Dead Mann Running (9781101596494) (8 page)

Or I could try to solve the case, literally, figure out what the blue stuff was, why the arm gave it to me—maybe get Misty killed and myself immolated, or worse, in the process. Fuck that. She’d already lost too much. A slim to nothing chance at justice wasn’t worth her losing more.

I was patting myself on the back for deciding to take it on the lam when a picture popped into my head: Tom
Booth’s face, with that sickened look like someone had forced him to swallow a live kitten. I tried so hard to wave it away, I wobbled into the wrong lane. But the face stayed until I admitted what it meant. Booth was doing something he didn’t want to do. It
wasn’t
his idea to go after us. The order must’ve come from above, far enough to cow him.

How high was that?

Fucking moments of clarity. Now I was terrified that if I put enough together about this mess, even by accident, I’d have to do something other than run. And that wouldn’t be fair to Misty.

A quarter mile later, the gas ran out. Served me right for playing taxi. Luckily, the motel wasn’t far, but I’d been on my feet a lot lately. I was nearly falling over myself when I saw the parking lot and realized something was wrong.

The lot had been nearly full. Now there was only one car, one with a siren on top. It sat crooked in front of the entrance, empty, its rear end facing me. Thanks to the budget cuts, patrolmen mostly travelled one to a car, but if they’d already found Misty, they’d have called for backup. I sure as hell didn’t want to go up against any Fort Hammer cop, but I wasn’t about to let anyone stuff her into a holding cell.

As it turned out, official backup wasn’t going to be the problem. One headlight was cracked, the grill lopsided, looking like a winking face with drunken smile. It wasn’t the true boys in blue. It was Happy Jack’s car. He was dead, so it was either friends of his, or it’d been stolen again. By the ninja?

On my way to the room, I looked through the lobby
window. The bespectacled clerk was missing. Not a good sign. Too worried about Misty to check on him, I bounded up the steps. The door to our room was half open. Not even thinking to peek first, I pushed it open and stood there like an idiot.

The room was small, even for a cut-rate motel. I could take everything in at a glance, but it still took a beat or so for me to make sense out of what I was seeing. Misty lay on the couch cushions I’d put on the mattress, but she wasn’t resting. Her eyes were wide open. Duct tape covered her mouth. Plastic strips tied her hands and ankles.

U
nlike Jack, our two visitors hadn’t stolen uniforms to match the car. They still wore black. The raggedy’s description was accurate enough. The taller one was mostly bald. A mix of chestnut and white made a low-hung crown around the back of his head. With the rounded cheeks and spherical nose, add a few dabs of greasepaint, and he’d make a great clown.

The other was fair-haired, narrow eyes set closely in the center of a flat face. They weren’t vacant like chak-eyes, more sunken, like a pig’s. His arms were too thin to be healthy, and his hands trembled. Not his features, but what you might call his mien reminded me of Misty, not now, but when we met. He was an addict.

Both had guns. Not crazy big-ass guns like Happy Jack, normal .38s. I wondered why they hadn’t brought the sedan, then realized why: police radio. They were keeping track of the hunt.

“Guess what we want,” Chuckles the clown said.

I took a step in. I was still ignorant enough to try to turn my back on whatever was going down. If they let Misty go, maybe I could keep it that way.

“You can have it. Been trying to get rid of that thing all night. Trust me, I don’t even want to know what it is.”

Flat-face waved his gun. “Great. So where is it?”

“If I hand it over, you’ll let us go? You won’t kill her?”

Chuckles shrugged. “
We
won’t.”

“I’ll take it. Three miles up the road, in a tree branch a hundred yards due east. You can’t miss it. So, if you found us through the radio, I take it the cops are on their way?”

Flat-face looked like the question pissed him off. “Nah. They won’t help you. They’re still in the Bones. Our boss sent us here, figured you might show. You’re all ours.”

“Fine, fine. Just don’t tell me who he or she is, okay?”

Chuckles twisted his round head and made a face like I was joking. “You don’t recognize us?”

That surprised me. I didn’t. Part of me tried, by reflex, but I drew a familiar blank.

“No.”

“He’s lying,” Flat-face said.

