Red Tide (17 page)

Deacon was bent over Nicky, the radio wedged between his shoulder and ear. He looked up at me. “I think we got lucky,” he said. “This one isn’t too bad.”

“Not so lucky,” I said. “There’s one missing.”

He looked at me for a long beat and then said a word I didn’t think he knew. “Give me a description,” he said.

I told Deacon what she looked like. Each detail hurt me. I could see her so clearly, almost feel the smoothness of her skin. Some small scent of her remained in the room.

An ambulance came. I stood in the shadows made by the blinking light and watched as they got Nicky inside. They moved him quickly, without seeming to hurry. I guess they had a lot of practice. It was less than three minutes before they slammed the doors and took off for Jackson Memorial Hospital.

I rode along behind with Deacon. We didn’t say much; he tried to cheer me up by complaining about the paperwork I was causing him, but when I didn’t say anything back he fell quiet.

They wouldn’t let me see Nicky at the hospital. It was against policy. They shuttled me off to a waiting room that smelled only a little better than the jail cell I’d been in a few hours earlier. They said it might take some time.

I spent the time doing some thinking. With all that was going on between my ears it wasn’t easy. It was like trying to hear somebody whispering in a room full of people shrieking at the top of their lungs.

Anna. God knows what was happening to her, but it wouldn’t be good. I had to find her. I had to get her back from them, before it was too late. She’d come so far from what had happened to her, and now this.

I had to find her.

But to figure out how to get Anna back, I had to know why they—or he—had taken her. The three main reasons I came up with were that she’d been taken as a warning, as punishment, or for profit.

If they took her for profit they would get in touch with me. So I didn’t need to think about that one yet.

If they took her to say, 
watch what you do; We have your girl and we can hurt her if you try to hurt us
, then she was alive and well and all I had to do was find her before that changed.

But if they took her as punishment, to show the world what would happen to anybody dumb enough to mess with them—

I didn’t want to think about it. Anna had been through hell one time already. This time wouldn’t have the same happy ending.

It was possible that she was already dead, or so mutilated that death would be a blessing. I tried to shove that out of my mind. I tried to make myself believe that it made more sense for them to keep her alive so they had a hold on me, a way to keep me off them.

It all came down to the same thing anyway. I had to find her as fast as I could.

I blinked and found that there was a large blonde woman in a white coat standing in front of me, looking at me expectantly.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Did you say something?”

She shook her head. “Only a couple of paragraphs. It’s your friend.”

I felt a sick lurch in my gut. I’d watched this scene as a cop too many times. And now I was playing a big part in it, as the guy who let it happen. “Nicky? Is he—?”

The woman looked amused. “He’s fine, if the intern doesn’t kill him. He’d like to see you.”

“Nicky? Nicky’s awake?”

She smiled. “Apparently he regained consciousness in the ambulance. He’s got quite a hard head.”

I followed her down a hall to the room where they had Nicky. He was in a hospital gown and propped up on a couple of pillows. A young intern, a pale guy with straw-colored hair and a bad complexion, was seated on the edge of the bed, taking his pulse.

 I realized Nicky was taking the intern’s pulse. He had a grip on the guy’s arm and was probing with the stiffened fingers of his left hand.

“—here, and 
here
. No, 
here
, mate. There’s seven levels of the pulse. You got to listen for it. Listen with the 
inner
 ear. The Chinese have been at this for 3,000 years, and they—” He looked up and saw me. “Billy!” he shouted, sounding only a little hoarse, and not at all weak. “Tell these wonks to give me back my clothes.”

The intern wonk had jumped to his feet looking guilty. He cleared his throat and looked at the large blonde woman. “Ahem. Actually,” he said, “we’d like to keep you overnight for observation.”

Nicky made a rude noise and the intern looked indignant, turning to me for moral support. “He sustained quite a severe shock to the side of the skull and I can’t rule out the possibility of a concussion, and even a small leak in the blood vessels of the brain that could—”

Nicky made a farting sound again. “Pull the other one,” he said. “I’m fit as a fiddle. Think I wouldn’t know if I was about to pop off?”

The intern frowned. A light flush came to his cheeks. “Actually, it’s possible that a problem wouldn’t show itself for quite some time. That’s why we keep people. For observation.”

