Dying Breath

by J. A. Konrath

  “Good luck,” I told him, and we mutually broke the connection.

  So much for help from Property Crimes.

  I briefly outlined the conversation for Benedict, and then we started watching the video again, and the phone rang. Benedict went to pause the vid, but I told him to let it roll.

  “Daniels.”

  “It’s Hajek, CST. We lifted six good latents off of McGlade’s Vette.”

  The Crime Scene Team had come through. “Nice work. Send them over.”

  “I ran them already. Got a hit. They belong to an ex-con named Dill Remir. Did two stretches for GTA. Address in Englewood.”

  “Parole?”

  “Time served.” He read off the addy. “Also, we got more from the rental truck. Dirt and dead leaves.”

  “Can any of it be traced?”

  “I called a botanist friend to identify the foliage. And if we got a soil sample from another scene, I could match it. Plus, we found something else.”

  He paused, wanting me to ask. So I did. “What did you find?”

  “Blood.”

  Only in my line of work was discovering blood good news. “From the perp?”

  “Not likely. This came from the back. Didn’t match the victim.”

  I considered it. “She’s not the first one to die in that truck.”

  “That’s my guess. There’s also duct tape residue where we didn’t find duct tape.”

  “Good work. Keep me in the loop.”

  I relayed it all to Herb.

  “Want to wait for the warrant or talk to him now?” he asked, referring to Remir.

  Cutting a deal took time. Mr. Remir was entitled to legal representation, and there was a metric shit-ton of paperwork involved.

  “We haven’t pressed charges yet, so he doesn’t need to lawyer-up to get them dropped. We could drop by, ask nicely. Save us a few hours. Maybe a few days.”

  “What if he runs?”

  “Haven’t you heard? We have a task force. We can put a few uniforms on it, watch his place.”

  Herb stood up and tossed out his paper cup. “Good. Let’s stop for some real coffee on the way.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And maybe a bite.” He patted his belly. “My food baby is crying for hot dogs.”

  HARRY

  When I cabbed it back to my condo, the dick condo manager was waiting for me in the lobby.

  “Mr. McGlade, I’m glad I ran into you. I’ve talked to the condo association, and there was a unanimous vote that no tenant is allowed to own a horse.”

  “What horse?”

  He sighed. “Mr. McGlade, must we go through this charade?”

  He was the kind of dick who pronounced it sha-rod. What a dick.

  “Look…” I tried to recall his name, failed, and it was too late to ask, “buddy, when you have some sort of proof I have a horse, I’d be happy to comply. I have a designer dog, one of those golden chiweenie maltipoos, and unless someone is complaining about the barking, get off my back.”

  I tried to walk around him, but he did that trick where he stepped in front of me.

  “Mr. McGlade—”

  “Let me explain how the burden of proof works,” I said, talking over him. “If I said I have a leprechaun, it’s not your job to prove I don’t have one. It’s up to me to prove it. Ergo, I don’t have to prove to you that I don’t own a horse. You need to produce the proof. Got it?”

  “What do leprechauns have to do with—”

  “Who’s saying I have a horse, me or you?”

  “I am.”

  “So you’re the one who needs to prove it.”

  “Why don’t you just prove that you have a dog?”

  “Because I don’t need to prove anything to anyone. Make sense?”

  While he stood there looking confused I hopped onto the elevator and pressed the button. Once again, my mental acrobatics and quick thinking saved me from a sticky situation. I wondered if that snooty IQ club, Mensa, had a king, and if I should apply for the position.

  When the elevator stopped, I walked to my condo door with pep in my step, buoyed by the satisfaction of my own intellectual abilities. The uniqueness of my keen mind was so fine-tuned that it bordered on metaphysical, because as soon as I raised my key to my lock, I knew something was off.

  It didn’t feel right.

  I pressed my ear to my door, listening, and could make out the faint sounds of television.

  Had I left my TV on?

  I didn’t think so.

