Chaser

by J. A. Konrath

  No kidding. The guy’s screen name was mcgladelookslikesh!t, with an exclamation mark replacing the i.

  —You really need to do something about your looks. I think my monitor is going to crack.

  This from a third dude, DaveDaBrave28.

  A few of my other viewers chimed in to object to the trolls, and I told everyone to settle down.

  “Everyone settle down,” I said.

  They didn’t settle down.

  —I thought people in LA were supposed to be attractive.

  From User88292987.

  —Start calling u McWrinkles.

  From Beiber4Evs9000.

  —FUGLY!!!!!!!!

  From ConcernedFan.

  There were some compliments, too. That I looked fine for my age. That I looked distinguished. That I should ignore the haterz.

  But someone once said we don’t remember the nice things people say, just the mean things.

  I was the someone who said that.

  The old, wrinkled, dying someone who said that.

  “Looks like we’re out of time. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of Private Dick Live and Streaming in Your Face. I’ll be back again soon. Until then, stay right where you are and wait for me.”

  I killed the transmission, then took the hand mirror out of my drawer, the one I used to get different angles while pleasuring myself.

  I mean, I had wrinkles, but they weren’t that bad.

  Were they?

  Was it sheer vanity that I cared more about my fading looks than my failing heart?

  Or was I living in denial? Was I focusing on my appearance because it would break me to focus on my health?

  Your fifties are too young to deal with dying. That shouldn’t happen until eighty, at least.

  I held my hand over my heart, wondering how many beats I had left.

  My doorbell rang, leaving me to momentarily put aside my existential crisis and focus on the task at hand; yelling at Consuela to get the damn door.

  She did, after the third ring, and I left my studio and walked to the foyer, brightening up when I saw Harry Jr. toddle inside, arms open to give his father a hug.

  “Blah bab bla gabababa!” he said.

  Harry Jr. was Sam’s age, but late when it came to talking. Several pediatricians assured me this was normal. A few meanspirited outliers claimed Harry Jr. was just stupid and lazy, like his father. I didn’t say my first world until I was seven.

  My first word was buttfucker.

  Which, technically, might be considered two words.

  Rather than be pleased I could finally vocalize my thoughts, my foster family slapped the shit out of me.

  The buttfuckers.

  Harry Jr. embraced me, smelling like peanut butter. I lifted him up and rested him on my hip, eyeing his whore mother, Tangi.

  The story of how I met Tangi and had a child with her is funny, fascinating, and currently available to read in Jack Daniels Stories Vol. 3 on Kindle.

  Once upon a time, Tangi had been involved with the Chicago Mafia. That didn’t work out, so she followed me to Los Angeles and became a high-priced escort, where she made a lot because she specialized in funky stuff. I’ll let you imagine what I mean, but here’s a hint; it often involved a glass table.

  I gave her a nod. “Hey, Tangi. Looking good.”

  Tangi was pretty in the way that attracted me, which boiled down to large breasts.

  “McGlade. Looking old.”

  Dammit. I really had to do something about that.

  “Blowjob?” I asked her.

  “Can’t. Late.”

  “Late for what?”

  “Late to give another guy a blowjob.”

  Fair enough. “You need help?”

  “I can handle it.”

  “Whose dick do I have to suck to give a blowjob around here?”

  Tangi smiled, but it was an I’m tolerating your nonsense smile. I got that a lot. From everyone.

  “Junior may be a little cranky,” she told me. “He just had nine more vaccinations.”

  “Only nine?”

  Some LA parents were self-indulgent, ignorant anti-vaccers who needed to be slapped, then needed to be infected with measles. Tangi swung the other way, and was on a quest to get Harry Jr. vaccinated for every disease known to humanity.

  “The brave little guy just got his HPV, Ebola Zaire, cholera, Hep B, Japanese encephalitis, rabbit fever, hantavirus, a rubella booster, and Patagonian spitting sickness.”

  Harry Jr. spit in my face.

