He listened to the moaning and groaning for a good ten minutes, wondering exactly where this new development stood in the spectrum of possibilities related to Kit's disappearance. While there could be a connection, it was remotely possible that there wasn't. But the three men, and Brant's view of two of them, had made him jump to conclusions. Thugs, goons. They looked like mobsters whose suits, seen in daylight, would turn out to be ill-fitting.
He made up his mind before the quartet upstairs finished. He swept up the stray cassettes and straightened them out by touch and feel, then he left the bedroom and the apartment, closing the door behind him. He had a bad moment when he heard sounds downstairs and thought he might be trapped again, this time by the second floor tenant whose apartment he had borrowed for spying. But he was in the clear.
No doubt he had heard more below the third floor than if he'd listened at the Eye of Horus door. But was any of this relevant? Irina was a sexpot — he had known that right away. Was she somehow mixed up in Kit's disappearance?
All evidence pointed to yes. But were the cops any help? Not with Zimmerman's antagonism.
He stepped out into the lobby after waiting to see if anyone entered, then slipped out of the building. He sat in his car, considering.
By the time the trio erupted out of the lobby door almost an hour later, Brant was ready with his Canon digital set on Nightshot and zoomed in with his 300mm lens. They'd be grainy, but he would have passable images of the three stooges as they headed for their car, cigarettes and cooled sweat and stale sex wafting off them.
He clicked away in high-res, filling the memory card as the three ambled down the sidewalk toward wherever the driver had stashed their car. When they roared off past him into the mild December night, he slouched but managed to snap several shots of the back of their car and, he hoped, their plates.
He glanced up at Irina's window and wondered. The light was still on, but went off as he watched.
Brant's mind worked through avenues opened by what he had learned.
He felt the clock ticking.
KIT
In the middle of the night — at least, it seemed like it was still night, but she couldn't be sure — the door opened and two masked men whose outrageous Warner Brothers masks cast exaggerated Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd shadows carried in a new girl.
Kit caught sight of long, blond hair, dragging across the floor.
A slim hand bent into a horrible claw shape, and Kit swore she saw the head bounce once off the floor, too, as they half-carried half-dragged her sack-like before heaving her into the empty bunk.
"A fresh face!" Marissa said, after they had left.
Kit wanted to slap her. No, to pummel her until her face was bloody and ruined.
What the hell was wrong with Marissa?
And how had Kit become so fixated on violence?
Kit shook her head, hoping the nightmare would dissolve and she'd find herself in her own bed, stressing out over a paper unstarted or that last final for which she'd avoided studying. But the movement made her dizzy without deleting the bad images.
The new girl lay motionless on her own bunk, a lump of unconscious meat ready for butchering.
They were all like beef hanging on hooks, awaiting the bone saw.
No matter how much she tried, now Kit couldn't get that image out of her mind.
There were worse fates than death, she thought. Infinitely worse.
She shuddered.
TEN
He drove south along the lakefront from Kit and Irina's apartment to the Third Ward, a district once characterized by dingy warehouses and rows of loading docks for the meat-packing and brewery industries. The warehouses were still there, but now sandblasted and repackaged as high-rent lofts overlooking trendy bars and bistros and fake-gaslit streets hounded by the horny twenty-somethings that made up a large portion of the local population.
He found an angle spot in front of a brightly lit taqueria and wondered for a moment at the throngs of customers filing in and out. The place must have been deep and perhaps twin-leveled to house so many, belying the narrow entrance and its side window, through which he saw what seemed to be the end of the bar and brightly dressed young people congregated there holding Corona bottles and tub-sized margaritas.
It was the doorway next to the taqueria that Brant wanted, though. He dialed the new cell he'd picked up, still a bit awed that progress now allowed him to make calls from anywhere. He was forever adjusting to modern life, but he sensed that modern life didn't care if he ever did.
"Please leave a message after the tone. Thank you."
Voice mail. Fuck.
