Skin Game

by Max Allan Collins

  The Seattle detective in charge of the situation, Clemente, seemed to have things in hand until he tried to trade a truck for hostages. Sometime during the exchange, shooting had erupted from somewhere. Otto had seen Clemente order his snipers to pull back, and the snipers did visibly withdraw.

  Though he couldn’t prove it, Otto had a suspicion that one of the endless phone calls White made that day was to bring in the group of shooters that queered the exchange.

  Otto didn’t know why he felt that—it was just his gut—but over the years, he’d learned to trust his instincts. Then later, after dark, after White had used the botched exchange to gain control of the hostage crisis, Otto approached White just as his partner was slipping on a Kevlar vest handed to him by the female leader of some kind of tactical insertion team—a team unlike any Otto knew of in the NSA lexicon. The group—bizarrely bulked-up types—kept moving, and Otto fell into step with them.

  “Sir, what is this?” Otto had asked. “Who are these people?”

  White glared at him with typical impatience. “They’re assigned from another agency.”

  “What agency? I don’t understand . . .”

  Stopping and turning to face Otto, his sneering features only inches away, White growled, “And let’s keep it that way. You’re not cleared for this op—so pull the men back and secure the perimeter.”

  Otto froze, his mind bubbling with protests that couldn’t seem to find their way out through his mouth.

  White’s expression tightened further—a handsome man, Ames White became ugly when lines of anger grooved his face . . . which was frequently. His voice rose: “Walk away. Do it now.”

  Not understanding, but unwilling to question a senior officer, Otto had done as he was told.

  And it had been less than a half hour later—after the unknown agency’s super-SWAT team emerged from Jam Pony with the perps, loading them into a van and a commandeered ambulance—that one of Clemente’s uniformed cops came up to Otto near the perimeter. The man seemed on the verge of laughter, and Otto couldn’t imagine what there was to laugh about in a hostage crisis.

  “They need you inside,” the uniform had said, the words burbling out, mixed in with chuckles.

  How weird, how inappropriate, that seemed. . . .

  Otto started to call to the other agents, but the uniformed cop put a hand on his shoulder.

  “You better go in alone, sir,” the officer said, his amusement lessened, but still there.

  Confused, Otto made his way inside the building. He walked slowly through the first floor, where some other uniformed cops were leading three of the hostages toward the door.

  “Can you direct me to Agent White?” Otto asked.

  One of the uniforms pointed toward the ceiling and walked out, laughing.

  What the hell was this?

  Climbing the stairs to the second floor, Otto thought he heard what sounded like muffled voices—angry muffled voices. The building was supposed to be secure, but Otto slipped his pistol out of the holster anyway and pulled a penlight from his jacket pocket. Checking carefully, he went through the door of the second floor—it appeared to have been a dressmaker’s loft, long since abandoned, a few naked female mannequins holding court surrealistically among various detritus—and moved closer to the voices.

  Coming around a corner, he found the TAC insertion team, in their skivvies, and a fully dressed Agent White—all secured to pillars with Jam Pony packaging tape . . . all screaming what seemed to be obscenities through the tape gags that covered their mouths, in particular Ames White.

  Suddenly Otto knew what the cops were all laughing about, though he himself found the situation humorless.

  He holstered his pistol, pocketed the flash, and rummaged in his pants pocket for his knife. “Sir, what happened?” he asked.

  White’s answer was thankfully muffled—and for a split second Otto considered turning around and walking out; but he knew it would mean his career. Biting his tongue, he cut them loose, White first, then the others.

  The muscular, half-naked commando team left without so much as a thank you—their displeasure (with themselves?) palpable.

  Standing there in his ripped suit, peeling pieces of tape off his jacket, his scowling face bloodied, White said, “Go home, Otto. I’ll write up the report and let you see it in the morning.”

  “But . . . what happened here, sir?”

