Infected: Shift (20 page)

“Yeah, it sounds like it. He’s lost enough blood that he’s in danger of shock. Ro, what are you doing?”

“Nothing, like I said. How’s Holden?”

“Still stable. Roan—”

“Gotta go. I’ll check in later.”

“Roan—” Dee said warningly, but he hung up on him. Dee knew him too well; he couldn’t trust he would play along.

On his way out to the car, he called Kevin and asked him to find the address of Sean Brand, whom he knew was in the system. Kevin wanted to know why, and he told him simply that he was desperate to find him. Kevin was understandably suspicious, but it didn’t take him long to find him, as he had also once been arrested on a vice beef (he propositioned an undercover policewoman posing as a prostitute). He lived at an apartment on Division, a pretty shitty place and not far from the free clinic either. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to go home… would he? Maybe he would. He probably wasn’t a genius.

Roan got in his car and wondered if he knew what he was doing. He took a couple of codeine from the glove compartment, hoping to keep his anger in check.

If Michael could give him no answers, maybe Sean could.

He went straight to West Elm, the surprisingly upscale name for a glorified tenement, and found Sean’s apartment on the second floor. The lock was easy to pick, but once inside, he knew no one had been here for hours. There was no scent of blood, and the Human smell was stale. A cursory glance showed him a sad bachelor’s place, with the living room also the bedroom, the kitchen a piece of the living room, and only the bathroom a separate room with a door. He could come back and search at his leisure—right now, he wanted to find the motherfucker. But where did he look? He was a lowlife scumbag with a hurt nut and an idea that the cops were probably looking for him. He might have friends from prison who’d be willing to hide him, at least for the moment.

He was looking at this from the wrong angle, wasn’t he? If the fucker had gone to ground, he needed to muddy the ground.

This was a bad part of town; in fact, it was fucking terrible. To be out on the streets when you could actually be somewhere else verged on suicidal. He'd once worked a beat down here; he believed Holden once worked a corner around here. Given that, he had an idea.

He found the bar by looking for the darkest pool of shadows. It looked like it was trying to hide; its door was unlit, painted black, and seemed almost like an optical illusion tucked in among the rundown buildings. It was a bar that seemed to be trying very hard not to be seen, and for a very good reason. The shit that went on in here could boggle the mind.

There used to be a gay bar a couple blocks over, called the Eagle, that had also had a dark, hidden door, but it used its secretive digs for atmosphere. It was actually a quite nice bar—cramped, a bit too small—but there wasn’t really room to dance, although you could on the upper level if you moved the tables back. Mostly, it was just a place to drink and talk to other men who were also gay. You could hook up, people did, but really it was a place to relax among like-minded people. They had really good margaritas there. He'd gone there sometimes after work when he was on the force; Connor had really been impressed with the place. Sadly, it had closed up a couple years ago, as the owner died and his family contested the will that left the bar to his partner. It was now in legal limbo, and the doors had been shut.

Now that had been an oddly nice dive bar. This bar, technically named Chuck’s (Why? No one knew—there’d never been a Chuck associated with it) was a dive bar that gave dive bars a bad name. It was so dark inside it was like walking into a black hole, and everyone in there looked like they’d gladly step over your rotting corpse to get a second beer. You could get drugs, weapons, and a sexually transmitted disease here, often without trying.

Roan took a moment to let his eyes adjust, and he saw a whole bunch of evil death stares coming his way. Either they knew he used to be a cop, or they just didn’t like newcomers around here. He was cruising for a bruising. He recognized someone trying very hard to hide in the shadows, and he wondered if this was proof of karma, because hadn’t they discussed this guy just a couple of days ago?

Roan headed straight for him. “Hey Burn, how’s it going?”

Burn was just his street name, of course, but it was what everybody but arresting officers knew him by. “I ain’t doin’ nothin’,” he said sullenly, trying very hard to become one with his torn vinyl seat.

Roan slid into the booth on the opposite side and felt something sticky on the rickety table between then. It smelled like beer, and he sincerely hoped that’s all it was. Burn looked fucking horrible and smelled even worse—ammonia and rot seemed to waft from his pores, his hair was lank and greasy, splattered on his head like a skinned pelt, and his face looked as pitted as the surface of the moon, his cheeks sinking in as his face slowly collapsed inward. You’d think the amount of meth this guy did would have killed him by now, but somehow he was still hanging on and still acting as an all-around wheeler dealer/weasel. “I’m not here for you, Burn. I’m here because of Fox.”

He sniffed, and Roan wondered how his septum was still intact. “Haven’t seen Fox.”

“He got knifed tonight. He was jumped.”

Burn had been looking down at the table, but now he looked up, his eyes sunken black holes that glittered like pennies at the bottom of a deep well. “By who?”

“The cops have corralled one, but another guy is still on the run. Name’s Sean Brand. He’s got a cop brother, but he won’t protect him. I want you to tell everyone he tried to kill Fox. Tell everyone. Get it out there as fast as possible. He’s out on the streets somewhere, trying to lay low. I want him flushed out.”

Burn gazed at him warily. “You know it don’t work like that. Fox has some friends in low places. If word gets out, there’s no guarantee he survives the night.”

