorsements causing a boom in demand for agave, leading to shortages and skyrocketing prices.”

“I was thinking that it wasn’t weed.”

Christina took the quarter and made a show of aiming. She knew better than to try and focus when Emma was talking. It wasn’t that Emma always had to be the center of attention—it was that when she had to be the center of attention, she couldn’t stand being ignored.

“The great thing about weed is it recalibrates you,” Emma continued. “Like, you take everything for granted until you get a few puffs in you, then you realize how crazy it all is. Like, dogs and cats… they’re kinda the new jesters. We keep them around, they do nothing, it amuses us. They didn’t do that in the Middle Ages. They used them to hunt warthogs.”

Christina bounced the quarter. It went in.

“Make me drink,” Emma told her.

“I need it more and I can’t trust you to let me drink,” Christina said, and knocked back her second shot. “I go again, right?”

“Right.”

Christina lined up her shot. She held the quarter pinched horizontally between her thumb and forefinger. That was how Emma did it; she trusted Emma knew what she was doing when it came to any drinking game.

“So weed makes you stop taking things for granted, rethink your life…” She tossed. The quarter struck the table with a crisp chime that seemed louder than it once had been, then flew up and dropped itself in the empty glass. “Pretty much like… this?”

“Yeah.”

“Why the hell would I want that? You can drink if you want to.”

“I do,” Emma replied and threw back a shot. “Your turn still.”

“I know.” Christina aimed again. She stopped to rub some crud from her eyes. How long had it been since she’d been all dolled up for the party? It seemed like hours. It had been hours. But not that many…

“As long as we’re clearing the air…” Emma said, dragging a full shot to the tabletop in front of her.

“Hey, no drinking.”

“I’m just pregaming. But Frank’s a psychopath, right? I mean, you kill ten people, you’re either a psychopath or a war hero. I don’t see Frank getting a medal anytime soon.”

Christina tossed. The quarter slid along the rim of the glass for a moment before falling away to make weeble-wobble noises on the table.

“If it weren’t for him,” she pointed out, “you’d need a morning-after pill and we’d be in this shithole with twenty horny gangsters right now.”

“I think we could handle twenty gangsters,” Emma said. “I’m not sure about le Punisher.”

“It’s le punisseur,” Christina corrected her.

“We should do something about le punisseur.”

“What do you want to do? Kill him? He’s the only thing we have protecting us.”

“And the only thing we have to worry about,” Emma retorted.

“Right now.”

“What happens if we open up the doors in six weeks and the fires are out and they’re sweeping up the broken glass…”

Christina barked a laugh so hard she felt like a hyena.

“There’s a chance!” Emma insisted. “Miami could be the only city that got bombed. There could be FEMA camps being set up right now. So assuming we get out of here and we can just book ourselves a hotel…” Emma took a quick drink, not bothering with the quarter. “What happens between us and Frank in the meantime? And is it worth going through on the off-chance we have to worry about Immortan Joe?”

“I’m not killing him,” Christina said. “And neither are you, Em, he saved your life.”

“And I’m grateful,” Emma exhaled. “But I’m also realistic. And I’m not talking about killing him, I’m talking about risk management. We need a way to keep him around in case of emergency, but make sure he’s not… volatile.”

“Emma, he’s the Punisher. I’m pretty sure volatile is… ummm… it’s like Hugh Jackman and musical theater. You’re not gonna get one without the other.”

“Christy, look at us. Women have been pah-pacifying men for generations. If it can be done to Frank, it’s us!”

“You mean—” Christina asked confusedly.

“Yeah, that’s what I meant. We can do it. We just have to get creative.” Emma sloshed another shot glass in front of Christina. “And let’s not let this Mezcal go to waste. There’s a shortage.”