“Where? Where’s the phone?” Ray asked, quickly redirected into another one of Seth’s slights of hand.
Meek tapped the screen just over the plastic balls. “Down in the germ pit.”
Ray’s head snapped up. "How’d you get it there?”
“It's not there yet.”
Within five minutes of their watching, a man walked to the side of the play area and leaned over the foam covered railing as if watching the kids play. He lingered only a few moments, toyed with one of the plastic balls, tossed it back into the heap, then rose and disappeared into the shoppers. Elapsed time… about fifteen seconds.
“Now it’s there.”
“Someone’s helping you. Someone’s
helping
you?” Ray asked. “
Who’s helping you
?”
“Just some kid that needed fifty bucks.”
Ray’s expression made it clear that he didn’t believe a word of it.
Seth didn't care, he was thinking about endings.
*
* *
“What’s so amazing about this thing?” Finn was saying. He held the big thermal scope up to his eye. “I can’t see shit.”
“Press your face into the eyepiece, that'll activate it,” Tonic said. The two FBI guys were twisted in their seats, waiting for the reaction.
“Holy fuckin’ shit,” Finn said when the black and white image materialized. He waved it around, searching the buildings in front of them. “Mary mother of God…”
Everyone laughed. It was pretty much the same reaction every time.
“This one’s pretty old,” Miller said. “The new ones knock your socks off I guess.”
“Fuck me,” Finn was still scanning. He couldn’t see through walls or anything, but the scope made it easy to pick out people in their ghostly white silhouettes farther down the street than he would have ever believed. He could tell what they were doing, how they were doing it, even partially obscured…
you could kind of see through walls
. “Jesus
Christ
,” Finn exclaimed again.
“We had a couple in our unit…” Tonic was telling Dupree. "Out in the mountains they were unbelievable…” The digital theme from Jeopardy suddenly interrupted the story.
Miller turned in his seat and grabbed at his phone. "Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Got it.”
“You do have cell phones!” Tonic said.
Miller was all business. "We’ve got to go. Get out.”
“Where to?” Finn said.
“Hurry, com’on,” Miller said, shooing them like children.
“Alright, alright,” Finn said. He jumped out of the car, Tonic just behind him.
Again the two detectives were standing on either side of the car, looking over the roof. Tonic shrugged. The engine revved, the magnetic bubble light clanked in place, and Dupree shouted another thanks for the pizza as they tore out of the lot.
The two stood a car’s width apart in the wind. “Well…” Tonic said. "Just when things were getting good.”
Finn was smiling, he held up the thermal scope. “At least we know they’ll be back.”
*
* *
“What are we looking for exactly?” Ray asked.
“You’ll know when you see it I’m sure.” Meek was lying back against the stack of boards, his head resting on top of the heap. “How long?”
“It’s been about ten minutes,” Ray said.
Just a couple of minutes later several men rushed into view. Their yellow on blue block FBI letters were unmistakable. “Here…” Ray said, and Seth rolled unto his side to watch.
“Yeah, it won’t be long now,” Seth said and sat up again.
Ray kept vigil as agents flooded the picture over the next several minutes, searching about, coming in and out of the picture. Playland was unequivocally closed. Two men eventually were selected to dive into the basin of plastic balls. Ray stopped watching, it would be hours until they found the thing. “What won’t be long?”
“They had people there in fourteen minutes from the time that phone came on. That’s fast. Really, really fast, don’t you think?
Ray nodded. "Seems like it. So what’s that mean?”
“I think it means that midnight better come soon.”
“Do you want me to know who’s helping you?” Ray asked.
“Not really. Nor do I want you to guess."
A couple sets of headlights washed past the windows causing Ray to stir. “Relax,” Seth said. “They wouldn’t have been on that phone so fast if they knew about this place. We’re good for a little while longer. Those are just cars going to the bar down the street.”
It made Ray feel good to be included in the
we
but he couldn’t quite explain why. He watched Meek rise, stretch, and then jog in place for a few seconds. “Tired?”
“Oh man,” Seth said. He was putting on his game face. Certainly there was no trace of good humor inside of him, but he was trying to convince himself that he could get through the next few hours. “I can’t remember ever being this tired.” He walked around the room and when returned to his spot to sit, his knees popped so harshly that for a moment Ray thought he’d broken one of the shelves.
“Want me to read some of the blog stuff on the site?” Ray suggested.
“Sure,” Meek sat back against the boards again.
Ray opened one of the many new "Trial" forums and scrolled down through the comments of just the last fifteen minutes and picked an entry at random.
He read,
…the nigger’s getting off too easy. He done it just the same. Tried to kill a guy and he’s gettin treated like some prince. You oughta hang his ass.”
