Bad Radio (18 page)

“Sounds like he was a hero.”

“I guess so. Frank and Don are here, too. Your grandfather soon, I suppose.”

She shook her head. “No, he wanted to be buried next to my grandmother. I already missed the funeral.” Her eyes glittered, but no tears fell.

“You didn’t have to.”

“It doesn’t matter, he’s already gone. Funerals are for the survivors. He always said that. I’m going to catch the people responsible for his death. That’s what matters.”

“Cake would have hated that. To lose his granddaughter for some kind of hollow revenge. It’s pointless.”

“You are so full of it. Why are you doing this then?”

“It’s not revenge.”

“Then what?”

“You know how Piotr got the blood for his big pit of blood? He hung people from hooks over the pit and bled them out. Hundreds of them. We saw a dozen or more hanging like meat over the pit, and a mass grave that had to be filled in with a bulldozer.”

“Taking revenge for other people is still revenge.”

“I’m not doing it for them! Piotr is here, in this country. He’s got new bags. He’s taking back the altar pieces.”

“He’s doing it again.”

“Yes. He’s doing it again. How do you think he’s filling his pit this time? I’m not doing it to avenge some ancient wrong, I’m doing it because somewhere there are people waiting in line to be hung from a hook and bled dry. All kinds of people, not just adults.”

Anne jumped when her phone went off in her purse, startled. “Then it won’t hurt to get some revenge at the same time we’re stopping him. Everybody wins.” She flipped open the phone and looked at the number.

“Hi, Henry. Sure, hang on.” She handed me the phone, but by the time it reached my ear, it wasn’t Henry anymore.

“Bring the pieces to the hospital where Leon is staying, or I’ll kill both of your friends.” The phone went dead.

18

I
t was a six hour drive from Arlington Cemetery in Virginia to Lexington Memorial in North Carolina. We were going to make it in five.

Anne had been quiet for most of the trip, but shortly after we crossed the North Carolina state line she turned in the passenger seat and frowned at me. “You know what? I’ve been sitting here all day long with my stomach tied in knots, but you don’t seem worried at all. That just seems kind of … wrong.”

I shrugged. “I’m not happy about Leon and Henry being in danger, but they should be perfectly safe until we show up with the altar pieces. So, I’m not too worried yet. Mostly I’ve been thinking about what a lucky break this is.”

“Lucky break? Let’s see. A man called you from out of the blue and threatened to kill your friends unless we hand over the altar pieces. And then he’s going to turn around and hand them over to Piotr, who will then have the full set. Which is exactly what we’ve been trying to prevent since my grandfather was killed. I fail to see how any of that is lucky.”

“Let me ask you a question. Piotr’s out there somewhere filling up his blood pit and turning regular people into monsters. We want to stop him. Why aren’t we putting an end to his whole operation right now?”

“Because we don’t know where he is.”

“Exactly. And time is on Piotr’s side. The smart thing to do would be to just keep creating bags and sending them after us over and over again. It didn’t work at Henry’s house, but I don’t think Piotr realizes what a close thing that was. He can afford to keep trying, but we can only lose once. I think Piotr is making a mistake sending a human agent to extort the pieces from us.”

“Because he has to know where Piotr is.”

“If not now, he will at some point. This isn’t just a lucky break, it’s our only break.”

“I don’t know, Abe. We’re giving up the last two altar pieces with no guarantee that this will lead us to Piotr. If this doesn’t work, we don’t have anything left.”

“All or nothing is better than just nothing.”

Anne chewed her bottom lip pensively. “Okay. Let’s give it a shot. What’s the plan?”

“Right now? I have no idea. I’ll think of something when we meet our mystery caller.”

Anne’s only comment was a disbelieving stare and a shake of the head, but I wasn’t worried. I’ve only had one talent in my life. I don’t paint or play an instrument, and I wasn’t a walking encyclopedia like Henry, but when it came to thinking on my feet under pressure, I was the best.

It was the only reason that I was assigned to lead our squad in the war, and the only reason that my men trusted me enough to keep chasing Piotr’s trail across Poland after the bags started hunting us. I won’t say that I don’t make mistakes, however. Remembering what happened to Shad and how Piotr turned the tables on me shook my confidence a bit, but what I said to Anne was still true. This was our only shot at finding Piotr, so I’d just have to do better this time.

We arrived at the hospital well past dark. The parking lot was only half full, which I guess is always a good sign at a hospital. “Are you sure this is the right place?”

“I’m sure,” she said. “It’s where Henry told me they were going when he called from the ambulance.”

We entered an antiseptic lobby where a busy lady with an automatic smile confirmed that Leon was a patient and gave us a room number. Anne was carrying the duffle with the pieces in it, I wanted my hands free.

The walk to the elevator was filled with harsh white light, the smell of disinfectant, and the continuous tock of shoes on linoleum. The halls were a maze full of identical hallways and painted stripes of different colors threading their way to various ominous destinations named after parts of the human body or famous diseases.

When we arrived at Leon’s room, I stopped Anne outside the door. “Listen, I’m going to need to push this guy pretty hard to have any chance of getting him to let something slip. If things go wrong in there, I want you to run. Don’t look back, don’t try to help, just bolt for the nurse’s station, okay? You’ll be safe around witnesses.”

“Okay.”

I blinked. “What? No angry tirade about how I think you’re a helpless girl?”

She gave me a wan smile. “Maybe tomorrow. I think I’m at my limit for brutalizing people today. You can have this one.”

