It was almost like his first kill and he appreciated the sense of coming full circle.
The Archer quickly relieved the dead cop of what he needed, then locked the flimsy door and rolled out of the stall under the privacy wall before the urine puddle widened.
Still no one had entered the restroom, which confirmed that The Archer was merely fulfilling his destiny.
Called to a higher purpose.
Perhaps he was destined to punish the tribes for their callous treatment of people like him. Who did they think they were, playing God with the lives of so many? He had to force the rage down, before it could bubble up again.
Moments later he was out on the casino floor, extra weight in his pockets and a feeling of infinite power.
It was almost mystical in nature.
But he couldn’t find her. She had moved, or left, and he wandered up and down the noisy aisles, panic beginning to creep into his mind and poisoning his newfound feeling of power.
Damn it! Where had she disappeared to? Anytime now somebody would find the dead cop, and then the resulting lockdown would snag him. If they found the cop’s stuff on him, his end wouldn’t be the blaze of glory he sought. It would be the universe laughing at him, rather than granting him that infinite power he had just felt.
Have to resolve this now, he thought, his eyes roving frantically.
And, in fact, when he spotted his target he knew he was indeed destined to follow this path, though it was different yet again from the way it had begun.
Who was he to question his destiny?
JESSIE
She watched her money double on the one machine, and having seen other people do this, she hit the Cash Out button and endured the jangling coin sound as the slot spit out a claim ticket.
Now what?
She could cash it in, or walk around for a while and find another machine to slip it into and try her luck again…
It was kind of fun, actually, wasn’t it? Well, it was. Surprisingly, she thought.
She walked away from this machine and wondered again if she should try a new one. They were all intriguing in a strange way with their themes and bright pictures and electronic jingles. Lights flashing, cartoon and movie voices reaching out to her as she walked past.
While thinking about picking a new machine, she saw the same shuffling guy cross the aisle that she thought was a cop. He looked tired, like DiSanto, and she figured he’d been there all night. As he neared, he dug into his pocket and pulled a badge in a wallet.
She sighed. Maybe something had happened…
She reached for her phone and realized just as her hand brushed her pocket that she didn’t have it.
Shit, must have left it in the car.
THE ARCHER
He crossed the aisle quickly and saw his destined target. He didn’t have time to waste, so he made up his mind and pulled the stolen wallet from his pocket. He approached her and when she turned to face him he realized that she was lovely, after all. He felt better about it – this one would grab the city’s attention for sure.
He showed her the badge without flashing it to the whole world, a secret between them and no one else.
“Are you, uh, available?” he asked in a just loud enough whisper.
“Yes?” she said uncertainly, swiveling all the way around to meet him. She might have been staring at the high-stakes progressive slot machine in front of which she was sitting, but maybe not. Momentarily she seemed annoyed at the interruption. “What is it?”
But then he saw the widening of her eyes: Trouble? Another killing? A story?
He saw the questions in her eyes. They were very nice eyes, indeed.
“Ah, you’re needed at the crime scene,” he said as he figured the young cop would have said it. “Outside, I mean.”
He knew he was a little shaggy, but what could she expect after his long shift? Maybe he’d been called in from off-time. Going on no sleep after a long night’s policing.
“Did Detective Nick Lupo ask you to find me?”
“Yeah, Nick said he wanted to talk to you.” He noted the corners of her lips turning up, and he knew he had her hooked.
She asked, “What about…?” But she was already shifting her weight, ready to go.
The ‘cop’ lowered his head and interrupted, whispering, “I can’t give you details here in public, but there’s – well, look, we just found another victim and Nick said to tell you he needs to get ahead of it. I’m not sure what he meant, but you know, when he says jump you gotta say how high.”
“Another victim? Oh no, that’s terrible. Okay, I’ll follow you.” She hopped off the stool and fell in behind him as he made his way toward the far wall. She seemed eager to see this Nick fellow. The big hard-ass cop with the long hair?
The Archer felt the excitement of yet another kill flooding his veins like an infusion of new blood. He sensed her presence right behind him, matching his stride, and her own excitement.
You have no idea!
LUPO
He walked around more or less aimlessly, staring at people who fit his fleeting description of the guy he’d followed. He also tried to make his way back to the crime scene outside, but it took him a half hour to locate the correct direction and find the lobby again. The place was cavernous. He’d never even know if DiSanto had already gotten back here, unless they connected by text or phone. He figured he’d try once he found his way back to the parking lot and its taped-off perimeter. Chances were that was where he would find his sleepy partner, anyway.
When he squeezed past an elderly woman with a rolling walker trying to get inside the same doorway, he felt almost as if those tentacles he had imagined were trying to keep him from escaping. The two of them clogged the doorway, and then he was suddenly free with a whoosh of air vacuum. Outside it was a chilly morning, but that had nothing to do with the shiver that worked its way through him.
As he skirted more elderly people on their way inside, he heard a familiar chuckling voice.
“There you go again, Nick, passing judgment on those who don’t have the means to defend themselves.”
“That’s not true—” he started to retort. Then he stopped and whirled, looking for the speaker who still seemed to be chuckling across the field of his hearing. At first he’d thought it was DiSanto joking around, making a different voice. But now…
“Sam...?”
