“Boss, I can’t—”
“Yeah, you can. So Long’s got her own rep. Her own network, too. Pekelo, he was on the fringes, but he knew So Long was a big-money player. And he knew this rape-tape crew was operating out of somewhere close. Remember, he was watching those tapes. That wouldn’t be for free.
“He couldn’t get to whoever set it all up. But he could send a message to that back-channel site. Those rapes, they weren’t random. Had to be scouted out. And that ‘pattern’ crap, it was just to throw off those profiler clowns. Like with that ‘Rejuvenator’ thing. But So Long, she fit, right?”
“He put So Long in the crosshairs? The Lao?”
“Could have,” Cross said, meaningfully. “But there’s no way to ask him. Not anymore.”
TIGER SLID into the back room.
This time, the spandex was all black, the shoes were crepe-soled flats, and her hair was rolled into a French braid inside a black Unabomber hoodie. Working clothes.
“We got a target?” she asked, speaking very softly but unable to hide the hopefulness in her voice.
“The boss said two. And, thanks to me being a…damn chump, we’re down to one,” Buddha said soberly, holding up one finger. An index finger to most, a trigger finger to him.
“Pekelo?” Tiger guessed.
“Yeah,” Cross answered. Then he quickly ran through everything he had gone over with Buddha.
“You’re saying, if he hadn’t…?” Tiger said, pointing a finger of her own, the talon’s nail now a dulled matte black.
“I’m saying, if it was an AI program, there’s only two of us it could target—it couldn’t go beyond whatever those cameras in his attic captured. The AI program had to be set up in front: once activated, it could only run on autopilot.
“A ‘spider’ is what Rhino called it. The program would reach out to everyone who’d been paying for online access to the rape tapes. Make it a competition, with a monster payoff. Pekelo was a fatalist. Dao equals destiny. So, when the program found him, he already ‘won,’ see?”
“No” was Buddha’s flat reply.
“It wasn’t personal,” Cross said. “It couldn’t be. How could that psychotic know who was gonna show on one of those cameras he had set up?”
“It’s glowing,” Tiger said, pointing again, in a different direction.
“You see it; I feel it. The G has all kinds of surveillance equipment, but the Simbas, they’re a few thousand years ahead of anything on this planet. That’s the message.”
“Boss…”
“I got this brand in that basement slaughterhouse,” Cross said, as calmly as he would recite any indisputable fact. “That was their choice. But who sent me there in the first place? Who hired Tracker? And Tiger? Who wanted that ‘specimen’ they sent me after?”
“Blondie and that little bitch,” Tiger summed it up.
“There’s also—”
“Percy? He didn’t like Blondie and Wanda any more than you did. They each had their own smell.”
“What?”
“Smell, Buddha. Percy’s was like a testosterone overdose. I dropped a pen once. Bent over to pick it up. Little test. Percy’s perfume snapped out so heavy it clogged the air.
“Wanda, I got real close to her anytime I could make it look natural,” the Amazon continued. “She wanted me so bad it hurt her. Really caused her pain…because she couldn’t show it.”
“Blondie?” Cross asked.
“Neutral. Dead empty. Asexual, or whatever you want to call it.”
“But him and Wanda, they were partners?”
“Why not? Everything doesn’t have to be about sex. There was nothing like that between them, and so what? They’d been together a long time. I don’t know how long, but that job, that ‘specimen capture’ thing, it wasn’t their first. You could see. Little gestures, stuff that only they understood, no outsiders allowed.”
Cross picked up a cell phone.
THE BACK ROOM of Red 71 slowly filled; Ace was the last to show.
Cross looked around the room. In the darkness, the tiny blue hieroglyph blazed as coldly as the neon promises of a strip club.
“It’s not over,” he said. “The G expects to get what it pays for. But I don’t see them blaming us. It had to be Blondie and Wanda—probably just Blondie—who sold them on the ‘specimen’ thing in the first place. It’s like chronic liars—they’re sure everybody lies, just not as good at it as they are. Same thing goes for people who’re for sale—they think everybody is, only a question of the price.
