John Ridley_Those Who Walk in Darkness 02

by What Fire Cannot Burn

  And Soledad was fine with that. Other than innocents potentially getting hurt, the people who ended up in a porch or over an embankment were the same ilk who, millennia ago, would’ve been stuck in the tar pits watching the rest of humanity pass them by.

  Instead, here, now, Soledad and Raddatz were stuck in traffic courtesy of a Neanderthal with a CA driver’s lic.

  “So what do we do?” Soledad asked.

  “Sit here like everybody else. What do you want me to do, hit the lights and siren?”

  Soledad wasn’t sure if Raddatz didn’t catch her meaning or was giving her shit. Either way, her true question wasn’t answered.

  “What do we do about the John Doe? What’s the procedure with DMI?”

  “Write up his particulars, log it. Try to track his family, any other freaks he had contact with—”

  “But the John Doe; what do we do about him?”

  “We keep surveillance on living freaks. We don’t deal with dead ones.”

  “And when they die of questionable causes?”

  “Don’t think anybody said it was questionable.”

  “Nobody said anything, because nobody knows what happened. You can’t give an answer, to me that counts as questionable.”

  The radio was playing. Old-school rock and roll. Raddatz reached over. Lowered it. “From your dealing with things one time that’s your professional opinion?”

  “Yeah, ’cause I’ve never done cop work before. Never even went to the academy.”

  “What you do—”

  “Got a gun and badge high-bidding on eBay. The rest was a free ticket.”

  “What you do, what you did, I’ve done it. I’ve worked both sides, O’Roark. MTac and DMI. So don’t think you know more than me, know better than me. You don’t. Doesn’t matter how much legend you built in G Platoon. This isn’t G Platoon. This is a whole other thing.”

  And Soledad let that sit for a while, not caring one bit for being talked to—talked down to—like that. And if they were in G Platoon, if they were on an MTac element . . .

  But they weren’t.

  They were stuck in a pool car going nowhere.

  So Soledad could, should, just let things go . . .

  Instead: “Why am I here?”

  “You busted your knee, you put in for the hours.”

  “Are you obtuse, or do you just want to see what it takes to—”

  Raddatz made an awkward cross-body reach for the radio, reached to turn it up.

  Before he finished the motion, Soledad had slapped the radio completely dead.

  “Because if you’re trying to set me off,” she said. Soft and low. The quiet adding its own emphasis, “you’re doing it. Why am I here? Why are you bringing me along for the ride?”

  “Testing the waters. You say you’re done with MTac.”

  “The doctors say I’m done with MTac.”

  “However it is, it’s a new beginning. So now it’s a matter of are you up for this, or are you just doing things to do things?”

  Raddatz and Soledad rolled up on the accident that was slowing a good portion of LA to a crawl. Squad cars. Flares. A BMW welded by its own fire to a tree.

  The sight, the smell of the burn. Sense memory came on hard to Soledad.

  She said: “Here’s the thing: I’ve been tested every way you can think of. I’ve passed all of them, so throwing me any more of them is a waste of time. Mine and yours. I’m gonna be here. If I’m part of your cadre or not—”

  “I don’t have a—”

  “If I’m a pariah, I don’t give a fuck. Honest; you, all of you and your supercreep attitudes get on my nerves. I’m keeping freaks in check however I’ve got to do things.”

  “That’s a good speech, Soledad.”

  “Christ . . .”

  “Is it done? Is that it?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “Procedure; that’s what you were talking about, right?”

  Soledad and Raddatz slid past the accident. Traffic picked up. Most of the drivers went right back to speeding.

  “Here’s procedure,” Raddatz said. “ID the John Doe. Run his prints, try to match him up to a missing person report, take things from there.”

  “’K.” A fraction of a word that stood for: whatever.

  Raddatz turned up the radio. Flooded the car with old-school rock.

