Dues of Mortality (27 page)

Benny
considered the question. “I don’t know,” he sighed.
“I guess, over time, it’s just easier to remember the
feeling than it is to recall the events.” He paused. “But
I remember him being a bully—not so much physically, although I
caught my share of that, too. He just never missed an opportunity to
step on me, and put me down, in front of everyone...in front of
Momma.”

“
I
can’t imagine your mother tolerating that.”

“
She
didn’t. She always got on him for it and, later, squared it
with me. Sometimes that made it worse. It made me feel like I needed
her to stand up for me...because God knows, I couldn’t do it
myself. I think Clyde always thought I had incurable weakness and
that it might infect him like a disease.”

“
I’m
sorry. I didn’t want to...”

“
No,
no. You didn’t.”

The
couple smiled brightly on each other and shared another comforting
kiss.

“
I
don’t get it,” Xavier said. He'd wandered completely
unnoticed into the living room. “All that scalding water
flailing my skin and I still feel skeevy.” He had showered for
nearly twenty minutes. His hair was now flat with dampness and his
skin shone a deep ruby red. He wore a plain white t-shirt and a pair
of gray denim jeans, both borrowed from his brother’s dresser.

“
That
reminds me,” Benny said. “There’s something I’ve
been meaning to tell you since you got here.”

“
What?”

“
You
look like shit.”

****

Benny gave his brother the
injection while Xavier sat shirtless on the exam table, working
overtime to be still. Xavier's nose was hysterically out of joint.
Ever since his time spent at the Veteran's Rehabilitation Center, he
had despised enclosed sterile rooms. If it weren’t for the
charts of human innards stuck to the walls, adding just a touch of
imaginary gore, it would’ve been unbearable.

“
How’s
Gl...Hannah?” Xavier asked.

“
I
ran a cranial scan just to be sure she hadn’t aggravated
anything,” the doctor answered, disposing of the needle. “
She’s
fine.” Benny grimaced at
his brother. “But you...My God, Clyde. It’s like you’ve
been trying to slowly commit suicide.”

Xavier’s
arms drooped in his crotch. “Never could keep anything from
you, little brother.”

To
his brother’s surprise, Xavier was still in decent physical
shape aside from the inflamed stomach lining and number of minor
injuries that looked born from a fight. Lack of food and constant
movement resulted in a low percentage of body fat and Xavier still
engaged in daily sessions of pushups and half-assed calisthenics to
keep his muscles limber. Not that he cared that much about being
healthy. Maybe he did it to keep himself viable for punishment. Maybe
army habits were just that hard to break.

“
That
injection should alleviate some of your withdrawal symptoms,”
Benny said. The doctor then handed Xavier a flat, foil container that
held several small green capsules. “Take one of these every
morning until they’re gone.”

“
What
are they?”

“
Theracol;
it’s an antidepressant, but it’s been known to help
recovering alcoholics reduce their cravings.”

Xavier
stared at the small package for what seemed like hours, letting it
rest in his brother’s hand before finally taking it and shoving
it into his own pants pocket.

“
Thanks,”
he said embarrassed.

“
I
can fix some of your physical maladies, but they’re not really
the ones I’m concerned about right now. Not that I’m all
that concerned about you, anyway.” Benny immediately wondered
why he’d even bothered to say that last part, knowing Xavier
could see right through it.

“
You
want to know what the story is with me and Hannah.”

“
I'm
curious as hell, but I'm not sure I want to know. It could destroy my
rosy image of you.”

“
Long
story short, I'm trying to help her.”

Benny
jangled his ear with a finger. “
You're
trying to help
her
?”

“
That
hard to believe?”

“
Impossible.”

“
She
didn't expect things to fall out from under her like this,”
Xavier said, almost as if he were bored. It occurred to him that he
could undersell the issue by appearing blasé about it and
maybe steer Benny away from his curiosity. “She's just in one
of those spots where she doesn't have anyone else. And everybody
needs somebody, right?”

Xavier
got no answer. Benny had folded his arms and leaned his butt against
a counter while he listened. His eyebrows looked like a mangled
California overpass after an earthquake.

He
isn't buying a word
, Xavier thought.

“
Sounds
like you're trying to get laid,” Benny said.

Xavier
just sucked his teeth.

“
My
medical advice would be a good night's rest for both of you. I don't
know your arrangement, but there's more than one spare bedroom
and...I can spot you a few bucks to get you on your way tomorrow.”

Xavier
tried not to look awestruck by the offer. “Thanks. It'll be
more than you realize.”

Benny
shrugged and then went for the door uncomfortable like. For years
he’d waited for a thank you from his brother and now that they
were coming in spades, for some reason, it was like hearing nails on
a blackboard.

“
Benny,”
Xavier said.

Benny
stopped in the open doorway.

“
I'm
sorry I wasn't...” Xavier was welling up, but he met his
brother's eyes anyway. “I should've been here. You shouldn't
have had to...say goodbye alone.”

Benny
let the overdue apology sink in then said, “I wasn't alone.”

August 29, 9:28 a.m.

More
than one offer of promotion had been extended to and passed on by
Horace Penfield because the positions would’ve moved him out of
metro.