“Understand? Blondie for sure was on the G’s payroll at one time, so he could have run across Percy. Who’d you rather have handling rough stuff? And the G would want Percy in there, too. Someone they could trust.
“But Blondie wouldn’t have thought of that. He’s about as superior a weasel as you’ll ever meet. To him, Percy would be some kind of robot. Ten kinds of killer, but not too bright. Blondie, he’d sell the Simbas as a ‘terrorist’ story. More than enough to convince Percy to go along for the ride. They’d all be heroes.”
“They could all be dead,” Tracker said.
Buddha nodded, taking the Indian’s words as prophecy.
“Sure,” Cross agreed with Tracker as if in past-tense speculation. “But if they’re not, there’s two hunting parties out there.”
“Two?” Tiger said.
“No matter how it’s spun, the blond man and the Asian woman would be failures,” Rhino squeaked. “The government doesn’t trust failures. Especially those who don’t share all their information.”
“They did not share how to find that apartment Cross had,” Tracker said. “They were very secretive. Perhaps a bargaining chip in case…”
“Not enough of one,” Rhino cut in. “That apartment where Cross used to live, that’s gone. And Red 71’s no secret. Or the Double-X. If the G had us targeted, they wouldn’t have been so elaborate about it. What they wanted, maybe what they still want, is that ‘specimen.’ ”
Cross nodded. “If those two are alive, they know it can’t be for long. Without the G, they got nothing. Never had a network of their own. It was just the two of them. Otherwise, they would have known Tracker and Tiger were connected to us before they reached out and hired them. They couldn’t have gone rogue for real—not then—they needed the G’s backup. Which is why they couldn’t stop Percy from being in on their plan.”
“Those two, they’re out of moves now,” Tiger agreed. “But I can’t see them going on the run. Especially Blondie—he’d be positive he could still pull it off. He couldn’t sell the G on some ‘possibility,’ but if he actually made it happen…”
“They would not take their own lives, either,” Tracker said. “They are not some form of yakuza—the concept of atoning for failure would be alien to them. They are just jagged edges who somehow fit together to make a single unit. They have some…bond between them. But without the government’s resources…”
“So we’re the target, then,” Buddha said, clearly relieved that the gang had finally reached a point where homicide could solve a problem.
“Are you even listening?” Tiger snapped at him. “If Blondie and Wanda are hunting us, Percy’s not with them. But if the G wants them gone, Percy would be just the man for that job.”
“I would, too,” Ace said, so softly that Cross couldn’t be certain he had spoken at all. Or maybe he was just feeling his first partner’s thoughts inside himself.
“WHO THE hell are you supposed to be?”
“What do I look like?” Tiger said to the immense block of tribal-tattooed Maori standing between the “Valet Parking Lot” and the road leading to the back of the Double-X.
“Don’t matter what you look like—nobody gets back there without word from the boss.”
“This is where Cross said to come,” Tiger answered, as if that should settle any argument.
“Anyone can say a name, miss.”
“Then use your phone, you blockhead. I have to go on in
an hour, and—”
“Who the hell is that?” the Maori stepped back, startled.
“This is my manager. His name is Princess.”
“Hi!” said the muscleman, extending his hand.
The Maori didn’t accept the offer. He was just about to reach for his phone when an almost prehistoric growl came out of the darkness. “What the—?”
“Sweetie! You stop that!” Princess chided the beast. “We’re here to make friends!”
The Maori’s eyes shot to the black-masked, white-bodied—Is that a dog?—creature. His hand slid from the pocket where he kept his phone to a shoulder holster.
“No!” Tiger yelled, reaching toward her thigh just as the Shark Car rolled up behind her.
Rhino leaped out, a meat-locker-sized blob of gray. “Freeze!” he squeaked. “Princess, come on back here. Now!”
“I’m not leaving Tiger,” the armor-muscled man said, his voice that of a petulant child.