I squeezed her hand for a moment, and then entered the room.

Leon dominated the small space, laid out on a hospital bed like an offering, surrounded by machines and tubing. His dark features were ashen and he appeared to be sleeping. Henry was slumped in a chair with a blanket in his lap. The corners of his mouth were turned down and he looked tired. He looked old.

Leaning against the wall across from the door was our mystery caller. He was a little over six feet tall, tanned like an outdoorsman, and very lean. I figured him in his mid-forties. The smell of his cologne cut through the general chemical miasma of the room. Outside of a hospital it would probably be overpowering. He was wearing jeans and a tan sport coat. Not exactly what I pictured for a hired killer.

“You must be Abe. And the lovely young lady behind you must be Anne. I’m Dominic, but you can call me Dom.”

“Why bother being polite? You already threatened my friends, so it’s not like we’re going to be pals.”

He grinned at me. His teeth were perfectly straight and white, also like something you’d see on television. “Civility can be had in any situation. I could have had a knife jammed into this old gentleman’s neck when you came in, maybe shouted a bunch of crazy threats at you, but what would that have accomplished? We already know where we stand. Why be crude about it?”

“Sometimes crude just works better.” I was across the room with my forearm in his neck before he could bring his hands up. The impact slammed him against the wall, and his heels came off the floor.

“My men,” he croaked out, “will kill your friends unless I order them not to. Put me down.” I pretended to think about it while I let his face turn blotchy. Then I shrugged and stepped back.

He was surprisingly unruffled. “My client warned me about you.” He rubbed his throat and raised his eyebrows. “But you don’t worry me. I didn’t get where I am by being the strongest or the fastest. I got here by being smarter than all the tough guys I’ve buried over the years. See, I’m your protection. Getting in my good graces insures that nothing happens to you and yours in the future. Now, stay on my good side and give me the objects.”

“Don’t do it.” Henry was standing now, the tired lines of his face set and hard. “Kill him and get rid of the pieces. Better that his men kill all of us than let Piotr have them.”

“He’s … right. Do it.” The voice was weak and thready, but it sounded out clearly. Leon was awake. “Kill him.”

Dom’s cool indifference slipped a little. I’ll give him credit, it wasn’t by much, and it only lasted for a fraction of a second, but I saw the fear. “If that’s what you want. But you’ll be throwing more than just your own lives away. Leon’s got a momma and a sister. His sister has a baby. You understand me?”

Sheets rustled as Leon tilted his head forward. “Fuck you.” The rage on Leon’s face was naked and pure. Dominic didn’t step back from the Marine, but in his shoes I might have.

“Sounds like bullshit to me,” said Henry. “You might have paid your men enough to kill us if you don’t come out. And they might even do it instead of just keeping the money and walking away. But the idea that they would risk committing half a dozen homicides after you’re dead and gone? Unlikely.”

Dom smiled. “But you don’t know that. I have friends, too. And in my business, we tend to take a dim view when one of us is taken out. The perpetrators usually end up as chunks in a lake somewhere to discourage the idea that any of us can be killed without serious repercussions.”

“You’ll still be dead.”

“That’s enough.” I took the duffel from Anne. “Did Piotr tell you what you were stealing?”

“No, and I didn’t ask. That’s not how it works. Give me the bag.”

“How do you know that I won’t follow you and try to get them back?”

He shrugged. “If you leave the hospital within an hour of my departure, you’re friends will die, whether you catch up to me or not. Now give me the bag, I won’t ask again.”

I passed him the bag. He took it from me and unzipped it. He reached inside for a moment, and then pulled his hand back and stared into the dark interior before zipping it back up. He looked like he had put his hand in something rotten.

Piotr must have told him that he could check for fakes by touching the pieces, but I’m sure he wasn’t prepared for the sick dread that came with it. He swallowed and locked eyes with me for a moment. And for that moment, I could tell that he was wondering what he had gotten himself into.

“You probably don’t want to sleep too close to those. The last person that spent time near one ended up living in her own filth and drawing on the walls. You sure you want them?”

“I do my job.” His game face came back. “Don’t leave here for an hour. Once I make the delivery, I’ll call off my men.”

Anne stepped forward. “How will we know when that is?”

“Well, beautiful, you’ll know because these two gentlemen will keep sucking air. If they die badly in the next couple of days, then I guess I didn’t make it.”

He tipped an imaginary hat at her, and then left the room. I checked the clock, and then sat down next to Henry.

He looked tired and defeated. “You made a mistake.”

“He’ll lead me to Piotr.”

“Maybe. And maybe by the time you catch up, he’ll have had all the altar pieces long enough so that it doesn’t matter. It’s too big a risk to take.”

“You know what he’s doing. I can’t let him keep butchering people for his pit or turning them into bags. You know what he’s doing out there, and what he’ll keep doing if we don’t stop him.”

Henry leaned in. For a moment I thought he was going to hit me. “I don’t think we do know what he’s doing, Abe. He wasn’t done when we surprised him in Warsaw. You remember the room that he had the altar set up in?”

I did. The horror of the men that formed the base of the altar, pierced through the eyes but still alive. I remembered the half-finished scaffolding on the walls, and the piles of cable and iron rods in the corners. “I remember.”

“What was all that for? It surely wasn’t just to make a blood-filled fountain of youth, or he’d have used it already and been gone. He thought that whatever he was doing would give him revenge against the people who killed his country and his family.” A cold hand squeezed my guts. “He needs those pieces. He needs them for something that could give him his revenge against an entire nation.”