“Look, boys, I swear I have no idea who you are. Much as I might’ve enjoyed playing
Maltese Falcon
in another life, so to speak, right now I just want to hand the case over to whoever, so me and my friend can disappear.”

“Maltese what?” Flat-face asked.

“An old movie,” Chuckles explained.

Flat-face seemed irritated that there was something I
knew that he didn’t. “So, you think you’re one of the smart ones?”

“I’m trying,” I told him. “How do you want to do this? Both of you come with me to get the case, we leave my friend tied up until we get back?”

Chuckles had other ideas. “I go with you and my associate stays with your friend. Anything happens to me, something happens to her.”

I’d stepped close enough to get a good look at Flat-face’s clammy skin. Definitely an addict. “How about you stay and your friend goes with me?”

That pissed off Flat-face all the more. “Think you can take me, chak?”

I hadn’t even thought of that. “I couldn’t take either of you. I’d just rather have the cooler head stay with my friend. She’s had a rough day.”

Chuckles was thinking about it, but Flat-face got a weird smile. “I can be sensitive! No deal.”

I didn’t like it, but I didn’t have a choice.

“So let’s go,” Chuckles said.

“Just a second,” I said. I knelt by Misty and tried to smile confidently. I have no idea what it looked like, probably a scene from
Night of the Living Dead
. “I know I’ve been making a habit of leaving you lately, but I’ll be back soon and this’ll be over.”

Her expression didn’t change. I rose and turned to Flat-face. “That was her boyfriend you blew up tonight. Let her rest, okay? Read a book or something.”

He patted my cheek. “Don’t worry. We’ll be fine,” he said.

I followed Chuckles to the squad car.

“You don’t trust your friend with the case, do you? Why should I trust him with Misty?”

“Because I have the gun.”

I headed for the passenger side before he stopped me. “You drive.”

“Suit yourself.”

This time, the keys were in the ignition. The engine chugged and sputtered, misfiring like it had a bad plug or worse. I tried not to think about that. I tried not to think about lots of things, but Chuckles had already put a nasty thought into my head. I
knew
these guys from somewhere. Who were they? Who was ordering Tom Booth around? What was in that damn case and why had that piece of work brought it to
me
?

The cop car managed the sand a little better than the Chevy, so I took us to within ten yards of the tree. The single headlight caught the edge of the briefcase, telling me it was still there.

“You want me to get it for you?” I asked.

Chuckles eyed me. “You’re really handing it over, just like that. You don’t want to leave your girlfriend with my associate any longer than you have to.”

I nodded. “So, would you mind hurrying it up?”

“Nope, I wouldn’t.”

He got out. His back a black slate, he trotted over to the case, the cuffs of his shirt showing bits of white where the fabric folded. A few feet from the tree, he stopped and looked around. He stared into the dark ahead of him, then back at me in the car. I don’t think he’d seen anything. It looked like he’d just had one of those feelings.

He gave the case a hard tug, then seemed to remember
it was somehow fragile. Using both hands, he gently tugged it free. One foot against the tree trunk, he balanced it on his bent leg and clicked the latches. The headlight caught the vials, giving his smiling face a blue glow that proved me right about the whole clown thing.

Satisfied, he closed it, then he took his sweet time walking back to the car. Maybe it was to annoy me, or maybe he was daring whatever he’d imagined might be in the dark to do something.

I opened the window. “Come on already.”

“Shut up and pop the trunk.”

Stupid. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I could practically hear his feet drag as he went around to the back of the car. I bent down and pulled the latch. A few minutes and we’d be back in the motel. Hang in there, Misty.

After what seemed forever, I heard him put the case in the trunk, then saw the lid slam through the rearview mirror.

Instead of getting back in, like he had all the time in the world, the bastard flipped open his cell and hit a number. There’s always a bit of sadist in a hired goon, but the real pros were better at hiding it than this idiot. As he waited for an answer, he leaned a hand against the car and stretched his back, putting his neck forward to the dark.

“Got it. No troubles. He’s playing it smart. Boss said he wouldn’t be a problem, didn’t he? The girl? Just cut her…”

Shit. I twisted around for a better look. Cut her what? Cut her free? Cut her throat? I’d never find out.