  Soledad moved up—or down, depending on how you looked at things—from crutches to a cane. Cheapest thing she could find at a medical supply store. An old-man cane. Wasn’t very cool. As unaffected as she liked to think she was, she still figured if she was going to have a cane, maybe she oughta get a cool one. For a hot second Soledad thought about getting one of those canes that have a sword hidden in them. But then she thought she might end up using it. Worrisome. Not that she’d somehow get in a situation that was cane-sword necessary. That didn’t worry her. What was worrisome: She’d use the sword and people would start comparing her to Eddi and her knife. She could live without the comparison. She could live real well without that. She got the old-man cane.

  No getting past the feeling of clandestineness. The hour was odd, the location obscure. One-forty in the morning, a bar in Hollywood. Not a glam bar. A small joint off Ivar where drinking was done by a select few night, morning and high noon. Drunks who couldn’t remember their names, let alone unfamiliar faces. Perfect for clandestineness. The meeting Soledad was having with Tashjian was on the extreme DL. IA cops were not cops that cops wanted other cops to peep them talking with even if all they were rapping about was the price of tea in China.

  Soledad didn’t like playing in the shadows. Up until recently her cop life had been about being in the open, being direct. A show of force. That—coming on strong about things—was as much of a weapon for MTacs as their HKs and Benellis and Soledad’s own home-brewed piece. Working DMI was all about rooting around, rooting around. Being a mole for IA on top of that was . . .

  It was what?

  If DMI was about kicking over stones, was IA the slug under the rock?

  Only days Soledad had been perpetrating a lie. Already she was sick of it.

  “It does take getting used to,” Tashjian counseled.

  “I’m not going to be doing this long enough to get used to it.”

  “My hope was, in time, you would at least see the value in what you’re doing.”

  “I see the value, but to me it’s like seeing value at Kmart. Taking advantage and taking pride are two different things.”

  “I miss that, O’Roark.” Tashjian tipped his glass to her. “I miss that sense of humor of yours. So slight as to be unique.”

  Whatever Tashjian was drinking—a mixed, lime-greenish thing—it was the girliest drink Soledad’d ever seen. A queer alky mick going dry on St. Paddy’s Day wouldn’t touch the stuff.

  Yet . . .

  The drink fairly glowed, was nearly hypnotic. Hard drinkers—and the few flies in the bar at that hour were nothing but—stared at Tashjian each time he raised his glass. Watched him as he lowered it. Licked their lips in sympathetic pleasure. Whatever Tashjian was drinking, before the night was done, everybody in the joint would most likely have one.

  “I mean”—Tashjian returned the glass to the bar—“I’m assuming you’re joking. I can’t imagine you having something against value-priced shopping.”

  “We’re talking about the job.” Soledad kept on point. Soledad didn’t want to string things along, spend one more minute where she was and doing what she was doing any more than necessary.

  “We’re talking about the job,” Tashjian echoed. “Tell me about the job.”

  “You heard about the invulnerable John Doe?”

  “Very slightly. I know the ME has the body, but DMI is in control of the situation.”

  “It’s being . . . I guess it’s being investigated. I’m not sure how the hell things work at DMI. Anyway, I’m on it.”

  “How did you manage that?”

  “A senior lead was going to ch
eck out the body, I got an invite.”

  “And it went all right?”

  “All right how? All I did was look at a body.”

  Tashjian stroked the condensation on his glass. “This senior lead; he trusts you?”

  “He doesn’t like me. My experience, someone doesn’t like me, they’re taking me at face value.”

  “I’m glad for that. Don’t agree, though. I don’t take you at face value, and I like you quite a bit.”

  “Don’t get ideas. I’m engaged.”

  “I have none. But I’m flattered you think enough of me you have to put me off.”

  “I’m not . . . I don’t have to put you off. I’m just telling you.”

  “And all the protest you’re putting into the telling: Is that for me or for you?”