  “That one might have side effects for a few days,” Tangi said, handing me some tissues.

  “Like mother like son,” I quipped. “How long do I have him?”

  “Three days. I’ve been following your podcast.”

  I was pleased. “Checking to see how I’ve been doing?”

  “Checking to see if you’ve been hiding any assets from me.”

  Low. But admirable.

  “I pay you a fortune in child support. Plus you’ve got the whoring.”

  “You’re talking over me again.”

  “Tangi, there’s a difference between having a civil disagreement and—

  “That’s unacceptable, Harry.”

  “But I’m not—”

  “Just stop. I heard what you said about this Plastic nut you’re chasing. Is that going to put Junior at risk?”

  “Of course not. This place is a fortress. I’ve got dozens of guns and a panic room. And Consuela has a black belt in Polynesian kung-jitsu or some shit like that. I once saw her break a brick with her eyebrow.”

  “Just make sure my little angel is safe.”

  She pinched Harry Jr.’s cheek.

  He spit on her.

  Good boy, Harry Jr.

  She kissed him, nodded goodbye to me, then spun and left, giving me a glimpse of her micro-miniskirt, her garter belt showing at the bottom edge.

  Why did garter belts ever go out of style? Sexy as hell.

  “Come on, Harry Jr. Sam is inside, playing with Big Dick and Waddlebutt.”

  “Plababoo!”

  “I agree. Let’s go find her.”

  I took him to the library, where the animals seemed to be engaging in some sort of pooping contest. Consuela had a mop and bucket, so I didn’t need to intervene, by telling her to get the mop and bucket.

  Sam and Harry Jr. gave each other a hug, and then Sam asked if he wanted to play videogames, and Harry Jr. said, “Googab” which probably meant yes because they both ran off.

  “Consuela, remember to wash up before making lunch. You’re covered with feces.”

  She smiled and nodded.

  Then I fished out my cell phone and made the call, talking past the secretary and getting through to the man himself.

  “Can I get an emergency visit, Doc? Botox and a chemical peel? Maybe a little lip injection?”

  “I’m booked all through today, Harry. Maybe I can squeeze you in after hours. You okay with making me work late?”

  “If I have to.” Maybe I won’t live to see next year. But I’ll be a good-looking corpse.”

  “Eight pm okay?”

  “That’ll work. Thanks, Doc.”

  “See you then.”

  I hung up, feeling much better.

  PLASTIC

  He hangs up, feeling much better.

  Then he switches off the computer and dials a number on his cell phone.

  Erinyes answers. “Did it work?”

  “Perfectly. McGlade is coming in later. Nice work with the McWrinkles comment.”

  “Thanks.”

  Plastic has been trying for weeks to get Harry McGlade to come in for another treatment, trolling his appearance in the live text chat on his webcast. But there were too many viewers, and Schlimm could only maintain two sock puppet accounts at once, which usually got lost in the comments. But with Erinyes also controlling some fake commenters, the message came through, loud and clear.

  “Will you need help operating on him?”
Erinyes asked.

  “No.”

  “I’d like to see it. To learn.”

  “Stay home and take care of your new dog.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Plastic smiles. “I’ve got something really special in mind for Harry McGlade.”

  He’s been a real pain in my ass lately.

  It’s my turn to be a pain in his.

  JACK

  When Harry took a break to do his webcast, I continued to do what cops do best.

  I used the phone.

  Back in my Homicide days, the phone helped solve more crimes than anything else. Get a lead, follow it up.

  And I had a lead.

  When we returned to Casa de McGlade, Harry and I began calling some of Plastic’s other victims, asking them a single question: Have you ever been prom king or queen?

  I remembered the picture on Donatello’s wall. Him wearing a crown. And Abby offhandedly mentioned being a prom queen.

  Maybe a coincidence. Maybe not. But one of McGlade’s notes also mentioned a prom queen.

  Seventeen calls later I had our answer.

  Harry finished his show and came into the office. “Do I look old?” he asked.

