Somebody with a death wish was leaning on my buzzer.

Now, I'm a reasonable sort, fair minded, some might even say staunch, but that sort of wake-up call– screaming angry hornets– at that hour– like three in the morning– that kind of behavior will get anybody's back up. Couple that with the fact that Priscilla had been at me again– something about me not respecting her life choices or some other kind of crap– so I'd only actually made it into my bed at like midnight anyway. When she gets a mad going it takes a while for her to blow herself out. Three hours of sleep after a taste of Hurricane Pris and I probably would've dropped my own mother for looking at me crossways.

“Better be good,” I said into the intercom once I managed to make it there. “I mean really good.” It took me a few seconds to remember that I had to depress the button marked LISTEN before I could, so I missed the first part of what he had to say.

“– us in, man,” said a voice I found a little familiar. “We're in deep shit.”

Switching to the SPEAK button I said, “Who’s this?”

“Bobby, man,” said the static crackled voice. “Come on. Let us in.”

A picture of a skinny twitchy white guy who looked like he'd been constructed from a bunch of hastily assembled birch saplings popped into my head. Bobby Locane. The Bug. Yeah, I knew him. I knew him well enough to know that, if he was in deep shit, he probably deserved it.

“Who's us?” I said. “Me and Queen,” said Bobby through the static. Oh, great. Queen Babs and Bobby-the-fucking-Bug Locane. Just what I fucking need at three-fucking-o'clock in the morning. Why do these idiots always come to me when they get in over their heads? It's not like I can do anything to make them smarter or faster or capable of telling the truth. And why in the hell do I always let them in?

“Yeah, all right,” I said into the speaker. “Two minutes.”