  White closed his eyes, obviously fighting for control. One fist balled at his side while the other grabbed a hank of his own hair. He stayed like that for a long moment. Otto realized his boss considered himself a cool customer; but Otto knew that White was in reality a hothead. Anger, frustration, desperation, and finally a kind of unearthly calm all crossed White’s face before he opened his eyes again.

  “Now is not the time, Otto,” he said. “Go home and wait for me to call. . . . It might be tomorrow, it might be the next day. Maybe it’ll be Christmas. But just go home—relax. And wait.”

  Otto was about to tell White that he couldn’t do that—that standard agency policy demanded otherwise—when the superior agent simply turned and walked out of the cluttered loft. A voice in his head told Otto not to follow, and because the voice—whose message had often been, Cover your ass—had been right so many times in the past, he listened to it.

  So instead of going after his partner and bringing the craziness to a head, Otto simply went home and waited.

  That had been two days ago, and the phone had yet to ring. Tomorrow, whether White called or not, Otto was going to report back to work. There might be hell to pay, if White considered that a breach of orders; but maybe it was time to go over Ames White’s head and report what he suspected . . . what he’d observed. . . .

  As he entered the eighth mile of his run, Otto prayed that he was doing the right thing . . . because Otto Gottlieb truly wanted to do what was best not just for himself, not just to cover his ass, but for his job. His country.

  That settled, Otto tried to empty his head of everything except the run. The sound of his own blood in his ears, the smack of his shoes on the pavement, breath rushing in through his nose, out through his mouth, feeling the sweat run down his face . . . this became his world. Everything else was left behind.

  The rest of the eighth mile flew by. He was nearly to the end of the ninth mile, really getting into the run now, when the cell phone clipped to his waistband chirped.

  “Damnit,” Otto muttered as he slowed to a walk, and tried to control his breathing so he wouldn’t sound winded. He answered on the third ring.

  “It’s me,” came Ames White’s voice.

  Otto cursed silently. He wanted to ask where the hell White had been, but he said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been running.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. You could stand to take off some of that gut.”

  “. . . Yes, sir.”

  “Have you talked to anyone since we last spoke?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good. We need to meet.”

  “Yes, sir.” Otto hated himself for falling back into ass-kissing mode so easily, but he didn’t really know what else to do at this point.

  “I’m bringing you in more fully on this op. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Otto?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You know the Three Girls?”

  “Yes—bakery at Pike Place Market.” White couldn’t have picked someplace closer, of course; he had to pick somewhere clear across the city from where Otto lived.

  “You being watched, Otto?”

  “No.” Why would he be watched?

  “Good. Twenty minutes. Come on foot.”

  “I’ll never make it.”

  “Half an hour, then. And run faster.”

  Otto knew that not only was White a sucker for the meat-loaf sandwiches at Three Girls Bakery, the man also liked the fact that the L-shaped counter only had thirteen seats. Most people didn’t hang around long, and the chances
of them being spotted by someone from the office were minimal, especially at this time of night.

  White sat at the far end of the counter, waiting over coffee and a scone, when Otto—in his running togs, breathing hard—entered thirty-five minutes later. Two days had allowed White a change of clothes and the opportunity to clean his wounds. They seemed to be healing nicely, from what Otto could see.

  The runner sat down next to his partner and boss, and when the counterman promptly came over, Otto said, “I’ll have the same. Decaf, though,” and gestured toward White’s meal.

  A skinny man in his late fifties, and obviously not one of the three girls, the guy grunted and went back to the other end of the counter.

  “You’re late,” White said quietly.

  Otto ignored that. “Are you going to tell me what happened at Jam Pony?”

  The counterman brought a cup of coffee, a scone on a small plate, and set them both on the counter in front of Otto. “Anything else?”

  “No,” Otto said.

  The counterman left the check and went away.

  Finally, satisfied they were alone, White shrugged. “They got the best of us. They are transgenics, after all.”

