39

I found Dominick alone in his office, going through a stack of accounting sheets, most of them liberally doused with red ink Even if the DeGreasy syndicate had been rock-solid financially, I wondered how long it would stay that way under the guidance of a man who couldn’t read through profit and loss statements without moving his lips. “I brought you a present,” I told him and held up Roger’s teakettle.

“That’s it,” shouted Dominick, lunging across his desk at me. “That’s my teakettle. Give it here.” He grabbed the teakettle and tried to yank it out of my hand.

I pulled out my pistol and buried it to the trigger in his bloated stomach. “Not so fast. First the answers to a few questions. Then the teakettle.”

He backed off. Usually when you got the drop on a guy, his eyes look to your peashooter. I been on the receiving end of that proposition often enough to know. I guess you figure if you watch closely enough you can maybe jump sideways before the bullet hits you. But Dominick, he was different. As far as he was concerned, the gun might as well have not been there. His eyes never left that teakettle, not once. “Sure, sure, I’ll answer anything you want.”

I moved the teakettle back and forth. Dominick’s eyes followed it like a snake’s. “I know this isn’t a teakettle. I know it’s really a magic lantern. I know you and your brother were born Toons. I know you used this to turn yourselves into humans and to make successes of yourselves in the comic business. Now the effects are wearing off. Your syndicate’s going bankrupt, and you’re becoming a Toon again. You need your last wish to get things back to where you want them. Right so far?”

Dominick nodded.

“Tell me what you did to try and get the magic lantern away from Roger.”

Dominick reached for a smoke, put it into his lips, and tried to light it. After two attempts and a badly scorched nose, he finally looked away from the lantern long enough to do the job right. “We tried everything. We tried to break into his bungalow, but we couldn’t because of this fancy burglar alarm system he had. Rocco tried setting up meetings there just to get inside.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I remember Rocco wanted me to arrange one for him.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Dominick. “Nothing worked. The rabbit wouldn’t let Rocco or me into his bungalow for any reason. He didn’t trust us.”

“Imagine that,” I said.

“After Roger died, I went over there for one last shot at it. The cops hadn’t reset his alarm, so I had no trouble getting in. I turned the place upside down, but the lantern had vanished. I couldn’t find it nowhere.”

That explained the mess Roger and I had stumbled into when we went back to his place. I asked my next question even though I already knew the answer. “Did you kill Roger? And remember, you lie to me, you never see this magic lantern again.”

Dominick slammed his hands on his desk for emphasis.

“No, I didn’t kill the bunny. I would have, and gladly, if I’d had the chance, but I never got it.”

I believed him. If he had done the deed, he would have picked up the magic lantern after it went out Roger’s door. The same held true for Jessica.

“That’s the truth,” said Dominick. “So help me.”

There seemed to be only one chance of getting this mess straightened out, and I took it. I tossed Dominick the lantern.

He caught it and hugged it to his chest, stroking it from spigot to handle the way you would a cat. “How about you leave me alone with it,” he said, “so I can make my wish in private.”

“My pleasure,” I said. I went out into his deserted hallway, shut the door, and pressed my ear against it.

Inside I heard Dominick DeGreasy recite the words, “May your dreams come true.” This time the words produced a response, a loud whooshing noise and a shout from DeGreasy.

I heard another voice inside the room, and I heard a gunshot.

DeGreasy cried out.

I tried to open the door, but DeGreasy had it locked. I put my shoulder to it, and shoved. It crashed off the hinges, and I stumbled inside.

I nearly tripped over DeGreasy, lying on the floor. Dead. The lantern sat beside him, just beyond his outstretched hand.

Encased in a cloud of smoke rising up from out of the lantern’s spout was a genuine, bona fide genie, complete with nose ring and turban. In his hand he held an ancient pirate pistol that looked as if it contained bullets of the same caliber as those that had killed Roger.

The genie had that ancient pistol pointed directly at my head.