Prey (46 page)

He got a call during lunch, a lawyer he knew wanting to hire him to do a skip trace on a client who’d flown the coop, and he wondered when his life had gotten so complicated that the boring, regular detective shit like this would seem so appealing.

His SIG Sauer had been returned, along with the car (it was protocol to examine any weapon that had been fired, even when it was in self-defense), and he was glad to have it back, although he wondered if he should actually bother to wear it tonight. He wasn’t expecting Barlow to try anything, nor did he think his shooters would return, but he knew it was exactly when he wasn’t expecting anything that things had a tendency to occur. So he loaded it up and put the Beretta away for another day.

He rented a well-used Ford Taurus, gray in color but dingy from desperately needing a wash, so he had an anonymous car with which to follow Paris to the bar. Paris took his bike, which made him feel slightly possessive—well, it was his bike, damn it, and he’d have rather been on it than in this bland Taurus—but the Taurus had a CD player in it, so he was able to listen to Pansy Division and Dead Moon on the long drive to TJ’s Pub.

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Just to indulge his paranoia, he let Paris reach the bar five minutes ahead of him, so by the time he parked the Taurus in the lot of the small, roadhouse-style bar, Paris was already inside and meeting with Barlow, as Paris had decided to be fashionably late (by only four minutes, though, so it seemed accidental).

He could hear the faint noise of a television over the wire, as well as rumblings from the other patrons of the bar, although none as well as Par and Barlow. Paris was so cool butter wouldn’t have melted in his mouth.

He feigned interest in the football game on the TV and batted about small talk with Tim like they were just a couple of guys getting together for a drink after work. They had a beer and talked about the weather and local politics before getting to anything substantive, and then Par turned the conversation on to Tim. Tim was married and lived in Summerbrook (a prefab, upper-middle-class housing enclave in the suburbs), had a wife named Shelly and two kids, and Tim worked for the MetLife branch office. Just from the tone of voice, Roan picked up that he wasn’t happy with something in that mix, if not all of it, and it somehow figured that an anti-cat activist would work for an insurance company. (They must have paid out a lot in cat claims.)

Paris went about asking what Tim expected of him in a sort of sideways fashion. Tim was equally oblique, simply saying that “radical cat activists” had made the city and its outskirts unsafe for normal people, and they wanted to take their cities and towns back. Paris asked if that meant violence, and after some hedging, Tim pointed out that the cats had resorted to violence first, since they hurt and kill people when loose, and that wasn’t counting infecting innocents. Damn, Roan had no idea those damn cats were so nefarious or organized. Why didn’t they invite him to the meetings? It was because he was Scottish, wasn’t it? Discriminating bastards.

He was startled by his cell phone ringing, but it was okay, as the conversation had gone on for about an hour now, and he didn’t even have a beer or a television to watch to cut the boredom. Paris was extracting some good stuff out of Tim, there was just the usual bullshit in between, and he was finding it difficult not to yawn. The phone at least woke him up. Since Tim was currently expressing disbelief at Paris’s statement that he didn’t have a girlfriend at the moment (and that wasn’t even a lie), he decided to answer the phone, figuring it was Murphy complaining about the New Horizons people.

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There was a tremendous crackle of static, a bad cell phone connection, and somewhere in all that broken noise he heard a small voice asking, “Roan?”

“Yeah. Can you speak up? This connection’s shitty.”

More static, and some of the opening syllables were lost. “—in trouble. I think I may have gotten you in trouble too, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t know—”

“Who is this?”

“Matt, Matt Skour—” A huge burst of static obliterated the last syllable, but he knew what it was.

Oh terrific, Chatty Cathy. But as the white noise receded somewhat, Roan heard him sniff loudly. Had he been using coke again, or was he crying? “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

Some crackling, but a bit better than before. “I came home from work, and I found the neighbor’s cat nailed to my front door. He left a note, saying he saw me with my new boyfriend, and he was going to do to me what he did to him—”

“Wait, wait. Who? And what did he do to your boyfriend?”

Another loud sniff. “He thought you were my boyfriend—that’s why he shot you. Or maybe he was really aiming for me and settled for you, I dunno.…”

Roan turned down the audio feed on Par and Tim’s discussion. It wasn’t important right now anyway. “Who are we talking about, Matt? I need a name.”