  Otto nodded. “That TAC team of yours looked like they coulda been transgenics themselves.”

  “You think the NSA has transies working for them now, Otto? Please. Those were just top physical specimens—the kind who could’ve run over here in less than half an hour.”

  “Maybe so—but, like you said, the bad guys got the best of them anyway.”

  “Let that go. We have something more important than that now.”

  “Yes?”

  White sat forward, kept his voice down. “You recall the thermal imager that was taken off Hankins?”

  Otto took a bite of his scone, but wished he hadn’t when the picture of the red-glistening skinned Hankins popped into his mind. He washed the bite down with some coffee. “Hard to forget,” he managed finally.

  “The imager has turned up.”

  “Good news. Where?”

  White took his time now, nibbling at his own scone and taking a swallow of coffee before continuing. “A sector cop found it, not long after the murder at the warehouse. He was one of the perimeter guys. Apparently the monster that skinned Hankins didn’t know the device’s value—just threw it away. Interestingly, Hankins’ skin didn’t turn up—the perp took it with him.”

  Otto put down his scone.

  “Anyway, the sector cop who found it knew the thing was valuable. Somehow he got my cell number and got through to me. Name’s Dunphy, Brian Dunphy. He’s willing to return the imager—for a price.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten grand.”

  “No way!”

  White’s smile put nasty grooves in his face. “That’s what I told him. He settled for five.”

  “That’s still robbery.”

  “More like blackmail. But the agency is willing to cover it—if one of those transgenics got hold of an imager, and was smart enough to figure out its use, well . . .”

  “When’s the drop?”

  “Tonight.”

  “Where’s the money?”

  Glancing down, White drank some more coffee.

  Otto followed the man’s gaze, saw a briefcase on the floor next to White, and looked back up at his partner. “You brought it here?”

  “I needed to pass it to you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah,” White said. “You’re going to make the delivery.”

  The scone and coffee rolled over in Otto’s stomach. “Sir, without proper paperwork, I don’t think I can—”

  White interrupted. “You have to. I’m going to be in meetings for the next twenty-four hours trying to clear up that Jam Pony fiasco. You want to keep your job, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.” The answer popped out before Otto could stop it.

  “Well, then, accept the responsibility of being part of this op. Take the briefcase, and take this, too.” White handed him a photo and a sheet of paper with the drop point written on it. “That’s where this Dunphy will be at three A.M. tonight, and a picture so you don’t give five grand to the wrong asshole.”

  Holding the items at arm’s length, by the tips of fingers, like they were toxic materials, Otto finally asked, “What am I supposed to do until then?”

  White’s brow furrowed. “Run home. Take a shower. What am I, your mother?” Tossing a five spot on the counter, he got up and looked down at Otto, in several senses of the phrase. “Three o’clock. Call me when it’s done.”

  Otto didn’t like this at all, but he didn’t know what to say either. He had no idea what he would do with his life if he lost this job.

  “Yes, sir,” he finally managed.

  “Good boy,” White said, and walked out of the restaurant, leaving Otto Gottlieb to ponder his future.

  Otto looked at the photo of a forty-something Irish-looking cop. What a cliché, he thought. Redheaded with a few freckles, Dunphy had the red onion nose of an alcoholic and the hooded green eyes of a sociopath. The photo brought Otto no comfort whatsoever. Looking down at the remains of his scone and the cup of coffee, he realized he wasn’t hungry anymore.

  Having some time to kill, Otto caught a cab, went home and got on his computer. By one A.M. he knew everything there was to know about sector cop Brian Dunphy—forty-four, suspended twice for being overweight, with no money in the bank, an ex-wife who left him nearly ten years ago, a daughter he only saw on the weekends, and nothing to look forward to at the end of the road. No wonder this guy was looking to score any way he could.