He heard the chuckling again, but he couldn’t see anyone. But it did sound like…
It was impossible. It couldn’t be his friend Sam Waters. Sam had killed himself rather than face the prospect of life as a werewolf. One of the elders on the tribal council who had opposed his tribe’s casino project, like so many others he had run afoul of those former mercenaries who were rather more than mere hired guns. Sam had brashly chosen to end his life with a shotgun blast that night, on a beach near the reservation, but who knew what had really gone through his mind before the savage end he sought so brashly? After all, he’d been forced to put down his only son, the same werewolf who had infected young Nick’s neighbor, who had in turn infected Nick… Sam Waters had had good reason to despise the thought of preying on others. Their friendship had developed against all odds, as the saying went – Sam and Nick should have been sworn enemies, and had been, briefly. But then Sam had killed himself and Nick had felt his loss as much as anyone’s in his tortured life.
So now what was going on? Was DiSanto playing with him? Was he hearing things? Someone else who sounded just like Sam?
Yeah, someone talking to a ‘Nick’? What were the odds?
But then, what were the odds of it actually being Sam? Sam was dead. Damn it, they’d seen him flip the short shotgun, lodge the barrel under his chin, and push the trigger rather than pull it.
It hadn’t been pretty, not at all.
He was definitely dead. They’d buried him in a tribal ceremony. He and Jessie had been there, and DiSanto, and the surviving elders.
But now he seemed to be here, ta
lking to Lupo. It wasn’t possible, no matter how you tried to play it.
Lupo played it cool. He tried to approach the whole thing with logic. He stepped out of the traffic flow and surveyed the area more carefully. There were various people in the large lobby, some not moving, maybe waiting for other people. Maybe one of them sounded like Sam..? Maybe…
The voice again: “Look, Nick, I know this is a little out of the blue, but you’ve got to go back in there.”
“Goddamn it,” Lupo growled, whirling again to survey his surroundings.
There was no one nearby.
He didn’t like being toyed with, and that was what it felt like.
“I’m not trying to toy with you, Nicky, but I’m just getting the hang of this…”
Lupo turned, his lips forming a curse, and now something did catch his eye. There was a figure nearby, hugging a slightly curved wall, who seemed to be fading in and out of sight. One second Lupo could see it clearly, and then the next he could see through it right to the painted wall. He could see some chips in the paint. And then the figure was obscuring the view.
It looked like Sam Waters, wearing his faded jeans and white cotton shirt with a beaded vest over it, his frequent sartorial concession to his heritage. But it couldn’t be Sam…
Lupo blinked rapidly and found himself rubbing his eyes. He was tired, but he wasn’t that tired. He shouldn’t have been seeing things.
He approached the figure, who appeared mostly solid at the moment. The chipped paint was invisible.
“Sam?”
The elderly man turned and looked at him with a sad smile. “Well, who’d you think I was, Hamlet’s father? Would that make you Hamlet?”
“Shit,” Lupo muttered. “I hallucinate a ghost and it thinks it’s a comedian.”
“Indeed, there’s no time for comedy,” said the ghost of Sam, if that was what it was. “There’s trouble happening, and if you leave this establishment now you’ll be too late.”
“Fuck,” Lupo growled. A passerby stared at him and pointedly turned away.
Lupo shook his head. Then he put a hand to his own forehead, expecting to feel heat and sweat, but he was cool and dry.
“If you wait longer, it will also be too late.”
It was a sort of smoother version of Sam’s voice.
But it had to be in his head. Lupo tapped his right temple. Had to be.
Or it was some sort of trick, a prank.
“Whatever works, Nick, but how many voices in your head know you have a soft spot for progressive rock, keyboard instruments, and James Bond films? That we share the Bond fan thing? Well, we did before I… just before.”
“Technically,” Lupo muttered, “I think all the voices in my head, any that might be there, would know all those things.”
A fat guy in a too-tight t-shirt went by, staring at Lupo with unconcealed disgust.
“Well, that’s a point,” said the voice, ghost, whatever it was. “I didn’t think that through very well, did I?”
Lupo stared back at the fat one. He sounded like he was talking to himself, didn’t he? Acting crazy. He tapped his ear. “Talk to you later,” he said loudly enough for the guy to think he was wearing some sort of Bluetooth comm device. Too late, though. He shrugged. So what?
He turned and there was the Sam-figure again, and he was kind of grinning, wasn’t he?
“Never thought I’d see the day,” he said.
Lupo wondered whether mental illness ran in his family.
“Look, Nick,” the ghostly Indian said, no longer grinning, “work out whether or not you think I’m real later, after you’ve checked on Jessie. I’m telling you she’s here and she might in trouble. I lost track of her and she might have run afoul of this bastard you’re hunting. She might need your help. Stop worrying about your sanity.”
And then he added: “Think of this as one of your hunches or gut feelings. You’d never ignore that, would you?”
As Lupo watched, the Sam-figure that was clear as day started to fade and he could see through it again, and then it was gone.
Fuck!
