The Man Who Crossed Worlds (Miles Franco #1)

by Chris Strange

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It did strange things to your head, finding yourself on the run from the cops. It was different than running from gangsters or pissed-off customers, where you could identify the people who were hunting you. When you were a fugitive, you were on the outside. You were an enemy to society, and anyone who saw your picture on the six o’clock news could send the cops in your direction. The paranoia set in, and pretty soon you were so wrapped up in the role of fugitive you had no recollection of the man you were before.

  I ran through the streets, kicking up rainwater with every step, praying that the night and the pouring rain would hide me. I had no vehicle. My bike had been trashed, and even if it wasn’t there was no way of going to my apartment without getting myself a new pair of metal bracelets.

  So I ran. The night wailed with sirens, sending me diving into the cover of darkness every time a police car screamed past. I’d shaken them immediately after leaving Spencer’s, but the whole police department seemed to have chosen tonight to give up the donuts and beer and actually do their job for once. Lucky me.

  I’m pretty sure the rain was the only thing keeping them from leaving their cars and hunting through the alleys on foot. That was a blessing, I suppose, though I felt significantly less blessed when my jacket was once again soaked through. My hair was plastered to my forehead, and my shoes squelched with every step. I made my way east, with no clear plan of what to do next. I barely had enough strength to summon a Pin Hole to unlock the cuff still swinging from my wrist.

  I had a roaring headache that threatened to split my forehead in half. I was still reeling from Todd’s betrayal. The guy seemed to think he was doing good, but how he’d convinced himself of that was beyond me. Starting gang wars wasn’t exactly a fool-proof plan for saving the city. Innocent bystanders had a nasty habit of getting in the way of gangster bullets even in the smallest turf wars. I shuddered to think what would happen when the whole underworld drew their guns and started shooting at once.

  And that wasn’t even the bit that really boiled my potatoes. It was the way he planned to do it. The son of a bitch had used me, had corrupted everything important to me. His plan relied on turning Tunnelers into crazed killing machines, just like the fucker had done to Tania. I suppose if he wanted to kill the gangs’ stranglehold over the city, giving the local government good excuse to take out every freelance Tunneler in the city was one way to go about it. But how many Tunnelers would be killed in the process?

  Damn it, I was so tired. I needed to find somewhere to sit and hide. I needed friends, a commodity I was in short supply of at the moment. I didn’t want to draw any of the few acquaintances I had into this, but I didn’t have a choice. I’d be in and out quick, just get a change of clothes and some food to keep me going. My stomach felt like it was trying to eat itself.

  So I took the stairs into a subway station. The trains ran late in Bluegate, and a few people were still scattered around on the platform, some drunk, some with no place else to go.

  For a moment, I thought about lying down next to the homeless guys on the broken tiles. The way I looked at the moment, I’d blend right in. Christ, for all intents and purposes I was homeless anyway. It’d be so easy to give up and stop caring.

  But I trudged past them all the same and found the board with the route maps. It took me a few seconds to get the colored lines in focus.

  A middle-aged woman in a smart suit gave me a glance and edged away from me. I realized I’d been muttering to myself. Keep it together, Miles. Don’t draw attention. You sure as hell can’t afford it now.

  My eyes were drawn to the red line on the map. It went east. East was good. In the back of my mind, I must’ve already known I was heading to Desmond’s place. He lived with his boyfriend—partner, I think he called him—in an apartment complex that bordered on Lavender Park. I could trust him. The only question was whether he’d trust me.

  I gave the well-dressed woman a grin as she took another glance at me, and she hurried away to the other side of the platform.

  Hey, I had to get my kicks somewhere.

  It must’ve been a couple of hours from dawn when I finally reached Desmond’s place. The complex was old—though not as old as my apartment—but it was sturdy, four adjoining orange brick buildings surrounded by a wall and a pedestrian gate alongside the main gate.

  There was no one around, and I didn’t want to attract more attention than I needed to, so I went round the back of the complex and clambered over the wall where it was lowest. Desmond’s apartment was on the second floor of the furthest building. A fire escape at the back was invitation enough for me, so I scaled the iron staircase as quietly as I could and stopped outside Desmond’s window.

  The curtains were closed, but there was enough of a crack that I could make out his bed and a bundle of blankets over what could have been people.