  “Do you mean do you look old for your age? Yes.”

  “I need to look ten years younger than my age. This is Hollywood. Ageism abounds. I just fired my gardener because I caught him with grey in his goatee. What would the neighbors think?”

  “Who was at the door?”

  “The whore. And my son. He’s playing with Sam.”

  “How’s Tangi doing?”

  “Business sucks. Which means she’s doing well. Thanks for setting me up with that joke.”

  “Happy to help. I have a lead.” I caught Harry up.

  “So what are the numbers?” he asked when I finished.

  “All of them so far. Four prom kings. Three prom queens. Two homecoming kings. Four homecoming queens.”

  I’d left messages for Plastic’s other four known victims, but this was an undeniable pattern.

  “He’s targeting high school kings and queens from the same four year period, all in California,” I told him.

  “I can’t believe you caught that, Jackie. Nice work.”

  I glossed over the compliment, though it felt good to be actually making progress on this case. Acting rather than reacting. “I’d guess that time frame are the years he went to high school. Maybe he went to high school with at least one of the victims. We can interview them all again, ask if they remember anyone at the school who was bullied, or weird.”

  Harry made a face. “Do you remember high school? Everyone was bullied, or weird. Or both.”

  “Good point.”

  “And how does a crazy Plastic surgeon find all these people his age who are high school kings and queens?”

  “Another good point. Some of the schools are fifty miles apart.”

  I closed my eyes and considered the problem. When no brilliant, all-encompassing revelations came to me, I narrowed it to my own experience. Like most kids, I went to high school for four years. I couldn’t remember the names of any student who became prom or homecoming king or queen, and there were was a pair of each every year. That’s sixteen students I’d completely forgotten. Maybe if I had a yearbook…

  Oh, snap.

  “Yearbooks,” I said. “Plastic could be finding his victims in yearbooks.”

  “He could be ordering them online. Try eBay.”

  We wasted fifteen minutes searching for completed eBay sales of yearbooks from those high school years. Came up a bust.

  “Do libraries have yearbooks?” Harry asked.

  We called one. They did.

  McGlade beamed at the news. “All we have to do is find a library that has checked out year books from those four years to the same person. This is brilliant, Jackie.”

  “It won’t be that easy. Librarians aren’t required to disclose who checks out certain titles. The right to free inquiry is protected by the First Amendment. They protect privacy and confidentiality.”

  Harry smiled and winked. “But can they protect against their systems being hacked?”

  “Don’t wink. It’s creepy.”

  “Burt Reynolds used to wink.”

  “You’re not Burt Reynolds. And he was creepy. What hacker are you thinking? Firoz?”

  “Firoz is good. But everything he’s done so far, he can hide behind his shield. Hacking into libraries would definitely get him fired, probably losing his pension, maybe even arrested.”

  “So, who? Fleming?”

  “I’ll call her.”

  He called. She didn’t pick up. Harry left a message.

  Then the mercs showed up at McGlade’s house.

  Consuela brought them to us. Two men and a woman, all younger than my husband.

  They held themselves like military, standing tall, noting the entryways, keeping their faces neutral. They wore civilian clothes; khakis, leather belts, neutral tee shirts. But their boots were all business, steel-toed and puncture resistant.

  “I’m Fabler,” the taller man in front extended his hand. I took it. Firm grip, but not trying to crush knuckles. He had sort of a Michael Biehn vibe.

  “Jill,” I said, sticking with the tried-and-true fake name.

  “Pilgrim. I go by Grim.” The other guy shook in an equal fashion. A bit softer than Fabler, a kinder face. Kind of like Bill Paxton.

  “Presley.” Her grip was a bit stronger than the guys’. She looked like she could do chin ups forever. Sigourney Weaver all day.

  It was the main cast of Aliens.

  McGlade came up behind them, grinning. “Damn. You are smoking hot.”

  Presley narrowed her eyes. “I’m not into people judging me on my looks.”

  “I was talking about Fabler. What do you bench? Two-fifty?”

