The Fever Kill

by Tom Piccirilli

  Tucco was too slick to show he was pissed about it. It went back to how he liked to be pushed right to the edge.

  But Cruez swung out in front of Crease and tried to block him, which was the totally wrong move to make. He'd juked the show. Tucco was playing it so cool, and now he had to extend that cool to Cruez too. You could see it got under Tucco's skin a little, having to go the extra yard and put his arm on the monolith and ease him back. It put too much attention on the scene and too much focus on the fact that Crease was getting what he wanted.

  Tucco said, "Sure, you get yourself a drink too, all right? Got everything you could want back there." Knowing Crease didn't drink but making the offer anyway. "Your old man, he liked whiskey, right?"

  "The cheaper the better." Grinning, Crease let the cigarette dangle. When you had a pose you liked to hit you had to stick with it. "This will only take a minute."

  "Take your time in my car, with my woman, man. What's mine is yours."

  There was a time when it was true. Tucco wouldn't deny Crease anything. It was part of the action, dangling everything you owned in front of your crew's faces. See which one of them would leap for the bait, which ones wouldn't.

  The ones that wouldn't were more greedy. They were only biding their time until they could get it all. The ones who acted like they didn't want anything, those you got rid of first.

  Chapter Eight

  Crease got in the back of the Bentley and rolled the window up. He turned and Morena was sitting there with the glass in her hand, tinkling ice cubes. First thing he wanted to tell her was that she shouldn't be drinking now that she was pregnant. It sounded ludicrous even to himself.

  She said, "I don't know what to call you."

  She'd known him by the other name. He'd had that name for the last two and a half years, up until only a few days ago, but he couldn't remember what it was now.

  He said, "My name is Crease."

  He wondered what would happen next. If she'd throw the drink in his face, slap him, or sidle into his arms. And how he'd react. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do. Kiss her, clasp her hand, press a palm to her belly, start going kitchy-kitchy coo, kitchy coo.

  Instead, he did nothing and she took another sip and looked at him from beneath the waves of her luminous black hair.

  "You're crazier than he is, Crease," she said. "Two years undercover, playing both sides, working me. I've seen you in action. You're clever, crafty, and you thrill to kill. You've got that same glacier gaze when you want it."

  "I didn't work you," Crease told her, though he knew he had, even without fully realizing it. "And I only played both sides because that's the way they wanted it."

  "You weren't faking. What you were doing, it was all real."

  "Yeah."

  "You're as bad a boy as any of them."

  "You going to lecture me?" he asked. It was probably what attracted her to him in the first place.

  She put the glass down and said, "Did you ever care about me? Or was I just a way to get to him?"

  "You never gave me anything I could use in court, Morena. They never wanted to bring him up anyway. He's safer than a priest who spits on the sidewalk. I fell for you the first day I saw you."

  "All you had to do was ask him. He would've given me to you."

  He hated when she talked like that. Laying it on the line, letting the jealousy twist inside him. Reminding him that she used to be on the street before Tucco made her his lady, and then she was a kept woman anyhow. She liked to torment him a little that way, get him riled, charged up, before they hit the bed.

  "I wasn't about to ask anybody for you," he said.

  She started to move to him but he couldn't help himself any longer and lunged, carried her to the far side of the Bentley where she smacked up against the bar. Bottles rattled and rang. His mouth found hers, but he couldn't swallow her down fast enough or breathe her in deeply enough, and when he grabbed her she let out a cry of pain and amusement. He backed off, afraid of hurting the kid. His son Stevie was eight years old and already a victim of his growing fever, but somehow Crease felt like this one, born into a world of murder and betrayal, had a better chance. How sick was that?

  She was right, they were all right, he really was crazy. He said, "You shouldn't have come."

  "Why not? This is where everybody else is. This is where it's all happening. Why should I miss out?" The corners of her mouth were crimped with anger. Her dark eyes blazed, her luxurious nightshade hair wreathed to frame her face. "Why did you do it?" she asked. "Why did you leave like that?"