By then Cross was closing in. “You must be another one of K-2’s cousins,” he said, calmly. “That guy’s family has got to be the size of some small towns.”
“You’re—?”
“Yeah,” Cross answered, holding up his right hand, palm toward his face. “Just step back, and make your call.”
As the Maori retreated deeper into the darkness, Cross spoke to Tiger out of the side of his mouth. “You couldn’t wait, huh?”
“I thought you’d be here first. With Buddha driving—”
“But when you saw we weren’t, you had to go all Bogart on that poor guy, right?”
“I was sweet, you moron.”
“Yeah. I can tell. Never mind, here he comes.”
“Mr. Cross? I apologize, sir. K-2 says he apologizes, too.”
“He’s got nothing to apologize for. He knows he can bring on anyone he wants without asking me. As long as it’s family.”
“Then I should—?”
“You should get out of the way,” Tiger said, flashing a dazzling smile.
“TRACKER’S SNIFFING the air,” Rhino said, as he fired his computer into life in the NO ACCESS back room.
“And you’re sniffing the Net,” Cross nodded. “So where’s Ace?”
“He slipped off, boss,” Buddha said.
“Damn! He thinks he’s going to find Blondie and Wanda holed up in some motel?”
“I don’t know, boss. But Ace, he’s no dummy.”
“You think you know him like I do?”
“No. But…I mean, he’s probably up to something. Spreading the word, putting up a bounty…”
“Buddha,” Cross said, almost wearily, “you just had to shoot Pekelo, didn’t you?”
“Boss, come on! I mean, he almost got my wife—”
“What? Raped? Sure, I get it. What I’m saying is, you don’t. That grown-up thalidomide baby trapped on the top floors of that house, he set a chain in motion with that AI program, sure. But the Lao, the only one who might have shown us something if we let him run—he’s dead. Ace could have lost Sharyn. And some of his kids.”
“But he didn’t,” Tiger said, gently.
“So Long didn’t get raped,” Cross said, opening his left hand to flame a light for his cigarette. “As soon as we knew what was going on, she wasn’t going to. So what’s left? Nobody we can talk to, nobody we can follow. You think Ace doesn’t know he couldn’t find Blondie and Wanda? He wouldn’t even try. But if Percy’s out there, he won’t be invisible.”
“If Percy’s after them, and the G’s backing his play, they’re as good as dead anyway, right?”
“Yeah. Very logical, Tiger. Only Ace may not give a damn. He can’t kill some AI program. But if he thought those two played any part in throwing a blackout at his family, he’d need to watch them die.”
For a long minute, the only sound in the room was Rhino slamming his fingertips into an XXXL keyboard, watching the big-screen TV that served as a monitor.
“Boss?”
“What, Buddha?”
“Okay, I lost it. Twice. I get it. But…but Ace knows what he’s doing. Just because we don’t know exactly what that is…”
Cross took the third drag of his smoke, snapped it into a bowl of some murky liquid substance, and closed his eyes.
“CHECK THE camera feed,” Rhino squeaked, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“Mural Girl!” Tiger yelped. “Is there another place where we could plug in?”
“Buddha, show her, okay?”
“This isn’t really anything I know about,” Buddha said, half apologetically.
“Nothing to know,” Tiger assured him, working the mnemonic in her head as she tapped keys.
The mural was twin ribbons of blood red, not intertwined, not parallel, connected only by a huge tree bole before it branched out.
Inside the bole, humans pursuing other humans. As the ribbon branches separated, they marched through time. Mountain dwellers hunting food and cosseted-by-wealth pleasure seekers, moving in opposite directions. Thinner tendrils connected the thick branches. Within them, all they had in common was killing. Some for land, some for religion, some for wealth. And a tiny bubble off those tendrils…killing for pleasure.
“What the—?”
“Sssshhh” was all Tiger said.
“We have to watch,” Princess explained, proud that he understood.
Suddenly the mural vanished. Three playing cards, laid faceup on a green felt surface: the seven, nine, and jack of clubs. Another card dropped into line. The eight of clubs. The image was static for two full minutes. Then the fifth card fell: the ten of clubs.