“What’s it signed?” Seth asked from his makeshift recliner.
“Would you believe X?” Ray asked.
Seth just smiled.
Ray selected another.
Seth Meek is a hero…
“You see,” Meek interrupted. "They always want… they want to sign it X. Should have nametags for their pointy hats...”
Ray watched him stumble through his words.
Right now
, he thought,
I could walk out the door
.
I could stop this all.
But he wouldn’t. And not because he was fearless. No one knew how this would end, and honestly, Ray didn’t even know if he was on the ‘loose ends’ list or not. The truth was… he was curious. He wanted to see how it would play out. And then, with a shame he hadn’t felt for years, he realized that he had a chance to
save
Meek from himself. If he was really going to kill himself, this would be the time to stop it. But he wouldn’t.
Ravish Ramadeep sat still. Outside, the wind rattled against the windows.
The guy deserves this,
he thought as he watched Meek ease into sleep
. He needs to see this end. I need to see it end. Lots of people do. Can I sacrifice three people to see it through?
Five minutes later Ray stood, crept down the steps, and pocketed the bottle of pepper–gel. He didn't have to sacrifice everyone in order to see this through. Not really.
Chapter Sixty–Eight
Trope
“You sure you wanna get out
here
?” the old trucker asked. He didn’t mind getting the stinky bastard out of his truck, but it was the middle of the night, and it was snowing. Hopefully the guy remembered his own house.
“Goddam it, I said here!” Hack slammed his fist down on the dash.
“Alright, alright.” The man checked his mirrors and eased the truck to a stop. “You want out, get out.”
Hack fought with the door until it opened, and then nearly spilled out unto the pavement below. The truck ground into gear and pulled out of the sleepy suburb.
He looked around as the truck’s lights faded off into the snow. It was quiet here in the shelter of Roos’ apartment building, almost peaceful. But it wouldn’t be for long. He needed a car. Soon. He examined the roster posted at the front door, and punched #33. He popped open the little vial of emergency coke, dipped a little on his pinky nail, and snorted it while he waited.
“Yeah?” came the sleepy voice.
* * *
“You know, each one of them is a teeny tiny individual,” Tonic said as he leaned up close to the windshield.
“Shut up.”
“No really, every snowflake is different, calming.”
“Shut up.”
“You don’t like snowflakes?”
“I like calm, shut up,” Finn said. He was fretting over whether or not they should have followed the FBI. They’d had no word, and they hadn’t even come back for their scope. It was heavy, it had to be expensive. They should have come back for it. He checked his watch, again.
“Maybe we should write a song about snowflakes.”
Finn let out a groan. Tonic knew how to push him through frustration and into rationality. “I just don’t like sitting here on our asses while this all goes down.”
“Yeah, but here we are, so shut up.”
Finn grabbed the dash and pulled himself forward. “I don’t believe that they’re
all
different.”
A phone rang. Both detectives went for their cells: It was Finn’s.
“Finn.”
Tonic could hear most of the conversation without translation, Roos the Internet vampire from the John Hancock Standard building was very excited. Finn finally held the phone between them and flipped it on speaker, which was almost redundant.
“…took my fucking car!”
“Where is he?” Finn asked.
At first, Roos just blathered on, but the question finally caught up to his rant. "He said he was gonna kill that Ray dude.”
“Who?”
“The guy on TV,
Ray
. Said he’s gonna off him. He had a fuckin’ gun man,
stole my car!”
They calmed the kid down and finally got the make and model. A brown El Camino, which somehow was just right for Roos. “You call the cops yet?” Tonic asked.
“
Aren’t you the cops
?” the kid screeched.
“Yep, you’re a smart lad,” Finn scribbled the information on his hand. Tonic already had them moving. “Stay there at your house Roos,” Finn said. “We’ll get back to you, calm down and… think about snowflakes or something.”
“What?” was the last thing they heard from Roos.
“So where we going?” Finn asked.
“Dunno, I think better driving.”
“So all that frosty introspection shit was what?”
Tonic turned up their scanner. "Why don’t you call Hop and let him know...”
“In a second.” Finn was thinking too. “Alright. Hack’s drunk. He does, however, think that he knows where Meek’s at. Let’s assume that’s true. How do we get close?”
“The closest we know is the place he wrecked his last car.”
“Yep.”
Tonic made to spin the car around, but on the glossy streets it went
all
the way around and ended up pointing in the same direction.
“Very nice,” Finn said in the calm that followed.
This time Tonic granny turned trying not to further embarrass himself. It just made it worse.
“Snowflakes are calming,” Finn imitated Tonic’s drawl.
"Shut up."