  “Two-eighty. And I’m straight, married, monogamous, and don’t get involved with people I work with.”

  “So you’re saying I have a chance.”

  “You have zero chance.”

  “So we’re clear, zero means it’s possible.”

  “Zero means never. Even after I die and can no longer give consent.”

  McGlade nodded, then stared at Grim. “We already heard from the homophobe and Rhonda Rousey. How about you, Grim? You like to party with the boss?”

  “I’m, uh, with Rhonda. And we don’t…” He stole a glance at her. “We don’t get involved with people we work with.”

  Presley rolled her eyes.

  Some history there. I guessed they were a couple.

  “Which one of you has the weird pet?”

  Grim actually raised his hand. Then he immediately put it down, as if realizing this wasn’t grade school. “It’s me. A Megatherium.”

  McGlade leaned away. “Is that contagious?”

  “It’s a prehistoric giant ground sloth.”

  “So… contagious?”

  “You know sloths? Those animals with the claws that hang from trees and move real slow and always look like they’re smiling? It’s like that. Except it can’t hang from trees because it’s bigger than a polar bear. And it can move fast when it has to.”

  “Sounds hellapants. If it’s prehistoric, why does it still exist?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  “I’m paying the bills. Hit me with it.”

  Grim and Fabler exchanged a look. Fabler shrugged.

  “It was brought back from extinction by a malevolent artificial intelligence,” Grim explained, deadpan.

  Harry nodded like it made perfect sense.

  “Makes perfect sense,” he said. “I know a scientist, claims he worked in a secret underground lab that held Satan. Got a friend who thinks he’s a clone. He’s friends with some people who fought a group of genetically enhanced serial killers the government trained to be special ops soldiers. There’s weird stuff happening in this world, everywhere you look. I just heard about some people in Wichita—maybe you k
now about this because it happened in your town—they were abducted by extraterrestrials.”

  “They weren’t extraterrestrials,” Presley told us.

  Harry shrugged. “Whatever. I can’t keep up with everybody’s creepy technothriller backstory. My suspension of disbelief gets flushed down the shitter. Just glad you guys are here.”

  “Who was that scientist who worked in the Satan lab?” Fabler asked.

  “His name if Frank Belgium. Tom knows him.”

  “I’d like to pick his brain sometime, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure. I’ll put you in touch. Did you bring the exosuit?”

  “It’s in the Jeep.” Fabler stared at me. “I assume it’s for you?”

  “It can wait.”

  “It can’t wait,” Harry said.

  “I’ll grab it.” Presley glanced at me and my walking sticks and left the room. Maybe I made her uncomfortable.

  “So a giant ground sloth,” Harry said. “Where’d you get it?”

  “That’s… complicated.”

  Harry held up his prosthetic hand. “Don’t tell me. I don’t like complicated. I get bored by TV shows that have too many characters. What’s its name?”

  “Sinatra.”

  “You got pics?”

  Grim fished out a cell phone and handed it over.

  “Holy god! I bet it craps in cubic yards!”

  “That’s about right.”

  Harry raised an eyebrow. “And you’re with Presley? She’s okay with it?”

  “She tolerates it.”

  “And she tolerated him,” Fabler added, jerking a thumb Grim’s way.

  “You two been friends for a while?” I asked.

  “Most of our lives,” Fabler said. “Except for a rough patch a little while back.”

  This was small talk, so I elected not to pursue it. “Get any sleep during the drive?”

  Grim nodded. “A little. Ever hear of N-Som?”

  “Sounds familiar.”

  “It’s a pill that cuts your need for sleep down to an hour a night.”

  “I heard that makes you insane,” McGlade chimed in.

  “Hasn’t gotten USDA approval, but you can get it from Mexico. They tweaked the formula. It’s okay if you don’t take it more than two days in a row. Then reality starts to get sketchy.”

  I decided to avoid it. I needed more sleep, not less. Anything that messed with my mental health was unwelcome.