“Double gut-shot straight flush,” Buddha whispered, almost reverently.
“Percy’s here. And Ace is looking for him,” Tiger said, as the cards disappeared and the mural wall turned into pure whitewashed brick.
“YOU READ it right,” Cross said to Tiger. “Let’s—”
“Boss!” Buddha hissed, holding up his phone. “It’s So Long. She wants to help.”
“Help herself, right?”
“Help me,” the pudgy killer said. “She knows it’s my fault that there’s no way for us to work backward. She knows she can’t help with Percy. But she says she knows a way this might all connect. A way we can find them. Maybe. But we’d have to—”
“Tell us on the way,” Cross said, getting to his feet.
Buddha chewed over his wife’s last words: “Hmong, we know. And we hate them all.” But finally decided it wasn’t time to turn that card faceup.
THE ALLEY’S darkness was neither obstacle nor friend to the monolithic war-machine as he moved carefully, inexorably forward.
Under the government-modified flak jacket, a pair of shoulder-holstered MAC-10s awaited his touch. A jungle belt of grenades circled his waist, separated from each other by the same thin film that wrapped the barrels of the full-autos. A black bladed K-bar with extended reverse serrations was strapped to the outside of his soft-soled boots. Each pouch of his jacket held various forms of death: a titanium-wire garrote, curare-tipped darts, an aerosol of acid….
And even if that entire arsenal were to be expended, Percy wouldn’t be out of weapons—he always had his hands.
The neighborhood was as black as the alley’s shadows, but this wasn’t the first time Percy had worked territory where the entire population was a collection of hostiles. He understood the value of stealth and accepted the inevitability of discovery if he spent too much time in the same place.
But for now, he’d wait. If discovered, he knew what to do.
Probably lousy intel, he thought to himself. Usually is. But I should be able to get close enough to see for myself….
“You know what this is?” a voice came from behind him.
Nobody gets behind me! was quickly replaced by tactile recognition of a double-barreled weapon pressed squarely between his kidneys.
Before the soldier’s intrusive I didn’t even feel the flak jacket move….thought could be completed, the voice came again: �
�You’re good. And you got the tools, too. But don’t get stupid. You’re not fast enough. Nobody is. Twelve-gauge, three-inch magnum shells, number two steel shot. You move, you lose your spine. Understand?”
“Yeah,” the soldier said, as carefully as a man defusing a bomb. He wanted me dead, he could’ve done that already.
“You’re Percy,” the voice said. “Saying that so you know I know. Here’s how it is: You’re hunting a pair of…Ah, don’t matter what I call them, just their names, right? Okay: Blondie and Wanda. Thing is, they’re hunting us. Not sure why, exactly. And that don’t matter, either, am I right?”
“Yeah,” Percy said, carefully keeping his voice empty.
“I’m Ace. Cross crew. I know you saw me on some tape those two had of that dogfighting hit. Okay, now they’re loose. Maybe they’re still on the job, maybe they’ve been cut loose. Only one who knows is you.”
“Cut loose,” Percy said. “On the run.”
“So you weren’t with them before. And you’re not with them now. But your boss—the G, I’m saying—maybe needed you on the scene to watch them. Maybe even protect them. That was then. What’s now?”
“I’m not with them. I’m looking for them.”
“Looking for them here?”
“Supposed to be on top floor of that dope house, two blocks further south.”
“That’s an off-brand operation. Only reason it’s lasted this long is the taxes they pay. But they’re on the checkoff list.”
“Mine, too” was all Percy said.
“You gonna just rush that place? Kill your way to the top floor?” Ace said, unable to keep a trace of admiration out of his voice.
Percy was silent.
“Why not just make the whole place disappear?”
“Only confirmed kills.”
“Okay, I get it. Only thing is, they’re not in that joint.”
“You sure?”
“Dead sure.”
“You got surveillance on—?”
“I asked. They told me,” Ace interrupted.
Drawing Dead Page 17