I backed away slowly, wiping the blood from my mouth, as he raised the pipe again with both hands. We started to circle each other, each of us trying to calculate what the other's next move would be. One thing I knew for sure, another blow to my left arm would almost certainly shatter it, which would take me out of the fight, and in all likelihood, result in my ugly death. I wasn't keen on that option.
Fritz's head was covered in a thick mat of blonde hair now, obscuring the bone ridge. Combined with a new beard, it was enough to fool any cam at a distance. But up close, the crazy eyes instantly gave him away.
"Nice wig," I croaked as we continued circling. "Let me guess, it connects to that implant in your skull, so you don't have to worry about it blowing off?"
"Why did you have to come here?" he growled. "Everything would have worked out fine if you'd just fucking stayed where you were."
I flashed a cold grin.
"What can I say? I needed a change of scenery. Why couldn't you stay away?" I snapped my fingers. "Oh yeah, that's right, you had to help Lindsay Thayer get away after she murdered Antonio DeLeo. But that didn't go how you planned, did it?"
He feinted with the pipe, but I didn't fall for it. This wasn't my first go-round with an armed lowlife. It wasn't even the hundredth. He wasn't going to get the drop on me a second time.
"You really are as stupid as I thought," he said, circling again. "It's amazing you even found your way here in the first place."
"Whose body was that next to Speck's?" I asked casually, ignoring his taunts. "You know, the one you thought would fool us? While we're on it, what did you do with the real Hartley Fritz? Because we know you aren't him."
His mouth twisted into a snarling half-grin.
"You think you know what's going on," he spat. "You don't know a fucking thing, old man. And you never will, because you're not leaving here alive."
At that moment I shuffled forward snake-quick, and swung my right foot into his left knee, causing it to collapse, and dropping him to one knee on the floor. I didn't follow it up because I wasn't stupid. It wouldn't be enough to take that pipe out of commission. But it was satisfying as hell.
"I don't know about that," I said. "I kind of like my odds. But I do agree one of us probably isn't leaving here under his own steam."
He struggled back to his feet, very obviously favouring his left leg now.
"You should've stayed retired, Dick," he said. "If you had, you could have lived out a nice, long life. But instead you had to come back. You had to start chasing us."
"Us? So you are the accomplice?"
"Yeah, but not in the way you think. You're nowhere near as smart as you like to make yourself out to be."
"I was smart enough to track you and Thayer here, wasn't I?"
He barked a dry laugh.
"Right. You think you know how you ended up here, but you don't."
I smiled back, hiding my confusion.
"Funny thing about cops, we don't care about that part, as long as we get our perp."
"That's not the funny thing," he said as we circled again. "The funny thing is, we would've been happy to give you a piece of the action, if it meant keeping you off our tail all this time. You have no idea how much money is in this gig. We'd have given you ten times what your pension is worth, and all you would've had to do is just walk away." He scowled. "But no, not Dick Fucking Burnside. The second we approached you, we'd have been in the nearest prison cell. So we had to come up with another way to shake you, and keep you off our tail. You're like a dog with a bone.
"What can I say?" I chuckled. "Mama raised me right."
"Maybe she'll cry at your funeral."
I tensed as he finally made his move, dropping to the floor, and rolling on his shoulder to bridge the gap. He hoped the move would take me by surprise, and allow him to bowl me over by taking out my knees, but all it did was give me the perfect opening to turn the tables.
I stepped back with my right leg the instant he moved, staying well out of the range of his feet, and he was forced to rise again and come after me. I counted out the half-second it would take for him to cross the ten-foot space. At the last instant I pulled my knee forwards again, and upwards with all my strength, with him still half bent over, so instead of collapsing backwards, it drove directly into his nose with the combined momentum of my muscles, and his forward motion. It sounded like a brick hitting a fencepost.
Fritz dropped to his side, stunned, but still managed to roll away and get back to his feet before I could follow up. That was the bad news. The good news was that his steel pipe was three meters away now, and he couldn't get to it.
