Infected: Lesser Evils (27 page)

Dylan seemed worried about him, but Roan assured him he was going to let the Church handle their own shit. For some reason, that still made Dylan nervous. He didn’t believe him? Or maybe he did, and it still bothered him.

He wasn’t the only one bothered. Roan found himself wondering what
was
bothering him about all of this, and decided it was the timing. The drug dealer at the Church winds up dead, between an attempted drive-by and a more successful bombing. Sure, lots of people hated infecteds right now, had hated the Church since its inception, but damn, that was some timing. He really didn’t like coincidences, and this was a huge one. But what was the connection? That was the maddening thing. A drug war would make sense, except no drug mafia ever used pipe bombs, or at least used them so shoddily. Unless that too was deliberate.

So many possibilities. He continued mulling them over as he drove Dylan back to Kevin’s house, and while making Dylan a late dinner of scrambled eggs (he could do eggs; it was pretty much the limit of his cooking abilities). In fact, watching him cook, Dylan asked, amused, “What have you done that makes you feel so guilty that you’re cooking for me?”

“Nothing beyond the usual,” Roan replied. Which was true, but he wondered why Dylan put himself through the hell of being with him. He wasn’t infected; he didn’t need to do this. After all of this, if he was Dyl, he didn’t know if he’d stay. He supposed it said more about Dylan’s character than anything else.

Roan was still trying to figure this out when they went to bed. Dylan slept peacefully while he lay awake, watching the gradations of light play across the ceiling as morning approached, and he tried to figure out why the timing of the Church attacks bothered him so much.

Was that it? What if Hockney’s murder wasn’t drug related, but Church related? He wasn’t infected… but would it matter if some anticat extremist saw him coming and going from the Church all the time? They wouldn’t bother to investigate—they’d just assume he was an infected.

The fact that it was a weapon similar to those used in the drug hits? Coincidence, or a case of someone actually trying to make it look like a frame job? It seemed like a long shot, but his mind refused to calm down about it.

He got up and searched on his laptop for a while. Eventually he found a page where anticat extremists were posting photos of people seen entering and leaving the Church. There were lots, and it seemed he was on there too, his name and address posted, along with the comment,
“This fag is the worst of the lot.”
Oh hey, was there an award? Maybe a plaque? He should collect it. He could put it on his office wall, beneath his framed “World’s Best Buttfucker” certificate.

By this time he could hear Kevin up and about, getting ready for work, so Roan took his laptop downstairs and met him in the kitchen. “Can you find out anything for me about the owners of a website?” he asked.

Kevin, who’d been pouring himself a cup of coffee, said, “Yes. I am a geek.” He then turned, and almost did a double take. “Nice underwear.”

Oh yes. He was in his underwear. Well, frankly, he was so involved in this he’d forgot to get dressed. No help for it now. He turned the laptop screen toward him, and said, “I have a theory.”

“My god, those are famous last words from you,” he said. “You’re like a gay, mutant House.” He paused briefly. “Since when have you gotten all these tattoos? Jesus, I knew you had some ink, but man.”

“Just count it as lucky I never got that face tattoo.”

“Yeah, I think Mike Tyson took that off the market for everyone.” Kevin glanced at the screen, and almost choked on his coffee. “What the fuck…? An infected hate site?”

“A hate site with photos. And look at number seventy-two.”

Kevin dutifully took the laptop and scrolled down. He frowned at what he saw. “Who am I looking at?”

“Pierce Hockney.”

Roan saw the tumblers click behind his eyes. “The drug dealer who just got murdered?”

“Who else has such a shitty name? Besides me.”

“That was a drug-related homicide.”

“Was it?”

Kevin sighed explosively and put the laptop on his kitchen table. “Damn you, House, putting these thoughts in my head.”

“Can you find who owns this website? Beyond the anonymous Save Humanity Now.”

Kevin was still scrolling through the site, and he nodded absentmindedly. “Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem—holy fuck, this is you! They have your address and everything.”

“My house got vandalized, somebody attempted a drive-by of the Church, Hockney was murdered, and now someone bombs the Church. The Church is having a bad time of it, aren’t they?”

