The driver’s door opened first, and Dex unloaded himself from behind the steering wheel. Then the other three doors and tailgate opened in concert.

New narco guards emerged from the G-Wagon, one after another, a clown-car stunt carried off with military precision. Ten of them. They formed a neat line in front of the vehicle, awaiting orders from René.

“Good,” Evan said. “You brought me more people to kill.”

But René just turned to him, his moon boots scraping on the porch, and smiled.

“No limits,” he said.

29. Your Bad Self

29

Your Bad Self

According to the intel Candy and Jaggers had gathered over the past day and a half, Setyeyiva was planning to leave his office between six and six-fifteen this evening. They shivered through another faux photo shoot down on the boardwalk, Candy looking fetching as ever in her leather pants and bustier getup, Jaggers zooming in over her head at the converted cannery. Soon enough only Refat Setyeyiva remained at the office once again, toiling away.

Jaggers checked his watch. “It’s time.”

They hustled back to their rental, a Škoda Fabia Combi, which, with low standards and some squinting, could be considered a car. As Jaggers pulled out of the parking space he’d shoehorned into, Candy bought a berry Popsicle from a vendor.

They zipped up the hill in the hatchback supermini. She hopped out behind the building in the alley that ran between TeleFon Star and the parking structure. Jaggers backed up, killed the headlights. Someone had spray-painted the three monkeys on the wall—see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. The paint had dripped before it dried, lending the simian faces a demonic cast.

Dusk eased down the dial on the day. A few lights blinked on in buildings farther up the hill.

Candy propped herself against the wall by the rear door of the old cannery. She peeled back the wrapping on her SuperFun CrazeyBerryz Icestik!

She could make a spectacle of herself with a Popsicle.

Setting one foot flat against the wall behind her, she arched her back away from the wall and twirled the ruby-red tip between her lips. She knew precisely what she looked like.

It was good to be her.

5:53. No cars. No pedestrians.

That whisper returned: Can you still pull this off, Candy? After X left his stamp on you, are you sure you’re the same? Or are you damaged goods?

Yes, she was sure. No, she wasn’t damaged goods.

She was a traffic stopper. A Hall & Oates maneater. The kind of calendar girl that made you want to freeze the month. She used to be all those things with her clothes on or off. So what if, thanks to Orphan X, her naked superpowers had dimmed? She was still irresistible.

5:57. No vehicles. No foot traffic.