  So there were two possibilities. The first, someone was in my home and had turned on the television. The second, Rover the horse had developed parrot-like abilities, and was mimicking the sound of a television.

  The former seemed likelier. That latter, much cooler.

  Either way, I’d best be careful.

  I eased the key into my lock and turned.

  The key didn’t move.

  I jiggled it, harder.

  It didn’t work.

  Had that dick condo manager changed my locks? Or was something more sinister at play?

  I took several steps back, ready to give the knob a shift kick, and just as I was lifting my foot the door opened.

  It was my neighbor. The annoying one who lived a floor below me.

  “Wrong condo, McGlade,” he said. “Again. You’re one up.”

  He pointed at the ceiling. I’d gotten off at the wrong floor.

  “I just needed to borrow a cup of sugar,” I quickly covered.

  “Then why are your keys out and you look like you’re trying to kick my door in?”

  “I was on guard,” I said, “for sugar thieves.”

  “Sugar thieves.”

  “You put your keys between your knuckles, so you can slash and stab with your punch.”

  I gave him a quick shadow boxing key-fu lesson.

  “Hold on. I’ve got sugar.”

  I waited for him to return with the bag of sugar, and decided that maybe I wouldn’t try out for Mensa King just yet. I had too much on my plate at the moment. Maybe next year, when I had more free time.

  I took the sugar and went back to the elevator, making extra sure that I pressed the right button. I was sure I’d pressed it correctly the first time. Maybe it was a faulty wiring problem.

  This time, the button worked, and I entered my domicile and was warmly greeted by Rover with a whinny and a lick on the hand.

  “I brought you a treat,” I told him, “One hundred percent natural.”

  I gave him the bag of sugar. Then I went to my bedroom to plug my cell phone in the charger, and came back to my desk and checked my landline messages.

  “Today you die, McGlade.”

  It was my Darth Vader Jigsaw secret admirer with the voice gizmo.

  “What do you think, Rover? Celebrity stalker? Former girlfriend? A scumbag I put behind bars? Or just some random troll who gets his kicks tormenting the rich and talented?”

  Rover didn’t reply. He’d finished the sugar, and was munching on the bag it came in.

  “Good call,” I said. “Fiber is important.”

  I put his new collar and leash on, intent on taking my horse for a walk, and that’s when something nicked my cheek.

  It felt like an insect bite, and I immediately slapped my face and stared at my fingers.

  Blood. Not bug blood, with the accompanying legs and wings.

  My blood.

  “What the hell just—”

  Then my computer flatscreen went THWAK! and moved back several inches, a hole appearing in the lower right-hand corner.

  Someone was shooting at me.

  “Sniper!” I yelled, diving for Rover, managing to wrestle him to the ground and yank him behind my sofa.

  A moment later there was a tinkling sound—a supersonic bullet punching a clean hole through my living room panorama window, which used to have a terrific view of the city until some rich reality TV star built a skyscraper there. It was still under construction, not scheduled
to officially open until August, and my guess was the sniper had snuck past security and was perched on some unfinished floor with a rifle.

  I hadn’t heard any gunshots, and figured the shooter must be using a suppressor. It’s suppressor, not silencer, by the way. It’s almost impossible to silence a bullet. The best you can do is reduce the decibels to the level of a cough or clap. Suppressors were illegal in Illinois and several other states.

  But then, shooting at a guy through his window was illegal too.

  I had plenty of decent weapons to return fire, including a Dragunov SVD that could shoot the wings off a house fly at a thousand meters, if you were into that sort of thing. But I kept my weapons stash at my office, and I haven’t been in my office in two weeks because it was being decontaminated for black mold because my inflatable hot tub sprang a leak. I know; first world problems.

  My .44 Magnum, loaded with vintage hollow-point Black Talon bullets affectionately known as cop-killers, was the perfect defensive weapon if a rhino wearing level 3a body armor broke into my home, but for shooting between buildings it was about as effective as spitting.