Kevin gave him a deeply concerned look. “Where does the burn fit into this?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if it does at all. I think there’s a pattern forming here independent of that, but someone is smart enough to vary it, just enough that we don’t consider this one continuing crime but many separate ones. And they’re escalating in violence.”

Another sigh, leading to Kevin saying, “Darinda and Seb are totally gonna kick your ass for givin’ ’em more work.”

“I could be wrong.”

He snorted in disgust. “Don’t insult us both, Ro. You’re the best natural investigator I’ve ever met. If you think there’s something here we’re missing, there’s somethin’ here.”

That was a nice vote of confidence, one he honestly felt he needed, although he wasn’t sure why.

Sure he had passed off his hunch to the right person, he went back upstairs and called Rosenberg, leaving a message on her machine, requesting a therapist reference without any additional commentary. There was a message waiting for him, from Scott. The viewing party was at five tonight at a downtown address; he told Roan he was free to bring Dylan and to skip bringing the beer if he wanted. Since Dylan would be working tonight, there was no way he could make it, and Roan could be fair to Jeff and bring some beer. Scott was right, diets sucked, even if it was in support of his career choice.

Finally exhausted, Roan went to bed, cuddling up against Dylan’s warm body, and immediately fell into a deep, dark sleep. If he dreamed, he didn’t remember any of it.

When he woke up, it was the afternoon. Dylan was gone, and had left him a note. He was at the temple right now, but said if Roan was up to it he’d meet him for lunch at the Taj Mahal restaurant at two. Since it was just past one, Roan figured he could make it if he hurried.

After a quick shower and a change of clothes, Roan made it to the restaurant just in time. He checked his messages in the car, so he was able to tell Dylan that Rosenberg had given him the name of a therapist, and he intended to make an appointment. This pleased Dyl, like he thought it would. He also mentioned the viewing party, which got an ironic smile from Dylan. “You and Tank. I’m sorta glad he’s gone. You two could get into so much trouble together.” Which was a fair point. Hadn’t they already?

After lunch, Roan checked his phone and found a message from Dropkick, chewing him out with a variety of cusswords that would have impressed the Falcons. But she also said the gun used in the Hockney murder was similar to the ones used in the DSM cases, but the ballistics were suggesting it wasn’t the same gun. She added that she fucking hated him, but she said it with love.

He called the therapist, a woman named Doctor Lillian Sanger (what an old-fashioned name; he wondered if she was as old as Rosenberg), and made an appointment with her receptionist for next week. He still wasn’t sure he could do this—he’d had enough of therapy as a teenager—but he had to try, if only for Dylan’s sake.

According to Kevin, the owner of the Save Humanity Now site was a guy named Dean McFadden, who had a record of hate crimes, and had been associated with the Aryan Brotherhood as a teen. Terrific. There was no extremist like a white supremacist. Was he smart enough to be behind any of these crimes? Maybe he was just an instigator. Bad enough.

Roan stopped by and bought beer before arriving at the place downtown, which turned out to be the apartment of the Falcons’ goalie coach, Stephane Plamondon (the guys called him “Stevie”). A little more than half the team and supporting staff were there, filling out every available seat in the house, including floor pillows and an end table. Fiona was also there, to root on her boyfriend, and Roan found himself sitting between her and Grey on the sofa. The Falcons’ backup (currently starting) goaltender was a good Canadian boy (he didn’t appear old enough to vote) named Ethan Hill who made a point of introducing himself and shaking his hand, because “Tank told me you were good luck.” After Roan walked away and sat back on the loveseat, Grey muttered, “Goalies are so superstitious.” Roan was pretty sure all hockey players were superstitious, but he decided not to point it out.

Watching the game turned out to be a lot of fun. Everybody laughed when the TV showed Tank as Thibault Beauvais, as he hated his first name, but the commentators pointed that out, saying he preferred to go by his nickname, Tank, which he got from his propensity for running over opposing players in his crease. (Ah. He hadn’t known where Tank got his nickname. Finally, TV had taught him something.)

The commentators were going on about Tank being “untested” at the NHL level and wondering how he’d handle it, pointing out he’d had just one practice skate with the team. Roan wasn’t sure if they were just trying to build the tension, or if they were genuinely curious.