He wiped at the blood streaming down from his nose and into his open mouth. Drawing air would be difficult now, which gave me an advantage.
"Bet that smarts," I said.
"Killing you will make it better," he growled. "That and the satisfaction of knowing you never figured out what was going on. You're still as clueless as you always were."
"I don't know if I'd say clueless. I figured out you were the one behind the hacks which kept Thayer out of the vid feeds, and overrode the commands in the docking bay. How'd you do it? From what I gather, the security on this station is state of the art."
He flashed an arrogant grin under the cascade of blood running down his face.
"Not with the kind of tech I can afford. Even then, I was only able to keep it up for a handful of minutes, but it was long enough to get things done."
"And it's useless now Janet knows about it. You think you're going to be able to make it off this station? That didn't work out so well for your partner."
"You really are clueless, aren't you?" he said. "Even after everything that's happened, you still think that mousy little twit was my partner?"
He was starting to back away now, which gave me the opening I'd been looking for to press my advantage. I followed slowly until his back bumped up against the edge of the table where I'd eaten dinner. There was nowhere for him to go now, and he was injured.
I should have known that was when an animal was most dangerous, but I was too wound up by what he'd just said.
"What are you talking about?" I asked, as I continued my slow advance. "Of course she was your partner. She killed DeLeo."
"Lindsay Thayer couldn't kill a pint of beer on a hot day," he said. "If you were half the detective you think you are, you would have realized that."
"She almost escaped, thanks to your help."
I inched closer.
"If you mean she was kidnapped, and forced onto her ship, then yeah, I guess you could say that."
I stopped in my tracks. What the hell was this?
"She tried to run after we found out about DeLeo," I said. "The ship made it less than fifty clicks before it turned around, and tried to ram the station."
"I know that, fuckwit," he said. "Why do you think I took out the cams? Who do you think carried her to her ship, and operated the remote control which turned the ship towards the station?"
That had less than a second to sink in, before his right hand suddenly fished behind him, and emerged with one of my empty beer bottles. In one smooth motion he twisted it, and brought it down on the edge of the metal table, shattering the bottle's bottom, and turning it into a crude blade.
An instant later, it was swinging towards my face. I didn't have time to think. Instinct took over, and I pivoted so I was facing to his left. My left hand grabbed his wrist, and pulled it in the direction he was already moving, which threw him off balance. As soon as I sensed he didn't have his footing, I spun myself 180 degrees, yanking him along with me, and using the momentum to force him into flipping onto his back on the floor.
Only he twisted in mid-flip, obviously familiar with the move. He landed on his front instead, and I lost control of the hand with the bottle. Immediately I reached down, and grabbed the back of his head, pulling it upwards, and dropped to my knee next to him. I transferred the hank of his fake hair to my right hand, and snaked my
forearm around his throat, putting him into a chokehold. At the same time, I dropped both knees onto the middle of his back, pinning his torso to the floor.
"What are you talking about?!" I bellowed into his ear. "What do you mean you were controlling the ship? Who are you working with?" I waited for several seconds before pulling him up again. "Answer me!"
"Huuugghhkkk…" was all I heard in response.
I felt him go limp in my arms. For a few moments the adrenaline coursing through me kept me rooted in place. Finally, I let go of him, and rolled off his back onto the floor, ready for him if he tried anything.
He didn't.
After several more seconds, I noticed a patch of blood spreading like a slow-motion explosion on the back of his shirt. I rolled him over gingerly, fully expecting him to suddenly pounce.
He didn't.
When I finally managed to get him all the way onto his back, I could see what had made the stain on his shirt. The jagged end of the beer bottle was inside his abdomen on an angle towards his inferior vena cava, the big vein at the bottom of his heart, all the way up to its long neck. His eyes were still open, and his face twisted in a rictus, but I could tell instantly he was gone.
And along with him, my answers.
Of course, that was the moment when Janet decided to show up.
