The Guilty Dead

by P. J. Tracy

  He used to watch people and imagine what their lives were like, where they were going, what their hopes and fears were. He’d stopped doing that when he’d realized that none of them were wondering about him, and because of that deficit in character and intellectual curiosity, very few would ever make an impact or even a ripple in the world. They would just live their lives, unaffected and unaffecting: some would trudge along and carry out their mortal sentence in a purgatory of anonymity; some would become victims; and a few would victimize. Eventually they would all die and be forgotten. But nobody would forget Gus Riskin, even after he was dead.

  He cast off his dark introspection and washed his dishes in the sink, then placed them carefully in the drying rack. He wasn’t the best housekeeper, but it was important to keep things tidy ‒ a place for everything, everything in its place, his mother had always told him. When he was satisfied with the kitchen, he gathered what he needed for the day and placed the items by the door, then made his daily visit to the strongbox in the bedroom closet.

  Today would be the last time for this private ritual, which was a shame, because it was the part of the day he’d always looked forward to most. But you had to learn to let go of even the most cherished things eventually as they came to their ordained terminus. There was always something better ahead.

  He inserted the old key into the lock and turned it slowly, closing his eyes when he heard the soft click as it disengaged. He always felt a surge of panic just before he opened the lid, then rapture when he saw the beautiful green bills packed almost to the top. It was all still there, of course it was. It couldn’t walk off on its own, now could it? And the best part was, every single bill represented the suffering of those who deserved it.

  For a brief moment, he pondered what his life would be like if he abandoned his work and just disappeared with the money. He could get himself a nice little place in the desert—Arizona or New Mexico—where there were no highways, no self-absorbed people; a place where nobody would bother him. Maybe he’d settle down with a lady, get a dog, maybe even some chickens. He could have a nice, normal life.

  He pulled out some of the precious stacks of bills from his private ATM, stuffed them into a duffel bag, then reluctantly closed the lid and relocked the box, pocketing the key. He’d come back later for the rest.

  He suddenly felt a sense of lightness, of freedom, as he walked toward the door. A burden had finally been lifted and he understood with perfect clarity that he wasn’t meant to have a normal life. It wasn’t his destiny to go through his time here without making a ripple. An impact.

  He locked up, took the stairs down to Abdi’s third-floor apartment and rapped sharply on the door. Footsteps thudded within, and the door cracked open, showing Gus a sliver of the little man’s ferret face and suspicious, darting eyes.

  “Let me in, man. I’ve got a busy day.”

  Abdi unhooked the security chain and opened the door, releasing an acrid wave of burned onion and bitter coffee. “Come in, come in, hurry.”

  He eyed the duffel bag with the same kind of fierce lust Gus had seen in Lucky’s eyes when he’d shown her the packet of heroin, right before he’d killed her with it. Kindly. She’d been headed in that direction anyhow, and Gus felt like he’d done her a favor by saving her from the protracted suffering and indignity of her life. Maybe Lucky hadn’t been such an inappropriate moniker for her after all.

  Abdi pointed at the duffel urgently. “What I asked for?”

  “As long as you have the rest of what I need, it’s all yours.” He partially unzipped the duffel and gave him a glimpse of green.

  Abdi hemmed in a smile and shuffled into a bedroom, while Gus looked around the quiet apartment. It was a dump, like the rest of the units in this building, but he did like the colorful woven rug hanging on the wall. All the geometric shapes in bright primary colors reminded him of a Rubik’s Cube.

  A few minutes later, Abdi came back with a cardboard shipping box and placed it gently on a folding table. “This is it, friend. The rest of what you need.” He smiled and showed the shiny gold cap on one of his front teeth. “Be careful. Otherwise ‒ KABOOM!” He threw up his hands dramatically, then started laughing. “Just joking.”

  “Yeah. Kaboom. You’re hilarious.”

  “You remember how to do? What I showed you?”

