Last Call - A Thriller (Jacqueline Jack Daniels Mysteries Book 10)

by J. A. Konrath

  I flipped through my contacts on my phone, looking for someone to drunk text or dial, and frowned at how few friends I had.

  Happily, my phone rang, so apparently someone in the world loved me. I checked the number.

  Katie.

  “You got my message?” I asked. “I’m drinking a giant beer at this bar called—”

  “Jack, I’m in trouble.” She sounded dazed, perhaps hurt.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I need you to get over here right now.”

  “What happened, Katie? Where are you?”

  “I just got picked up,” she said, starting to cry. “I’m in jail.”

  YEARS AGO

  LUCY

  Indianapolis

  It was total, utter, complete, 100% bullshit.

  Lucy hated her bitch of a mother. She rode Lucy’s ass about everything. Her grades. Her eating habits. Her hygiene. Her room. Her bedtime. Her clothes. Her friends (actually, her lack of friends.)

  Things had gotten worse since Daddy died. And if the bitch knew about the special kind of love she and Daddy had, it would have pissed her mother off even more.

  “Just let me borrow the car,” Lucy said, trying to sound calm and in control. “Please.”

  “Borrow the car? You’re eleven years old!”

  “I’m fifteen! And I—” Lucy cut herself off. It would probably be best if Mom didn’t know about the fake driver’s permit Lucy made on the Xerox machine at the library. “I’m old enough to take care of myself,” she said instead.

  Mom put her hands on her hips; her power-pose. “You’re failing two classes, you dress like a slob, and you are not old enough to take care of yourself and definitely not driving anywhere!”

  Jeez, scream much? “So you drive me,” Lucy said, cucumber cool.

  “You have school tomorrow!”

  “It’s a writing convention. It’s educational.”

  “It’s six hundred miles away. You’d miss a full week of classes. And a bunch of creepy horror and murder writers getting drunk and rambling on about where they get their inspiration isn’t educational.”

  Lucy crossed her arms over her chest. “It beats the shit out of school.”

  “Language! That’s why I don’t like you reading those kinds of books. They’re morbid and low class and don’t teach good values.”

  “Andrew Z. Thomas is guest of honor. He’s the best writer ever.”

  “I don’t care if he’s the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. You’re not going.”

  “Daddy would let me go.”

  “No, he most definitely wouldn’t.”

  “Daddy loved me more than you.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “He used to tell me how pretty I am. And how you’re ugly and mean.”

  “What a horrible thing to say! Go to your room!”

  Lucy considered the straight razor she carried in the back pocket of her jeans. The whole, beautiful scene played out in her imagination.

  Mom says, “What do you think you’re doing with that razor, young lady?”

  “I’ll show you,” Lucy tells her, forcing the blade between her mother’s lips and carving out her ugly tongue and then holding it overhead like a trophy.

  Then, as her mom cries for mercy, Lucy slashes her. Over and over. Back and forth, conducting a symphony of blood and screams, until Mom finally apologizes for being a gigantic asshole for her whole life and begs Lucy’s forgiveness.

  “I’ll never forgive you, Mom,” Lucy tells her. “I’m not going to miss you, and neither will anyone else. I’ll bury you in the Lucy Garden Paradise Memorial Frog Cemetery, where you’ll rot in eternity with forty-seven frogs, thirteen mice, eight birds, fifteen cats, nine dogs, and a hamster named Steve.”

  And then she’ll die, sobbing in unbearable physical and emotional pain.

  “Fuck you, Mom. Don’t expect me to visit your grave.”

  “Are you listening to me, Lucy? I said, go to your room!”

  Lucy didn’t bother arguing, and skulked off into her bedroom. But that didn’t mean she was actually listening to her mother. Instead of pouting like the sullen teen she pretended to be, Lucy began to pack. Clothes. Books. Toiletries. She was sick of living there. All the rules. All the bitching. It was time to get the hell out. To make her own life.

  She waited until she heard the bathtub faucet turn on—Mom always took a bottle of wine into the bath after they fought—and then she grabbed the bitch’s car keys and got on the road.

  Such a wonderful concept, being on the road.

  Lucy had a feeling she was going to like it. A lot.

  PHIN

  Somewhere in Mexico

  He was shivering.

  The cell hadn’t cooled off. Which meant a fever.

  Phin ran his fingers across his sweaty forehead, feeling the heat, then began to probe his assorted wounds to gauge tenderness. When he pressed the slash in his stomach he’d stitched up, it felt like he was being branded.

  He pulled away his filthy shirt and chanced a look.

  Not only could he see the infection, swollen and ugly and red and leaking clear fluid, but he could also smell it. Like bad meat left out in the sun.

  Phin checked his plastic water cup. Empty. He found a beer can with a few sips of warm Tecate still left, and poured it onto the gash.

  The pain was so acute he groaned.

  “That looks bad, Jew Boy,” Kiler said. “Blood poisoning. Maybe you’ll get lucky and die before I have the chance to kill you.”

  Phin’s knowledge of infection was limited. But he knew that the mentally deficient racist was probably right. Some disease-causing agent had entered Phin’s body, and if it multiplied and spread into his bloodstream, that would lead to sepsis and death.

