Blood Ties

by Robert J. Crane

  “Don’t you need a warrant for this?” Mendelsohn asked.

  “If I had to guess, I’ve been suspended by the FBI pending disciplinary action,” I said. This was a three-room apartment—living room, bathroom, bedroom. The action was all in the living room, where Bermudez had a computer set up. And still running, without a screen saver. “I couldn’t get a warrant right now if I wanted to, so, no. I’m just breaking and entering as a private citizen.” I stared at the screen. “If SFPD puts as much emphasis on residential burglaries as they do auto ones, we’ll be fine.”

  “Heh,” Mendelsohn laughed weakly, probably because he was aware we were committing a felony. “See anything?”

  “Chat bar,” I said, pointing at the screen. I didn’t want to touch anything because of prints, evidentiary rules, etc. But this...

  I read it quickly. It extended all the way to the top of the screen, maybe beyond. Couldn’t tell without touching the mouse, which I didn’t want to do. It was pretty straightforward—Bermudez had been having a conversation with someone about his evil plans, and it laid out the basics, at least in vague terms.

  “That parking lot is in the Presidio,” Mendelsohn said. “But we’ve got a couple hours yet before the rendezvous.”

  “Yeah,” I said, looking around quickly. There wasn’t a lot of...well, anything. “Does this place look like Steve Jobs’s house in that biopic to you?”

  Mendelsohn didn’t have to look around; there wasn’t much to see. “Yes. It appears Mr. Bermudez is a minimalist. What do you suppose the transaction is here?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, looking back at the chat box. “But he’s getting something he wants, and it sounds like he’s using it right then and there. Which is not good, I assume, unless it’s something innocuous, like a complete collection of Beanie Babies.”

  “Or some drugs?” Mendelsohn grinned, then grimaced, apparently reaching the same conclusion I went to, but a second later.

  “Can you imagine Grendel on cocaine or PCP?” I shuddered, for very good reasons. “I’m really rooting for the Beanie Baby collection now.” I took a breath. “Probably not that lucky, though.”

  “Who do you suppose he’s talking to here?” Mendelsohn asked, leaning in.

  A single letter denoted the other party in the conversation: M.

  “Not you, is it?” I asked, trying to keep it light in spite of the fact that I’d been betrayed like this a time or twelve before.

  “Ah, no,” Mendelsohn said, shaking his head emphatically.

  “Drat,” I said, staring at the letter as though it might reveal some grand secret heretofore kept hidden. “Jaime Chapman, Berniece Adams, Hollister McKay—hey, there’s an M.”

  “You just running through the list of people you’ve met since you got here?” Mendelsohn asked.

  “Yeah, I typically find that in an investigation—and most cops find this, too—you run across the perp in the course of the preliminary because they’re generally somewhat close to the crime. Unless it’s a random act.” I tapped a finger on my chin. “But this isn’t random. Grendel’s been seeking things out, apparently on behalf of this M. M is rewarding Grendel with something that will let Bermudez get his revenge.” That was all right there in the conversational thread. Hell, Bermudez’s responses were practically dripping with enthusiasm.

  He wanted to do this—whatever it was—ASAP.

  It was happening today. In the next couple hours.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” I said, under my breath. “Let’s head to the Presidio.”

  89.

  Veronika

  “Huh,” Veronika said, looking at her phone. She only stared at it for a second before shaking her head and putting it down. Ridiculous, as always.

  “What?” Berniece looked over at her through sleepy, half-closed eyes. They were all still cloistered in the bunker beneath the Mountain View mansion. Had been all night, or at least ever since they’d blown off the fight club event. It was starting to get a little ripe in here, but Veronika wasn’t going to suggest anyone leave. They were all making the kind of overtime rates that you could retire on, even as long-lived metas. And all for just sitting here.

  “More stupid Friday drama,” Veronika said after a second of warring with herself over whether to say anything.

  Berniece thought about it a second, her reactions clearly slowed by fatigue. She hadn’t slept. None of them had, but only Hollister seemed unfazed by it. He was still cranking away in the corner at...well, something. “That’s the big idiot, right? The one who said all lesbians are angry?”