“I don’t know it… not really. Everybody calls him Rambo, ’cause he used to be in the Marines, but I’ve heard him called Sam before.”

“And this idiot shot me?”

“Yeah, I think so… fuck, he nailed Mrs. Pretsky’s cat to my fucking door! I think he’s following me too, or at least Leonard is. I took off before I could get cornered, but I still think I’m being followed—”

This was so much information to digest he felt like shouting at Matt to make more sense, but he knew it wouldn’t help. He had to put this all in order. “Where are you now? Can you get somewhere safe?”

He laughed breathlessly. “What the hell is safe? He’s a fucking Infected: Prey

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psycho crackhead who thinks he loves me so much he has to kill me.”

Oh wonderful. Had he ended up in the middle of a domestic dispute?

No wonder he’d got shot. There were no enemies like former lovers. “You have nowhere you can go?”

“I don’t think so. I only have a few friends, I don’t want him killing them.”

“Okay. Get to County General, or get to the cop shop on Grant. Can you do that?”

“What? I ain’t going to County, my mom’s there—”

“And so are a bunch of cops at any given time,” he interrupted sharply. “If Sam wants to try something there, fine, but he’ll be Tasered or given a dose of Ativan within a minute. Have you called the cops, reported the cat on your door?”

Matt scoffed, and it was almost lost in a rip of static. “No. As soon as I saw it and got the sense I was being watched, I got the fuck outta there.”

“You need to call the cops and report this. It’s still animal cruelty, and if he’s making threats toward you, it’s worse than that. Do you know where he lives? What he drives?”

“No. I barely know this freak! I met him at a club back when I was using, he bought meth from my dealer. I thought he was creepy but I shared a hit with him. I shouldn’t have, y’know, but it’s too late to do something about that now.”

“And that was it? He was convinced he loved you?” It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. There were complete psychos who believed they were destined to be with people they saw on a TV screen or sitting in a Starbucks sipping a latte. You just had to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, when their meds wore off or what was left of their lucidity decided to take a long vacation.

“Yeah. Lucky me.”

“And he’s a real crackhead?”

“Oh yeah, total Bobby and Whitney time. He stopped bothering me after a while, and I thought maybe he finally listened to me, y’know, or overdosed or something, but I guess he was just hibernating. God, what a nightmare.”

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The fact that he was really a crackhead added a fun new level of psychosis to everything. Crack and meth really did a number on your brain; it fucked you up but good. Cops used to think an angry perp on PCP

was hard to subdue? They seemed like arthritic old ladies compared to an enraged crackhead or methhead. No fear, no pain, nothing approaching sanity. Drugs could be so much fun. “Who’s Leonard?”

“His junkie sidekick. I don’t know what his story is, if he’s a boyfriend or a fuck buddy or just a Smithers, but wherever Rambo is, he’s kinda always there. It’s creepy.”

“You need to call the police now and report the cat and the threat; you may also want to mention that you think he’s following you and imply he shot me. If necessary they can take you into protective custody.”

“I don’t like cops,” he replied bitterly. “Not the ones around here.

I’ve given them enough entertainment for one lifetime.”

That was an interesting—and ominous—thing to say. “You’ve been abused by them?”

“In a manner of speaking, yeah. They all had a good laugh when I tried to report what Rambo did to.…” He trailed off, sniffing once more.

Roan heard a horn honk in the background. “Doesn’t matter. Rambo claimed his brother was a cop anyway. If I call, he might find out.”

Wow—Chatty Cathy could actually shut down. He was so scared he was doing so right now. “He’s hurt you?”

Matt was quiet for so long only the street noises and the occasional scratch of static let him know the line was still open. “Once, yeah. Can you help me?”

“I’m on a surveillance case right now. I’ll get to County as soon as I can, but I need you to get there right now. I’ll send some friends on ahead of me, okay? Matt, you have to do this—I’ll be there ASAP.” After thirty seconds without a response, he was forced to repeat, “Okay?”

With a sigh of defeat, Matt replied, “Yeah, okay.”