  Whatever antibiotics they’d given him hadn’t worked. He was no doubt producing antibodies, but the fever meant the bacteria was spreading faster than he could mount an internal defense.

  Phin weighed his options.

  Choice A was dying.

  Choice B was somehow reducing the bacteria load in his body.

  He placed his hands over his wound, his breath coming in shallow gasps. This was going to hurt. It was going to hurt a whole lot.

  Phin pictured his wife’s face, clenched his jaw, and screamed through his teeth as he began to squeeze out the pus.

  JACK

  Kansas City

  The uniform sitting across from me was named Rinkovec. I’d sobered up quite a bit during the taxi ride to the police station, and the ninety minutes in the waiting room, and I was drinking some vending machine coffee that was actually pretty good.

  “Thanks for agreeing to talk to me,” I said.

  “I’ve seen the TV show. You aren’t that fat in person.”

  The actress that played my character on the television series based on McGlade’s exploits was eighty pounds overweight.

  “Thanks. Has Katie confessed to anything?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Has she said anything at all?”

  “No.”

  I leaned forward. I knew this game, because I’d been playing it since before Officer Rinkovec was born. He and his partner thought Katie was a junkie. Since more than ninety percent of suspects talk to police and inadvertently incriminate themselves, they assumed Katie would do the same. But, apparently, Katie buttoned up. Now Officer Rinkovec would have to convince a state’s attorney and a judge that the search was legal.

  The secret of interrogation was to get people to answer questions. It was human nature to want to explain yourself, even if you admit to guilt in the process.

  Cops were human, too.

  “Have you arrested her?” I asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “And what are the proposed charges?”

  He leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. “Drug possession. Class C felony.”

  On his desk, between us, was a hypodermic needle in a puncture-proof
evidence bag.

  “Did Katie tell you what that is?”

  “No.”

  “So it could be insulin.”

  He smiled. “We both know it isn’t insulin.”

  The man was gabby, and confident. But he should have known better than to talk to the police.

  “Did she consent to the search?”

  His smile went away. And that told me all I needed to know.

  “So what was your probable cause?”

  He shrugged. “She was disoriented. Looked out of it.”

  “Do you want to explain how a disoriented woman constitutes suspicious behavior?”

  “She appeared to be under the influence of a controlled substance.”

  “Is she high now?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “If you’re holding her, and she’s under the influence of an illegal drug and anything happens…”

  He’d taken the bait, and just realized he’d incriminated himself. Bad enough that he searched Katie illegally, and didn’t get a confession. Now he admitted to me that he thought she was high, but didn’t get her medical help.

  “We’re just passing through your fine city,” I said. “Katie has been through I lot, lately. I really appreciate you picking her up for her own safety. I’d like to take her back to our hotel, and we’ll be on our way by later this morning.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “If you’d like me to,” I went on, “I could also thank your Captain. He might be a little irritated by a phone call at four in the morning, but when I explain that you were helping out a disoriented woman, I’m sure he’ll agree with the state’s attorney, the judge, and Internal Affairs that you made the right call.”

  If Officer Rinkovec liked me when I arrived, he didn’t anymore.

  “I don’t think we’ll need to involve him,” he said. “I’ll have your friend brought to the waiting room, and you both can get on your way.”

  I stood up. “Thank you, officer.”

  We didn’t shake hands.

  Ten minutes later, Katie and I were in a taxi heading back to the Holiday Inn, and twenty minutes after that, in the hotel lobby.

  “Thank you,” she said while we waited for our elevator. Her first words to me since her phone call.

  “What was it?” I asked.

  She looked at the carpeting. “H.”

  “You’re an addict?”

  “I was.”

  “Was?”

  “I haven’t used in a long time.” She rolled up her sleeves, showed me some faded track marks on her arms.

  “If you’re clean, why buy again?”

  “You’ll think it’s stupid.”

  I waited. The elevator came. We each pressed our floor number.

  “I went to this bar. Heard this song. Brought back some bad memories.”

  “You’re right,” I told her. “I think that’s stupid. And you’re not coming with us.”

  “Because I made a mistake.”

  “Because I won’t allow an addict to watch my back.”

  I got out on the third floor. Katie followed me.

  “I know you’ve been through some things, Jack. But that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to judge me.”

  “I’m not judging you. I just don’t trust you.”

  I inserted the key into my door.

  “I can smell the booze on your breath,” Katie said, raising her voice. “Does that help you cope with the past? Barry Fuller? Mr. K? Charles and Alex Kork?”

  “Good luck with your book, Katie.”

  I went into my room, closed and locked the door, and listened until I heard her walk away.

  LUCY

  Somewhere in Mexico

  It was total, utter, complete, 100% bullshit.

  K wasn’t acting like a friend, or a mentor.

  He was acting like her mother. Or some creepy, deranged uncle.

  “The Hanover guy is hiding something, K. I know it. C’mon. Let’s take him to the playroom. Please?”

  Lucy hated saying please. She also hated having to ask.

  “He’s popular with the gamblers,” K said. “Emilio wouldn’t like it.”

