CHAPTER 2, section 4: Hermes’ agenda

Hermes piled the tome on top of the package of knives and stumbled out into the glare of sunshine. What was that about? Was the old Vietnamese shopkeeper able to read his heart, or had he spent so much time among mortals that he was transparent even to them? No matter. Immortality imparted many gifts, and time was only one of them. Perspective was another, although sometimes he could still be blindsided by surprises in his own mind.

Enough blindsiding for one day. He had chosen this gangster persona, and he would play out the thread of this story to its end, whether that was being riddled with holes in a back alley or spiriting himself away to a Third World country in order to let time pass and change his identity before starting over again, again. Up the street sat his trusty Subaru. He unlocked her with the push of a button, then looked at the button. Not good enough. To play out the story properly he would have to look into iris-scan security. Should have done it already at both his pads. Out of the question for his Lac à la loutre hideaway, but some kind of system upgrade was a good idea there, too.

Yes, good. Back to this persona’s agenda. As usual, a very full thing. But he refused to use one of those digital organizers hip mortals ported these days. For him that would be not only a cop out, but a sure recipe for dropping at least half the balls he kept in the air.

He sank into the soft leather of the front seat and flipped open his phone. It had fielded a half-dozen messages for him while he was jawing it with An Huu Bao. Two from local associates touching base, one from Aphrodite in a chatty mood in Rio, one from his gem manufacturer in Boston, one from one of his boys in Venezuela with some warning about an Amazon operation in broken Spanglish, and one delicious-sounding invitation from Lizereli, a cool, curvaceous chica from Cuernavaca who he’d met the other night at a gallery opening. He loved gallery openings and multimedia happenings, hobnobbing with the latest crop of beautiful people and checking out the latest incarnation of mortal angst. After all, what’s the use of being a mob boss if you can’t hobnob with the chic artistes and enjoy the view from their midst? This chica, she was somewhere just shy of totally over the top of the cool-meter. She claimed her blood was equal parts Spanish Conquistador and Yakutian Shamaness. How’s that for catching a good god’s attention?

The phone buzzed while he pondered who to respond to first. The shake that accompanied the buzz was so violent that there was no doubt who would be on the other end.

“Yo, Frenzoid.”

The phone belched loudly.

“Thank you, that was… sonorous, Pan.”

The phone barked, “Ha! You’re just jealous.”

Hermes ripped open the packaging on the Gurkha knives and pulled one out, “I believe you’d prefer not know the answer.”

The phone greeted him with chainsaw peals of laughter.

He fingered the blade and tested its thick leather sheath, “I have something you’ll enjoy.”

The phone grunted, “So do I. Your twins are coming by Club Social in a little while. They mentioned something about the friend you lost recently.”

“Good.”

“Your turn.”

“You’ll see. Some toys Johnny don’t want to play with no more.”

“Really?”

“Club Social.”

He set to returning calls before taking off. The trouble in the Amazon was actually with his legit operation there. The Brazilian government was coming down hard on his medicinal research team, thinking they had to be up to no good with operations in both Manaús and on the Venezuelan border. The gem manufacturer in Boston claimed to have a new processor-ready diamond chip, so he promised to visit the plant later in the week. As for the Cuernavacan’s invitation, an evening of selected pleasures was too sweet to pass up on.

In the middle of leaving her a message, he heard a loud crash, a louder smash, an extended clattering and what had to be a pack of dogs and a pack of cats giving each other haircuts with their teeth. He finished the message, fished a second Gurkha knife from its wrapping and hopped out onto the sidewalk.