Shockwave (14 page)

So, when I can’t make the tool I need for work, I have to pay for it. What I do know is how to pay for those kinds of tools without the buyer and the seller having to meet in person.

The man I got the mist-spray canister from said it would be good for at least ten years, provided I kept it refrigerated between uses. It was guaranteed to immobilize, but when I asked if it would kill, the man who welcomed the alley’s darkness shrugged his padded shoulders and launched into a long list of what he called “variables.” If the target had asthma, or a bad heart; if I used too much of the mist …

I was trained against killing noncombatants. Nothing to do with morals; it’s just that it’s stupid. Makes more problems than it ever solves. But when there’s really no choice, you have to chance it.

I
got over the bridge, found some shadows, and pulled in, firing a quick burst from the megawatt spotlight as I did.

For a tick less than a full second, the whole area was as clear as an HD television screen. Nothing moved. So either that spot was empty, or whoever was there knew they were safe behind cover. I didn’t have the time to outwait anyone, so I gambled on “empty.”

Even if it wasn’t, maybe somebody would see a man they’d never be able to ID pop the trunk, get out from behind the wheel, and wrap a still-unconscious body in a dark shroud, with his hands at his sides. When I flipped the toggle switch, the shroud
inflated. Not tight enough to close down his lungs, but way too tight for him even to try and claw his way free.

With his mouth wrapped in a taped-over foam pad, and the kind of nosepieces you see in hospital wards inserted, he’d stay put even if he came around from the misting.

T
iming a home invasion is easy enough, but only if you’re holed up somewhere with a good sight picture, so you can study the landscape for a while.

How many people live there? Is there a dog? Any pattern to the comings and goings? Children? Alarm systems?

But I couldn’t waste that kind of time, and everything Mack had told me about skinheads said they’d sleep late and be gone by midnight, or even earlier.

Of course, if they were hosting some kind of meeting—or even decided they’d stay home that night and just get drunk—I could be walking into more of them than I wanted to. But drunks aren’t quiet, and the music Mack had played for me off a CD he had was so loud even on the lowest setting that I knew I’d hear it way before I got too close to back out.

I say “music” because I don’t know what else to call it—it was just some guitar chords and drums with a lot of screaming. I could make out “niggers” and “kikes” and “muds” … not much else. “Power!” was a word they repeated a lot. It made what kids called “rap music” sound like a trained choir backed up by a symphony orchestra.

I had to keep the Mercedes close by, in case I had to leave in a hurry. The lot next to theirs was empty, except for the charred remains of what I guessed had once been a house. Dogs were barking, but it wasn’t because I’d set them off—they hadn’t stopped once during the three times I’d circled the block.

For whatever reason, all the dogs were chained to stakes
in the front yard. Like they were there for display, not for protection.

I opened my carry-on and took out a pair of mechanic’s gloves, black mesh, slightly padded. They slid on over the transparent latex I’d never removed, then Velcro-closed. The matte black jumpsuit slipped over the unpolished boots I was already wearing. The watch cap could be pulled down into a ski mask. All I had to do was screw the silencer into the front of the pistol and strap it to my chest, and I was ready.

I would have used the suppressor for what I wanted, even if noise wouldn’t matter. My Beretta Star Px4 cost a fortune and was well worth it—perfect for carrying concealed, with a 10-round .40-caliber magazine. But it’s
so
short that it wouldn’t look menacing enough for the kind of men who would be in that basement.

The windows were dark, like nobody was home, but the back door wasn’t even locked. I stepped inside, breathing very shallow, counting to one eighty in my head. Voices from below. A basement, maybe?

I moved in that direction; the thin, removable, no-pattern crepe soles on my boots kept me soundless. A dog would have picked up on my scent, so I guessed they were all still outside. Anyway, a barking dog’s no warning signal if it never
stops
barking.

I didn’t need a dog’s nose to smell the marijuana. A light of some kind was coming from the basement, and I could hear voices. More than one.

My training was screaming at me:
Attendez!
The enemy had not detected my presence—I could line up the targets before they knew they
were
targets.

