Shadow Unit 15 (17 page)

"No, he wouldn't." Maybe he would. But he wouldn't mean it, not for long. Brady was like that. And Chaz knew it—ah, of course. Brady's voice, but it wasn't Brady talking.

Forgiveness was a process, and took too long. Chaz would be out of reach by the time it started. He was out of reach now.

"What will you do?" She knew it was an admission of defeat.

He shrugged. "Something else. Somewhere else." The expression that crossed his face looked painful. "Search and rescue. Short-order cook. Sherpa. I'm a man of many talents."

She looked down at the folder; she'd forgotten that was what she clamped between her fingers. When she'd carried it into the office, she'd thought this would be a different conversation.

"Nikki?"

She looked up.

"You really don't need me. But if someday you do? I'll come back."

"How will I find you to tell you so?"

He smiled, lightning and sorrow and kindness. "Hello? Supervisory Special Agent Nicolette Lau?
You'll find me.
"

Two steps; then he stopped and touched her hand. It didn't last long enough for her to turn her palm up and close her fingers over his. He went out the door and shut it behind him.

Oh, god. No, she could cry later, at home. That, she realized, was what the woman who'd sat at the desk in the next office had told herself, again and again.

Lau put her grief away, to unpack and study later. There was too much work to do.

*

Somebody was knocking, but Chaz had no intention of getting up and opening the door. Whoever it was had a pretty good hand with a lockpick, though, because after fifteen minutes of steady knocking and calling there was about five minutes of scratching, and then the door clicked open.

By then, Chaz had recognized the voice. He didn't get off the couch or lift his head.

"Chaz."

"Dice."

"Shit, man, you gotta eat. You must be down ten pounds already. I brought—lunch, I brought lunch."

The Bug growled with hunger. Chaz wasn't in any mood to give it what it wanted.

"Chaz. What would Daphne say?"

"Fuck you," Chaz said. But when Dice started lifting leftovers containers out of the greasy bag, he took the first one and a plastic fork. Takeout from the pub Dice worked at. Probably cleaned out the fridge at the end of his shift.

Chaz ate, because it was easier than arguing—and the more he ate, the easier it got. Finally, his stomach hurt too much to take another bite.

He looked up at Dice.

Dice gave him a bottle of Guinness that Chaz hadn't seen him open.

"I'm a bartender," Dice said. "Talk."

Chaz took it. He drew a line through condensation with a fingertip.

Dice pulled another one from the bag by his feet and opened it.

"I don't know what to do," Chaz said. "I can't do this any more."

Dice nodded. "I know what that feels like."

"Yeah, I bet you do." The stout tasted malty and rich, bittersweet. "Somebody else can hold your rope, but you have to do the climb." It took him a little while to get up the courage to ask,"So how'd you deal with it?"

Dice shrugged. It set his piercings swaying. "Did something else."

"It hurts."

"Yeah," Dice said. He pushed his broken hand—more mobile now, with therapy—into his side below the ribs. He swigged beer. "You know what we say when it hurts?"

Chaz snorted. "Pain is only weakness leaving the body until you're twenty-five."

"Riders say, 'Fuck you. Get hard.'"

"'Be strong to be useful?' I don't feel much of either right now."

"Hey, I've got something for you. From Geraldine. Todd's P.A.? She said Mehitabel said Todd wanted you to have it. If...if anything happened. You know."

Chaz closed his eyes, bit his tongue. When he opened his lids again, a devil duckie key fob was sitting on the coffee table.

"She said Todd said you'd know what to do with it."

"He used to carry this everywhere," Chaz said. "Hafidha gave it to—"

He looked at Dice. Dice nodded. Chaz wedged the Guinness between his knees—it made his bones ache—and picked the thing up. It took him less than twenty seconds to figure out the twist that exposed a USB plug.

"Fuck," Chaz said. "It's a flash drive."

He laid it on the table, where it reflected in the glass. The contacts in its belly touched a little puddle of condensation. The LEDs inside began to cycle red, blue, violet, green.

"Fuck you," Dice said. "Get hard."

He held the bottle out by the neck.

"Do something different," Chaz said, and clicked Dice's bottle with his own.

