Cold Hearted: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode Two) (11 page)

“Jonathan Driscoll,” she said, dropping a plain manila folder the table. That was the alias I’d been going under at the time she nabbed me … well, almost nabbed me.

“Or is it Lawrence Wazowski … maybe Mark Frasier? Aron Nord? Or maybe I should just call you The Fixer. That seems to be a name I hear a lot.”

I sat up just a little straighter in my chair. She’d been digging around hard to turn up that many of my aliases. Probably meant someone with the Feds was monitoring those bank accounts. Thank God I hadn’t used those names in a good long while. Still, I’d have to move my money around, see some folks over in the Hub—make certain aliases vanish, bring some new ones to life.

Wait, what was I thinking? I’d be lucky if I ever saw the outside of a prison cell again. I needed to focus, dammit. I had to deal with the present and let everything else go until later. If there was a later.

“Whoever you really are, it doesn’t matter,” she said after a moment. “Eventually I’ll figure out your real name. We’ve got lots of time, and there’s no chance of you slipping away this time.” She opened the folder and a stack of glossy photos spilled out—photos that both turned my stomach and brought back more than a few unpleasant memories.

The first picture was of an old man, gaunt with wispy hair, lying in a pool of blood, chest cavity split wide like a gapping mouth, all the organs gone. Except his intestines. A couple loops of ropy gray wrapped around the guy’s neck. I remembered it all right, the poor schlub had been eviscerated—still living—and then strangled to death with his own guts. Cruel. Brutal. Ugly as a mutant pit-bull in a tutu.

The next picture was close enough to the first that I didn’t bother looking. So were the third, and the fifth, and the tenth, and the fifteenth. The victims were all different: old folks, a few middle-aged people, men and women, white, black, a few Hispanics. The killer hadn’t discriminated.

She fanned the photos out. “Look at them.” She nearly spat the words. “Look, long and hard.”

“Put those away.” I dropped my gaze, chest too tight. “You know I didn’t do those killings. The evidence never pointed in my direction.”

She smiled, a cold, feral grin like a wolf. “You know what? I believe you. For a long while I thought you’d murdered the whole lot, chopped them up, and stole the organs. But I’ve been doing some digging. A
lot
of digging. And no, I don’t think you’re responsible for those killings.”

I looked up. Well, that was news to me. Maybe even a little good news—that would certainly be a nice change of pace.

She scooped up the lot of photos, returned them to the manila envelope, and then reached into a black leather briefcase. She rooted around for a second and withdrew another dossier filled with more photos still. She laid the first one out on the table, adjusting it primly. A young man of maybe twenty-five with white smooth skin, brilliant straight teeth, clear blue eyes, and hair cut short at the sides, though long and slick on top. The guy looked like a pretty boy fashion model, or maybe an up-and-coming politician. Had one of those faces most women would consider handsome and trustworthy. Underneath that pretty flesh mask lay a nightmare from the deep, dark regions of Outworld. Richard Hemsworth, monster and murderer.

She tapped a finger on the glossy headshot. “Despite relatively little evidence to support my theory,” she said, “I think our friend here killed those people, all fifteen. But I
know
you killed him … not a doubt in my mind, and I’ve got the evidence to prove it.”

She smiled and laid out a second photo, this one of a woman in her late forties. A little heavy set, though with a pretty face, her brown hair pulled up in a bun. She could’ve been a librarian, maybe, or a PTA-attending soccer mom. Christy something-or-other—hard to keep track of all the names. Banshee, killed seven or eight young men quite a few years back, exploded their hearts right outta their chests, burst their eyeballs to boot. Messy as hell. And yeah, I’d killed her too. Guild contract, that was, back when I was still working for those bathrobe-wearing yahoos.

The next photo hit close to home, a recent case. The guy smiling into the camera had light brown skin, a square jaw covered with a five-o’clock shadow, hazel eyes, and a big shit-eating grin. Arjun Dhaliwal, a rogue mage, responsible for unleashing a friggin’ demon on a bunch of bikers, all in a bid to kick start a regional Armageddon, and, in time, reunite India. Bat-shit crazy, that guy, but it’d been tough to see him go—though
technically
, I hadn’t actually pulled the trigger on him. Everything up to his demise was all me, sure, but the final deed had been done by someone else’s hand.