  A dog barked somewhere and I jerked around. Damn it, my nerves were getting to me. I consciously slowed my breathing to calm myself and tapped on the window.

  It took a few seconds of tapping before the figures under the blanket finally stirred; maybe they mistook it for the rain at first. There was a moment where the two of them appeared to be talking, then one got out of bed, pulled back the curtains, and opened the window.

  “Hi Des,” I said. “Hows it hanging?”

  Desmond rubbed his eyes and gave me a looking over. He was a tall guy, skinny, but with a pot belly starting to emerge. His hair was mussed from sleep, and the singlet and boxers he was wearing were crinkled. “Miles? What the hell, guy?”

  He stepped backward and held out a hand to help me through the window. The figure still in bed reached out and switched on the bedside lamp. I squinted against the sudden glare. I raised my hand in greeting. “Ignore me, Rob. I’ll be out of your hair soon.”

  That was a cheap shot, but I thought I deserved one after all I’d been through. Desmond’s partner Rob had started going prematurely bald, so he’d shaved the rest of his head to hide it. He slipped on his glasses and scowled at me with the sort of look tigers give to their zookeepers.

  “Shit,” Desmond said, looking me up and down, “you’re covered in blood. What the hell kinda trouble you in this time? I thought you said on the phone you were blowing town for a while.”

  “Christ, I wish I had. I’m fucked. Royally fucked. I didn’t know where to go.” I ran a hand through my curls, trying to keep the fatigue from drowning me. “I’d kill for a coffee, though.”

  Desmond frowned and glanced over at Rob. “I don’t know if this is the best time...”

  Rob grunted and shook his head. “It’s fine.” He pushed himself up on his elbows and fixed me with a glare. “I’m awake now, he might as well stay.”

  Desmond raised his eyebrows and gave me a “whaddya gonna do?” look and led me out to the small dining room. He planted me in a chair at the table and set the water boiling for the coffees. “All I got is instant.”

  “I didn’t come here expecting a double frappa-latte with spiced cream and walnuts. As long as it’s black, bitter, and doesn’t taste too much like dirt, it’ll do the trick.”

  He rattled around getting mugs and spoons, all the while shooting me looks. “You really look like hell, you know that?”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” My head felt too heavy, so I propped it up on my arms. “I’m in deep, Des. I got conned into helping the cops deal with some drug importing racket. Only one of the bastards painted me into a frame. I shouldn’t even be here. It won’t be too long before they’re knocking on your door asking you where I am.”

  Desmond studied me, nodding slowly. He was a good guy, solid, dependable. He didn’t like the cops any more than I did.

  He used to be a Tunneler—still was, I guess, depending on how you defined it. We’d gone through training together, even worked a few gigs as partners.

  But he wasn’t actively Tunneling anymore. He’d been out of the game nearly five years, ever since the gangs stepped up their ef
forts and started more aggressive recruiting campaigns. He’d had another boyfriend at the time, another guy who’d been in our class. He and Desmond had some philosophical differences over whether it was right to take blood money from a gangster, and Desmond had decided there were better ways to make a living.

  He was smarter than me, always had been. He started playing responsible citizen a couple years back, starting some sort of half-assed neighborhood watch program in the area. He was such a goody-good he ended up funding it by opening a chain of computer stores that specialized in catering to the immigrant Vei. That was how he met Rob, I think; he was supposed to be some kind of computer whiz.

  Desmond parked a cup of blessedly hot coffee and some leftover Chinese food on the table in front of me, and I gave him the Cliff Notes version of my story. He listened, nodding away, putting in a couple of questions of his own to clarify. I’d been so long without sleep the story was starting to get muddled in my head, but the chow mein and coffee helped refresh me.

  He got a little sickly-looking when I told him about Spencer’s murder. He’d never been much good with that sort of stuff. But I guess I wasn’t either. I had to clutch my mug extra tight to hide my trembling hands when I told him about that bit.

  I finished about the time Rob wandered out, fully dressed. He took a mug of coffee from Desmond with a look of gratitude, then threw me an annoyed look before settling down at his computer on the other side of the room. I think Rob saw me as a bad influence on Desmond, which I suppose I was. He was an all right guy, Rob, just overprotective.

  “I don’t how you get into these scrapes,” Desmond said to me. “I told you years ago to quit Tunneling. It’s not the same city it was when we were in school.”