But I couldn’t know when others might come. And if they came in the same way I had, they’d be behind me.

Okay, then.

I padded all the way to the bottom step. Three men. Young
men. Smoking dope. The light was from a big TV screen—no sound, but none needed for what it was showing. They never even looked in my direction. Most of the basement was shadowy. Could be more than the three I’d already seen—I didn’t have night-vision goggles. Maybe zonked out?

I’d already done too much thinking. I stepped out onto a linoleum floor, the pistol extended to make sure they could see it. “Don’t make a sound” was all I said.

They didn’t. Maybe they were all muzzy from the dope, or maybe they were smarter than they looked.

“Keep your hands where I can see them.”

They did that, too.

“I’m looking for a man,” I said, tonelessly. “I think you might know where I can find him. Here!” I finished, flicking a rolled-up and rubber-banded photo of the dead Nazi’s face in their general direction. “Pull off the band. Unroll it, I’m saying. Then take a look. A close look.”

“How do we know—?”

“You don’t ask questions. You just give answers. I get the answers, I’m gone. I don’t, then
you
are. All of you.”

They looked in my direction. Not trying to ID me, trying to measure their chances. They couldn’t have liked them much—silencers scare people more than pistols. The one in the middle took the rubber band off, held up the blown-up mug shot, and squinted at it.

I tossed a blue aluminum-cased flashlight at them. The one on the far right flinched. The one in the middle gave him a “don’t act like such a punk” look. Then he picked it off the couch, and played with it until he figured out he had to twist the front to turn it on.

“This is like an old guy, man,” he said. “He wouldn’t be hanging with us.”

“I didn’t say he was one of you. But I know you’ve seen him,” I said, my voice carrying a certainty I didn’t feel.

It was quiet for a second.

“One quick
pop-pop-pop!
Nobody’d even find your bodies for days. Want me to just pick one of you, prove I’m not playing to the two of you that
don’t
die?”

“Bullshit, man! You think we’re the only ones—?”

The guy in the middle must have elbowed him—he stopped cold like his voice box had suddenly given out.

“So I’ve got even less time than I thought, right?”

None of them said a word.

“Okay, then, here’s how it goes. Either somebody tells me about this guy—right now—or one of you gets shot in the head. It’s that fucking simple.”

“We’ve seen him,” the guy in the middle said quickly. “But he was just moving through. Needed some traveling money. And he had rank, man.”

I kept the gun leveled, as if I was expecting more.

I wasn’t, but it came, anyway.

“We told the other guys that!” the one on my far left blurted out. “We’re righteous, wood. RAHOWA, ATW! You don’t need to be … you know.”

I put it together so quickly it was like watching a speeded-up movie.

“The other guys didn’t show you any weapons. And they let you see their faces.”

“Yeah! I mean, we already told
them
, right? And we even got a number to call if we see him again.”

“This ain’t right,” the one in the middle said, sulking like a kid who wasn’t allowed to go to a party. “How were we supposed to know anything? The first guys,
they
passed us, okay? And they had rank, too.
High
rank.”

Speeding inside my head: The dead guy had been on the move, and he was well ahead of whoever was following him. He wouldn’t have chanced stopping at this place if he wasn’t sure of that.

I couldn’t think of a way to ask the punks on the couch for the number the trackers had left for them to call—it would be the same as admitting
I
didn’t know it.

“Passed you?” I said. “Why do you think I’m here? Me, I’m the final exam.”

“But—”

“Shut up. Look on the back of the photo.”

The one in the middle turned it over. “It’s just a—”

“Different number,” I cut him off. “The old one—the one they gave you to call—that’s burned. You call it now, you’ll be talking to the FBI.”

“But …”

“My job is to find who
got
it burned. See what I’m saying? You call that number, there’s gonna be people listening. Not
our
people. Get it
now
?”

“It wasn’t us!” Sounded like all three spoke at the same time.

“Any of you got pending cases?”

“No, man,” the one in the middle said. “The only one in our crew who had a case on him was Otto. You know, for that ‘triple threat’ thing they’re calling it on our Web site? A mud who’s also a queer, walking right out of that bar with a white girl—no way to pass that up. And Otto’s been locked up for months now.”

