Infected: Lesser Evils (51 page)

Roan knocked on the door, and listened carefully. It was a quiet floor, even though he could scent someone making microwave popcorn; a couple were fucking, and someone down near the elevator had a baby that was making random shrieking noises that approximated speech. None of that was going on in Lee’s apartment, though; it was quiet inside. He thought he heard a television, but it was next door and simply bleeding through the wall.

Since it was quiet, he told Holden, “Keep an eye out,” before dropping to one knee and busting out his lockpick kit, a small collection of tools that fit easily in his pants pocket. Roan got to work as Holden stepped in front of him on one side, facing the elevator, looking around on a regular basis.

“Not going to force it?” he wondered.

“Don’t want to give him any warning.”

It didn’t take Roan long to trip the deadbolt, and within a couple of minutes they were inside, careful to use their sleeves to touch objects so as not to leave fingerprints. Not that it was likely Lee’d call cops in even if he thought there’d been a break-in; if he was the killer, he wouldn’t be overly fond of cops anywhere near his business. “So is it true what I’ve heard?” Holden asked, whispering.

He trusted Roan to be right that no one was here, but he didn’t want the neighbors to hear.

“What have you heard?”

“That juries are letting the patently guilty go ’cause there isn’t forensic evidence supporting their guilt?”

“I don’t see too many courtrooms anymore, unless I’m on trial for something, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Those goddamn CSI shows are too fucking absurd. Not everybody leaves usable DNA at a scene, and not everything can be told from a single strand of carpet fiber.” The apartment was relatively neat, dominated by Ikea furniture and neutral tones, and smelled of coffee, microwave pizza, and… cigarettes. The same cigarettes Roan had smelled at the tenement? Truth be told, it was kind of hard to tell; unless they were menthol or some other specialty brand, all cigarette smoke pretty much reeked in the same manner, with the little variations too common to be of much help. Roan knew if smokers actually knew of all the chemicals they were smoking, they’d probably quit tomorrow.

Holden started wandering around the living room, looking around for who knows what. He stopped by a wall rack, and said, “Holy shit, I hope he’s the killer.”

“Why?”

“’Cause he’s got awful taste. Kenny Loggins?
Fast and the Furious
? God, he deserves a death sentence for these alone.”

“If you find Toby Keith or Larry the Cable Guy, we’ll set a booby trap.” Roan wandered off toward the room that could only be the bedroom. Did he smell blood? It was so faint it was almost completely lost in all the other scents of a human living in a small space, but he still picked it up. He couldn’t have followed it on a city street, but here he was lucky the ventilation wasn’t great. Roan followed the scent toward the bathroom—Christ, when was the last time he’d cleaned it?—while Holden exclaimed, “I found Toby Keith. Can I take a dump on his bed?”

“No.”

“Damn it, man, I’ve found three Steven Seagal movies. We can’t leave this unpunished.”

The bathroom, like most men’s bathrooms, reeked of piss. Roan winced and wondered how anyone could stand it, and then wondered if it was just his hyperactive sense of smell. If it really smelled that bad, you’d think he’d have done something about it by now.

If you ignored the rings in the sink, toilet, and bathtub, it was relatively clean. Roan followed that tiny thread of blood scent to the sink, fearing it was just a shaving nick, but it wasn’t in the basin itself. No, it was under, below, and he crouched down to open the cabinet as Holden came to stand in the doorway. “Found something?”

“I’m smelling infected blood.” Beneath the cabinet was a small plunger, a bottle of Drano, a couple rolls of toilet paper, Rogaine (ha), and a towel. A rather lumpy towel.

Roan touched it, felt something hard and cylindrical beneath, and pulled back the topmost towel. Beneath it were three small, metal-tipped arrows, about the size of your average Slim Jim. “What is it?” Holden asked.

Roan picked one up and sniffed it. It had been washed in a hot, soapy solution, but not well enough to escape his nose.

“What the fuck… is that actually an arrow?”

“He’s killing them with a bow,” Roan said, both disgusted and amazed. The possibility of him hunting without a gun had never crossed Roan’s mind. He got up and went back into the bedroom, Holden stepping aside.

“Who the fuck does he think he is, Robin Hood?”

“It’s quiet, so he doesn’t have to worry about drawing too much attention to himself, and it’s more of a challenge. If he wants a quick kill, he has to make it one damn good shot. And the damage to the pelt is controllable.”