Another photo. A little girl with porcelain skin, and bright eyes—a Tiktik, who’d lured a handful of small children to their death. Another still: an obese black man with a strangely thin neck and delicate bird-like facial features—lesser Bacalou, responsible for mutilating and murdering a group of working girls down in the Big Easy. Another: a gorgeous, scantily clad redhead, all long legs and mountainous breasts—a succubus who preyed on middle-aged, white-collar types.

Dead, dead, dead.

Agent Ferraro laid out four more snapshots—each meticulously placed next to the others—all murderous monsters from some corner of existence. And yeah, I’d hunted down and killed each and every one of those sons of bitches, too. Most had been Guild work. I’d been part of the Guild’s wet-works team for damn near twenty years, and I’d seen a lot of bad shit in those years. A few others, like Arjun, were … I dunno … freelance work, I guess. One thing was true about all those murderous monsters, though—they’d all had it coming, and I wouldn’t do a thing different. Just thinking about all the evil shit those monsters had done got my blood boiling.

These ten weren’t all of ‘em—not by a fair margin—but still, Ferraro must’ve been thorough as an airport cavity search to find this many. A bunch of powerful folks had gone to a lot of trouble to bury those cases and to keep them buried. Color me impressed. Oh, and scared. Very scared. Absolutely nothing more terrifying than a strong, razor-sharp, determined, and competent person with you square in their crosshairs. Well, maybe centipedes, but you get the point.

She pursed her lips into a tight line, tapping each photo in its turn. “Now, I can’t prove you killed all of these people, but I’ve got a pretty good hunch that you were involved somehow. Funny thing, though … I think all of these people may have been serial killers. All of them. Probably not enough evidence to go to court—some awfully bizarre circumstances in a lot of these cases—but I think you somehow found these people before the cops could put it together and took them out. Hell, you should probably get a medal for all your years of service.”

Damn right I should. Someone out there ought to appreciate the river of crapola I’ve waded through in my days. But I knew Ferraro didn’t actually feel that way. She was trying to play me, trying to appeal to my ego, trying to play nice, so maybe I’d open up and brag just a little. If she didn’t have much evidence—and it was doubtful she did—then a confession was her golden ticket.

“Can’t tell you the number of times I’ve thought about doing it.” She sat down on the edge of the metal table, looking at me over her shoulder as though confiding in me. “Bunch of scumbags, getting their kicks by torturing and killing innocent people. Sick. And a lot of them get off scot-free, escape the law, escape justice. So I get it, really. Tell me how you did it. How’d you identify them? How’d you know what they were doing? You know, maybe if you work with me, give me some details about these cases …” She smiled a secretive
just-between-us
grin. “Who knows, the D.A. might be willing to play ball. Show some significant lenience, even. After all, you were only mopping up the filth.”

I snorted.
Lenience
. Yeah, right. Probably the most lenience I’d get was a needle to the arm instead of the electric chair. “Listen lady, I get that you’re just trying to do your job, I get that you think I’m the bad guy, and you’re just doing your part to get me off the streets. Working hard to close some cases. Bring some closure to families. Whatever. I get it, I do. But this isn’t my first rodeo, I’ve been on this ride before.” I could feel her tense up, shoulders knotting, muscles going tight.

“You think you can schmooze me a little,” I said after a second, “play the sympathy card, bat your eyes at me, and tell me how you understand. Think if you play it right, I’ll fold like a bad hand of poker. Well, you obviously don’t know me as well as you think. I won’t give you a thing, because I didn’t do anything wrong. And I want a lawyer before I say another word.” I made a curt shooing gesture with one hand, the handcuffs rattling against the tabletop.

I didn’t really want a lawyer—what could a lawyer do for me anyway? Even if Ferraro couldn’t pin all those homicides on me, she surely had enough to put me away for a couple of lifetimes. Which would suck a pile of cow patties, because hypothetically I could actually live long enough to serve two or three life sentences.

But hopefully a lawyer could gum up the works a little, maybe buy me some time. Right now, they were holding me in some little podunk police station, with, I dunno, ten or fifteen cops tops. Probably fewer. My power had to come back eventually. I could still feel the Vis out there, waiting for me, and it’d be a damn bit easier to slip outta here than some big, maximum-security prison. Time was definitely my friend, and it would take a fair amount of time to wrangle up an attorney at this hour—an hour or two at least. Maybe even longer. It had to be late, and it’d been snowing when they brought me in. More time.