  Fucking with her. Tashjian was fucking with her. Some guys golfed. Some built ships in a bottle. Tashjian’s hobby, Soledad was pretty sure, was fucking with her.

  “Can we talk about the freak?”

  Tashjian nodded. “Has anything come to light?”

  “I’ve been out one time on this, and I was lucky for that much.”

  “Do you have a sense of the circumstances? Was it murder?”

  “It’s inconclusive. No poison, at least as far as the ME can tell. But how else you’d kill an invulnerable freak I don’t know.”

  For a minute Soledad and Tashjian said nothing.

  The sound track playing in the bar was ESPN from a TV. Ice kicking around in glasses. Hacking coughs.

  Soledad didn’t like being there, in the bar. She wasn’t a drinker. Drinking reminded her of Vin. And that didn’t feel real right; that she didn’t want to be reminded of her instant fiancé.

  “Tashjian, how long you been with the PD?”

  “Thirteen years.”

  Something funny about that to Soledad. Figures. Tashjian’s been around thirteen lucky years. “Seen a lot in thirteen years?”

  “My share.”

  “But not a dead invulnerable.”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “So if you did, if you did see one, it’d get your attention.”

  “And, finally, your point?”

  “Seeing a dead invulnerable didn’t much get Raddatz’s attention.”

  “Raddatz? Tucker Raddatz is the senior lead you’re working with?” Tashjian’s thumbnail scratched at his chin: acknowledgment of the curiousness.

  “Something I should know about him?” Soledad asked.

  “Very distinguished officer. A short but memorable stint with MTac. Memorable mostly because he was the sole survivor of a warrant served on . . . what’s the colloquialism for metanormals with accelerated production of adrenaline?”

  “Berserkers.”

  “Tore through the rest of his element as though they were rice paper. He was lucky to get away with just losing a hand. I think that’s all he’s lost.”

  “I can think of one other thing: any and all regard for freaks whatsoever.”

  “Is there something hinky to you?”

  “I’m not a detective.” Soledad, no permission asked, reached over, took Tashjian’s glass, took a drink. Girliest thing she’d ever had. And it was good. “But I’m not sure I blame somebody who’s been torn up by a freak for having absolutely nothing but hatred for them.”

  “Careful with your sympathies.”

  “I know what’s at stake. I’ll do the job.”

  “You misunderstand me. Whoever is responsible for the killings feels personally threatened by metanormals and is acting upon his or her feelings. And if they have no fear of freaks, do you think they would be afraid to deal with you? For your own sake, I would be gentle with this Raddatz.”

  The threat of things getting physical. The threat of violence and possible death that would have to be met in kind. Suddenly, Soledad was starting to like her new job.

  Might as well have been talking with God. Maybe not God. How about the Holy Ghost? If nothing else, Officer Tom Hayes felt like he was talking with that one model on the cover of all those fitness magazines he was desperate to meet. Not that he felt sexual toward Soledad. But in a cop’s life that was less than he’d dreamed of, sitting across from one of the most talked-about operators on the LAPD was a dream come true.

  He wanted to ask Soledad about some of her exploits. Not fan boy-style. He honestly wanted a firsthand breakdown of truth from fiction. He wanted, he wanted to get her take on the job, on being MTac. He wanted very badly to know—her opinion—the best way to work up to G Platoon. Tom Hayes had a thousand questions for Soledad.

  Sitting with him in the coffee room at Hollenbeck station, Soledad had only questions about the John Doe Officer Hayes had found.

  The first had been: How’d you find him?

  “Didn’t really. Some kids had gone down in the river, were doing some boarding on the concrete. Saw the body, made the call.”

  “Your report said his clothes were burned away.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Looked like it.”

  “But not his flesh. Wasn’t that weird to you?”