“Aw, mate, I’ve just been telling you. The 
third
 level of pulse would show it. I’ve got no concussion, no cerebral hematoma, nothing.” He threw off the sheet. “Where’s me pants, there’s a good lad.”

The intern shrugged and clenched his fists. “We can’t let you leave,” he said.

“You can’t stop me,” Nicky told him cheerfully. “I don’t actually need the pants.”

“This is against medical advice.”

“Not mine.”

The blonde woman cleared her throat like she was trying hard not to laugh. The intern took a couple of deep breaths and flushed a darker red. Nicky reached back and started to untie his hospital gown.

“All right,” the intern said, “just a minute.” He dashed over to a cupboard and came back with Nicky’s clothes. “You really shouldn’t,” he said.

Nicky winked at him. “No worries,” he said. “If I die, I can’t sue, eh?”

The blonde woman pulled a curtain around the bed and in a few seconds Nicky burst out through the screen, buttoning his pants. “All right, Billy, off we go,” he said, rushing out the door and into the hall. He turned in the hall, looking both ways and waiting for me to catch up. “Where have they got Anna? How is she?”

The door closed behind me. I looked at him. He didn’t have any idea. He was cheerful, confident and ready to go, like a small dog about to go for a walk.

I couldn’t say it. I shook my head.

“What,” he said. “What does that mean? How bad is it? Come on, Billy, I need to know.”

“She’s gone,” I said. “They took her.”

Nicky turned pale green, as if all the blood in him had suddenly poured down into his feet. “Aw, no,” he said softly. He looked for a place to sit down. There wasn’t any. He leaned against the wall, looking old and beat up.

Beyond him, at the far end of the hall, I saw The Deacon coming towards us with his easy, gun-fighter’s walk.

“They tell me you think you’re leaving,” Deacon said to Nicky as he came up to us.

Nicky turned to look at him.

“What’s that?”

“This is The Deacon,” I explained. “The man I told you about. The number I gave you.”

“The copper?”

“That’s right,” Deacon said. “And I have a few copper questions to ask you.”

The Deacon generally worked out of the front seat of his car, but he had a small office that he never used. It was in the regional F.D.L.E. headquarters, near the airport. It had a window, a desk with a telephone and computer, and two metal folding chairs.

I’d been a cop in L.A. for seven years, and I’d gotten to know a couple of the movie people out there. One of them once told me that you could tell how important somebody was by their office. A corner office with lots of windows, a potted plant, art on the wall and a couch meant this was a major player, somebody really important.

The rating system was so clear, my friend said he could tell at a glance where somebody ranked, even by what kind of plants they had. “Anybody can have a ficus,” he told me.

Deacon didn’t even have a ficus. It didn’t seem to bother him. He led us into the office with his name on the door like somebody going into a strange room. He looked around once, as if trying to figure out where everything was, and then settled uncertainly into the chair behind the desk. “Sit down,” he said, waving vaguely at the folding chairs.

I gave Nicky the chair directly across from Deacon and sat with my arm wedged against the wall. I felt sick, empty, tired. I closed my eyes. Too many hours had gone by since Anna had been grabbed. It was already too late, and I wasn’t doing anything. I hadn’t done anything right yet.

“Okay,” Deacon poked with his pointer fingers at the keyboard. His dark triangular eyebrows were wrinkled down and his tongue was shoved out the side of his mouth.

He punched in a final command, shook his head, and looked at Nicky. “Now, son, I’d like to get a description of the guy that clobbered you.”

Nicky shook his head. The Deacon just looked at him.

“Aw, look, I dunno,” Nicky said. “I barely saw him, it was so fast—I dunno what I can tell you.”

“Anything at all might help,” Deacon said.

Nicky frowned. “He was a black fella, I know that. But—” Nicky looked over at me. “I’m sorry. But I didn’t even get the door open and he was upside my noggin. And I’m on the floor, on my side, and that’s it. Lights out.”

“Sometimes it helps,” said the Deacon, “if you close your eyes and try to see it all in slow motion.”

Nicky looked up at him, surprised. He blinked. “Of course,” he said. “I’m a silly shit. Self-hypnosis.”

“What’s that?” Deacon asked him.

“Self-hypnosis. I can put myself into a trance, right? Do it all the time, for channeling and that.”