  Gus nodded as he sorted through the box bristling with wires and laden with electronic components. All he needed to do was add the juice. “I remember.”

  “Schematics in the bottom, in case you forget. But don’t finish your work here. Put them together someplace else.”

  “No shit. I’m not a dumbass, I’ve got a place.” He looked around the apartment. “Where is everybody this morning?”

  “Doing their jobs for today. Every day we work. You, too. We’re a good team. Mutually beneficial, yes?”

  “Yep, very.” Gus smiled. “Everybody gets something out of this.”

  Abdi suddenly became very serious, which always heralded a tiring, mindless platitude. “The Almighty Prophet will reward you for your holy work in his service.”

  “Seventy-two virgins when I get to Paradise, right?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “You know, I never really got that. Shit, I’d rather have seventy-two whores in this life, wouldn’t you?”

  Abdi’s face screwed up in disbelief, then rage. “How dare you mock ‒”

  “You take yourself way too seriously, Abdi. You’ve gotta loosen up a little. Don’t forget, you need me to make things happen, so I’ve kind of got you by the balls.” He chuckled and gestured to the bag of money. “When you think of it, you should be paying me, not the other way around, so I think it’s time to negotiate.”

  The little fucker was fast and the dagger seemed to appear out of nowhere, but Gus was faster. He heard the satisfying sound of bones snapping as he wrenched it out of Abdi’s hand. To his credit, he didn’t scream. He didn’t make any sound at all, except for a pained grunt. “I don’t think your friends are going to call the cops if you go missing, do you?”

  Abdi was skinny, so it wasn’t hard to crush his trachea and send him to Paradise to meet his seventy-two virgins, although he did put up a decent fight. Gus thought about taking his gold tooth for a little extra spending money, but ultimately decided the mess it would make wasn’t worth it.

  The killing had been easy, but stuffing him into a Hefty trash bag and carrying him out to the Dumpster was a bitch. It took all of his strength to make it look like he was casually tossing in an everyday bag of rubbish, just in case anybody was watching. But he didn’t think anybody was. This building had two kinds of tenant—the ones who had jobs and were long-gone by now, or the unemployed losers who lived off welfare, drank all night, and slept until noon.

  Actually, now that he thought about it, there were three kinds of tenant, the third being a small terrorist cell with great connections overseas and a broad knowledge of important things, like bomb-making and operational cyber security. Too bad they were one man down today.

  His timing was perfect, just as he’d planned. As he ambled to his car with his duffel full of money, a Waste Management truck rolled up to take out the trash.

  CHAPTER

  6

  MAGOZZI HAD NEVER been able to tear his gaze away from Grace MacBride, or not for long and only when absolutely necessary to preserve the illusion that he was polite company. She had been the recipient of a one-in-a-billion genetic lottery: a brilliant mind housed inside a vessel of epic beauty. Her black hair and porcelain doll’s face alone could silence a room, but of all her abundant charms, her eyes were what captivated him most.

  Actually, they hypnotized him. They were a piercing, crystalline blue that shot fireworks in his gut in a strange, primeval way, but still dark and stormy enough to hide secrets. And Grace had a lot of them ‒ a scant few he knew about, but there were a lot more he didn’t, and maybe never would.

  They were sitting side by side in Adirondack chairs by the
lake, sipping coffee in loose, easy companionship. She was cradling her very pregnant belly with one hand—a completely unconscious gesture, he’d come to realize ‒ for support, comfort, or both, and her gaze was fixed on the still, flat plate of blue water in front of her. Even from the side, her eyes were compelling.

  She wasn’t wearing her Sig Sauer this morning, but the 9mm was resting on the arm of her chair, within easy reach, a jolting reminder that her dark past was still very much a part of her present, even in this peaceful bucolic setting. If anything, the pregnancy had heightened her defenses, made her more vigilant, if such a thing was possible.