  So my adrenal cortex chose flight over fight. The problem was how to get from the sofa, to my door, with a horse, and without becoming a murder statistic.

  You might be asking why I wasn’t calling the police. In return, I might be asking you to read more carefully, because my cell phone was charging in my bedroom, as mentioned a few paragraphs previously.

  Wait… you meant my land line?

  Good idea.

  My desk phone was only a few meters away. Unfortunately, thanks to my green hipster douchebag interior designer—I never should have trusted some trust fund white suburban millennial who legally changed his name to Ankaiyarkanni—I had an open floor concept, no shades or blinds, and floor to ceiling windows so I could be at one with the urban plains.

  It was loads of fun to dance naked in front of my giant panorama windows, guessing who might be looking. Not much fun to be in an assassin’s crosshairs.

  Got to hell, Ankaiyarkanni.

  For me to make a run at the phone, I needed a distraction. Something unusual that would draw the sniper’s attention for just a moment, while I hurried to my desk.

  “Any ideas?” I asked my dwarf miniature horse.

  Rover pooped. Didn’t know horses could poop while lying down. Guess you learn something new every day.

  But I instantly recognized what the horse was trying to tell me.

  Rover was saying, “Throw my shit at the window, Harry. Then the sniper won’t be able to see you.”

  In my head, Rover spoke in a cartoony yokel voice.

  “Thanks, Rover.”

  I picked up the nearest horse apple, which was the size of a baseball, and without thinking too much about my actions, but at the same time surprised by its warmth and firmness, I launched it at the window.

  It bounced off, leaving the smallest of smudges.

  “Didn’t work,” I said. “And now my hand smells like horseshit.”

  “That piece was too dry,” said Rover in my head. “Look for one of the moist ones.”

  Rover’s litter box was close, so I belly crawled to it and began pinching all of his horse turds, checking for moisture content.

  “They’re all too dry,” I said.

  “Guess it’s just a really stupid idea,” said Rover. “You’re a real big dumb-dumb.”

  I considered my non-horseshit options. When I couldn’t think of any, I decided to just throw the whole litter box at the window, then run for my door during the hopefully-ensuing confusion. It would probably result in my horseshit-covered death, but I always allowed rash decisions to be the better part of valor, so I grabbed the edges of the tray and got ready to go for it.

  Then fate threw me a life preserver; someone knocked on my door.

  “Call the police!” I yelled.

  “Mr. McGlade, do you really want to get the police involved with this?” answered the dick hotel manager through my door.

  “Someone is shooting at me! Call the cops!”

  “It’s in your condo association agreement that a duly appointed representative can enter your domicile if it is strongly suspected that the bylaws are being violated. Which they certainly are. I don’t need the police, Mr. McGlade. But since you require proof that your so-called dog is actually a horse, I’m using the master key to let myself in to take a picture.”

  “Don’t come in! Call the police!”

  And then the idiot walked in.

  “Get down!” I said, my teeth clenched. “Someone is shooting at me!”

  He closed the door and strolled toward me. “I’ll leave right after I get proof that—”

  The bullet hit him high, and he stood there for a moment and then twisted to the floor like Odette at the end of Swan Lake.

  That’s right, a Swan Lake reference. There’s more to me than just bathroom humor.

  The manager stared at me, surprise in his eyes. Blood blossomed on the front of his shirt, making a tie-dye pattern.

  “Put pressure on the wound,” I told him.

  “What?”

  “You were shot. Put your hand on it or you’ll bleed out.”

  He slapped a hand to his wound, but it didn’t stop the gushing much. He didn’t have a lot of time.

  “Whatcha gonna do now, Harry?” Rover asked me in my head.

  With the strength and determination of ten men, I picked up the litter box—

  —and spilled it all over myself.

  “Better try something else,” Rover said.

  The imaginary horse voice was right.

  But I had no idea what else I could do.

