Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick (Zoey Ashe #2)

by David Wong

What’s the money doing for you?” “Other than allow me to get the absolute best medicine, food, housing, and transportation? Plus warmth in the winter and AC in the summer? And total freedom to go anywhere, anytime, plus power and influence and protection from anyone who would do me harm? Plus a whole world of men who actually have to take my opinions seriously? Other than that, you’re right, it’s just numbers in a bank account.”

Despite everything that’d happened the night before, Echo looked like a collector had kept her in her original box until just now.

Zoey said, “My god, were you in an accident on the way home? Did your face hit a truck carrying some kind of horrible toxic waste?” Echo said, “Funny you should say that, because on the way home I waved to you on the sidewalk, but it turned out it wasn’t you, it was a dumpster full of butts. There was a hospital there. And that’s where they throw away their old butts.”

I love how they just have this casual antagonism that is mostly just insults and no real ire.

What happened to Will’s hand?” “He won’t say.” “Probably bit himself in the frenzy of a hot dog eating contest.”

Deedee, this is Zoey. You know how we did that thing with the pig heart yesterday? Well, Zoey eats people for real.” Deedee seemed unimpressed. “It’s a free country. This ain’t Idaho.”

“Never had any use for cats myself. Tell you what, when you watch his feed, notice that cats don’t meow when there are no people around, not even to each other. They only do it to us, that’s a sound they make to mimic a human baby’s cry, to get us to pay attention to them. I have enough people like that in my life already.”

“Dogs are too easy, they love anybody. A dog will love a stranger. A dog will love a log that sort of smells like a person. Cats make you earn it, it means something when they finally come around.

“Ah, it’s a solid life rule that if Will Blackwater hands you a weapon, it either isn’t loaded or there is a much larger one pointed at your back.

if you should ever decide to cut ties with Will and make him your enemy, your best strategy will be to find a time machine and transport yourself back to a point where you can undo that decision.”

“Right, everything is terrible. I’m getting discouraged, Budd, tell me a joke.” Without hesitation, Budd said, “A pirate walks into a bar. He’s got a steering wheel sticking out of his fly. Bartender says, ‘That looks uncomfortable’ and the pirate says, ‘Yarrgh, it’s driving me nuts!’”

OMG that's the one and only joke I am able to recount on demand, too.

And I apologize if you’re offended by me calling your father a dick, but please keep in mind that I’m only doing that because your father is a dick.”

Marti looked at her like she had just asked which end of the human the pizza goes into.

Fear was interest paid on money you didn’t even owe.

“I’ve got to say, it’s a miraculous system you’ve built here. At one end you have an unthinkable act of evil, then the guilt for it gets chopped up and dispersed so that it comes out the other end as a cool breeze.”

“I want you to know that while you’re making this speech, all I’m hearing is a series of fart noises coming out of your mouth.”

In the end, it had just been that little group of yelling guys, so few that you could stuff them all into a single van. That’s all it had taken to generate enough noise and ugliness to create the illusion that the entire species was against her.

The internet in a nutshell, huh?

In his careful staging of the scene, Will had turned Zoey into an underdog, someone to root for. An everyday woman just trying to do her best in absurdly awful circumstances.

Can we finally admit Will is a fucking genius? I always kind of sided with him.

“Look at you, operating with bad intentions because you assume everyone else is doing the same. It’s like every awful person I’ve ever known works from the same playbook.”

Zoey said, “If you don’t want them to destroy your door, maybe go over there and open it?” “I would not do that to a man,” Chobb said. “To get all pumped up to breach a door, only to have someone just pull it open instead? I am not capable of such cruelty.”

Echo got a view of the blood on the back of Zoey’s shirt. “Are you okay?” “How do I look?” “Like you died and were resurrected by someone who got distracted halfway through.”

“For someone who is an actual professional criminal, you have a strangely utopian view of humanity.”

Will never showed up, which was not a surprise as he’d said not to expect him. He was nothing if not dependable: when Will said he wasn’t coming to your thing, you could bet he’d do whatever it took to not be there.

“It’s strange how you simultaneously have an impossibly high and impossibly low opinion of me.” “You keep exceeding my expectations in both directions.