“I know. That’s what I’m counting on.” The streets could be a very funny thing. Gays weren’t really liked there either—were gays liked anywhere?—but everything was a matter of degrees. Holden may have been a hustler, but he looked out for his people on the streets, taking care of them, and no matter his customers, he never ratted on them to their congregations, constituents, or wives. Not being a snitch was a highly valued commodity on the streets. It was a key to grudging respect, and Fox had managed to earn a lot of it. He was smarter than most, he could play the game and people well—hence his street name, Fox. He might have been a fag, but he was a crafty and respectable one. He had a cachet on the streets that few fellow hookers—or fags—had, and Roan intended to cash in on it.

Burn gave him a look that suggested his personal opinion of him just went up a couple notches. “You want him dead?”

“Ideally, I want him to run screaming to the local cop shop. But if he doesn’t, I’m willing to live with the alternative.” Roan stood up, and dug a ten dollar bill out of his pocket, which he tossed on the table. He hoped it didn’t land in the puddle. “Get yourself some food, huh? You look like an Olsen twin.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Burn said, grinning with a mouth full of rotting teeth.

Roan had no plans beyond this, so he walked back to his car, a bit amazed that no one tried to mug him, and wondered about his next move. He could go through Brand’s apartment, but it looked like a shithole, and he wasn’t sure it would have any answers for him. Sean had been in prison, and his brother—half brother—was a cop. He knew better than to leave incriminating evidence about.

His brother.

Roan suddenly wondered if Sean would be that stupid—or desperate—to seek out his brother’s help. But he’d helped him before, hadn’t he? Now that he’d set the street dogs off on him, he might not have any other place to go.

He sped back to Michael’s house, glad the streets were relatively clear this time of night. Instead of parking in the driveway, he drove up the street and parked in front of someone else’s darkened house. No sense in alerting Sean that someone else was here.

Brand was still asleep in his bedroom, so Roan decided to make himself at home while he waited. He discovered that Brand was just what he'd thought he was: a lonely, sad man. He seemed to eat nothing but TV dinners and cans of chili, which Roan could actually understand, as he was no good at cooking, and when he didn’t have boyfriends, he usually ate out or just nuked something. Connor hadn’t cooked much, but he usually drank instead or, while trying to be sober, simply tore his hair out and chewed pack after pack of gum. Dee didn’t cook either, but then again he rarely had time to do so. But there were few signs of takeout food in his fridge.

His computer wasn’t very interesting either, although Roan eventually discovered, in his history, an interesting porn website. At first he thought it was Asian women (straight men and Asian women—he really had to ask Randi what that was about), but then he realized that what he was looking at were Thai “lady boys”—young men who dressed and lived as women. Some had had surgery (breast implants, mainly), some had not, but all were uniformly persuasive. They looked like women. Lovely women. You couldn’t see Adam’s apples or stubble or any other sign of masculinity. Roan wondered if this meant anything.

He ended up waiting hours—hours in which he found out Michael had a decent cable TV package—before finally he heard a jingle of keys outside the door. He turned off the set and got up, hearing someone cursing under his breath as Roan approached the door. Oh, was Sean having a bad night? It was about to get so much worse.

Roan opened the door and found Sean Brand standing on the doorstep, his keys in his hand. As soon as he saw Roan, fear registered—it spiked in a sharp scent not unlike cider vinegar. Roan grinned at him hard, knowing full well it went nowhere near his eyes. “Just the man I wanted to see.”

Did Sean recognize him? Roan was pretty sure he did. He turned and bolted for his car almost instantly.

Good. He really liked it when his prey ran for it.

Although Sean was closer to his car in the driveway and there was no way, theoretically, Roan could beat him to it, Roan knew there was a way. He started after him at a dead run, then veered off to the side and jumped, springing from the lawn onto the back of Sean’s shitty Nissan, making the car rock on its shocks as he turned to face Sean. He was still in a half crouch, feeling his muscles lengthen and harden, a deep pain radiating through his jaw as a growl welled up in his throat and his eyes aching as he felt his vision shift. “Where you goin’? You just got here.”

Sean stopped awkwardly, his momentum almost carrying him straight into the side of his own car. “How did you—fuck, man, fuck. What are you?”

The pain in his jaw was almost intolerable—ripping off the lower half of his jaw by brute force would be much more comfortable—but he had a strange distance from it. The codeine? Maybe, but it was hard to say. He felt good. He knew his mouth was split into a grin, but he also knew his mouth was bleeding. The pain was too great; he had no idea if his teeth had started changing or not. “You know what I am, Sean. A man you never should have fucked with. You’re gonna talk, and maybe then I’ll just let the cops have you.”

“Fuck you,” Sean snapped, but there was a tremor in his voice, and his eyes seemed riveted to Roan’s face. He wanted to look away but couldn’t.

Sean took a step back and Roan lunged, pouncing on him before he could make a run for the house, and as he brought him down on the lawn, he grabbed Sean’s arms and pinned them down with undue force. “We’re not done here, Sean.”

“Get off me, faggot!” he shouted, trying to squirm and buck him off. Roan dug his knees into Sean’s side and gripped his wrists so tight Roan could feel the bones starting to give. He eased off a little as Sean squirmed and made a noise of pain, but he didn’t let up.

“So, you do know me,” he snarled, and his blood dripped down, splashing Sean’s neck. Sean tried to squirm away as if Roan’s blood was diseased… which it was, now that he thought about it. “Do you have any idea what I’m gonna do to you if you don’t talk?”