  Perhaps his eyes were full of intense, unclear emotion, the way his father's had been the night he died, because she had to glance away. Crease's thoughts raced but no words formed, nothing came to him. This was his chance to explain, but there was just nothing there.

  Finally he said, "I don't know."

  "You don't know? That's it? You don't know?"

  "Yeah."

  And he didn't, but he had to admit he hadn't been asking himself the question. He really didn't care much anymore, which seemed to put things in perspective. The not caring. The understanding that what he was doing made no sense to anyone, not even himself, and yet it was the only thing that could be done.

  She must've realized that because she let it slide by. You did weird things. You lived a strange life. She said, "I've missed you."

  "You say that like you haven't seen me in ten years. It's been half a week."

  "It feels longer."

  He nodded. He stared at her and thought of the last time they'd been together, in Tucco's penthouse apartment in Tribeca, looking out over the water. They'd just finished making love and he'd slipped into that zone where he was tired and content and wanted to go out and do something stupid and touristy like taking in a Broadway show. The feeling hit him rarely and always while Morena's scent was still on him.

  Morena had been in the bathroom a long time, and just when he was about to get up and go check on her she came out naked holding a home pregnancy test. She cocked an eyebrow and said, "You're a daddy."

  He believed her. She never hid behind a line or a rap. She was herself and never played any games. So far as he knew, she'd never told a lie to him or even to Tucco. She always threw it out there and if you didn't like it, the trouble was yours.

  So if she said the kid was his, it was his.

  A sense of elation began to surge through his chest for a moment before quickly dissipating. He had a son and four or five or six adopted kids, and now there was another on the way. He expected her to run over and show him the test, parading the tiny blue line in front of him the way Joan had, clutching the little piss-soaked stick of plastic to her chest. But Morena had already thrown it in the wastebasket next to the bed, and Crease didn't have the heart to check for himself, go digging around in the trash for it.

  A residue of her dried sweat powdered her body as she moved to him across Tucco's bed, and as she touched him he turned to her and pressed his lips to the spot under her ear which made her purr and said, "I'm a cop."

  She took it in stride, the way she took everything. As he lay there she told him, "This is something we're gonna have to see about."

  He left her then and went to his apartment. He grabbed his badge from where it was hidden behind the microwave beside his father's. Proven fact: burglars, thugs, smash and dashers, they'll tear a place apart, look in the sugar jar, in the coffee grounds, the ice cube tray, the toilet tank, but they always miss the tiny area behind the microwave. Probably worried they're going to somehow zap themselves.

  He marched down to the club where Tucco and his left-hand man Cruez were in the back getting lap dances. He walked into the place and thought, I can shoot them both now and no one would care.

  His lieutenant wouldn't mind. Even after twenty-six months, with all the evidence Crease had brought in, nobody wanted to make the case. They all wanted more. The mayor's office, the D.A., the narc squad, the vice squad. They wanted the connections, the i
nventories, the emperors and despots in South America who supplied the suppliers who supplied the bosses who ran the guys who ran guys like Tucco.

  Crease would never get enough evidence for them to allow him to make the bust.

  The girl dancing on top of Tucco had his belt in both hands, sliding them down. She stopped her grinding and got a spooked look, like she knew Crease was a cop. She wanted out of the room but Crease blocked the way.

  The other one hanging on Cruez was too busy to turn around. The room was small, a lot of bad could happen there in very short order. Tucco's mouth was smeared with red lipstick, it made him look like he'd been chewing rabbits raw. He glared at Crease and said, "You think she's going to give me back my five hundred bucks?"

  Crease said, "Listen, I'm a cop."