  Veronika rolled her eyes. Couldn’t help it. “Yeah. That guy.”

  Bernice chuckled. “What’d he do now?”

  “Oh, well,” Veronika said, pulling out her phone and reloading the news item she’d just checked out. “He was running half-naked up the 101 about ten minutes ago.” She held her phone out for Berniece to see as the video played.

  “What’s this?” Kristina dipped in over Berniece’s shoulder. “Oooh. That man has muscles on top of his muscles. I’m all for a well-built gentleman, but that is just excessive.”

  Tyler stuck his head in, too, peering down. “He looks like a comic book artist’s rendition of muscles. But taken to an extreme.”

  “Watch,” Veronika said. Friday was really hauling ass down the side of the highway, then leapt up and over a sound dampening fence, out of sight.

  “How fast do you think he was moving?” Kristina asked, still watching as the video looped.

  “I don’t know, but I hope he doesn’t stop when he hits the bay.” Chase was hunched over Tyler’s shoulder, sneering. Of course. She had reason to dislike Friday.

  “Well, at that speed he’ll be there in just a little while,” Veronika said. “Half an hour maybe, given he’s going cross-country.”

  Berniece got a glazed look in her eyes, then blinked them back to clarity. “Hollister, dear? I feel like working at our downtown offices today. Don’t you?”

  “No,” Hollister mumbled, not looking up from whatever he was doing.

  “Yes, I think we should go downtown,” Berniece said, rising. “We’ll pack up and head to the tower offices.” She held back just the barest smile. “That way, if anything interesting comes from this—and I almost feel like it will—we’ll be well placed to act on it.”

  Veronika exchanged a look with Chase, who burned with contempt. Neither said anything, though, until Veronika spoke for everyone. “You’re the boss, boss,” she said. What else could you say?

  90.

  Friday

  Just keep running.

  Just keep running.

  Don’t let them shoot you down like a rabid dog in the street.

  Keep running.

  Sure, he was tired. But being shot down? That was forever.

  “Ain’t no cop...gonna shoot me down...” Friday mumbled, taking another flying leap across the landscape.

  Had to get away...

  91.

  Sienna

  “I take it this Presidio is a tourist attraction?” I asked as we pulled onto Lincoln Way, skirting the edge of Golden Gate Park as we cruised along. It was just one long tree-lined boulevard, seemingly stretching into infinity ahead. But not infinity, because we were about to make a left turn through the park, according to my GPS.

  “Yep,” Mendelsohn said.

  “Great, people,” I muttered. “I love being around people. Especially right now.”

  “They’ll forget all this,” Mendelsohn said. “Given some time.”

  “I suppose it’s not a murder rap, so it’s more likely than them just forgiving the last thing I did.”

  “Here’s a question for you, though—when are you going to forgive for this?” Mendelsohn asked.

  I thumped my elbow against the window and made a face. “What?”

  “Friday,” Mendelsohn said, not taking his eyes off the road. Traffic was heavy, but not ridiculous. “When are you going to forgive him for what he did here?”
/>
  I felt a tension in my shoulders. I had started to answer, “What’s there to forgive?” But I couldn’t get it out. “He didn’t...slander me,” I managed lamely.

  “But he did do some things that blew back on you, rather grandly,” Mendelsohn said. “There’s certainly grievance. Reason for you to be mad. So...are you?”

  “Yeah,” I said at last, begrudgingly, pairing the admission with a sigh. “I guess I am pretty pissed that he messed things up for me. Again.”

  “Then...when are you going to forgive him for it?” Mendelsohn asked.

  That prompted a world-class, Sienna RBF frown. “Uh, when he’s earned it?”

  Mendelsohn shook his head. “That’s not how forgiveness works.”

  “Look, I don’t have to forgive him,” I said. “I can carry a grudge for, like...decades, if I want to, okay? Grudges are light and I have strength to spare.”