"I'm looking for a caterer, and you were recommended by a mutual friend, a Mr. Loot." He recited the cell number and clicked off.
A couple of college girls exploded out of the taqueria, happily half-sloshed, their arms around each other. One looked just like Kit and he felt his insides clench.
He forced himself to look away as they hugged then pecked each other on the cheek and headed off in opposite directions. A group of multi-racial boys and girls took their place in front of Brant's car, and he marveled at their openness. But then one gave another the finger and two friends had to pry them apart.
Nothing ever fucking changes.
The phone played an amazingly faithful electronic rendition of a Bach two-part invention in the palm of his hand.
"Loot here."
"Can it really be the Loot I remember?" The voice was raspy, laden with cigarette smoke and too many clandestine whiskeys.
Brant sighed. "Yeah, it can be."
"Name the place I remember you from."
"Fucking Cu Chi."
"Jesus." There was a long pause. "It's late for catering. Can it wait? When is your event?"
"It may be soon, so I can't wait. I was hoping for a quick order, like an appetizer, maybe something you have in-house with not a lot of prep."
"When can you be here?"
"One minute."
"Okay, bring me a taco, will ya?"
Five minutes later, Brant opened the lobby door when it buzzed and climbed the narrow stairs to the third floor. When the red door marked 333 swung open, he thrust two wrapped shrimp tacos at the meaty palm that greeted him.
"I thought it was late," Brant pointed out.
"Never too late for tacos," said the voice from behind the door. "Long time, Loot. What the hell's the hurry you couldn't wait until daybreak?"
"I missed you too, Sarge."
He stepped over the doorway and into a brief awkward hug with a grizzly bear of a man. The smell of whiskey and tacos clung to his clothes and made Brant's nose twitch.
Sarge noticed. "Occupational hazard," he said. "Food's great, but the trade-off is I never get rid of the smell."
"Rent cheap?"
"Fuck no."
Brant figured not. The loft was medium-size, recently remodeled. Cream city brick along one wall, two-story window along another, shiny Viking kitchen appliances off to the side with an I-beam loft hung overhead, reachable by way of a black metal spiral staircase. Upper 400s, likely.
"Nice place, but not if you break an ankle."
"Don't I know it. I'd need home care if that happened. But my couch is a fold-out, so I'd survive once somebody sent most of my clothes down."
Brant lay his camera case on the marble counter, near where stood a whiskey bottle and two glasses. One glass was half full, greasy. Sarge ignored the camera and followed Brant's eyes instead. "Have a drink?"
"Sure."
They stood at the counter and sipped the amber liquid while demolishing the shrimp tacos. Brant had carried up two for himself, so they ate in companionable silence. The tacos were delicious, and the whiskey made a strong chaser.
"Got a beer?"
"Sure." Sarge pulled two Coronas from the half-empty Viking. "Not much of a need to cook when you got this just downstairs," he said, as if reading Brant's mind. "Chinese three doors down, Thai and Vietnamese in the next bloc
k, and the best fucking pizza I ever had just around the corner."
Brant nodded as he swallowed the last of his taco. So many Vietnam vets had returned with a taste for spicy Asian foods, he wasn't surprised by Sarge's choices. The beer was cold and more appropriate to the spice than the whiskey. But then the whiskey wasn't intended to accompany food. It was intended to accompany loneliness and demons. Sarge had plenty of both, based on what Brant could see.
A sparse, mostly-for-show bookcase rose up against the brick wall, and a fairly nice flat-screen television and stereo set-up sat apparently unused in the far corner, judging by the layer of dust coating it. One end of the kitchen counter was set up as a no-frills bar and no bottle was full. On the coffee table in front of the couch lay a stack of photo albums. Brant could guess what filled them. Vets with emotional problems tied to the war either separated themselves from their memories forever or steeped themselves in them, to the point of obsession. Brant figured there were pictures of him in those albums, candids shot decades before at remote firebases and after firefights, at tunnel openings, during what passed for holidays and just when the fear struck — fear that no one would remember you unless you left a photographic record of yourself. Fear you'd forget your buddies, too, if you didn't somehow capture them forever as you remembered them, not as armless or legless hunks of bloody hamburger created by Charlie's pin-point mortar attacks.
