Black Is Back (Quentin Black Mystery #4)

by JC Andrijeski

  He was there, I sent a few seconds later, pointing. Where you are.

  Black nodded, and that time he exuded a heated pulse of approval. Good. Really good, doc. Tell me about him.

  I frowned, trying to get more now that I’d zeroed in on a flavor.

  He was standing on the ladder? I sent after a few more seconds of concentration. Holding on where you are now...?

  A little further down, but close, doc. Black nodded. That’s good. What else?

  I met his gaze. Aren’t you worried about messing with the imprints? Standing right where you think he was standing when he killed him?

  Black shook his head. Doesn’t work that way, doc. Not for this. I can feel him better down here. What else?

  I went back to concentrating on the place where Black stood. After a few more seconds, I frowned. He’s really... blank, I sent finally. No emotion at all. No excitement or arousal. No pride. No fear. Just... nothing.

  Black nodded again, barely perceptible that time.

  “What does that mean?” I said aloud.

  Instead of answering me, Black began climbing the ladder back up to where I was.

  When he reached me, I had an urge to catch hold of him, but he walked around me without touching me. Somehow, it hurt more that time than it had at the police station.

  In the same set of seconds, he withdrew from my mind again, too.

  Black walked directly up to Nick.

  “I need to go run down a few things,” he said. “I’ll call you later.” He looked about to walk away when he paused, staring down at Nick with a harder frown. “And have your contracting people call my office,” he added, a little colder. “About the money, Nick.”

  Nick gave him an irritated look, but nodded, waving him off.

  Black glanced back at me. For a second, I almost thought he would say something. Then he seemed to think better of it and only nodded instead.

  Before I could decide if I should say anything to him, he was already walking away.

  Six

  LOOKING

  CLIVE TANNER GLANCED down the stairs from his wooden porch as the motorcycle pulled up to the curb right in front of his house.

  At first, he barely looked at either the bike itself or the guy on it, other than to think to himself, Nice ride.

  He was used to jokers on rice-burners up here. A lot of wanna-be bikers lived out here, shooting off their mouths and their guns, taking their kids out to the dunes on the weekend to tear it up with ATVs and drink beer with their fat wives.

  That was still a few months off now, though.

  This time of year was usually quiet. Most of the guys driving by this time of day were among the “permanent leisure class,” like Clive himself.

  At least he had the excuse of being old.

  It was hot, even only being April, and thus the middle part of spring. Since he’d moved out here about fifteen years ago now––settling somewhere between Turlock, Yosemite National Park and the ass-end of nowhere––you’d think the heat wouldn’t bother him anymore. Or at the very least, that it wouldn’t surprise him every year.

  But with his air conditioner wheezing its last, pained gasps and the old house having walls thinner than a hooker’s negligee, Clive felt the heat more every year, it seemed, not less.

  “Global warming,” his friend Davis said, whenever he complained.

  But Clive didn’t believe in that horse shit.

  Taking a sip from the sweating bottle of Rolling Rock he held in one hand, he found himself watching the guy on the bike and expensive leathers more closely when he saw whoever he was glance up at Clive’s own house.

  Clive stiffened, sitting up, when the guy dropped his helmet into the seat’s storage compartment and made his way through the rusted gate leading into the Clive’s weed-choked front yard. That yard, which Clive had been very consciously neglecting, was currently covered in half-exploded dandelions and wild pea pods.

  “You just turn right on around and go back where you came from, youngster,” Clive advised, calling out as the guy in the leathers shut the squeaking gate behind him. “You’ll be seeing the end of my .45 if you don’t. Whatever you’re selling, I ain’t buying...”

  “Calm the fuck down, Clive,” the man said.

  Clive stared at him. “Do I know you?”

  “You do know me,” the man said. “So calm down.”

  “Calm down? You think I’m kidding, boy?”