  There was a third chair for Charlie, but it was vacant. On this hot August morning, he had chosen a shady spot by his mistress’s feet to snore off his Sisyphean squirrel chase.

  “Do you think Charlie is ever going to get in the water?”

  Grace reached down and ruffled the dog’s wiry hair. The stub of his tail wagged a weak, sleepy acknowledgment, but other than that, he remained motionless. “He’s not a water dog. The vet thinks he’s mostly terrier.”

  “Ah. Rodent killers. That explains his obsession with squirrels. But his stats suck. In the few months I’ve had this place, he’s zero and a hundred at least.”

  “Entirely intentional. He’s a pacifist.”

  Magozzi smiled and watched a loon float by the dock, then dive for a fish snack. It felt like he had always lived there and nowhere else. He still owned the small house in the middle of the city where he’d spent most of his adult life, but everything about it ‒ mostly bad things, thanks to his ex-wife ‒ had faded from his memory, like a troubling dream. And, hopefully, he wouldn’t own it for much longer. “I think Johnny McLaren’s going to put an offer in on the house.”

  She turned to look at him, visibly surprised, a rare state for her. “McLaren?”

  “Said he wants to plant some roots, start a family, have some kids.”

  “Is he putting the cart before the horse, or does he have a candidate in mind?”

  “Gloria. He’s been infatuated with her ever since he made detective.”

  Grace was no longer visibly surprised, she was downright stupefied. “Seriously?”

  “It might not be such a bad match. He just has to talk her into it.”

  “I don’t think the Cerberus of Homicide can be talked into anything.”

  “I don’t know. They’ve got some kind of weird chemistry going. Every time he passes by her desk, he starts singing ‘Ebony And Ivory.’ And the crazy thing? I think she likes it. I know she likes it, because she always threatens him with grave bodily harm when he does it.”

  “She’s a charmer. Good luck to him ‒ he’ll need it.”

  Magozzi thought about the one time Grace had come into contact with Gloria, two strong personalities butting heads in a big way. Both women were tough and street-smart, and under different circumstances, they would probably have appreciated one another. But at the time, Grace had been a person of interest in a multiple homicide, and Gloria gave no quarter to people like that. “Guilty until proven innocent” was her personal mantra, and she had no qualms about making her disdain known. And Grace had no qualms about standing up to a challenge.

  He reached over and placed his hands over hers, over their baby. He wouldn’t have dared such an intrusion on her inviolate personal space eight months ago, but things were different now. He had a real place in her life, an irrevocable connection that hadn’t existed before.

  He felt a kick that he interpreted as a greeting to Daddy, and smiled. “I’m making a prediction—two weeks. I’m putting my money on August twenty-fifth.”

  She narrowed her spectacular eyes suspiciously. “Do you and Gino have a running bet?”

  “Totally busted.”

  “What does he think?”

  “He thinks eight days.”

  She cocked a brow at him. “Men never grow up, do they?”

  “Never.”

  “Well, may the best man-child win.” She patted his hands impatiently. “Come on. It’s time to go to work.”

  Magozzi freed her hands, letting her reclaim her space. “Ride together?”

  “Sure. But I might stay in town for a couple days. Harley, Annie, and Roadrunner are almost finished with the database for our new software and they’ve been at it around the clock. They could use another working partner.”

  “Monkeewrench doesn’t offer maternity leave to one of its founders?”

  “Are you kidding? Harley’s been trying to get me on bed rest for the past seven months. I’m incubating precious cargo, you know.”

  Magozzi chuckled. “He actually said that?”

  “Almost a direct quote.”

  “Vintage Harley. But he has a point. It wouldn’t hurt to take it easy until the baby comes.”

  She waved a hand dismissively. “Women used to work in the fields up until the day they gave birth.”

  “Does that mean you’ll mow the lawn tomorrow?”

  “Anytime. Fortunately, you don’t have a lawn. You live in the woods now.”

