Quoted By:
>Callback
"You know what killed Rudy Doheny, don't you?"
You don't. You've never heard of the guy. You don't even know what you're trying to imply— that Mr. Suit doesn't know but should, or that he does know but shouldn't. All you can hope is that the lizard knew what it was doing.
If nothing else, it got the right guy. Mr. Suit full-body flinches, almost lurches. His clicky pen falls out of his fingers and jitters across the counter. "What?"
"You know, uh..." You fold your arms. "You know what really killed him."
"It was a tragic accident," Mr. Suit snarls. "The parties involved have been suitably punished."
If that were true, there wouldn't be lizards making you bring it up. You're going with that. "Ah... but was it? And have they really?"
"Are you implying that we don't take these matters <span class="mu-i">seriously,</span> Roscoe? He was working on the Godforsaken—" Mr. Suit slaps the Super-M.A.N.S.E. package, hunches, then stares back up at you. This close, you can make out his pupils <span class="mu-i">through</span> his sunglasses. "You don't know this. Who is feeding you this?!"
A— a lizard? You can't tell him you dreamed about a big fucking prophetic lizard. "Uh—"
You were standing too close to the counter. Mr. Suit's fat hand lashed out like a viper and grabbed you by the shirt collar, hauling you up and off your feet. Even if you could answer in any satisfactory way, the edge of the counter is digging into your stomach. You're sure your eyes are bulging. You are directing most of your energy at thinking very, very mean things at the lizard.
"Tell me your fucking <span class="mu-s">SOURCE!</span>"
Again, you physically can't. You can't even fight him— you were a gawky kid and you're still saddled with a gawky kid's body. You're dead lucky he didn't go for the windpipe. It's weird how your heart speeds up, but everything else slows way down. It's not the first time a customer's grabbed you. (You're right next to the bar.) But man, you wish it wasn't today.
Either Mr. Suit reads your choppy exhales as defiance, or he correctly works out your predicament, because he hauls you further onto the counter (a bit like a beached whale), pins you there with one hand, and tears his sunglasses off with the other. Mr. Suit's eyes are yellow. Not yellowish, to be clear, not a funny light brown— piss yellow. You gurgle.
Mr. Suit's sunglasses are shoved into his breast pocket, and his free hand shoots out to grip the top of your skull. For a fraction you assume he'll crush it. But he doesn't, just holds it, and leans his load-bearing neck out as far out as it'll go, and looks directly into your eyes. His piss yellow ones into your shit brown ones. He is breathing heavily.
You wonder if you should've eaten lunch today. You <span class="mu-i">said</span> it keeps you stable. Skip one day and you've got crazy lizards and crazy lizard-eyed guys invading your life. Maybe the Wind Court is onto more stuff than you'd like to admit. Couldn't they swing back around now?
(1/4?)