  Two hours later Otto found himself in Sector Eleven heading for the checkpoint with Sector Twelve. Not much happened out here on the edge of town, and he hoped to dump the money, get the imager, and get back home without any hassles. He parked his car a few blocks away and started to walk. He wasn’t taking any chances that he’d be identified by having his car seen at the checkpoint. Still, he didn’t much like walking down the street with a briefcase full of cash.

  A light rain peppered the ground and Otto pulled his black topcoat tighter around himself. The night air had a chill, and he had a childhood memory of Michigan, which was similarly cold. He could see his breath as he neared the small shack that served as the checkpoint’s guard post. Looking through the window of the shed-sized building, he couldn’t see anyone inside. The light was on, but no one seemed to be home.

  Moving around to the door, Otto opened it, walked in, and knew immediately that something was wrong.

  The desk against the left wall held a coffeepot that was still on, a cup filled with steaming joe, and an ashtray with a cigarette burning in it, a pack of Winstons nearby. Every-thing was right where it belonged . . .

  . . . . except for the sector cop.

  A door in the back right corner led into the closet that served as a bathroom, but the door yawned wide open, the room empty.

  Otto checked his watch—3:02. Brian Dunphy should be here.

  But he wasn’t. Where the hell is the bastard?

  A five-thousand-dollar appointment wasn’t something an underpaid sector cop would normally be late for. . . .

  His own cop instincts twitching, Otto went back outside. The gate separating the two sectors was locked. He looked through the eight-foot chain-link fence, down the street into Sector Twelve, and still saw no sign of the officer. Then he looked back up the street in the direction he’d come and saw nothing there either.

  The rain grew more intense, and for a long moment he considered calling White, then decided he better look around a little more. He considered leaving the briefcase in the guard shack to keep his hands free, and thought better of it.

  An old factory neighborhood, Sector Eleven was mostly run-down vacant buildings for blocks in every direction. Some had been taken over by squatters, who seldom ventured far at night, especially not on a rainy night like this one. Otto gazed down the street into Sector Twelve again and stil
l saw nothing, the rain blurring anything beyond a few hundred feet anyway.

  His heart fluttered, his stomach was in knots, and he had a warm, loose feeling in his bowels. Otto hated being scared, but something was terribly wrong here and he had no idea what it was. He withdrew a small flashlight from his coat pocket, turned it on, then struggled to hold it in his left hand along with the briefcase as he drew his pistol with his right from under his topcoat and started back in the direction from whence he’d come. His rubber-soled shoes moved silently over the concrete, his flashlight jabbing holes in the night, seeking any sign of the missing sector cop.

  Halfway back down the block, an alley bisected the street. Otto was worried that if Dunphy had gone off to check on a prowler or something, the sector cop might be coming back down the alley, see the light and the gun, and wind up drilling Otto.

  Wouldn’t that be a son of a bitch.

  Pushing himself flat against the brick building on the west side of the street, Otto moved back north. When he got to the alley, he first looked across the street to the east and could see nothing but rain in that direction. Feeling like a putz on the empty street, Otto peeked around the edge of the building, saw nothing, and risked shining the flashlight down that way.

  Nothing.

  He turned west in the alley, the flashlight and briefcase clumsily in front of him as he meandered ahead, careful to stay in the middle and aim the tiny pen flash at any shadows. Keeping his pistol ready, he moved forward slowly.

  Five feet, ten feet, fifteen, twenty, nothing, the flashlight sweeping back and forth, the briefcase growing heavier by the second, his fingers aching, then stiffening, as the case wobbled back and forth.

  Damnit, he thought. Where is this asshole?

  Ahead, on his right, something tapped on metal in the shadows.

  He swung the flashlight over and saw a dumpster. He couldn’t tell whether the tapping came from the inside or from the far end, where he couldn’t see. The tapping continued, slow, rhythmic—something man-made, for sure.

  “Dunphy?” he asked quietly.

  No answer—just the tapping.

  Otto took a wider arc, so he could see around the far end of the dumpster.