  I shrugged. Desmond had offered to go into business with me, but I’d turned him down. I couldn’t even turn on a computer, let alone sell one. But right then, it was starting to look like he had a point.

  “I did it for the freedom, always have, but now…”

  “Now there ain’t so much freedom in it.” Desmond tapped his chin with his thumb. “What’re you going to do?”

  “What can I do?” I took a long draw of coffee to buy myself time to think. It didn’t help. I could already feel the prison bars around me, keeping me in place. Even if I managed to stay out of the cops’ hands, it wouldn’t make a difference. Todd had stuck me in a box of my own making, a box inside my own head. I’d spend the rest of my life running, hoping the son of a bitch didn’t show up to put me in bracelets or make a new hole in my head.

  Desmond seemed to be reading my thoughts. “I can disappear you, guy. Get you out of town, or get you enough Kemia to get you to Heaven. No point staying here, not now.”

  It was tempting, I won’t deny that. Hell, it was exactly what I was planning to do less than two days ago. The cops had no jurisdiction in Heaven. I could be free there, physically at least. And maybe Todd wouldn’t bother coming for me. He seemed like a busy guy.

  Busy turning the city to ashes.

  “Fuck,” I said, putting my head in my hands. “I can’t.”

  “Miles—”

  “The girl I told you about on the phone, the one who’s started to Tunnel, it was her the gangsters used for their little experiment. You should’ve seen her. Christ, you should have seen her eyes.”

  My throat constricted, and I found I couldn’t speak any more. Desmond got up and put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s not your fault, guy.”

  I swallowed the lump and blinked a few times. “It’ll get worse. She won’t be the last one. They’re all going to suffer. This city is going drown in its own blood.”

  He frowned, but he nodded. “So what are you going to do?”

  I ran another hand through my damp hair. Telling the story had helped me get it straight in my head, imposed order on the chaotic couple of days.

  I held up two fingers and counted them off. “The way I see it, I’ve got two things I need to do if I want to get through this and be able to live with myself. I’ve got to figure out a way to clear my name and pin Spencer’s murder back on Todd. And I need to stop Andrews and the other gangsters from tearing themselves and the city apart in their quest for revenge.”

  “Might be a bit late for that,” Rob said from across the room. He clicked open a news site on his computer and nodded toward the screen. “Cops had a gunfight with a bunch of gangsters in the inner city slums about an hour ago.”

  I bit my lip. “From what Tania said, Andrews and the others knew Davies was connected to Chroma. They must’ve gone looking for him.” My fist tightened around the coffee mug. “Jesus, they’re all moving too fast for me. The gangs are on edge. If Todd’s still planning on distributing Chroma in the next few hours, there’s going to be so much blood in the streets you won’t be able to leave your house in anything but gumboots.”

  “Want me to put some calls in?” Desmond asked. “It’s been a while, but maybe I can get the ear of someone close enough to Andrews to talk some sense into him.”

  I considered it for about half a second, then shook my head before I could think about it more. “Too dangerous. All you’ll do is bring the gangs’ attention down on you, and trust me, that’s not what you want.”

  I left off the other objection—he’d been off the streets way too long. The people he once knew weren’t the same people now. Even high-rolling Tunnelers like Shirley O’Neil had once been normal kids like us, before the gangs got their claws into them.

  “Fine. Where we going first?”

  I met his eyes, and shook my head slowly over my coffee. “There’s not going to be a ‘we’, Des. I’m not dragging you down into this with me. I shouldn’t have stayed this long.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, guy. I’ve pulled you out of so many holes I’m invested in you now. It’d just be a waste if I let you get yourself shot.”

  I took another drink and tried to keep from breaking down right there. He was right; I’d be face down in some ditch in Heaven a dozen times over if he hadn’t been there to save my ass. But I wasn’t going to let him eat lead because I’d chosen his window to knock on in the middle of the night.

  “All right, enough with the good guy act,” I said. “You’re making the rest of us look bad. Let me have a shower and a lend of a shirt, and you’ll be doing as much for me as anyone could.” I paused, considering, then held up a finger. “Also, you may find some dastardly fugitive has stolen your car.”

  He narrowed his eyes a little, studying me, but he nodded. “Okay, but I’m not just going to sit by and watch you get yourself shot. What’re you going to do next?”