  “I think you’re just as much of an asshole now as you were thirty years ago,” the guy below him said. He reached the bottom of the sagging wood steps and began walking up them on expensive-looking motorcycle boots, taking the first few steps without so much as a pause. “...Now calm the fuck down. It’s a friend.”

  “I don’t have any goddamned friends,” Clive spat.

  The man below him laughed. “Big fucking surprise.”

  “I’m serious, now,” Clive said. He was halfway out of the folding lawn chair, pausing only because his bad knee locked up and he had to work it loose. “You go on. Before I call the sheriff...”

  “Clive, Jesus.”

  The black-haired man in the motorcycle jacket had nearly reached the porch landing by then, and Clive couldn’t help swallowing a bit when he took in his height. Then the man looked up, meeting Clive’s gaze with a narrow, borderline irritated look on his sculpted lips.

  He wore dark mirrored shades, like aviator glasses. Or, more likely––cop glasses. The kind that erased a person’s eyes from the outside.

  When he reached the porch landing, however, he took them off.

  Once he had, Clive could only stare. Seconds later, he felt his knees bend, almost against his will. Before he knew it, he’d sat down hard in the folding lawn chair, making it squeak although he didn’t lose his seat.

  He felt nearly lost when he saw those gold, lion-like eyes narrow at him.

  “Remember me now, asshole?” the man retorted, yanking leather biking gloves off his fingers one by one after he’d stuck the rim of the sunglasses in a breast pocket of his jacket. “Or do you still want to shoot me?”

  “Jesus-H-Christ-on-a-popsicle-stick.” Clive stared up at him, looking him up and down and wondering suddenly if someone spiked his beer. “Black.”

  “In the flesh.” The tall man with the cat-like eyes nodded towards the Rolling Rock. “Can I have one of those? It’s hotter than the Sahara out here.” He glanced around at the street below the house, frowning more delicately that time. “Christ. Could you have picked a shittier part of California to live, Clive? Maybe Bakersfield? Or Fresno?”

  Clive barely heard him. “You look abso-fucking-lutely the same. How is it you look abso-fucking-lutely the same?”

  The man glanced around them again, that time with sharp eyes. He looked like he half-expected the house to be under surveillance. Or maybe he thought he was back in the jungle and Charlie might shoot at him from one of the neighbor’s gardens or maybe an upstairs window.

  He always was a jumpy fucker. Not a bad trait in the field.

  “Black,” Clive said, still taking in his appearance. “Black, is that really you?”

  The tall man exhaled, shaking his head. “How many times are you going to ask me that?”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Clive said.

  The man glanced around the porch again, right before he walked over to the porch swing across from Clive’s folding chair. He sat on it, making the chains squeak in protest.

  “You alone here, Clive?” The other man’s voice was soft that time. Dangerous, like the last time Clive had heard it.

  Clive took a long drink of beer, shaking his head. “Who the fuck else would be here?”

  “Can I have a beer or not?”

  Clive continued to stare at him, drinking in his appearance as if it might change if he stared long enough. When he focused back on the calm stillness in those gold eyes, something in his chest relaxed, but not because he liked what he saw. It did cross his mind that he hadn�
�t really been sure if the other man had come there to kill him or not until then.

  He motioned towards the front door behind him and to his left.

  “Help yourself. Kitchen’s on the right.”

  The black-haired man gave a single, machine-like nod.

  It was a mannerism Clive also remembered.

  He continued to stare at Black as the taller man walked around and past him, yanking open the screen door and stomping his feet on the mat before he went in. What seemed like bare seconds later, he returned, a green Rolling Rock bottled gripped by the neck in one hand.

  He walked back around Clive, who again followed him speechlessly with his eyes. He continued to stare as Black sat heavily on the porch swing, making it squeal again from his weight, which appeared to be mostly muscle, just like it had been in the old days.

  Clive just watched, silent, as Black unzipped the front of the leather motorcycle jacket, exposing a muscular chest and a wide line of sweat from the heat.