  “So you do whatever Emilio wants? Are you his little bitch, now?”

  K didn’t even look at her, continuing to stare off into empty space. “We’ve already got his next fight scheduled. Pick another prisoner to play with.”

  “But I want Han-overrrr,” Lucy said, extending it into a whine. “I’ve been thinking about your hotplate idea. I’ve been fantasizing about it, K. We can make him hold his foot on it. His tongue. His junk. He’ll tell us his entire life story, and then start making up shit he thinks we want to hear. Don’t you want to do that Hitchcock thing?”

  K glanced at her, his zombie gaze without the barest hint of interest. “Pick another prisoner to play with.”

  Lucy raised an eyebrow (actually, she raised the scar tissue where her eyebrow used to be). “Are you high, K?”

  “I’m… medicated.”

  “How much of that lean have you had?”

  K didn’t answer.

  “Can I take a few men, go into town?” she asked. “Maybe find some new blood for the games? Wouldn’t it be fun to see two elderly nuns in a knife fight?”

  “We have enough prisoners.”

  “Okay, then let me go and see a movie, then.”

  “You’ve got a thing for Mr. Hanover. He’s fighting later.”

  “K, I feel all cooped up. This is the longest I’ve stayed in one place since I was a little kid. I need a change of scenery, you know what I’m sayin’?”

  “No,” K said.

  “You’re not letting me leave?”

  “This is where we belong, Lucy. We’re… different. It’s dangerous for people like us, out there.” K pointed a misshapen finger at the throne room window. “They want to hurt us. But here, we’re safe. Here, we’re rulers. Here, we’re feared.”

  K finally had a bit of life in his eyes, but it didn’t arouse Lucy. It scared her.

  “You know I love it here, K. But I don’t want to feel like I have no choice. I know you’re the one who made the deal with Emilio, but we came here together. I should have a say.”

  “You’re my queen, Lucy. A queen’s place is by her king’s side.” K’s gnarled mouth twisted into a grin. “Forever.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” Lucy said, bowing as deeply as she could. “I’m going to the bathroom. I’ll see you again when the games start.”

  K went back to staring into empty space. Lucy backed up out of the throne room, limped down the hallway, and began to consider how to escape.

  The compound was guarded 24/7. No way to get in or out without K’s or Emilio’s permission. And even if she could steal a car and slip past the men outside, K would go after her. Without any money, and with her disfigured appearance, she wouldn’t be able to get far, or hide for very long.

  As she’d feared, this place had become her prison. The only way Lucy would be able to leave was if she was in charge. And Lucy could only see one way that would happen.

  She had to somehow get rid of Luther Kite.

  DONALDSON

  Donaldson couldn’t find a hospital. He tried to stop for directions, but none of these assholes spoke American, and the majority ran away when they took a good look at his face.

  In an effort to do something to better his situation, Donaldson stopped at another OXXO.

  The needle nose pliers set him back two dollars and forty cents. Donaldson took four Xanax and four Tylenol-3, waited until he began to get drowsy, and slipped the tips of the pliers between his eyeball and eye socket and wiggled them around, feeling for his inverted eyelid.

  When he felt something fleshy, he squeezed the grips and clamped down, concentrating on lightly tugging the lid back into the proper place. The pills dulled his pain considerably. In fact, they did too good a job, and Donaldson yanked harder than intended.

  His eyelid tore off with the ease of
tissue paper.

  As the blood began to squirt, Donaldson stared at his severed eyelid, still clamped in the jaws of the pliers, and wondered what he was supposed to do next.

  Go to a doctor, probably.

  KATIE

  Kansas City

  Rather than call a taxi, Katie used the Uber app and got a ride back to the east side. She asked the driver to wait for her, walked into the alley, and retrieved a few of the items she’d thrown into the garbage can.

  On the way back to the hotel, she thought about Jack Daniels. Renting a car and tailing the Crimebago wouldn’t be terribly difficult—it was bright red for crissakes—but there was a possibility she could lose them at the border.

  Plus, the moment Jack found Luther, Katie wanted to be there.

  That meant convincing Jack that she was worth keeping around. Which shouldn’t be that hard.

  There were still some things about Luther Kite that Katie hadn’t told Jack.

  Things Jack would want to know before she went hunting.

  Things that could well mean the difference between life, and death.

  PHIN

  Somewhere in Mexico

  Banging on the bars awoke him.

  Phin opened his eyes, saw the guard standing next to his cell. It was the one who’d stolen his Tony Lama boots.

  “Despertarse, puto. Time to go fight for your life.”

  Phin stared at his hands, crusty with his own fluids. Then he looked at the wound on his stomach and almost vomited. It reminded Phin—in the most horrible way possible—of the mess Samantha used to make when she used to eat spaghetti.

  “Y número diez.”

  Diez.

  Ten.

  Kiler.

  The racist began to whoop and holler, rattling his chains. “You think your gut hurts now, Jew boy? I’m gonna reach in there, pull out your insides, and fucking strangle you with them!”

  Phin closed his eyes, pictured his baby and her mother one last time, and in his mind he apologized to them both.