Then the game began, and they shut the hell up.

Tank put on a show, making one spectacular save after another, almost getting an assist when he played the puck off the boards and got it to a defenseman in center ice during a power play, and brutally shoving opposing players out of his crease and generally getting away with it. After one spectacular save, he clearly said something to the Leafs’ player standing right in front of him (of course, none of them could hear it), and the opposing player all but dived on him, causing the Bruins’ players to dogpile on him, and the Leafs’ player to get himself a penalty for “unsportsmanlike conduct.” “It’s a good thing Tank ain’t miked, ’cause he’s laughing,” Grey said.

Scott nodded a vigorous agreement. “Whenever he goads someone into doing something stupid, he laughs like Doctor Evil.”

“Okay, who did he insult?” Grey wondered. “The guy’s mother, his wife, or his hockey-playing ability?”

“Mother,” Jeff said.

“Wife,” Richie said.

“Did you see the way he lunged at him? He was definitely telling that guy he couldn’t shoot for shit,” Scott said. “That was an ego hit.”

By the first period break, all the commentators seemed to be singing Tank’s praises, talking about his spectacular saves and his “aggressive” goaltending style. One of them said Tank was playing like he’d played in the NHL for years. “What did I tell you?” Scott said, finally opening a beer himself. “Tank’s fearless. He’s a fucking lunatic.”

“Well, duh,” Fiona said. “He gets pelted with frozen pieces of rubber for a living. Willingly. That’s not a job for the sane.”

Good point.

Tank was the highlight of the game. He was continuously fun to watch, and the Boston crowd seemed to take to him, cheering when he hit the ice, and when he waved his stick at them coming off the ice at the end of the second period, that got a round of noise. Scott shouted, “Attention whore!” and got a big laugh from the room.

The end result was the Leafs were able to score on Tank only once, and that was during a five-on-three power play. The Bruins won three to one, and Tank made forty-four saves, which was apparently an impressive number for any goalie, not to mention a fresh-up-from-the-AHL one. Tank was named the number-one star of the game, which was apparently some kind of honor, although Roan really didn’t get it. As a result, Tank was interviewed at the bench at the end of the game, and he had his facemask up, revealing his beaming, slightly crazed face, and he was so drenched in sweat it looked like he was fresh out of the shower; sweat was just sluicing down his face. His visible hair was plastered to his scalp.

During his interview, he did a shout-out to the Falcons and Fiona, which elicited a cheer, and gave his Olympic hockey player sister credit, as well as Stephane, for all the drills they put him through. And just as the interviewer was throwing it back to the studio, Tank quietly mouthed something: “Hi, Roan.” This elicited a roar from the room, mostly laughter, and Grey punched him on the arm. “See? Superstitious,” Grey said, but he was smiling.

It was oddly fun. And he learned that Scott really knew his guys, or at least he really knew Tank. As odd as he was, when the camera caught a shot of Tank, hidden behind his mask, staring at a face-off with the same crazy intensity he brought to a potential fight, Roan realized that for all his (calculated?) insanity and definitely real eccentricity, Tank was an athlete at the top of his game. Yes, he was good enough to be pro; that insane focus was just part of the training, part of the strength he needed to have to get to the top. And that’s where he was—the top. He wasn’t going to come back down for a while. Scott was right; he was gone. And good for him, he’d worked hard, he deserved it. Maybe the craziness helped.

As they were leaving, Fi asked him when he wanted her back at the office, and he had to admit not any time soon, not until the cat hate calmed down. She protested it might never be over since people were assholes, but Roan told her enough people had been hurt due to him, so it was going to wait. She didn’t look happy about it, but she didn’t have veto power.

They were all leaving, spilling out onto the sidewalk and trying not to get in the way of pedestrians. Stevie lived in the direct center of downtown, the building exited right onto a sidewalk that threaded down toward some high- end clubs and tourist-y bars. It was probably a decent neighborhood, but Roan knew from experience that the traffic noise would drive him crazy.

They were still gabbing, earning the occasional dirty look from a passersby, when they all heard a very loud, metallic thud, the sound of a car crash. It was on the next block, judging by the noise, but everyone still looked around as though they could see it.