  He flashed the badge, realizing later it was his old man's. It must've been an unconscious way to cause another problem. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he must've wanted to really get the ball rolling, give Tucco some clues, get his ass in gear. Tucco had a near-perfect memory. He'd instantly memorized the badge number and later gotten his tech boys to do a search on them, track them down. That's what led him to Hangtree.

  If it had been his own badge, nothing would've come up. There were no files anymore. Everything about him was deleted. That must've been why he'd taken his father's instead.

  Crease wondered why he did things like that.

  Cruez climbed out from beneath the other stripper, who was so stoned that it took her a few seconds to realize he was gone. She was still making vaguely serpentine movements as he went for his gun. Crease took two steps forward and pressed his .38 under Cruez's blunt chin and said, "Not yet."

  Tucco was smiling, always so sharp and way ahead of the game. "Put that thing away. Nothing's gonna happen. Your friends on the force, they know what you've done for me?"

  "They know."

  "Your cell gonna be next to mine?"

  "Probably not."

  "You don't have your handcuffs out. You're not busting me. So you don't have enough for a case."

  "I've got enough for fifty cases," Crease told him, "but they don't care. Nobody does. So no, I'm not busting you. I've got some unfinished business I've got to take care of first. I'll be gone a few days, no more than a week. When I get back, I'll look you up again, and we can settle whatever score we've got."

  "Only score I see is the one you've been working."

  "Maybe so."

  "You're crazy, man," Tucco said. "I've never known one like you before."

  "Be glad," Crease said and walked out.

  ~ * ~

  In the back of the Bentley, he held onto Morena another minute. He pressed his forehead to hers and thought of everything he'd never told her. Maybe it would get through anyway. She didn't know he was married, didn't know about Stevie, but there was no time to get into it right now. He kissed her beneath her ear and she hummed at the back of her throat.

  He didn't want to push Tucco too much at the moment. Cool as the guy was, and as much as he dug being shoved, Tucco might get a little wild about him and Morena making it in a two hundred thousand dollar car. Worried about the state of his interior if not his woman. She said, "You know what he was doing the whole ride up here? He was giggling."

  Crease couldn't believe it and looked at her. "Really?"

  She nodded. "He thought it was funny. He liked the way it all went down. You walking into the club that way, cowboy-style. He's dealt with hardasses and maniacs but never a man with your flair."

  "Did you tell him you're pregnant?"

  "Of course. He doesn't care. He was trying to get under my skin by saying he'd raise the baby after you were dead. Start him off dealing when he was seven or eight in the schoolyards. If it was a girl, get her out on the street early, vying for the pedo trade." Crease saw that Tucco had indeed gotten under her skin. Her eyes were hard as slate. "Like I wouldn't shoot him in the back of his head before I allowed that. I might just do it anyway."

  Crease didn't have to worry about the baby. She'd do anything she had to in order to keep the kid out of the life. He eased against her once more, and when their mouths met they twisted harder with near-desperation in each other's arms, the kiss rearing into something else. Neither one of them broke off, neither of them breathing. Morena let out a low wildcat cry and Crease urged the thing on, the pain and the need, the wonder of the next minute.

  He didn't know when it ended but when he dropped back against the seat she was two feet away, all the way over there.

  "Why are you in this place?" she asked.

  "I've got some old accounts to square, I think."

  "You think?"

  "I'm still trying to work things out."

  "Which things?"

  "It has to do with my father."

  "Are you going to kill somebody?"

  "Maybe not."

  She shook her head a little sadly, like he was nowhere near in focus and never would be. "What are you going to do next?" Angling her chin at the window. "About him."

  "We're gonna run around the block for another couple of days, and then we'll get past the rap and we'll see what happens."

  She grabbed the sides of his face and looked him square in the eyes. "You can't beat him. You might be crazier than him, but he's faster. You can't win that way."

  He didn't like hearing it out loud, in her voice, the truth that had been circling around in his head for days. Not only that he wasn't fast enough, but that he was nuts. He didn't mind walking the edge but he didn't want her seeing him there.