Holden started undoing his pants. “That’s it. I’m so taking a dump on his bed.”

“No you’re not, especially when I’m still looking for the damn weapon.” Roan went to the closet, which was a bit of a mess, but he figured Lee’d take more care of his hunting weapon. The second search option was under the bed, where Roan turned up a small box full of porno mags (used—goddamn his sense of smell), and a bigger, covered Amazon box. Bingo.

Roan slid the box out, while Holden perused the porno magazines, careful to use a tissue to handle the pages. “So, Juggs, Shaved Asians, Barely Legal… damn, I love this man. I want to slit him open stem to stern with a nail file and then set him on fire.”

“Get in line.” Opening the box, Roan found another towel, and once he moved that aside, he found himself looking at a compound crossbow, affixed with a sight. It was the kind any bow hunter going after deer might use. It was a bit bulky, but he could see how it would be easy to hide with a heavy coat or simply inside a duffel bag or a backpack, and it wasn’t as heavy as he had expected it to be. The beauty part? This was an unregistered weapon, so even if the cops bothered to investigate and found a wound on a pelt equivalent to the arrowhead, it wouldn’t matter. There was no official database, nowhere to even begin tracking this.

Roan pulled out his pocket knife, and nicked his thumb.

“What are you doing?”

“Marking this.” He pressed his cut thumb just above the trigger, where his hunter friend was unlikely to grab it, at least not until he opened fire. “If I smell my blood anywhere, I can track it. As soon as he takes this out anywhere upwind of me, I will find him.”

“Well, that’s informative. And creepy.”

“Give me a clean tissue, will you?”

Holden balled up the tissue he’d been using to examine the magazines and tossed it under the bed, where it joined a couple more. He then got a clean one from the box on the bedside table and brought it over, and Roan wrapped it around the cut on his thumb before replacing the crossbow in the box, and reassembling it all before shoving it back beneath the bed. “He’s got to have knives to skin his prey. Precision knives, you couldn’t do this with a set from Kmart.”

“And they’re not here, Mr. Bloodhound?”

“Not in this room.” Roan went back out into the living room, but scowled as he realized he wouldn’t keep them out here. But they weren’t in the bedroom or bathroom, meaning the only room left would be the kitchen. He wouldn’t really keep them in there, would he?

Roan went to the kitchen, and wondered why he wasn’t smelling even the slightest trace of blood, when he decided that the smell of detergent was too strong. He opened the dishwasher to find nothing but large knives in the rack, although there were some small ones for finer work, some which looked almost like scalpels. The dishwasher did a better job cleaning off the blood than Lee had done with the arrows.

Holden was behind him, looking over his shoulder. “If you had a search warrant, could you nail him for any of this?”

“No.”

“So what do we do? We could hang out until he comes home.”

Roan closed the dishwasher, shaking his head. “We’re going.”

“Are you kidding? He’s our guy.”

“I know, but it’s not ending here. There’s a good chance he’ll be out tonight, hunting in the Heights. So will I.”

Holden’s gaze was stony but infinitely understanding. “Good thing I’m free tonight, huh? Let’s get this bitch.”

“You don’t have to come.”

“Don’t have to, want to. If you lion out, you’re gonna need someone to cover your tracks.”

He was right, and it wasn’t like Holden hadn’t done it before. How odd—Holden was a man who didn’t trust easily, and yet he seemed to trust him. But then again, Roan knew he could say the same thing about himself. Ultimately, he and Holden had this in common: they were both jaded men who had been burned, so much so that it was sometimes impossible to tell their hard shells from their interior landscape. Except Roan had a glaring weakness, the people he loved, while Holden went out of his way to keep from showing any weakness. He cared about his “boys,” but in a sort of street-approved and expected way. Some of the feeling was probably genuine, but he tried to keep everyone guessing. Roan instantly thought of himself as the weaker of the two of them, because he had such an obvious vulnerability, but—and god, was this corny to even think—maybe he wasn’t. Maybe Holden was weaker because he was afraid to give up even that much of himself to anyone else.

Except him. Roan knew Holden would do anything for him; he was taking advantage of that to get him to finish the Jephson case. But Holden knew that, and since he hadn’t reacted, he obviously didn’t care. He didn’t consider that much of a price to pay.

