Authors: Ken White
“Something will break, Charlie. It always does.”
“And when it doesn’t, you move on to something else,” I said. “An old training sergeant
told me that once. Only right now, I don’t have a whole lot of something to move on to.”
“Guess that old training sergeant didn’t know as much as he thought he did,” Jimmy said.
“I’m gonna go talk to Chelsea Wilkins. See if I can get a lung full of fresh air for a
change. Call me when you know something.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Jimmy had apparently called ahead to make sure his officers didn’t give me a hard time
on my way to the holding cells. When I got to the detention block, the only person there was a big
sergeant from the Security Force, rifle at the ready.
“Charlie Welles, ”I said, “Unlock the cell and wait outside, please.”
He nodded and did as instructed without a word. As the door closed behind him, I looked
into the small chicken-wire cell.
Chelsea Wilkins was curled in a ball in the corner, on the end of a rough
wooden bench, back to the wire. Her chin rested on her knees, arms holding them tight. She
stared at me without blinking.
I opened the cell door and stepped inside. “Relax, Chelsea, you’re safe,” I said, keeping
my voice soft and even. “You’re going to be fine.”
She continued to stare at me, then pivoted, her legs dropping to the floor. It was like
watching a big snake uncoil. “You the cop who busted Jed,” she said softly.
“My name is Charlie Welles. I’m not a cop. I’m a private investigator.”
“Where Jed?”
I didn’t want to lie to her. “I don’t know.”
“You not a cop, why you bust him?” Her eyes were on mine.
“I was told he was stealing from Lou Carpenter,” I said. “We were hired to find him.
Carpenter said he just wanted to scare your brother.”
“Why you bust me?”
“You’re not under arrest. You’re here so we can keep you safe. We don’t want anything
to happen to you.” I paused. “I promised Jed that I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
“Jed okay?”
Moment of truth. I could tell her I didn’t know. It would have been technically correct.
But it wasn’t true. “Some men came and got Jed the other night,” I said. “Bad men.”
She didn’t say anything. She just stared.
“I don’t know what they did with him, or where they took him. But I think they might
have hurt him.”
“You think Jed dead?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I hope not,” I said. “But to be honest, yes, I think he is. I’m sorry, Chelsea.”
She sat there for a moment, motionless, staring at me. Then she stood and I steadied
myself. She’d rushed me once, on the street, when I went after her brother. She might do it
again.
Instead she shook her head and said, “Goddamn him. I told him the leeches weren’t
going to just give up.”
Her transformation from scared, illiterate kid was probably more of a shock than a
physical assault would have been. It was my turn to stare.
“Sorry for playing you,” she said. “Two years at UCLA School of Theater before the war
interrupted my education. I caught a plane home when things started getting freaky on the
west coast. Wanted to make sure my big brother was safe.”
She laughed, a harsh sound. “Fucking Jed. Couldn’t tell him anything. Even two and a half years
in the camp wasn’t enough to convince him that the leeches were bad news. We get out, what
does he do? Goes to work for one of them.”
“So Jed did work for Carpenter?”
“You’re not the sharpest pencil in the box, are you? Of course he fucking worked for
Carpenter. If you didn’t think he was working for Carpenter, why the hell were you tracking
him down?”
“You’ll excuse me for saying so, but you don’t seem exactly broken up that he’s probably
dead.”
“I’m pissed,” she said. “Shit, I knew Jed was as good as dead when you grabbed him.
I’ve already cried my tears, Mr. Welles. Now I’m just angry.” She paused. “Jed was my big
brother, and I worshiped the ground he walked on. But he was dumb as a fucking stump.
Nicest guy you’d ever want to know, full of laughter and love, do anything for you. Just not
smart. No street-smarts whatsoever. He couldn’t see that Carpenter and his bunch were just
as bad as the leeches in the camp. Probably worse.”
“What was Jed doing for Carpenter?”
“Carpenter didn’t tell you?” she asked. “What the fuck, you just take any case a leech
throws you without asking questions?”
“My partner got the case,” I said. “He was told that Jed was a bartender, stealing from the
till. It happens. No reason to ask questions.”
“You ought to find yourself a new partner,” she said. “The one you have sounds about as
smart as Jed.”
“I’m going to have to. I think the same people who killed Jed killed my partner.”
“Sorry,” she said quickly. “Fucking leeches.”
“As a matter of fact, my partner was a Vee,” I said.
“That’s a new one. I didn’t know they killed their own. Just us.”
“Carpenter told me that Jed didn’t work for him. Any idea why he might lie about it?”
“No clue,” Chelsea said “Jed worked for him all right. Wasn’t a bartender though. Not
unless you call it serving drinks when you let a leech lick the blood off your neck.”
“Jed was a . . .”
“Refreshment is the word you’re looking for,” she said. “That’s what they call them.
Leech has a tough day at the office, he stops in at a place like Carpenter’s and has a warm
one.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t fucking believe it. Jed let them cut him and lap up his
blood.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say. All I could think about was the woman in Carpenters,
staring at me while she licked the blood from the neck of a young man doing the same job as
Jedron Marsch.
“He said he was doing it for me,” she said. “Like he had to take care of me or something.
I told him I’d rather he mugged old ladies in a fucking alley instead of doing what he was
doing, but he wouldn’t listen. The money was good. All he had to do was snuggle up to them
and let them cut him and drink his blood.” A tremor went through her body. “Goddamn Jed.”
“You said you told him that the Vees wouldn’t give up,” I said. “What did you
mean?”
“Who you working for now, Mr. Charlie Welles?” she asked suddenly. “How come there
were a hundred fucking leeches tearing up the neighborhood last night, looking for me?”
