Drawing Dead (31 page)

“TRACKER'S SNIFFING
the air,” Rhino said, as he fired his computer into life in the
NO ACCESS
back room.

“And you're sniffing the Net,” Cross nodded. “So where's Ace?”

“He slipped off, boss,” Buddha said.

“Damn! He thinks he's going to find Blondie and Wanda holed up in some motel?”

“I don't know, boss. But Ace, he's no dummy.”

“You think you know him like I do?”

“No. But…I mean, he's probably up to something. Spreading the word, putting up a bounty…”

“Buddha,” Cross said, almost wearily, “you just
had
to shoot Pekelo, didn't you?”

“Boss, come on! I mean, he almost got my wife—”

“What? Raped? Sure, I get it. What I'm saying is,
you
don't. That grown-up thalidomide baby trapped on the top floors of that house, he set a chain in motion with that AI program, sure. But the Lao, the only one who might have shown us something if we let him run—he's dead. Ace could have lost Sharyn. And some of his kids.”

“But he didn't,” Tiger said, gently.

“So Long didn't get raped,” Cross said, opening his left hand to flame a light for his cigarette. “As soon as we knew what was going on, she wasn't
going
to. So what's left? Nobody we can talk to, nobody we can follow. You think Ace doesn't know he couldn't find Blondie and Wanda? He wouldn't even try. But if Percy's out there,
he
won't be invisible.”

“If Percy's after them, and the G's backing his play, they're as good as dead anyway, right?”

“Yeah. Very logical, Tiger. Only Ace may not give a damn. He can't kill some AI program. But if he thought those two played
any
part in throwing a blackout at his family, he'd need to watch them die.”

For a long minute, the only sound in the room was Rhino slamming his fingertips into an XXXL keyboard, watching the big-screen TV that served as a monitor.

“Boss?”

“What, Buddha?”

“Okay, I lost it. Twice. I get it. But…but Ace knows what he's doing. Just because we don't know exactly what that is…”

Cross took the third drag of his smoke, snapped it into a bowl of some murky liquid substance, and closed his eyes.

“CHECK THE
camera feed,” Rhino squeaked, not taking his eyes off the screen.

“Mural Girl!” Tiger yelped. “Is there another place where we could plug in?”

“Buddha, show her, okay?”

“This isn't really anything I know about,” Buddha said, half apologetically.

“Nothing
to
know,” Tiger assured him, working the mnemonic in her head as she tapped keys.

The mural was twin ribbons of blood red, not intertwined, not parallel, connected only by a huge tree bole before it branched out.

Inside the bole, humans pursuing other humans. As the ribbon branches separated, they marched through time. Mountain dwellers hunting food and cosseted-by-wealth pleasure seekers, moving in opposite directions. Thinner tendrils connected the thick branches. Within them, all they had in common was killing. Some for land, some for religion, some for wealth. And a tiny bubble off those tendrils…killing for pleasure.

“What the—?”

“Sssshhh” was all Tiger said.

“We have to watch,” Princess explained, proud that
he
understood.

Suddenly the mural vanished. Three playing cards, laid faceup on a green felt surface: the seven, nine, and jack of clubs. Another card dropped into line. The eight of clubs. The image was static for two full minutes. Then the fifth card fell: the ten of clubs.

“Double gut-shot straight flush,” Buddha whispered, almost reverently.

“Percy's here. And Ace is looking for him,” Tiger said, as the cards disappeared and the mural wall turned into pure whitewashed brick.

“YOU READ
it right,” Cross said to Tiger. “Let's—”

“Boss!” Buddha hissed, holding up his phone. “It's So Long. She wants to help.”

“Help her
self,
right?”

“Help
me,
” the pudgy killer said. “She knows it's my fault that there's no way for us to work backward. She knows she can't help with Percy. But she says she knows a way this might
all
connect. A way we can find them. Maybe. But we'd have to—”

“Tell us on the way,” Cross said, getting to his feet.

Buddha chewed over his wife's last words: “Hmong, we know. And we hate them all.” But finally decided it wasn't time to turn that card faceup.

THE ALLEY'S
darkness was neither obstacle nor friend to the monolithic war-machine as he moved carefully, inexorably forward.

Under the government-modified flak jacket, a pair of shoulder-holstered MAC-10s awaited his touch. A jungle belt of grenades circled his waist, separated from each other by the same thin film that wrapped the barrels of the full-autos. A black bladed K-bar with extended reverse serrations was strapped to the outside of his soft-soled boots. Each pouch of his jacket held various forms of death: a titanium-wire garrote, curare-tipped darts, an aerosol of acid….

And even if that entire arsenal were to be expended, Percy wouldn't be out of weapons—he always had his hands.

The neighborhood was as black as the alley's shadows, but this wasn't the first time Percy had worked territory where the entire population was a collection of hostiles. He understood the value of stealth and accepted the inevitability of discovery if he spent too much time in the same place.

But for now, he'd wait. If discovered, he knew what to do.

Probably lousy intel,
he thought to himself.
Usually is. But I should be able to get close enough to see for myself….

“You know what this is?” a voice came from behind him.

Nobody gets behind me!
was quickly replaced by tactile recognition of a double-barreled weapon pressed squarely between his kidneys.

Before the soldier's intrusive
I didn't even feel the flak jacket move
….thought could be completed, the voice came again: “You're good. And you got the tools, too. But don't get stupid. You're not fast enough. Nobody is. Twelve-gauge, three-inch magnum shells, number two steel shot. You move, you lose your spine. Understand?”

“Yeah,” the soldier said, as carefully as a man defusing a bomb.
He wanted me dead, he could've done that already.

“You're Percy,” the voice said. “Saying that so you know
I
know. Here's how it is: You're hunting a pair of…Ah, don't matter what I call them, just their names, right? Okay: Blondie and Wanda. Thing is, they're hunting
us.
Not sure why, exactly. And that don't matter, either, am I right?”

“Yeah,” Percy said, carefully keeping his voice empty.

“I'm Ace. Cross crew. I know you saw me on some tape those two had of that dogfighting hit. Okay, now they're loose. Maybe they're still on the job, maybe they've been
cut
loose. Only one who knows is you.”

“Cut loose,” Percy said. “On the run.”

“So you weren't with them before. And you're not with them now. But your boss—the G, I'm saying—maybe needed you on the scene to watch them. Maybe even protect them. That was then. What's now?”

“I'm not with them. I'm looking for them.”

“Looking for them
here
?”

“Supposed to be on top floor of that dope house, two blocks further south.”

“That's an off-brand operation. Only reason it's lasted this long is the taxes they pay. But they're on the checkoff list.”

“Mine, too” was all Percy said.

“You gonna just rush that place? Kill your way to the top floor?” Ace said, unable to keep a trace of admiration out of his voice.

Percy was silent.

“Why not just make the whole place disappear?”