  PHIN

  I woke up with a headache so bad my temples actually throbbed.

  My memories were hazy, clouded, but I had enough pieces and bits to put it together.

  Tucker shot me. But that funny looking gun he had didn’t fire bullets. It was an air gun that fired darts. Probably some kind of animal tranquilizer. It felt like angel dust, but with a bigger kick. The dart I pulled out of my chest was large enough to stop a bear. There was a tender spot on my sternum.

  My switchblade, 9mm, and brass knuckles were gone.

  So were my wallet and my keys. But the bastard made two mistakes.

  The first; he didn’t take my boots.

  The second; he didn’t kill me when he had the chance.

  It was completely dark. I slowly got to my knees, feeling around.

  There were four walls, wood, each less than two meters apart so I could only fully lie down on an angle, corner to corner. I slowly stood up, was able to, and raised my hands, feeling a wooden ceiling about the two and a half meter mark. It smelled musty, and damp, and there was a sharp stench of ammonia that came from the cold, concrete floor.

  Was I in a box or crate? Some sort of reinforced closet?

  A tomb?

  The walls were thick. They had a dull sound when I tapped them with my knuckles, and didn’t so much as rattle after a series of sharp kicks.

  I felt around with my fingers, searching slowly, blindly. All four walls had small furrows and ridges in them, like someone had chiseled in long vertical grooves. I followed a groove down and pried something small and sharp out of it.

  A fingernail.

  I wasn’t the first to be held here.

  I continued probing the walls, looking for a door. I still had a lot of cobwebs in my head from the drug hangover, but I knew I got in there somehow, and that somehow had to be through a door.

  If the door were in the ceiling, I’d be in big trouble. But I had no noticeable bruises indicating I’d been dropped in here, so I had to assume it was either through the walls or the floor.

  After exploring the walls carefully for an unknown length of time, I found a paper thin horizontal groove about waist high. This groove was about thirty inches long, and then extended down to the floor on both sides. There were no hinges. There wasn’t a knob. But it was the closes
t thing to an opening that I had come across. I even tried checking the floor, and the only thing I discovered was a very old and crumbly something that was probably dried feces.

  If I didn’t get out of here soon, nature would eventually call and I’d have to do the same thing.

  I went back to the alleged doorway, and kicked it until my toes were numb. Then I felt along the groove.

  It hadn’t budged a millimeter.

  So I sat down, squared both feet against it, and pushed, while pressing against the opposite wall with my hands.

  No movement. If that was the door, it was solid.

  I opened up my hollow heel and took out the AMT, sliding the grip to the side and releasing the gravity knife. I locked the knife in place and stuck it into the crack.

  The blade was too thick to go in.

  I had six bullets in the gun. I could shoot out the hinges if I knew where the hinges were. But it all depended on how thick the door was. And this door seemed pretty damn thick.

  I didn’t want to waste bullets. They would give me a distinct advantage if Shears came back.

  If.

  I began to hyperventilate, panic setting in, and began a breathing exercise to calm me down.

  Inhale through my nose for four seconds.

  Hold it for four seconds.

  Exhale through my mouth for four seconds.

  Wait for four seconds.

  After a minute or two, I was able to reign in the fear just enough to think clearly.

  The groove was the key to escape.

  If my blade wouldn’t fit into it, I’d just have to make the groove bigger.

  I began to carve.

  # # #

  The wood was hard. Unyielding.

  It would have been easier chiseling through concrete.

  I was thirsty. Queasy.

  I wasn’t sure how long I’d been there. The drug hangover from the dart was bad, but I knew that worse was coming; codeine withdrawal. I’d been popping opiates like Tic-Tacs over the past few weeks, and being locked up in there meant going cold turkey. Sweats. Shakes. Vomiting. Worse than the worst flu ever.

  I’d reach a point where I wouldn’t have the strength to do anything but sleep. Which was problematic, because I had no water.

  A person can’t survive more than three days without water.