  He was fast, he was so fast his hands moved without him, but Tucco was something else altogether. "You're probably right, but that doesn't change anything."

  "What if I said I loved you and wanted you to be with me? That I had enough money to get away, start over?"

  "I'd probably say I loved you and wanted to be with you too," he told her. He wasn't sure if either one of them really loved or could ever love the other one the way they should, but you did the best you could. "It'd give me more reason to fight, but it wouldn't affect the outcome much. That's what I'd probably say."

  She released his face and poured herself another drink. "Go then, finish what you've got to finish. His patience is going to wear out soon, you don't have more than two more days."

  "That's all I need," he said.

  He'd have done all he could do by then, and would either have an answer or would give up. He expected to give up.

  "Good," she said, "because I don't have much patience either. Oh, and don't be surprised if he kills somebody in this town first, just to ramp himself up. It might be somebody you know."

  She opened the door and made him climb out over her.

  Cruez was waiting in the street. Tucco was staring up the road. He glanced at Crease and said, "These llamas, they on farms?"

  "Yeah."

  "What if I told you all is forgiven? Really. You being a cop, it doesn't matter to me. I've got plenty on the payroll, and none of them helped me like you have. Never had better times with anybody else. There's no outlaw as good as a dirty cop. You're my right hand."

  "What about me?" Cruez asked.

  "You. How many times do I have to tell you? You, you're my left hand."

  "Oh."

  Crease knew there would be a lot of talk, but he hadn't expected it to be like this. Tucco was serious. It could all go back to the way it was. He could still work for the cops and still do what he did in the underground. Maybe quit the cops and just let himself go.

  But Morena. And the baby.

  Strange he should give up his wife and son to the life, but now, Tucco's mistress pregnant with his child—a kid he might never even hold—should somehow drive him from it.

  What the hell did it mean?

  "So?" Tucco said. "Open your mouth, tell me what you're thinking. Come on, you know what I say is true. I don't lie. You ready to pick up where we left off? Maybe start bringing in some chinks from Canada? Got that nice
shipment of H coming up next week. Need you with me on that."

  Tucco lied all the time, to everyone about everything. It was sort of funny to realize he thought he was honest, maybe even noble in his own way with the people who mattered to him. He had the straight face and dead gaze for everybody, and the lies poured out of him so easily that he often mistook them for sincerity.

  "No," Crease told him.

  "No? You sure about that, man?" He showed his teeth for an instant and then the smile, or the grimace, was gone. "You know what you're doing?"

  "Yeah."

  "I don't think you do. You're not yourself, and anybody who knows you, really knows you like I do, can see it. I think this place has got you all confused, it's screwing with your head. Coming back here, it was bad idea. All these trees, they'd drive anybody crazy. You're concrete and steel and asphalt. This clean air is killing you."

  Maybe it was true. "Could be. How about you? How are you feeling?"

  "It's making me sick too. So let's get the hell out of here and go home."

  "In two days we'll see what we see," Crease said. "Until then, you go visit with the llamas, all right? Don't snuff any old ladies."

  Chapter Nine

  He tried Burke's hardware store first, but Sam Burke had already gone home for the day. A teenager putting away six-foot lengths of copper tubing told him the store would be closing up in ten minutes, it was already after six. Crease had let the time get away from him. Morena's scent was still on him and it was making him a little heady.

  Crease asked the teen if Burke still lived out on Deerwood Road, and the kid told him he wasn't allowed to give out that kind of information. Crease got back in the 'Stang and got turned around twice before he remembered which direction Deerwood Road was in. Not everything from the past was that close to the surface.

  He drove slowly into the hills and found the place pretty easily, as if it had always been intended that he wind up here. It didn't take much to get you believing in fate, thinking your life was wrapped around someone else's who you hardly even knew. For years the thread connecting you would go unnoticed, and then one day it started to tug from the other end and you got reeled in.