As soon as he hung up, Roan checked the audio feed—it sounded like Paris was wrapping things up with Tim—and called Sikorski back.

“I’m going off shift, McKichan,” he complained.

“Then find someone who’s friendly to get to County General as of a minute ago.” He told him precisely why, which made Sikorski groan like Infected: Prey

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his ulcer was flaring up.

“So you were shot because this kid’s psycho crack addict ex-boyfriend thought you were fucking him?”

“I don’t think he’s an ex-boyfriend, just an obsessed stalker.”

“Lovely. How do you get into these situations, Roan?”

“Clean living and good luck, I suspect. This kid is afraid of cops as much as this psycho, so I need plainclothes, okay? Also, no homophobes.”

“You’re going to guilt me into doing this, aren’t you?”

“Can I?”

Another sigh. “You owe me big time, Roan. He’s the club-kid-looking guy, right? Lots of piercing?”

“Yeah. Lanky, blond with purple highlights, tattooed, slightly flamboyant and a bit femme.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Oh sure you don’t, butchy,” he taunted sarcastically. “Just go, now.

I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Don’t be long, or you get to tell Connie why I’m late for dinner.”

“Yeah, she’s a real dragon lady. Move.”

Paris wrapped things up, and he soon saw him come out of the bar, zipping up his leather jacket and donning his helmet before straddling the bike. He was such a pro he didn’t even glance toward the Taurus, although he said, under his breath “I suckered him too well. I didn’t think he was ever going to shut up.”

Paris took off without further comment, and Roan knew he was headed to the 7-Eleven two blocks over, as they had decided to meet there afterward to discuss what had occurred. But Roan stayed there on the off chance Tim would leave the bar shortly after Paris, and he did. He was in a shadowy, poorly lit part of the lot so no one could see him in the car, and he watched Tim get into a Range Rover. He wrote the license plate down in his notebook, glad that so much experience with stakeouts and surveillance had allowed him to write legibly in complete blackness.

By the time he pulled into the back lot of the 7-Eleven, Paris was leaning on the bike, sipping a Slurpee out of a cardboard cup that looked 292

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as big as one of those comically large mayonnaise jars they had down at the Costco. As soon as he got out of the car and walked toward him, Paris raised his eyebrows in mock-amusement, and said, “We get anything legally actionable on tape?”

“Borderline. He admitted he wants you for acts of violence—all we need him to do is seal the deal and get specific. Do you remember my friend at the DMV?”

He thought about that a moment, holding out the huge cup of sugary slush in tacit invitation of a drink. Roan shook his head. “Keisha, right? “

“Yeah, her. Go home, call her, see if she’ll run this plate for me.” He handed Paris the notepad with Tim’s license plate written on it.

“Barlow’s?”

“Yep.”

“Why me? Where are you going?”

“Gordo called me while I was listening. He needs me to go over a cat crime scene. Shouldn’t take me too long.” He had to lie to him, mainly because he knew if he told him the truth, Paris would want to come along, and if he actually met the guy who’d shot Roan, he’d probably reach down his throat and pull his lungs out.

Paris rolled his eyes and sighed, accepting it but not liking it. It was an easy lie to swallow, because Gordo had done it enough, and at all times of the day or night. It didn’t matter that he technically wasn’t a cop anymore; Par was still something of a cop widow. “Be careful,” he told him wearily, leaning in and giving him a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth. He tasted like Coke, which wasn’t really a good thing, as Coke always made his salivary glands hurt. “Don’t be too late.”

“I won’t, promise.” But the way Paris’s eyes coolly appraised him, he suspected that of quite possibly being a lie.

The traffic was on his side, and he reached County General in record time. He found himself looking around the lot for an unmarked sedan, but then figured Gordo might have come in his own car, a dented little Infiniti that seemed far too silly to be a veteran cop’s car, but he didn’t see it.

Could he have actually beaten him here? There’s no way he’d park in the underground garage, was there?

Roan was still wandering the lot, headed toward the sprawling Infected: Prey

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rectangle of the hospital, when the wind brought a snatch of angry conversation to his ears. “—fucking hands off me you trog—?” The insult ended in a dull noise that could only be flesh hitting flesh.