They left Lee’s apartment, and named a place and time to meet in the Heights. Based on some educated guesses, Roan could assume where the best hunting ground would be.

Back at home, Roan had the place to himself, as Dylan was at his art collective’s loft that afternoon. He went ahead and packed a bag for the hospital, and found sorting through what books to take to be the hardest task. Roan hid pain pills under the paper in an otherwise full Altoids tin, and wondered if this meant he was a severe addict. Since he was riddled with tumors, he wasn’t sure he cared anymore.

He wrote a note for Dylan, apologizing for everything, thanking him for staying with him when saner people would have run, and telling him he really did love him. He folded it up and stuck it in the pocket of a lightweight jacket Dyl wore only once in a while, so he might find it if… no, Roan wasn’t going to think like that. He was getting out of the hospital to piss people off yet again.

In spite of the speed still coursing through his system, he lay down to have a nap, setting the alarm to get him up in case he totally conked out. Roan dreamed of blood, fire, and someone’s birthday party, for no apparent reason, only for the alarm’s blaring electric screech to wake him up. He changed into dark clothes, loose so if his bones started breaking he wouldn’t rip the seams, and wondered about taking a weapon before deciding that there was no point. Roan would get him or he wouldn’t, but he wasn’t going to pull a gun. Unless Lee brought one, then he might use it on him just for spite.

He took his motorcycle, as it had been a while since he’d taken it out, and he felt like taking her out one last time. He knew there was a parking garage just outside the Heights, for workers at a bank, but Roan knew of a secret loading entrance where he could bust into and stash the bike. Considering what he was planning to do, this was a minor crime.

The Heights seemed deserted tonight, although not really. There were people on the street, homeless, panhandlers, some pedestrians but not many in this area. Mainly this area was rife with junkies, as any junkie who had a sense of shame left came under the cover of darkness to their local shooting gallery or crack den (whatever their poison was), and Roan wasn’t judging, mainly because he knew he was no better than them. He just didn’t see how they thought they could be hiding their addiction under the cover of darkness, when so many other signs gave it away. Even Roan knew he wasn’t fooling anyone.

The flaw here was he had no idea when Lee did his hunting, except he assumed it would be earlier in the evening, mainly so it would give him time to skin his prey. Even if you were an old pro at it, skinning something took time, and he more or less tanned them, which added even more time and complication to his ritual. Lee wouldn’t wait until three in the morning to get this started, or he wouldn’t crawl home until after dawn.

Roan had just secured the black watch cap on his head, hiding every strand of hair, when Holden melted out of the darkness like an expert, which he was. “Looks like you’re robbing a bank, sailor,” Holden said, in his usual silky way. It sounded sarcastic, but like most things with Holden, it was hard to tell. He was dressed down too, in worn jeans, a generic Hanes black sweatshirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and black leather gloves. There was something else too, something he could smell but couldn’t see.

“I told you not to bring a gun.”

“It’s only in case everything goes tits up. Don’t worry, I won’t pull it unless I have no choice at all.”

Probably true, but Roan wasn’t crazy about it. “Do you have any kind of paperwork at all? Concealed carry, anything?”

His smile was professional and empty, which told him all he needed to know. “I have loads of paperwork.”

“Anything with your real name on it?”

“My social security card.”

“You gonna take things over, you get licensed, get everything aboveboard. Got it?”

Holden saluted, and to his credit it didn’t appear to be sarcastic. Which was good, because Roan would have punched him if it was.

He reiterated to Holden that he was to hold back, and hopefully have nothing to do. Roan wanted to work this himself, and pretty much had to, as Lee could miss one person coming after him, but to miss two he’d have to be a real idiot (a possibility that couldn’t be denied). Holden agreed, and he seemed to be on the level, but since it was Holden, Roan couldn’t be sure. Still, at least he knew, and when the time came, he was smart enough to get out of the way.

Roan walked on, deeper into the tenement maze, toward the building where he’d found the slaughterhouse, and knew why Lee had picked this area. A lot of those unrestrained cats were probably from the drug houses, because a lot of infecteds became drug addicts if they weren’t addicts before their infection, and who was here to cage them if they transformed during or after getting a fix? No one. This also led to the possibility that the cats were partially drugged while loose, making them even easier kills for Lee.