  Magozzi settled more deeply into his chair and smiled. “So what’s this new database that everybody’s so gung-ho about?”

  “It’s a freelance project. We’ve actually been working on it for a long time, but we’re closing in on a finish.”

  “That’s vague. And slightly mysterious.”

  Grace lifted a shoulder. “Not really. Do you want me to bore you with the details?”

  “Not the technical stuff I won’t understand, but the general concept, yeah.”

  “Generally? It’s a prototype of an integrated anti-terror database and tracking system for local and state law enforcement, a repository of orphaned terror suspects under federal investigation or surveillance who don’t have vigilant eyes on them anymore because of a manpower shortage or budget restrictions. It red-flags ongoing suspicious behavior via the Internet so the locals know whether or not to keep an eye on them when the feds can’t.”

  Magozzi felt his stomach squeeze, like he’d just eaten something a little off. Monkeewrench navigated the murky water between right and wrong, legal and illegal, all the time in their computer work, and he and Gino had been right beside them on some of those occasions, but he didn’t like the sound of this. There was a fine line between privacy and national security—a little something called the Constitution. “It sounds fantastic in theory, but it also sounds like something that could be wildly abused.”

  “Not when it’s constrained to the limits of existing law.”

  Magozzi grunted cynically. “And who do you trust to keep it constrained? The NSA?”

  She gave him a bemused look, as if the answer was a low-hanging, perfectly ripe peach he wasn’t clever enough to reach up and pick. “The program, of course.”

  “The computer program?”

  “Yes. It’s very smart. We built in safeguards we can activate so it will only reference the FBI’s existing watch list and mine accounts associated with active cases, not the population at large.”

  “But it’s basically an automated hacking program, right?”

  “Federal cyber surveillance is legal hacking, Magozzi. The feds do this all the time, but right now, it takes hundreds of eyes-on hours to sort through the metadata their programs generate. Ours does it all by itself. Think of it this way. Right now, the feds are using a magnifying glass. This program is an electron microscope.” She assessed his troubled expression and apparently decided to take pity on him. “Don’t worry, Magozzi. The Fourth Amendment is safer in our hands than anybody else’s. It’s nothing to be afraid of, just something to hope for.”

  Magozzi reached down to give Charlie a pat on the head. He was still unresponsive after his squirrel hunt. “The feds do have over a thousand open terror investigations in all fifty states, and giving local law enforcement consistent, reliable access to their intelligence would be smart. Especially when you have some idiots on high telling you love, compassion and jobs programs are th
e only tools you need to combat a murderous global political ideology.”

  “Exactly. That kind of attitude didn’t work out so well for Neville Chamberlain and the rest of the world, did it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s astounding, the human capacity to fixate on a maudlin concept, even if it’s totally delusional and defies logic.”

  “Emotion is the antithesis of logic. If somebody gets the promise of an easy happy ending, they’ll buy it over reality any day. Snake-oil salesmen have job security forever. Washington D.C. is a perfect example—it grows Sophists faster than a Petri dish grows bacteria.”

  Grace turned to look at him, giving him the opportunity to more closely examine her eyes. Yep ‒ still crystalline blue, still hypnotizing, still shooting fireworks in his gut. “I didn’t realize you were a Socrates fan.”

  “Yeah, we go way back.”

  “Played football together, did you?”

  “No, we were on the debate team.”

  She granted him a sly smile, then stood up and Charlie sparked to life. Dogs were amazing that way. They could wake up from a stone-cold sleep and take a ten-mile run with you, just like that. “Let’s go. You’re going to be late and so am I.”

  Magozzi reset his mind to the here and now, to the things that were most important in this moment. “What do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “Junior. When is he or she coming? Two weeks or eight days? By the way, you’re welcome to throw some money into the pot.”

  Grace looked out at the lake one last time before heading up to the house, a Mona Lisa smile playing on her lips. “You’re both wrong.”