Internecine by David J. Schow

delivery right before midnight. Extra sauce. Sorry, but the service was lousy, so no tip. It all smells like NORCO to me, and you know what we say about whatever NORCO says.”
    “Yeah.” Varga grinned. “Do the opposite.”
    “Now, you can catch me up on the details, all of which I don’t know. But I’m a good guesser. Or, you can be an asshole. Please don’t be an asshole; if it’s NORCO , you’re so far down the pecking order that it won’t hurt you.”
    “Cost me a good little worker, looks like.”
    “Yeah. Otherwise I wouldn’t be standing here with Mr. Lamb. I’m here to make good on that. All I need is a contact.”
    “Fuck you. Why should I help you now? You owe me from before; you got too big for your
pantalones,
dick-suck. Get the fuck outta here before I shoot you in the ass and make Thule eye-fuck your faggot lover, there.”
    Dandine refused to rise to the bait. “C’mon, Vargs, you’re just pissed about your little honey. I understand that.”
    “Man, she was the bomb, and you just fuckin broke her in two before I could really run her.”
    “Not true. The delivery itself was spoiled and inedible. I didn’t unplug her. Neither did Mr. Lamb. The delivery was suckered. You were lied to. They used firebacks, Vargs. Not pretty. Mostly what we did was clean up the mess. NORCO got there before there was time to say good, Catholic last rites. Check out what I say. Or just wait for NORCO to show up here.”
    That was what Dandine had whiffed back in the car; why Varga was on paranoid watch right now. They were waiting for the intrusion of NORCO to throw a spooky shadow. Like the moment in a slasher movie where you finally catch a glimpse of the mystery killer, who might or might not be supernatural.
    “Fuck,” said Varga. “I don’t need that political-governmental bullshit up in my backyard. I hate fucking politics. Religion, too.”
    “That’s why I think they used an intermediary to contact you. You’re out of the loop. You didn’t know. For now. I could mention your name, if you want.”
    “No fuckin way. So I give up the middleman to you, and you go on some fuckin rampage, and what do I get? Shit-fire, dude, I’m out one of my little worker bees, and the contract was blown, and I wind up holding dick.”
    “That’s why I thought about it.”
    “Poor Marisole. She was a sweet little piece. Lotta potential.”
    Conrad, come on, it’s me, Celeste, from down the hall? 307? Conrad? Open up, please . . .
    “No, Vargs, she was a beginner you let free-range too goddamned early.”
    I was still puzzling “deliveries” and “spoiled food.” Dandine and Varga had just had an entire conversation about contract killing without once mentioning it.
    “Doesn’t your amigo there say anything?” Varga was looking at me.
    “Ask me a question,” I said, making my own heart punch me inthe chest. I wanted to break another window. Then I thought:
Dandine brought me in order to unbalance them. Why not
really
throw a wrench?
    Varga was now staring directly at me, like one of those lizards with no eyelids. “It go down like our man here said?”
    My mouth was functioning independently of my brain. “Yeah—I’m the guy she tried to kill.”
    Without a sound, the room filled up with drawn guns.
    Thule had appeared in the doorway behind an enormous double-barreled shotgun, flanked by two of the giants outside, who drew pistols so large they looked science-fictional. Varga was leaning across the desk pointing some kind of revolver at me. The cylinder was the size of a soup can. All my eyes could see were the guns, and all the guns looked gigantic.
    I missed Dandine’s move. The space he had occupied was vacant.
    Somehow, Dandine had folded behind one of the big enforcers by the door, coming at him head-on but
rolling
around him
en passant,
like a dance move. He now held the roughneck by the larynx in midbreath, and had the guy’s pistol leveled at Varga.
    And still, amid all this, Varga kept