Their exchange had taken less than a minute, but now it had indeed become a gut feeling, and he turned and headed back into the casino proper. He dialed Jessie’s phone again and grimaced when it went straight to voicemail.
THE ARCHER
His breathing was fast and he hoped she couldn’t tell from behind him, where she was trying to keep up with him as she followed. He made sure to stay ahead of her, giving her a sense of urgency, trying to keep her from thinking.
Clearly, his mention of a story had intrigued her enough and she’d agreed to follow him without trying to ask too many questions. If this Nick guy was the cop who had caught his eye outside… but maybe Nick was the other one, the thinner cop she’d talked to along with that other hot reporter chick. Christ, were they all hot? Then he felt his hands and feet go cold and he realized, it had to be that guy from outside. He just knew it.
Jesus Christ, that guy looked scary as hell. He’d stared right through The Archer’s soul for a second, there, only he hadn’t realized it. But if he stopped and thought about it…
The Archer decided he didn’t have that much time to make his big statement.
He led the woman through the circular maze of the casino, which he’d memorized and which he knew would only confuse her. As long as they didn’t stumble onto this Nick asshole, he’d get her right where he wanted.
He only wished he could be behind her, because her ass was spectacular.
The side lobby was in sight now, and he headed there. He could hear her steps, following quickly, maybe excited about what ‘Nick’ wanted to tell her.
He smiled, glad she couldn’t see his face.
LUPO
He dialed Jessie’s phone yet again and it went to voicemail. Maybe she was on the phone, but it didn’t seem likely. Then he dialed his home phone and heard his own outgoing message. He’d stubbornly clung to the land-line, just to be an old fogey, and he’d really hoped she was there. She probably hadn’t left to drive up north yet, unless there’d been an emergency, but he couldn’t be sure. He dialed her tiny hospital, which was the center of the rez health-care system. He spoke to Jessie’s second in command, Lizz Something-or-other (how was he supposed to remember?) who told him no, they hadn’t called Jessie and asked her to return, was everything all right?
“Sure,” he half-growled, “everything’s fine but I just can’t find her. If she checks in, have her call me?”
“Are you Nick? Does she have your—”
“Yes and yes,” he said, cutting her off. Did he have time to be polite? No. He scanned his phone contacts as he scrolled. Who else could he call? Well, there was DiSanto. He hadn’t checked in recently.
The younger cop answered on the third ring. “Yeah, Nick?”
“Dee, you have Jessie with you? Are you here right now? At the casino?”
DiSanto sighed. “Uh, no, I’m not there any more. I came back after you called, but then Lori got hold of me and said she had some list for us but it was too long to retype into email or attach, and—”
“What about Jessie?” Lupo’s patience was wearing thin.
“Yeah, ran into her a while ago, right after I got there. She stopped by while I was canvassing some of the security folks. We talked about her disgruntled applicant theory. Oh, and she managed to talk that reporter friend of yours, Ashley, into leaving me alone – I owe her just for that.” His voice wound down suddenly – apparently he had finally gotten Lupo’s frantic vibe.
Lupo wanted to scream. He kept his sudden pit-of-the-stomach fear under control. Or he thought he was controlling it. “What was Jessie doing here?”
At this point he didn’t need a ghost to tell him something was wrong.
DiSanto hesitated. “Uh, she checked in with me, seeing whether her theory was holding up. She got Ashley to back off. Then I went back to talking to some of the security guys. Little while after that I saw her slidi
ng some cash into one of the slot machines. She waved at me, like, saying I’m okay. I had to split, so I waved back and that was it.”
Lupo felt his own face twisting unnaturally. Jessie gambling? That was weird. She'd always made fun of what she called the casino zombies. She enjoyed analyzing the lyrics to The Turn of a Friendly Card, one of their shared favorite Alan Parsons Project concept albums, and as it did not paint a positive portrait of gambling in general, he would have figured feeding a slot machine was the last thing she would do. On the other hand, she had been hanging around the new tribal casino that had just begun operating next to her hospital. She’d been getting meals in its restaurants, and the concert line-up was starting to excite them both. Maybe she’d started to mess around with the slots on one of her breaks or lunch periods. Maybe she was softening on the smoke and the zombies.
Lupo shook his head, knocking out the irrelevant thoughts. Fact was, she didn’t seem to be around, not at home, not answering, not showing up. She wasn’t missing exactly, but then where had she gone? Why no phone contact?
Where the hell are you?
“Fuck!” he said with an unintended growl.
“Nick, take it easy.”
“It’s easy for you to tell me to—”
“What?” DiSanto’s tinny voice piped up from the phone. “Nick?”
Damn that familiar voice! He’d responded out of habit, but it had taken a couple beats for him to realize that it wasn’t DiSanto he had heard. He looked around again, but there was no one there.
Sam’s voice said: “You have to stay calm. I think she’s fine, but I can’t be sure… I’m getting some sort of danger vibe. You should calm down and listen.”
“Never mind, Dee,” he barked into the phone. “Keep an eye out for her.” He disconnected before DiSanto had a chance to respond.
Wolf's Deal: A Nick Lupo Novella (The Nick Lupo Series) Page 9