  I swallowed the gritty dregs at the bottom of the coffee mug and stood up. “I think I need to pay Detective Reed a visit. If she’s not with Todd, maybe she’ll listen to what I have to say.”

  “And if she’s crooked?”

  I didn’t have an answer for that. I’d grown to trust her, but this whole betrayal thing had really set fire to that. If I came to her and she tried to kill me, well, I still had most of the bottle of Kemia I’d picked up at Spencer’s. I’d do what I had to.

  I turned to go down the hall, but Rob called my name. “You got an address for this detective of yours? I doubt it’ll be in the phone book.”

  “Uh-uh. Figured I’d ambush her outside the station after the sun comes up.”

  Rob gave me a look that told me plainly how big a moron I was. “She’ll spot you in five seconds. If you’re going to do this, then you may as well do it right.” He turned back to the computer and pulled up a black window. “Go have your shower. I’ll get your address for you.”

  After the sort of shit I’d been through in the last couple of days, having a hot shower felt like being kissed by angels, and by God they were great kissers.

  I cleaned away the layers of dried blood that’d built up over my skin, worked the aches out of my shoulders, and tried to ignore the way my entire body seemed to have turned a nasty shade of purple. I really needed to work on not getting th
e shit beat out of me.

  When I was feeling less like a death row inmate after a go in the electric chair, I got out and dried myself off with one of Desmond’s pristine white towels. I’m pretty sure it must have been made of baby’s hair, it was so soft. Desmond had hung a clean blue shirt on the door handle outside, and I slipped that on. It was a little long in the sleeves, and I felt guilty about wearing something that had been pressed so nicely. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worn a shirt with an actual crease in it, at least one that had been intentional.

  Rob was waiting for me when I left the bathroom. He stood in the hall, arms folded across his chest, not quite looking me directly in the eye. “You’re not going to bring this back down on him, are you?”

  I saw that one coming. “No. He’s my friend. I don’t drag my friends into my messes. Well, I try not to anyway.”

  “If the cops come asking for you?”

  I shrugged. “Tell them what you have to. Tell them I came asking for help, and you sent me packing. Tell them I stole your car. Tell them whatever.”

  He nodded, chewing his lip, then handed me a slip of paper. “Here’s the address for the lady detective.”

  It was written in Rob’s untidy scrawl, but the address looked good. “How’d you get this?”

  “Bluegate PD’s network security is practically made of matchsticks and tissue paper.”

  “Well, thanks.”

  “I didn’t do it for—”

  “Yeah, yeah, gotcha.”

  Desmond appeared at the end of the hall behind Rob. “There you are. Catch.” He tossed me his car keys. “I want to talk to you before you go.”

  Rob gave me one last look and moved aside. I followed Desmond back out into the dining room.

  “You sure you wanna do this?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “You positive you don’t want to quit town? Sounds like this whole thing’s gone to hell, man. Take the car and go lay low somewhere.”

  I got to admit, it was tempting, and it’s not like the thought hadn’t crossed my mind a hundred times in the last few hours, as much as I tried to suppress it. “Where would I go? I don’t know anyone outside of Bluegate.”

  “Isn’t your dad—”

  “No. I wouldn’t go to him even if I knew where he was. He’d sell me out before I could say ‘boo’.”

  Desmond nodded; he knew all about my relationship with my father. He shoved his hands in his pockets and met my eyes. “I could give you Anna’s address.”

  That was enough to knock me back. Anna. That bloody woman.

  I scowled. “You’ve been in contact with her?”

  He shrugged, and glanced away. “She emailed me a few months ago. Wanted to see how everyone was doing. She wanted to know how you’re doing, guy.”

  Goddamn it. That was just what I needed right now, a ghost from my past come back to rattle chains in my face.

  “Miles?” Desmond was watching me with concern in his eyes. I shook my head, ridding myself of all thoughts of Anna Goddamn Khubova. I couldn’t afford distractions. Not now.

  I pulled my damp jacket on, ignoring the way it clung to my new shirt. “If I get myself killed, tell her she can have my trumpet.”

  “She hated that thing.”

  “I know.”

  Desmond grinned and slapped me on the shoulder. “Need anything else before you go?”

  “You don’t happen to have a bullet-proof vest I can borrow?”

  “Sorry, pal.”

  I shrugged. “Never mind. Would’ve made things too boring anyway.”