  Officer Hayes flipped his hands up but wasn’t flippant. He tried to be respectful with the gesture. Added a look that said: “Didn’t think about it.” He would have said as much himself but was afraid Soledad’d pick up the crack in his voice. He was nervous. Soledad was the kind of cop who could, down the road, have sway over his getting into G Platoon. And the way she was asking questions: How come he didn’t do this, didn’t do that . . . He shouldn’t be nervous, Hayes told himself. Maybe he should have been more observant, but wasn’t like he’d fucked up. Right? He hadn’t. Had he?

  Hayes said: “He looked like a vag to me. He looked like he had on, you know, bumwear. Half the time stuff that’s burned or torn is the best they’ve got. I thought he died of exposure or drink. He was stiff as hell. Thought it was rigor at the time.”

  Soledad felt stares. She’d always been sensitive to other people’s eyes. The locked looks she was getting now didn’t, they didn’t feel like the ones she was usually most attuned to. The “it’s a black woman!?” ogles she got when she had the audacity to stick herself right where somebody thought a black woman didn’t belong. Still, she felt eyes rolling over her. Probably ’cause in the open and out of uniform she was having a chat with a uniformed cop. Some of the cops staring maybe thought Soledad was just a friend. A chick friend who’d come around for some palaver with Hayes which he’d get some good-natured shit about later. But some probably considered Soledad was official in some sense. Admin or IA. That made every other cop in the joint instantly, reflexively reassess their relationship with the blue who was having a sit-down.

  Hayes didn’t hardly seem to care. To Soledad he came off a little nervous, but other than that, his head was level all around. Soledad figured if he ever had his shot, he’d make a good MTac. A real solid one. His odds of surviving serving a warrant on a freak were probably 60/40 in favor. Better than the 70/30 most MTacs rated.

  “Anything,” Soledad asked, “at the scene that’d make you think it was foul play?”

  “Nothing. But LA River, if there was anything, it might have gotten washed away. I imagine DMI gave a look once they found out it was a mutie.”

  “They didn’t find anything.”

  “What about at one of the other incident sites?”

  Soledad looked right at Hayes. She didn’t answer the question. The question didn’t make sense.

  She asked: “What incident sites?”

  “One of the other . . . well, you know, where he was hit by the train. It was in my report. You read it, right?”

  Soledad went back to just giving a stare to Hayes. The question didn’t make . . .

  “Just walk me through everything,” she said. “Take me through it.”

  Officer Hayes didn’t bother with any orientating. Soledad had questions, he gave her what he knew to be fact. “Got the call on the John Doe. Went over, spotted the body, called it in. Right?”

&nbs
p; Right, meaning: We on the same page so far?

  “Right.”

  “Previous to that, the station had taken a report from the MTA. Something got struck on the Gold Line. Engineer thought maybe he’d hit somebody, but couldn’t find a vic. No blood or flesh on the car. Way the train was tore up, engineer thought some joker might’ve put a store mannequin on the track or something. It’s LA. Wouldn’t be the craziest thing somebody ever did. I found out later the John Doe was a mutie. Did the math. The mutie must’ve been the one that got clipped by the train. I know DMI handles investigating freaks. But it’s my beat. I know the neighborhood. Thought it couldn’t hurt to do some talking to people, see if anybody saw anything, heard anything. If they did, maybe they were more likely to talk to a cop they knew than one they didn’t.”

  And it was a good way for a beat cop to score some points too, Soledad thought. And she thought: Hayes was all about the ambition. Forget MTac. He was going to be brass.

  Prompting him to go on: “So you talked around, talked to some people.”

  “One witness said he saw someone running through the area on foot. Another guy thought he saw someone fall off a building. Fall or jump. Thought he did, but the guy got up and ran off.”

  “Our John Doe.”

  Hayes nodded. “Way I see it, our freak was going crazy. Tearing up buildings, walls . . . looks like he slagged part of a mailbox on one street. I don’t know. He was drunk, I guess. Maybe high. Lucky the only thing that happened was he ended up dead. Anyway, that was all in the report I gave to DMI. Should have been.”