It looked to Brant for all the world as if Sarge's typical night was a walk through his memories with a whiskey bottle for company, and maybe a taco or ten.
Fuck the politicians who sent men to war for their own gain and glory. Fuck them all in hell forever.
"Any family, Sarge?"
A bitter look. "Not anymore. Gave up on me and took off after a long while trying to make it work."
"Sorry."
Sarge shrugged. "You?"
"Something like that. And Abby — cancer got her."
"Jesus. Sorry."
It was Brant's turn to shrug. They drank in practiced silence. Waiting for the moment when secrets would be spilled.
Brant finished his whiskey and chased it down with the remainder of his beer. "Well, I hate to get you out of bed..."
"Yeah, right," Sarge grinned without humor. "Interrupted my beauty sleep."
"I figured you were still around, still catering. Retired from the force, though?"
"Yeah, we came to an understanding."
"That's bad? Or good?"
"It was ... mutual." Sarge waved a misshaped hand around his head. "Helped me move up to this."
Sarge had been a cop, a detective's shield earned after almost a dozen years on the beat. A couple years ago, a new chief had cleaned house and many cops had taken early retirement even if they hadn't planned to. Brant wasn't sure if Sarge had taken early retirement voluntarily or had been nudged, but he knew most of the cops shed by the bloated department had gone into security and PI work, especially after 9/11.
Sarge had gone into catering.
It was time for business.
"I was looking for something old-fashioned, high calorie, maybe Germanic heritage?"
"I can do that right now, but I can't guarantee the recipe."
"Let's see what you got."
Sarge stepped behind the counter and pushed a hidden button. Two kitchen cabinets slid up silently while a section of tiled wall below them slid down to reveal an open space.
"Advantage of buying one of these while they're getting converted," Sarge said. "You can subcontract out all sorts of improvements."
Brant could see what he meant. Sarge reached back into the space and plucked out a black metal grease gun, which he handed Brant.
"End of war MP-40 Schmeisser machine pistol. It's collector quality, barely used. I've moved a dozen of these from somebody's secret stash in the last three years alone. Why you want something so well-aged?"
Brant turned the gun around in his hands. It was a beauty, well-oiled. But old. Over six decades. Maybe Sarge was right. "I was thinking untraceable."
"Hell, I can do that with something less than ten years old. This thing's like a lawn sprinkler when you really want an eye-dropper. I just can't see that museum piece being reliable for — for whatever you got in mind."
Sarge's curiosity wasn't staggering. Its lack probably kept him in business.
"Then why do you have it?"
"Some of my less demanding customers want to spray lead. It does the job. I figure you for a more precise kind of action."
Sarge had started his catering business while still wearing a badge, a practice some might have found counterproductive. But he had put his connections to good use and managed to keep both lines of income separate. Brant had used his services once or twice before, for small side jobs he had used to augment his own income, but it had been years now. He'd made some calls to track down Sarge's new digs.
"All right, lay it on me."
Sarge took back the MP-40 and carefully stowed it out of sight. He withdrew a short, squat black scorpion shape and handed it to Brant. "HK USP Compact in 9mm. This one's got a laser sight. It'll spray lead a lot more efficiently than that old grease gun."
Brant opened the HK's breech and snapped it closed. He thumbed the catch and let the magazine drop into his hand. He clicked it back into place and aimed the muzzle at the refrigerator, flicking on the laser sight. A thin red beam coalesced into a crimson dot where the slugs would tear into the shiny metal if he squeezed the trigger.
"Sold. How about a second dish, a smaller portion for that personal touch?"
Sarge slid open a hidden drawer near the sink. He rubbed his chin and scraped the stubble there. "Okay, there's about a million choices. But a small-frame .40 caliber Glock would be my choice." He held one up and tossed it to Brant, who caught it deftly.