Ferraro stood up, nodded, and then slammed her fist down on the table with a loud
clang
. “Yeah, okay.” No smile now, no sweet, alluring, understanding
woman. “I’ll get you a lawyer, but don’t think it’ll help. I’m going to nail your ass to the wall. Do yourself a favor and confess. Tell me about the victims. Tell me how you escaped in Memphis and maybe the D.A. will take the death penalty off the table.”

I snorted again, and waved her on.

Ferraro reached for the door, but before she could grasp the handle, it swung in and another woman strutted into the room like an overconfident peacock. Damn if my jaw didn’t just about hit the table. She was kind of a plain-Jane, thin and petite, with shoulder-length brown hair hanging down in a loose sheet. Her face was thin and sharp, too harsh to be beautiful exactly, though she was handsome in her way. She wore casual business attire: a charcoal-gray skirt, a navy blouse, a pair of moderate heels, and black rectangular glasses. I didn’t know her name, but I’d met her once before at a bar called The Lonely Mountain in the nightmare city of the Hub.

I didn’t know much about her, save that she’d helped me run down a lead in exchange for goodwill between us at some future, unspecified time. My guess was that now was that time. I also knew she wasn’t human.

TEN:

Lawyer Up

“Who the hell are you?” Ferraro asked, placing her hands on her hips—one suspiciously close to her holstered weapon.

“I’m his lawyer, of course,” the woman said. She smiled, awkwardly maneuvered her briefcase, and extended a welcoming hand. Ferraro looked at the proffered limb the way I might look at a coiled rattlesnake. I couldn’t blame her.

My … well, my lawyer, I guess, just shrugged and brushed passed the surly agent, setting her things on the table. “I’m Jessica Fortuna, it’s a pleasure to meet you Special Agent Ferraro. I’m afraid I’ll need some time alone with my client, please.” She turned back to her briefcase, leafing through papers, the agent clearly dismissed and forgotten. I watched it all, not quite sure whether I should be cheering or cowering in the fetal position.

At last, Ferraro rolled her eyes and stormed out of the interrogation room, the door slamming shut with a
bang
.

The lawyer, who was certainly something much more, pulled out the metal chair across from me and sat, crossing her legs and smoothing her skirt.

“Mr. Lazarus,” she said, “it’s good to see you again.”

“Hey, ixnay on the whole real name thing, lady.”

“We can speak freely and frankly without any worries for the time being, Mr. Lazarus.”

“Okay, Ms. Whoever-you-are, so I’m guessing that you’re here to offer me some kinda deal in exchange for me doing something generally awful and probably life threatening. Am I on the right track?”

“Of course you are. As you said to Agent Ferraro, this isn’t your first rodeo. But remember, you
did
promise to hear me out, to show me a little goodwill if ever the time came that I should require your assistance. And really, I’ll likely be of greater assistance to you than you will be to me—you’re really in a pickle here.” She stared at my cuffs, a small grin turning up the corner of her mouth. “And you can’t even use your power.
Tsk, tsk,
” she said, which got my full attention. “Quite a pickle.”

“Yeah, it’s a real shitpickle alright,” I said. “Let’s not beat around the awkward conversation bush here. What in the hell do you know about my powers? What happened to them and how do I get ‘em back?”

“All in due time, Mr. Lazarus, please be patient.”

I grunted, annoyed to my toes and feeling about as far from patient as the sun is from the moon.

“As I said to Agent Ferraro, my name is Jessica
Fortuna
.” She paused as though expecting some kind of recognition to dawn on my face.

I just sat there starring on like a moron. What can I say, sometimes my devastatingly keen insight and wit surprises even me.

“F-O-R-T-U-N-A,” she said again, slow and loud as though speaking to someone especially hard of hearing.

Nothing. Bunch of crickets chirping in-between my ears—I’d just have to chalk it up to the fact that I was over-tired, over-hungry, and in a state of near shock. Totally justifiable idiocy.

She rubbed at her temple. “You,” she said. “I can’t believe she chose you to be the Hand. My name is Fortuna … the root of the English word
fortune
.”