Time running out
, I thought.
Take the chance
.

“The DA’s having a little trouble with one of the witnesses,” I said. “And if they keep delaying the trial long enough, he might have trouble with the rest of them.”

Their silence told me all I needed. They bought it. The masked assassin holding them at gunpoint was going to take out the witnesses against Otto. But why go near them? I had to have a reason, so …

“Nobody visits the jail,” I said. “Nobody accepts collect calls. No notes get sent in. And nobody calls the number the
three guys gave you—only the one on the back of that picture you’re holding. Everybody understand? Everybody know who sent me, and what they sent me for? Everybody know
now
?”

“RAHOWA!” they all chanted again. Trying to sound strong and keep it soft at the same time.

They only got the last part right.

I
didn’t want to pop the trunk and leave the black guy all buzzed from the anesthetic in a neighborhood where he’d get hurt.

Or in a neighborhood where I could get seen doing it, either. So I drove the Mercedes back to where it belonged.

Some parking garages have cameras, but unless they’d gone way over the top, like with infrared, it was too dark in this one for them to be much use.

The parking slot the black guy had used earlier was as empty as I’d left it. So was most of the garage. I pulled down the mask, slid the Mercedes into the waiting slot, popped the trunk, hit the button to deflate the bag, snatched the nose plugs out. He was still breathing.

I positioned him behind the wheel, stuffed five hundreds into his wallet, and put it back inside his suit. When I got down to the next floor, I pulled off my invader’s gear, stuffed everything into my carry-on, and walked away.

T
he airport was too far to walk without attracting attention; I’d have to get some joint to call a cab for me.

A strip bar would be better than a hotel for that—I wouldn’t have to risk pretending I was a hotel guest—but strip bars pay way too much attention to their customers.

I was walking toward what looked liked an expensive hotel—new and kind of Asian-influenced in the well-lit lobby. Except for the boots, I was dressed okay, and a French accent usually passed for upper-class in four-star places that didn’t speak the language. I was getting ready to be a pretend-guest when a cab rounded the corner. I hailed it.

It pulled to the curb. The driver was an older guy, probably wanted to make some off-books cash, but smart enough to make sure he wasn’t going to lose any first.

“The airport,” I said, holding up my carry-on. “They change my flight so late and now I must go on the first one. At six in the morning, it leaves! The hotel, it—”

“Get in the back, buddy.”

Bless that French accent.

H
e was like most people who say they like to talk.

That’s supposed to mean they like conversation, but it actually means just what they say it does. I didn’t have to contribute much until he asked me what airline I wanted.

“United,” I said, fumbling with my wallet for a fifty. “This is enough, American money, yes?”

“Sure,” the driver said. From the way he moved out, I guess I’d overpaid a little.

Fifteen minutes later, I was back in Dolly’s car, headed home.

“D
ell! I was starting to—”

“I have to sleep,” I told her, kissing her cheek to let her know I was okay: no wounds, inside or out. “When I get up, we’ll talk.”

“I
s that one of them?” I asked Mack, as we passed a man pushing what looked like a three-story tower erected inside one of those metal-mesh pushcarts they have in supermarkets.

“That’s Billy. He’s happier outside, on his own. Not on the register, so he doesn’t get a check.”

“One of the ones who … cope, right? Only he doesn’t hang with anyone?”

“That’s about right. But you have to look close to be sure. You see a guy carrying around everything he owns, probably he’s in that slot. But … Well, you can’t tell anything from the clothes. Or even how he moves. There’s a lot of older guys around here, especially near the beach. Not crazy, retired. Guys with money who spend a lot of time putting their outfits together. So they look what they think is ‘rough and ready,’ you know?”

“The shoes.”

“Yeah,” he said, unable to keep the surprise from his voice. “That’s the cue: the ones who go for walks in the morning. Probably have a cabinet-full of vitamins, too. They’ll wear old clothes, but no way they’re going to take a chance of turning an ankle.”