Forty Two
"What the hell?!" she cried, as she bolted through the door. "Dick, are you all right?!"
I took a moment to do a quick inventory of body parts. Felt like I had them all, which was a bonus, although my left arm hurt like hell. Nothing seemed to be broken, either, which was a blue-eyed miracle.
If only I hadn't killed the guy with all the answers.
"I'm fine," I panted. She was at my side in a flash, checking me over like a frantic mother. "Might have a hairline fracture in my elbow, but that's it."
Apparently satisfied that I was okay, she turned her attention to the chaos in the office, then Fake Fritz's body.
"What happened? I detected the cams in here had been hacked the same way as the ones earlier, so I rushed back."
"It's a long story. The most important part is the fact Lindsay Thayer wasn't the killer. We need to warn Jon right now!"
"I know she wasn't," Janet said evenly. "And no, we don't."
I was sick to death of feeling like I'd walked into the movie halfway through, and I told her so.
"You think this isn't serious?" I snapped. "This guy tried to kill me, and right before he died, he told me he was the one who piloted Thayer's ship! She had nothing to do with DeLeo's death, which means the real killer is still on this station!"
At that moment, Jane walked into the security office. Her reaction was almost identical to Janet's, except for the fact she ran straight to me, and looked me over, then pulled me into a fierce hug.
Ouch. My left arm did need medical.
"Tell me you're okay," she breathed in my ear.
"I'm fine, but Jon won't be if we don't do something."
She let go of her embrace, and held me at arm's length, peering at me with those electric blue eyes, and suddenly all my pains seemed far away.
"Everything is going according to plan," she said earnestly. Then she looked at Fritz's body. "Well, except for this part. I'm so sorry, Dick. We should have found him before he found you."
"He was good," I said. "Damn good, if everything he said was true. He hacked the cams which went down when Thayer was making the run for her ship, except she really wasn't, it was him. He forced her onto her ship, and he took control of it. She wasn't…"
Suddenly I felt Jane's finger against my lip.
"It's okay, Dick. He's dead, and you're alive. We can figure out the details later. The rest of the plan is about to play out."
With that, she pointed to the monitor which was showing us the dance floor of The Bridge. It was packed like an ancient Earth mosh pit, as bodies crushed together, hoping for a glimpse of their hero, Jon Hunter.
"What's happening?" I asked.
Janet manipulated a control, and one of the cams zoomed in on the VIP section. There were four inhabitants of the whole area, Jon, the Peck twins, and…
"Holy shit!" I cried.
The sight of Ingrid Blakstov's wide smile as she stroked Hunter's arm drove an icicle into my guts.
"Shh," Jane soothed. "Just watch."
I did, despite the gnawing in my insides. Hunter had changed out of his dinner clothes, and back into the casual ensemble he'd been wearing when he arrived, though it looked like it had been cleaned in the meantime. Beside him, Amanda and Aleesha wore short black skirts, low-cut blouses, and as far as I could tell, no underwear.
Jane smacked my shoulder lightly.
"Eyes on the prize, Detective. They're not the bad guys."
"I know that!" I exclaimed. "Ingrid is! And she's sitting right fucking next to Hunter!"
I expected their eyes to bug out as they finally realized what I was saying. Instead, they looked at me calmly, with almost coquettish grins on their perfect lips.
"We know," said Jane. "I introduced her to him. Now will you kindly shut up and watch?"
I gaped at them for a moment while I rubbed my elbow, and tried to process everything that had happened in the last ten minutes, and what was still about to happen. I'd never taken psychotropic drugs in my life, but at that moment, I thought I could understand what the effects might be like, because I was feeling them.
The scene played out like it would at any disco, with bodies gyrating to music which was never exactly what you were hoping to hear, all while trying not to spill their overpriced drinks. Jon seemed oblivious to any potential danger as he bobbed his head in time to the beat, and scanned the dance floor. Ingrid's eyes never left his face, though. To her, he was the only person in the room.