“
If
they replaced me now, who would keep my people from fucking up?”
he’d once told his superiors. This was, of course, years before
the federal sting on the department, which had left a more bitter
taste in Penfield's mouth than he was letting on. It scared him to
think of how far up the line it all traveled. If some two-faced bozo
landed his job just so the department heads could have an easier time
looking the other way, he’d never forgive himself. And they
couldn’t just fire him, not with his service record and
mandatory retirement was another twelve years down the road. What
they might have an argument for was his criminally negligent taste in
neckties. For twenty-five years Penfield had waged war on socially
acceptable fashion with an arsenal of plaids, paisleys, polka dots,
and dear God, even argyles dangling from his shirt-collars. It was as
if solid, palatable colors were against his religion. The squad room
even ran betting pools on what was actually wrong with the man—color
blindness, OCD, or maybe it was just a device to prevent subordinates
from looking him in the eye so Penfield could chew them out,
unruffled by their windows to the soul.

In
the years that he’d served under Penfield, Andrew Roberts had
had remarkably little occasion to suffer the close-quarter doses of
radioactive neck-wear. In fact, Roberts rarely worried about getting
called into the captain’s office, unless his name was followed
by a straight-forward “git in here.” So when the
detective heard Penfield open his door and say, “Roberts, my
office, now”, Roberts didn't know what to think.

When
he entered Penfield's office, Roberts was immediately accosted by the
back of the captain’s stone-white buzz-cut.
Uh
oh
, he thought. Whenever Penfield had bad news, initial
eye contact was always the first thing to go. Roberts also noticed
Penfield nervously rubbing his thumb across the top of the badge
buckle that angled outward from his waist. The badge was being
bullied by a paunch that had hung its hat on Penfield not long after
his fiftieth birthday. He pocketed his hands and looked sideways at
Roberts. Penfield's African-American heritage had largely made him
resistant to wrinkling, but he had a fold or two that ran from his
cheek to his chin whenever he adopted an expression that
was...unsettling.

“
First
off, how you feeling?” Penfield asked.

Roberts
knew exactly to what he was referring. Jonsey's funeral hadn't been
easy. Roberts had nearly faked an excuse to back out. Crying over a
canister of freeze-powdered remains while his friend's killer was
still out there was just
wrong
no matter how he looked at it.

“
I'm
fine,” Roberts said.

Penfield
was noticeably refusing to sit in his own chair. He nodded gingerly,
giving Roberts opportunity to elaborate on his answer. When he
realized no such response was forthcoming, Penfield folded his arms
and asked, “What were you doing at the Millenitech lab in
BioCore yesterday?”

Roberts
tugged at his nose. He knew this was coming, but Penfield's
diffidence wasn't very encouraging.

“
Tracing
a lead on the Jameson case,” he answered.

“
She
used to work there?”

“
No.”

“
So
you identified the vagrant, and found out
he
used to work there?”

“
No.
He still hasn’t been ID’d. Street camera video is no good
and he never took his cap off in the doughnut shop. All we’ve
got so far is one-third of his face from chin to nose. Northcutt’s
been repaying a favor by burning the midnight oil, using the new
software to find a match.”

“
So
why were you there?”

Roberts
scratched his ear. “I...was talking to a doctor, a scientist
named Ruiz. She...uh...was a colleague of Richard Kelmer’s.”
Roberts flinched on the last two words, as if he were about to be
punched in the face.

There
was a long pause filled with the excitement of Penfield tapping his
fingers on his desktop and looking at Roberts under his graying,
wolfish eyebrows. “Andy...you’ve got nothing but a couple
of phone calls you never even heard and for all we know don’t
even exist,” he said.

“
They
do exist, Captain. The phone records have a call to her apartment at
the exact same time she said...”

“
Two
calls that came from a public vid with no picture. It could’ve
been a crank for all...”

“
It
wasn’t a crank; the guy’s missing. She said the guy who
jumped her in the alley spoke about finding him, practically
threatened
him.”

“
Don’t
know that either.”

“
He
hasn’t been to work in over four days; nobody knows where he
is.”

Penfield
pursed his lips. “
I got a
call from Wallace’s lawyer this morning.”

Roberts
backed up.

“
He
says Kelmer was fired over some disagreements they had about his
work,” Penfield said.

“
I’m
sure he did,” Roberts sighed.

“
Bottom
line, is that you have no reason to go back there. You barely had one
in the first place.”

“
Is
that still the lawyer talking?”

Penfield
gave the comment a second to bounce off. “This department has
been put through the
bowels
of the ringer, Andy. We’ve been bludgeoned by the press,
vilified to the public, and all of it is thanks to the man in the
mirror. We
do not
have the resources to defend ourselves against Jerome Wallace. He
could have the mayor, the city council, and if necessary, the
governor giving us the wet-works if we start making life uneasy for
him.”

“Captain
...”

“He's
the city's largest employer
.
Giving him reason to pack up would not endear us with the people
we’ve been sworn to protect and serve. And have I mentioned
we’re not so popular with them right now?”

Roberts
shook his head. “
Never
thought I’d see the day when you ran...”

“
Finish
that sentence and you’ll leave here without your badge!”

Roberts
bit down. Okay, it was a dumb thing he almost said, especially since
he knew better. Penfield had made a career of going to bat for his
investigators and Roberts had thirteen years of being on first base
while he did it. And Penfield did have a point. Roberts's tactics
were legit, but he hadn't fully considered the repercussions of
casting dispersions on Millenitech.

Penfield
sighed, silently forgiving his detective.
“
Look,
I understand that you want to take this one as far as it can go. The
circumstances certainly warrant that. But I’m not going to let
you fly head-on into a mountain when you’ve got passengers on
the plane.”

Roberts
nodded wistfully, taking Penfield’s handout. When the man was
right, he was right. If Wallace
was
up to no good—or no worse than his usual, vis-à-vis
poisoning the environment and sucking up city funds from vital
services—the old bastard could rain down twice as much hell on
the department than the scandals did. Shock and awe would be the
order of the day and they’d have lost before a single warrant
was issued.