  “Jesus.” Clive continued to stare at him. He felt his incredulity turn into something closer to fear as the image in front of him grew more real. “What the fuck are you? A vampire?”

  Black let out a humorless snort. He took a long pull from the beer, then gazed levelly at Clive with those gold eyes, wiping sweat off his forehead with the hand not holding the bottle.

  “I need to ask you some things, Clive,” he said. “About the old days. About what happened outside of Hanoi. You want to do that out here?”

  “As opposed to where?” Clive glanced around them, his voice wary.

  “As opposed to inside your sweltering, shit-smelling excuse for a house,” Black said, leaning back on the porch swing and throwing a muscular arm over the back of it, making the leather jacket creak as it opened more to expose his chest. “Where the fuck did you think I meant, Clive? I came up on a motorcycle. You think I was going to take you to a hotel and beat the shit out of you?”

  “Out here is good,” Clive said, still squinting at those gold eyes. He motioned up and down Black’s long body. “Are you going to explain to me how it is you still look like that?”

  “Clean living.”

  Clive scowled. “Seriously. What the fuck––”

  Black cut him off, his voice an open warning. “I don’t have time for this bullshit, Clive. Are you going to talk to me? Or not?”

  “About what?”

  “You know about what,” Black growled. “Why the fuck else would I come all the way out here, asking about Hanoi? I want to know about Archangel.”

  Clive stiffened.

  His gaze narrowed more at the man in front of him––a man who still looked like he couldn’t be older than thirty-five. He had to have been in his late twenties like the rest of them back in those days, but other than filling out some, he didn’t look any different than he had then. His face was as unlined as it had ever been.

  Back then, he’d looked older than the rest of them.

  Now he looked thirty years younger. Maybe forty.

  Thinking about the other man’s question, but more than that, the implications behind it, he shook his head, staring down at the scattered dandelion seeds dotting his yard. He watched a kid pedal a dirt bike down the street, yelling something incoherent at another kid over his shoulder as the kid pedaled after him.

  The idea of having that kind of energy in weather like this made Clive tired.

  Black’s question made him tired too.

  “You know I can’t talk about that,” he muttered finally, drinking the last swallow off the bottom of the green bottle. “You know better, Black.”

  “I know you owe me, you drunk piece of shit. And you’d better talk to me, or I might call in the favor some other way you’d like a lot less.”

  Clive turned, staring at those gold eyes, feeling his muscles clench in spite of the differences between them. Even back when Clive had been in his prime, Black had been a dangerous fucker. The guy didn’t look any less dangerous now, but Clive glared at him anyway.

  “What’s it to you?” Clive said.

  Thinking about his own question, he snorted, raising the bottle back to his lips before he remembered that he’d already drained it. He jerked himself out of the lawn chair, pausing while he held onto the door jamb and shook out his knee to get it to work properly.

  “Don’t tell me they’re knocking on your door again?” he grunted, glancing at Black.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Black said, looking up at him.

  “Meaning what?”

  “They might have a rogue. Going after civilians. Off the leash.”

  Clive thought about that, nodding. “That thing in L.A.?”

  Black didn’t answer, but Clive found himself nodding again anyway.

  “Yeah,” he said, exhaling. “I wondered.”

  “Why?” Black said, sharper.

  Clive sighed, then made the bird symbol with his hand, flapping the wings.

  Shrugging, Black took a long drink from his own beer. “Could be a coincidence,” he said, his voice subdued.

  Clive nodded. “Sure. Could be.”

  “But you don’t think it is.”

  Clive stared at him. “Obviously, neither do you.”

  Frowning, Black only took another drink.

  Without another word, Clive retreated into the house, where it felt about ten degrees hotter than it did outside, even with his shitty air conditioner running its heart out. He really needed to get that thing replaced. Limping his way into the kitchen, he yanked on the antique chrome door handle of his refrigerator, hanging onto the thing once it was open and leaning his weight into the cold air as he peered inside. Grabbing another beer off a metal shelf that didn’t hold anything else, he started to straighten when he felt the presence and turned, frowning when he saw Black standing behind him, his arms folded.