"Police issue?"
"Some departments. Secret Service and NSA, too. It's a heftier load than the 9mm but not as archaic as the .45. Good compromise. Use high-impact Teflon or hollow points and you've got a man-stopper better than any sidearm we service guys ever carried."
Brant hefted the handgun and tested the grip with his calloused fingers. "How clean, and how much?"
"Clean as a baby's butt. No paper on either of them. As for price, well, you hauled my ass outta trouble a couple times, so I'll make it an even grand for both and enough ammo to knock over a small country. I'll throw in some extra mags."
Brant slid his own Glock out of its holster and set it on the counter, then holstered the untraceable one. Smaller, and it fit perfectly. "Great, I don't even have to switch jackets."
Sarge glanced at the larger Glock. "I don't usually ask, but what's going on? You doing some mercenary work in a Third World country? Joining one of those corporate subcontractor militias in Eye-raq?"
"Nothing that exotic."
"No obligation, Loot. I'm discreet to a fault. But if you need some help, some muscle, I can maybe hook you up. Just gotta ask."
"Thanks, Sarge. I'll keep that in mind." He weighed his options, then snatched the camera from the counter and held it loosely. "Maybe one thing. Got a computer handy?"
Sarge nodded and flipped open a small armoire that hung out almost invisible against the brick wall, near the kitchen. Sarge powered up the shiny silver twin-processor Mac hidden inside. He held out a cable wordlessly.
Brant dumped the memory card onto the desktop, then opened the folder and pulled up each of the forty pictures he'd snapped. "Speaking of muscle, you able to ID any of these?"
Sarge sat in front of the screen and clicked through the open windows — a few were blurred or the faces turned away, or just too dark. But the remainder were clear and Sarge stared at each for a long time. "I can make one of these goons." He tapped the monitor.
Brant looked over his shoulder. The picture was of one of the two who'd gone upstairs first, the tallest. A thin guy who seemed to have tattoos around the perimeter of his neck and a huge gold loop in one ear. His mouth was set in a permanent leer. Brant rem
embered him all too well. And he imagined his painted body sprawled on top of Irina's coltish limbs and shuddered. He hoped she was a willing participant.
"Who is this human crab piece of shit?"
"Loot, calm down. He is a piece of shit, but he's connected pretty deep with the new mob."
"The new mob?"
"Yeah, East Europeans. The Mafia ain't got shit on these guys — they'll eat Mafioso heart for breakfast, and tear heads off children for fun. And I'm not making that up."
"Jesus, you got a name?"
"Let me think. Yeah, it's a guy they call Boris the Bopper. I'm pretty sure he's a Russian or maybe Ukrainian. But these other guys, they don't look familiar offhand."
"What else you know about this Boris?"
"Barrel of laughs. I heard he works for a Serb wiseguy, runs all kinds of kinky clubs here and down south in Chicagoland."
"How about a name for him?"
"Shit, he's a bad dude, Loot. I've heard some stuff..."
"Sarge?"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I think his name's Goran."
"Goran what?"
"Just Goran — that's enough to get you shushed in some bars, man. Nobody likes to hear his name, like he's all-seeing or something and would smite you just for speaking it."
Brant nodded. "I've heard some of these guys practice that routine just to scare their help and keep them in line."
"Yeah, and if that don't work they cut out their livers and feed'em to their mates."
"Lovely."
"I gather, as a technique, it works wonders. I heard some things about this guy would make your blood freeze. He's guarded by these crazy ex-Serb commandos he smuggled out of that whole area there, used to be Yugoslavia. Supposedly like twenty of these guys. He's got other low-lifes working for him, too, local Russian talent. Lives in a mansion on the bluff down by the lake with a private beach and the whole bad guy thing. Owns a string of clubs and bars and I think even some restaurants, but I hear he still makes money the old-fashioned way."
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