  “I can understand that philosophy and maybe even agree with it,” Mendelsohn said, “for the ordinary people you meet who’ve wronged you.” He was shaking his head. “But that’s not Friday.”

  “He’s not ordinary, that’s for sure.”

  “I mean...he’s family to you,” Mendelsohn said softly. “And you can’t give up on family.”

  I opened my mouth to spit out a quick, savage response, but...

  I thought about my mom locking me up for a decade to keep me safe—at my request. Something she didn’t want to do, something I butted heads with her for, hated her for at times.

  She’d died to save me, the ungrateful teen pain in the ass who was actually the cause of most of my own suffering.

  “Maybe,” I said instead. All I could manage.

  “I think it’s really easy to marginalize someone,” Mendelsohn said. “‘Oh, he’s stupid’ when someone like Friday does something ill thought-out. Or dumb, if you prefer. But when he talked with us, ignorant as he might have been, he had no malice in his heart.”

  “Right, he was just...big and pig-ignorant,” I said. “His mouth outran his brain’s leash.”

  Mendelsohn chuckled. “I see a lot of this on the internet. Ascribing the worst motives to people and then nuking them from orbit—”

  “Just to be sure, you know.”

  “I believe marginalizing people is wrong, whoever it’s done to,” Mendelsohn said. “Whether it’s my great-grandparents in Germany during World War II or some hip atheist sneering at a religious person, it’s wrong to look down on others, to feel you’re better than they. Popular, sure. But an easy way to stir resentment that festers and lasts long beyond the calling of it.”

  “Yeah, but some people just suck,” I said.

  “And you don’t have to like them,” Mendelsohn said. “Or agree with them. But ascribing bad motivations to them? Well, that’s judging, and there’s no tolerance to that. None of us are our best selves every day. Friday certainly wasn’t when he posted what he did. If you’re part of the rest of the internet mob, I guess you have the luxury of hating a stranger. But if he’s family...”

  “Ugh...” I lowered my head. “Why do you have to make this so difficult? Can’t I just be mad at his stupidity? Forever?”

  “You can,” Mendelsohn said. “You can hold a grudge forever. And you’ll be bitter and angry and frustrated and I don’t think you’ll know real joy because you’ll be so busy holding on to the part of you that hates.”

  I just stared at him across the seat as he pulled into a parking space. “Yeah. Well. I’ll think about that forgiveness thing and get back to you, how about that?”

  Mendelsohn chortled. “I wasn’t expecting you to do it right this second. That would be miraculous.”

  “Good, because I need time to pull off my miracles,” I said, as we turned into the park. The rendezvous was inching closer.

  Time was running out.

  92.

  The Presidio was a sprawling section of land that overlooked the Golden Gate bridge, a former military base decommissioned in the drawdown after the Cold War and turned into a park/corporate HQ/historical zone. The location Grendel and his backer had chosen for their exchange was close to the bridge, the parking lot for its overlook, actually.

  “I’ll just park here,” Mendelsohn said, putting the BMW parallel to the curb next to a white building that looked like an old military barracks. It had been rehabbed, repainted, maybe turned into a civilian townhouse or something. It was tough to tell from the drab exterior.

  “Better here than on the sidewalk, I guess,” I said, popping the door and stepping out into the cool, cloudy day. The air smelled of salt water; the ocean was just on the other side of that big orange bridge, really.

  “How do you want to handle this?” Mendelsohn asked, looking around. He couldn’t have been more conspicuous if I’d stuck him in a neon gown and heels and told him to walk the damned street to make some cash.

  “Casually,” I said, nodding to his posture, which would have made ramrod straight look relaxed. “We’re out for a walk. We’re just normal people doing normal things in San Francisco, like walking or yoga or whatever.”

  “I am fairly certain yoga would look out of place here,” Mendelsohn said.

  “You’d be more likely to blend in doing yoga right now than walking around like you’re smuggling a dumbbell between your butt cheeks,” I said. “As you presently are.”