*

Rosemary Brady heard the voices from the hall, and so she had a suspicion before she walked into the hospital room how it was going to be. But it didn't matter. She had the bit in her teeth now, and she was going to do what she should have done years before.

So when she and Jim walked in past the privacy screen, rapping on the doorframe and calling cheerfully, she wasn't surprised to see a dark-haired handsome man lean back from the bedside as if he'd been caught out. Danny's hand was still raised, reaching for him.

Rosemary almost heard the comic-book screech as Jim set his heels. That didn't matter either. Because Danny was lying there somehow diminished and scared, when he was as big and bronze a man as his father, and she couldn't bear to see him looking small.

Rosemary Gilmer Brady was no small woman herself, and she made herself as big as possible when she marched up to the bedside and stuck out her hand. "You must be Gray Putnam," she said. "I'm your mother-in-law."

Danny choked and started coughing. Behind her, Jim started to say something that was about to turn into "Now just wait a cotton-pickin' minute—"

"I'll go," Gray said, standing. He looked it—gray, she meant—all gray around the edges like somebody who hadn't slept in days, or eaten, and it made Rosemary's heart ache.

"You will sit right there, young man." She was still holding out her hand, and as she'd guessed from the shine on his shoes, he was too well brought up not to take it.

Into that space of time, Jim said, "Rosemary—"

She turned, still clutching Gray's hand, and she looked her husband in the eye. Nobody was ever going to say that Pearl Gilmer's little girl backed down when her own son needed her. "James Patrick Brady," she said, "you are going to listen to me. Our son is lying in a hospital bed, and all you can do is complain that he has somebody who loves him and wants to take care of him? I am ashamed of you."

He'd puffed up, all right. But before her eyes, she watched him deflating. And taking a breath. And saying, "I'll just go get a cup of coffee, then—"

All three of them spoke at once: "Dad—" "Jim—" "Mr. Brady—"

—but it was Gray who kept talking. "Mr. Brady. How about if I go get you a cup of coffee? I think your son wants to see you, sir."

"Two sugars," Rosemary said as he headed for the door without giving anybody time to collect their thoughts. "Easy on the cream."

She thought he must have caught her conspiratorial wink by the way he smiled.

*

After Dice left—he offered to stay over on the couch, but Chaz didn't want him knowing that Chaz was sleeping in Hafidha's room, could only sleep in Hafidha's room, if you could call it sleeping—Chaz watered the plants. Because it would be ridiculous to let them die now, after everything. He picked a dead leaf off the Cuban oregano, then a live one, and put the latter in his mouth.

It tasted like once upon a time.

He went downstairs to his computer, because all of Hafidha's were useless to him. He flipped the slender MacBook open and plugged the devil duckie key fob in. It flashed again, circling lights in seven colors. The drive's contents filled his screen.

Chaz opened a file marked Notes-synthesis at random, flicked to the middle, and began reading.

...seems likely that Hakes drew his inspiration as much from horror films and games (
Andromeda Strain
?
Resident Evil
?) as from the medical literature. However, under the influence of his mother's obsession, he did grow up absolutely steeped in medical terminology, etc. Compulsive behavior (hers/his). Attention-seeking (hers/his). He talks to us because we're literally the only contact he has.

Contrast McCain. No need for public recognition. Entirely internalized—despite the fact that the motivating force arises from his rejection by his father/brother. Attachment disorder? Profoundness of lack of self-worth: he thinks he is a poison so he becomes one. (attached file, notes and photographs of supporting documentation. Newspaper reports, missing persons, his brother's "miraculous" cures. Power of suggestion. Power of self-suggestion.)

McCain's medical knowledge much less than Hakes, though general knowledge base broader.

(attached documentation, Hakes childhood medical records, reports of sessions with Reyes, others. Reyes post-incident medical report. Hadn't seen that knee X-ray before. Ow, Steve. Ow.)

Chaz bit his thumb, took a breath, and opened another file at random. This one was named
Chapter 17.