  “Get out of my fucking house.”

  “I think we’d better talk in here, Clive,” he said.

  Clive felt his anger worsening. “Ain’t nothing to talk about, you prick. You want to beat the fuck out of me for that shit in ’72, you go right ahead. But don’t talk about ‘favors’ with me... not with this. There ain’t nothing to say about Archangel that I can say.”

  “You’re going to talk to me, Clive. I’m not asking.”

  Clive shook his head, incredulously that time. “You’re twenty-five years too late. What the fuck would I know now? Do I look like I’ve been holding a gun lately?”

  Black looked him over, giving an indifferent shrug. “Give me a name. Someone who’d still be in the game.”

  “I don’t know any names. Not any more. Jesus, Black. Look at me!”

  “What about Frank?” Black countered. “Would he know?”

  “What’s this interest of yours about anyway? You a cop now?”

  “P.I.”

  “So? What’s a P.I. got to do with a murder case? You working for one of the families?”

  Black didn’t answer, just stared at him with those weird, cat-like eyes.

  Clive felt his chest tighten. Taking a swig of the beer, he leaned against the still-open fridge door and shook his head. “What the fuck you want to go messing with Archangel for? You said no to them back then. You really think they’re going to be friendly?”

  “I just want to talk to them.”

  Clive shook his head again. “People like that don’t ‘talk.’ Not without a price. You want to talk to them about some rogue, you go through the channels... like anyone else.”

  Black frowned, folding his thick arms across his chest. The muscles there stretched the leather tight, even with the front of the jacket hanging open.

  “This guy might be operating in San Francisco now,” Black said after a pause.

  “So?”

  “So... I live in San Francisco.”

  “So fucking what? A hooker who blew me once lives there too,” Clive sneered. “Maybe you should drop by and bring her a cake.” Shaking his head incredulously, he took an
other pull of the beer. “Hell. I’m suppose to get worked up about that?” He gave Black a not-very-friendly smile. “You afraid for your life, Black? If so, you have changed. Vampire or no.”

  Black’s long jaw clenched, changing the shape of his face. After a moment where he seemed to be biting back words, or maybe debating them, his voice grew deeper, and gruffer.

  “...My wife lives in San Francisco, too.” Looking up, he added, “She knew the last vic.”

  Clive flinched. He looked Black up and down, not bothering to hide his incredulity.

  “You have a wife?” he said. “You’re fucking with me.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that,” Black growled. “I only said it so you’d know I’m fucking serious about this, Clive. The bastard’s too close to me and mine. I saw the last body. It looked like something we might have seen on the trail near Hanoi. It looked like Archangel... down to the wings carved in the vic’s back, and that weird alchemical bullshit with the ladders. I want to know if this guy was with them. Hell, I want to know if he’s still with them... if they’re giving him a pass for some reason, or if he’s off the reservation totally. Or on the job.”

  “Again, how the fuck would I know any of that?” Clive said, raising his voice. “Jesus H. I’ve been out of that game for almost thirty years, Black. Even if I wasn’t, they didn’t exactly hand out rosters of actives. We didn’t have class reunions, neither...”

  “Give me a name, Clive. One name.”

  “I don’t have one. Not anymore.”

  Black didn’t so much as blink. “Then tell me where to look for one.”

  Clive cursed under his breath, twisting the cap off the new beer and taking a long drink. He used the back of his hand to wipe sweat off his own brow, then glared at Black.

  “We’re square after this?” he said, his voice wary.

  Black nodded. “More or less.”

  “Not ‘more or less.’ Square, Black. You don’t come by here again.”

  Black leveled those gold eyes on him. “No promises, Clive. And don’t fucking try to blackmail me or I’ll get the information out of you in ways you really won’t like very much. I won’t impinge on your hospitality any more than I can help it... but no fucking promises if I find out you’re involved in anything that brings me out here again.”