  Mendelsohn stiffened, though I’m not sure how that was physically possible. “Casual. Right.” He relaxed twenty percent or so.

  I patted him on the shoulder. “You’re getting there. Now keep in mind, our boy is probably going to be sporting a very normal look, because his other option is to come in hot wearing yellow and a big, bony body and drawing all manner of attention. I’m guessing he’s not all about that since I don’t hear any screaming.”

  “So we’re looking for a white van...” Mendelsohn said as we started toward the overlook. It was across a couple roads, and traffic was relatively light.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Which means we’re on the lookout for the kind driven by workmen and perverts.” He shot me a quizzical look. “You know, where they offer the candy? You have no idea what I’m talking about?” He shook his head. “You’re such an innocent.”

  We walked down the hill, me trying to let my eyes scan behind my sunglasses without acting like my suspicious head was on a swivel. I wasn’t in disguise, which probably wasn’t a great help, but I was trying to blend in.

  That lasted to about halfway down the hill, when an angry voice rent the air.

  “Homophobe!”

  I turned my head to see two moms in yoga pants power-walking toward me with the most outraged looks on their faces. I couldn’t tell if they’d been into the Pinot already this morning or what, but they looked peeved. And they didn’t back off when I gave them a look of blank disbelief.

  “Yeah, I read what you said about lesbians,” the blond one shouted at me. She was wearing a sports bra in lieu of a shirt, capri-height yoga pants in blue, and sunglasses with her pissed-off look. Like she’d just walked down from Hillsborough Heights and decided to bring a few bolts of verbal thunder with her. “You’re sick and depraved.”

  “I didn’t write shit,” I tossed back, because I’m really bad about taking fire without returning it, “so if you think you read something I wrote about lesbians, you’re an illiterate and a simpleton. Also, and I know this is the pot calling the kettle, but those pants don’t make you look fat, but your ass does.”

  She gasped, mouth falling open, shocked that I’d have the audacity to not take her verbal lashing. “HOMOPHOBE!” she shouted, then started power-walking away with her friend.

  “Homo-phobe, homo-phobe,” someone chanted behind me. I turned and found a group of frat-boy-looking tourists with their cell phones out, yelling at me, laughing, filming the whole thing. Whether they were serious or trolling was a matter up for debate.

  “I’m not feeling like that forgiveness you mentioned is in the cards anytime soon,” I said to Mend
elsohn, who looked like he wanted to crawl between the cracks of the sidewalk and pull them tightly closed behind him. To his credit, though, he didn’t run.

  Being called unpleasant names by a crowd of bros was not the highlight of my day. The only thing missing was my nakedness and the intermittent sound of a bell rung by a nun declaring, “SHAME!” The chanting continued, and they followed us as Mendelsohn and I kept going down the hillside toward the overlook parking lot, my fear that we were completely screwed by all this attention growing with every step.

  93.

  Michael Bermudez

  The chants were loud and growing in intensity with every passing second.

  Bermudez was standing about twenty paces from the white van when he heard them, the sound breaking through his consciousness dimly, all at once, surprising him. Who the hell would be chanting such a thing, randomly, here on a street in the Presidio?

  Then he saw who, and furthermore, who they were chanting to.

  “Her,” he whispered, fury growing in him like a bitter seed sprouting.

  Caught between the van containing all he wanted, and her—who he still wanted to gut, again—he froze.

  But only for a second.

  “Plenty of time to push the button later,” he said, and his clothes started to shred, his skin growing yellow and his claws beginning to bulge from his bones.

  Because there was plenty of time to kill now.

  94.

  Friday

  He stopped running somewhere south of downtown San Francisco, stumbling to a stop, huffing like he was going to die.

  Hell, he might. He was stooped over, breathing hard, so hard it blew away a stray newspaper. Hyperventilating almost, trying to get those lungs full again.

  At least they’d stopped shooting at him. He’d outrun them, of course, with his manly legs and eye-popping core power which he used to jump out of their stupid range. Friday flexed. Solid muscle, he was. Like a wall of muscle. Pure meat. Hot meat.