Chapter 17: UNDERWORLD

(rough only)

In the summer of 1972, I was nineteen years old. The same age, it turns out, as Michael Dominic Bellamo. But while I was between semesters at Penn State—and soon to leave it for a career change I'm still legally bound not to discuss—Michael Bellamo was embarking on his own education as a serial killer.

He hadn't yet graduated: his first known stranger murder would not be committed until January 15th, 1975. But on June 1st, 1972, he matriculated.

The FBI became involved in the case in 2012, a year and a half after his death...

"Fuck me," Chaz breathed. "Of course Duke was writing a book."

It was late. Really late; he knew without glancing at the clock, because he usually knew.

His hand went out and picked up his phone. He dialed without looking. It was answered on the second ring by a groggy voice, sweet with sleep.

He'd made the right choice. He could still regret it on occasion.

"Tasha," he said. "I need just one more favor."

She laughed in his ear. "It's never just one more, Spider-Man."

*

Reyes stood in the open door of his apartment and watched Chaz Villette stalk away down the hall. His shoulder blades were visible in outline under his cotton shirt. Reyes was glad there'd been leftover
ropa vieja
and rice in the fridge.

He felt old, and helpless. He'd wanted this to happen for so long that it had become his equivalent of "Next year in Jerusalem"—the thing you said with every intention of making it a reality, while knowing it never would be.

But now it would be. Reyes had always been too old and too tied to the consequences to do it, that was all. It was someone else's job.

He could almost hear Solomon Todd's annoying chuckle. "Oh, like you've never suffered from conflicting emotions," he said to it, and to the empty air.

*

Gray was sleeping in his chair, which was just fine with Danny. The worry lines in Gray's face had smoothed out, and his hair was tousled.

After they'd moved Danny from the ICU to Acute Care, Danny had tried to scare Gray off with stories of how it was going to be, living with a cripple. He'd laughed in Danny's face. Then he'd stared at Brady patiently, with big dog eyebrows, until Brady stopped talking.

Then he'd snorted and said, "It's a good thing we moved into your place instead of my apartment. No stairs."

Now, Danny just wanted to look at him. Look at him, and not think too much about the funerals he'd be missing, the ones Gray would have to go to in his place.

He pulled the weird white TV over on its awkward arm and turned it on, muted so it wouldn't wake up Gray. He flipped through the channels, looking for a soap opera or something equally risible. He would have gone right past the news—he didn't want to know—except a familiar gangling body ensconced in a blue-upholstered horseshoe chair arrested his stabbing finger.

He fumbled for the volume control just in time to catch Chaz's tenor voice answering a question. "...in 2002, the federal government established a secret FBI task force under Supervisory Special Agent Dr. Stephen Reyes, specializing in tracking down crimes committed by individuals under the influence of this phenomenon, which we referred to as the anomaly. I was one of the agents involved."

The camera shifted briefly to the host. "Can you tell our viewers something about what the 'anomaly' is, exactly?"

"Well—" Chaz grimaced, his familiar thinking-Muppet face.

Brady's chest seized. Distantly, he wondered if he were having a heart attack. Wouldn't that beat all?

"We are not entirely certain of the mechanism, frankly. But over the last twelve years, the Anomalous Crimes Task Force and related professionals have at least developed a good set of metrics for how it works, how to identify it, and how it's spread. I can tell you that it's extraordinarily rare. Chances are you will never meet someone affected by the anomaly." Chaz smiled disarmingly. The camera loved his fucking cheekbones. "Unless you meet me."

Brady found control of his hands—at least
they
still fucking worked—and shook Gray's elbow, hard. Gray awoke with a start. Brady gestured frantically for his cell phone, and Gray handed it over. Then he caught sight of what was on the television, and what little color remained in his patrician face drained right down his neck.

Brady hit speed dial with shaking hands, waited through a ring.

Nikki said, "Danny, you should be—"

"Nik, shut up. And for the love of God, turn on the news."

"Danny."

"Do it."

"Do it," Gray said over his shoulder, aimed toward the phone. Nikki must have heard it, because she stopped arguing mid-word. He heard typing; of course she was in the office, in front of her computer. She'd grab a live stream.

She gasped into the phone.

Gray grabbed Danny's shoulder this time. He gestured back to the TV.