After several minutes of this, Jon raised his hand in the direction of the DJ, a hugely overweight guy with long auburn dreadlocks. The guy nodded vigorously, all three chins shaking, and the music suddenly changed to something completely different.
"What the hell did he do?" I asked, cringing at the cacophony coming out of the speakers.
Jane giggled as if this whole situation was just the cutest thing.
"Jon loves twentieth century music," she said. "He just pulsed a playlist of his favourites over to the DJ."
"I'm sure the DJ appreciates being told what to play," I said. "Especially crap like this. I'm a big fan of twentieth century stuff myself, but this isn't music. Frank Sinatra was music."
"Jon's the owner," she shrugged. "Like it or not, when he pulses you music, you play the music. The patrons can't fire the DJ, Jon can."
I shook my head.
"What are we listening to, anyway?"
"The Clash," said Janet. "Late twentieth century band from the United Kingdom. Quite popular at the time."
It sounded like a clash, all right. I tried to block it out as I stared at Hunter's table, keeping all my attention on Ingrid. My cheeks felt hot when the full weight of what had happened finally settled in my brain. Ingrid and Fritz had duped me completely. I'd dismissed her as a suspect almost immediately, while Fritz played me like a Grade-A chump.
Of course he would have been here early, working to set up her next kill. Fritz's forged ID got him on board, but Speck recognizing me in the bar that first night tipped him off to the fact I was there to track the killer. Once he knew I was there, he started working on a frame-up for Lindsay Thayer to lead me away from Ingrid. Which explained her story about Fritz and his 'magic trick' with Lindsay, as he was planting the murder weapon on her. He took her real necklace, and replaced it with a weaponized version, which we'd later find in DeLeo's room, covered in her DNA. The real weapon no doubt left with Ingrid after she killed him.
I shook my head. Ingrid had done her job well, too. I was completely fooled by her ditzy act, and wide smile. And because I was fooled, Thayer died. That was on me.
"Something wrong?" asked Jane, touching my hand.
"J
ust wool gathering," I said. "I'm still trying to figure out everything Fritz told me before he died. He kept saying I was stupid, that I didn't see what was going on. He was right."
"You weren't stupid. You were just led in the wrong direction. Janet and I were almost convinced that Thayer was the killer ourselves. The difference was, we weren't as obsessed with solving the case as you were. Our sole focus was on keeping Jon safe from any assassination attempts on the station."
I sighed.
"Maybe you're right. Maybe DeLeo was the real target. That means I was worried about Jon for nothing."
"That much is certain," she said with a smile. "As we keep on telling you."
"And there's no real evidence against Ingrid, other than the fact she fit the demographic of the killer. Like you keep telling me, maybe I'm just making shit up in my head. She might be perfectly nice. I mean, you wouldn't have introduced her to Jon if you thought she was dangerous."
"Oh, Ingrid is probably very dangerous, all right," she said, turning back to the screens. "Deadly, in fact."
I blinked stupidly for a few seconds before responding.
"Then why the hell…"
"Shh. Watch."
I did as I was told. On the screen, Hunter and Ingrid were now on the dance floor, jerking to the strains of a song which seemed to be nothing but men yelling about how they wanted to be sedated. Jon seemed a bit unsteady on his feet, which wasn't surprising given the number of empty beer bottle back at their table in the VIP section. Apparently he relaxed with as much passion as he fought.
Ingrid repeatedly bumped into him as they danced in the crowd, and every time she did, she made sure to take his arm and giggle in his ear. No doubt telling him how embarrassed she was by her clumsiness. Or maybe she was giving him the Church of Universal Opportunity spiel in small fragments. At that point, I didn't know anything for sure.
The Peck twins were dancing nearby while all this was going on, which was another sign security was the top priority for Hunter's people. It helped ease my anxiety a bit knowing so many capable people were watching out for him. Not as much as it would have to know he'd never come to the damn station in the first place, but I had to take what I could get.
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