The next sound he made was a wet gurgle. Head down, he dropped the cell phone and grabbed at his
neck. His clowny hands tried to cover a long gash in his throat. Without my even seeing, someone had cut him a second smile. Blood spurt from the wound into the darkness.

Now I saw the figure, and thought I recognized it from the webcam. It moved as fast as it did in the office, all but flying toward me in the car. I threw the transmission into reverse and floored it. The tires spun helplessly in the sand as the figure grabbed the door handle. When the tires found purchase, the car lurched, but the ninja didn’t let go. Instead, it flipped itself onto the hood.

I could see through the windshield, it was cloaked, hooded, but not in black. The cloth was a deep red, just bright enough to make me wonder how the hell it’d hidden in the dark. As I turned the wheel trying to shake it off, it rolled with the changes in momentum, moving too fast for me to get a good look at the face. If I had to guess, I’d say it was a mask.

It was still holding on as I spun onto the street. Still in reverse I gunned the engine, fighting to keep the car on the road as it went backward. At about forty, I slammed on the brakes. The car squealed, twisting right. The figure hurtled over the roof. Through the mirror, I saw it hit the ground and spin along the yellow double line.

I didn’t wait to see more. I put the car in drive and raced for the motel. Chuckles had been killed in mid–phone conversation, leaving Flat-face to improvise. Even money he’d figure I’d betrayed them. The question was, would he kill Misty outright, or do the smart thing and keep her alive to use as leverage? He didn’t strike me as smart.

I nearly crashed the car into the building, but there
was no one around to see. I bolted into the lobby, thinking I’d tell the manager to call the cops, but he’d been stuffed behind the front counter, looking like he’d fallen asleep in a funny position, two bullet holes in the center of his shirt.

And yeah, when I got back to the room, it was empty.

A
cell phone’s beveled rectangle stood out on the cushion like the monolith among the apes in
2001
. I snapped it up and nearly went berserk trying to find the redial. It wasn’t fancy, but it was more complicated than the freebies they issued chakz, lots more buttons. When I finally got it, someone answered: “How smart a chak are you?”

The voice was ocean-deep, modified electronically, the sharper tones eliminated by the pitch shift. It sounded like a drunken toad. When I didn’t answer right off, the toad repeated the question, so slow I heard his lips smack between words.

“How smart a chak are you?”

“Not smart enough to avoid getting stuck in the middle of this. Where’s Misty?”

He ignored the question. “Someone thought you’d know what to do with the case. Any idea who brought it to you?”

“No. Where’s Misty?”

Another smack. “Any theories?”

“No.” The only thing I did know was that by the time he reached me, there wasn’t much left of him. But why share everything with an anonymous toad?

“If you find out, I’d really like to know.” I think he believed me.

“Same here. Where’s…?”

He cut me off. “Do you know who this is?”

That game again. “No, but you know me pretty well, right? You told your boys I wouldn’t be much trouble. So, maybe you’ll believe me when I say I didn’t kill your man. We were attacked.”

“He’s dead?”

Stupid, stupid, stupid. He didn’t know until I’d told him. Dizzy with frustration, anger, and fear, I lowered myself onto the mattress. It was like sitting on a relief map of the moon.

“Yeah, unless he can survive on his own with a severed jugular. I’m telling you it wasn’t me. I’m no trouble, remember?”

“Who, then?”

One wrong word, I’d lose him, and maybe lose Misty. “I didn’t ask for a name. A freak in ninja robes, someone fast, well trained.” I felt like I was trying to describe Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. “Whoever it was, they were better trained than the fake cop you sent to my office, and that guy was pretty good. You should’ve gotten him a better car, though.”

“He wasn’t mine. My men picked up his car later.”

“Then that makes at least three groups after this stuff.”

“How so?” asked the toad.

“I usually get a fee when I work, but under the circumstance,
tell me where Misty is and I’ll share my deepest thoughts, okay? That is, if you know where she is.”

There was a buzz and a click, like he’d swallowed a fly. “I do know, more or less. I’ll tell you depending on how the conversation goes.”

“More or less?”

“Nothing in life is certain.”

“Except for death and taxes, right? And these days it’s just taxes. Fine. If the cop doesn’t work for you, that’s two. He was killed by the same ghost who got your boy, which means they don’t work for either of you. That much math I can do.”