I hesitated, then said, “Officially I’m working for the Deputy Area Governor. My partner was his bloodson. Unofficially I’m working for myself. My partner was also my
friend. I want the sons-of-bitches who killed him.”
“So this isn’t about my brother at all,” she said. “This is about you getting revenge
because some leech you know got offed.”
“No,” I said. “It’s about finding the bastards who killed my partner, and Jedron, and a
seventeen-year old girl who ended up drained dry and tossed in a dumpster like an empty bag
of chips.”
I took a deep breath. “I also told Jedron that I would make sure that nothing happened to
you. He made me promise, and it’s a promise I intend to keep. So I used whatever power
comes from working for the Area Governor’s Office and had you taken into custody.
Protective custody. You’re not under arrest.”
“So I can leave?”
“If I just turn you loose, I’d be signing your death warrant. I can’t do that.”
She laughed. “Mr. Welles, I hate to make light of your amazing powers, but let’s
face it, it took a hundred leeches and more than a hundred of their daytime goons a full day to
find me. And the only reason they got me was because they had so many fucking people
looking that they were able to almost stand elbow to elbow around the whole neighborhood.”
“You heard they were looking for you, and kept moving until you finally ran out of places
to go. That about it?”
She nodded and smiled. “Not the first time, either.”
“What do you mean?”
“Thursday night there were a couple of leeches in the neighborhood, asking questions
about Jed and me. They ran into a stone wall. We’re pretty tight in the neighborhood. Don’t
like leeches, don’t like people who ask questions. I’ll be fine.”
“You might think so,” I said. “But let me tell you what will really happen if I let you go.
It won’t be a hundred people looking for you, knocking on doors, letting the whole world
know that they’re looking for Chelsea Wilkins. Like Thursday night, it’ll be one person,
maybe two. Vees at night, humans after sunrise. Hanging out in the neighborhood, not asking
a lot of questions, just hanging. They’ll never say anything directly about you, of course,
never ask any questions. They’ll just hang out, watch, talk. Real low-key.”
Chelsea was staring at me.
“And when the conversation turns to Vees, they’ll start talking about how they hear that
Vees sometimes hunt down people. Your name will come up, or somebody will mention a
girl they knew. And eventually the conversation will get around to whether that girl escaped,
and what happened to you, where you are now. Somebody will say something they shouldn’t.
Somebody always does. And within an hour you’ll be dead, or worse than dead.”
“I’ll leave town.”
“And go where,” I said. “Plane, train, bus, they’ll track you. You don’t have a car, and
long-distance truckers don’t take passengers. You could always walk, but how long do you
think you’ll last on foot outside the city? A day? An hour? If you don’t get snatched and
tapped by a Vee after sundown, you’ve got the same problems a single woman on the road in
rough country always has to face.” I paused. “And let me tell you something, it’s rough
outside the city. A lot rougher than you can imagine. There are people out there who will kill
you for the change in your pocket.”
“So what you’re saying is that only you can protect me,” she said, curling her lip.
I shook my head. “Not at all,” I said. “I can’t protect you. I can keep you locked up in
here, with a couple of Security Force goons watching you day and night. But honestly, even
that isn’t a hundred percent. Eventually somebody will get you.”
I shook my head again. “No, the only thing I can do is find the people who killed my
partner, and Jed, and MaryAnn Klinger. If I get them, you won’t need protection anymore.
But I need your help to do it.”
She stared at me for a long time, probably close to a minute, not saying anything. Then
she nodded, once. “Okay.”
“So tell me what you know. What did you mean when you said the Vees wouldn’t just
give up on Jed?”
“Jed was in the wrong place at the wrong time, saw things and heard things that he
shouldn’t have.”
“What kinds of things?”
“I didn’t know at first,” she said. “Not when it happened. I don’t think Jed even knew he
was in trouble. Not till some of the people he worked with started dying. Then he got scared.
That’s when he stopped going in to work and moved in with me.”
“When was that?”
“Two months ago, maybe three. One day, he told me out of the blue that he wanted to
move in. I thought he was kidding, at first.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“Not in the beginning,” she said. “I knew something was wrong. As fucked-up as that
job was, Jed liked it. He liked the money and . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t know, I
guess the customers treated him good or something. I couldn’t really talk about it with him.
We’d just argue.”
She was looking down. A teardrop fell away and splattered on the concrete floor.
I waited a moment, then said, “But he eventually told you what happened.”
Chelsea looked up and quickly ran the back of her hand across her eyes. “Yeah, he told
me. He was part of the . . . refreshments at a private party in Carpenter’s. One of the upstairs
rooms. Three leeches, five refreshments. Jed and four of the girls who worked the club.”
“Did Jed know the Vees?”
“Nope,” she said. “Never seen any of them before. They weren’t regulars.”
“Did he tell you anything about them, what they looked like?”
“He said one of them looked kind of like Santa Claus,” she said. “Big fat old guy, white
hair, white beard. Laughed a lot. Acted like Santa too, a fucking leech Santa. Had two of the
girls, one on each knee. He’d cut both of them, lick one, then the other. Back and forth.
Fucking disgusting.”
“What about the other two?”
“I guess one of them didn’t like girls. But he sure liked Jed. Kept Jed next to him the
whole time. Guy had white hair too, big fucking head full of it, but Jed said it was funny-looking, cause the guy wasn’t that old.”
Frankie Dowling.
“How about the third one?” I asked.
“Black guy,” she said. “Jed said he wasn’t into the refreshments, not like the other two.
Which isn’t saying that he didn’t have a few licks. He was a fucking leech, after all. But Jed
said it was more like the guy was being social. He didn’t look like he was having the time of
his life, not like the others.”