“Nicky,” I said. I didn’t want him going off on one of his Spiritual Odysseys right now and channeling the spirit of a 12th century Tibetan monk.

But he was already into it, leaning back in the chair, pointing his chin at the ceiling, blowing his breath out and sucking it back in again.

I looked at Deacon. He raised one of those eyebrows at me and I shook my head. We both stared at Nicky.

His face looked subtly different. Some of the lines on it had smoothed out and he seemed—I don’t know—more serious or something. Not his usual elf-self.

“Okay,” he said. His voice was breathy, but clear.

Deacon shrugged. “How does this work. Somebody knocks at the door, is that it?”

“Who can this be?” he says, and I feel ice cubes along my spine. It’s Anna’s voice.

“Must be Billy,” he says in his own voice.

“And you go to the door,” Deacon says.

Nicky laughs, a high-pitched cackle. “He’s forgot his key!” he says, and then changing to Anna’s voice again, “Nicky, no! Wait!”

Nicky turned in his chair, a quarter-turn to where Anna is. “Eh?” he says, and frowns.

“You open the door,” Deacon suggests.

“Oh… Yeah,” he says, in his slow, breathy voice. “I… open the door. I’m half-looking at Anna. She’s rising up off the chair. And something… Uh,” he says.

“What is it?” Deacon asks.

“He… 
hit
 me.”

“Who did?”

“The guy. The guy at the door. He grabs my throat, really tight. Christ, he’s a strong one. And he smacks me on the head… Ah, fuck…”

“Can you see him, Nicky? What does he look like?”

“He’s black. Seems too thin to be that strong. And fast. Christ on a bun, he moves faster than… anything.”

“Describe the guy who hits you, Nicky.”

Nicky frowned. “Pencil…” he said.

Deacon shoved a pencil and a legal pad across the desk and without looking, Nicky grabbed them up. Eyes still closed, he began to sketch quickly.

I watched as a face began to take shape. It was lean and triangular, running from a wide forehead across slightly slanted eyes, a strong, wide nose, down to a sharp chin. High cheekbones stood out, and so did the bones around the deep-set eyes.

The face was handsome, even pretty, without being even a little bit attractive. “Guy’s about thirty-five, thirty-six,” Nicky said, eyes still closed. “About five foot ten, 165 pounds. Moves like a fucking snake. Oh,” he said, sounding surprised.

“What is it?” Deacon asked.

“The snake. He’s got a snake tattooed on his arm, left arm, just above the wrist.” Nicky frowned, shivered all over, and opened his eyes. “How’d I do?”

“How the hell would I know?” Deacon said, staring at the picture. He reached over and picked it up. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

Nicky looked offended. “You’re supposed to 
use
 it,” he said.

Deacon shook his head, looked at me. “Billy?”

“I think the description is probably pretty good,” I said.

“A snake tattoo?” Deacon said. “I’m supposed to put out a BOLO for a guy with a snake tattoo because Captain Marvel here saw it in his magic trance?”

“You have something better?” I asked him.

He shook his head again. “I got nothing, buddy.”

“He’s had Anna for twelve hours,” I said.

Deacon looked at the picture again, then at Nicky, then at me. “I’ll put this out,” he said. “And then you and me are going snooping.”

He turned back to the computer and typed in the description. When he was done he punched a final button extra hard and a printer whirred behind him. “All right,” he said. “I’ll put that out as a BOLO. Now let’s us do the 
real
 work.” He crammed himself in behind the desk again and leaned on an elbow. “We’re figuring this is connected to these two murders,” he said. “Nagle and—what’s the other guy?”

“Oto,” I said. “I don’t remember his last name.”

“Don’t matter,” he said, turning back to the computer. “I’ll have it all up here in a second.” He slowly punched at the keyboard, looking more like he was sparring than typing. The printer whirred again and he pulled out a page.

“Otoniel Varela,” he read in the syllable-by-syllable way cops from the South use on Hispanic names. “Age thirty-four, occupation merchant seaman. Currently unemployed.”

“Currently dead,” I said. “If we can find out the last couple of boats he worked, one of them will be the Black Freighter.”

“You think that’s where she is?”

I shrugged. It took all my energy. “It’s all I can come up with. It’s a start, anyway.”