Blood Hunt (3 page)

He took stock of the rest of the room. There was a lot of bare parquet floor between himself and the living area. This comprised a sofa and two chairs, all done in black crushed leather; a large and well-stocked liquor cabinet, with empty decanter and crystal glasses on top; and a couple of TV sets, one of which seemed to be switched on permanently. It was showing C-Span with the sound on mute.

Some of the wall space was taken up with tall freestanding wooden cabinets, locked, and never opened in Dulwater’s presence. He didn’t know if they were empty or full, if they contained files or Kosigin’s shoe collection. Hell, maybe they were secret doors to other offices. It didn’t much matter. What mattered was that Kosigin was keeping him waiting. He put his briefcase—rigid, mat-black, almost impossible to open without both keys, official Alliance issue—on the low table next to the working TV and sat himself down on the sofa. There was no remote for the TV that he could see, but he found the control panel on the front of the set, eased its cover aside, and changed channels. There was a Rolling Stones tribute on MTV, so he left it at that and sat back to watch, not bothering with the sound.

He wondered again about the surveillance. Surely a corporation like CWC, one of the globe’s chemical giants, could and would afford its own security operatives. Why hadn’t Kosigin handed the pissant job to them? And why was old man Allerdyce taking such a close interest? It wasn’t as though he was afraid Dulwater would screw up; he’d assured him of that. Why then? What was it about this guy James Reeve, this asshole Anglo with the boring personal habits and the peripatetic job? That wasn’t Dulwater’s concern, just like Mr. Allerdyce had said. What was his phrase? “We are the means, not the end.” It sounded great when he said it, but what the fuck did it mean?

He walked over to one of the windows and looked directly down onto the street below. One block south was an orange-and- green trolley-bus on its tourist route, one of the old city trolleys almost colliding with it. He hoped the tourists would have more sense than to get off in Gaslamp.

“Mr. Dulwater.”

He hadn’t even heard the door opening, but when he turned, Kosigin was already halfway to his desk. He wasn’t looking at Dulwater, though; he was looking over towards the TV and the briefcase. The briefcase wasn’t supposed to leave Dulwater’s hands. It made going to the john an interesting outing, but those were the explicit instructions. Dulwater went over to retrieve the case. By the time he got back to the desk, Kosigin had unlocked a drawer and brought out a remote. He pointed it towards the distant TV and flipped back to its original channel. Dulwater almost apologized, but didn’t. Apologies made you weak. Besides, what had he done wrong?

He sat down opposite Kosigin and watched the man put the remote back in the drawer and relock it with a key he tucked into his vest pocket. For a few seconds, all he had was a view of the top of Kosigin’s head, with its thick salt-and-pepper hair, curling and luxuriant. Maybe he had it dyed like that to look older. When he looked up, Kosigin almost seemed like a teenager, with bright healthy cheeks and sparkling eyes with no wrinkles or creases. His burgundy silk tie shimmered with life. Then he slipped on his metal-rimmed glasses and changed again. He didn’t need to harden his face; the glasses did that for him. And the voice—the voice was pure authority.

“Now then, Mr. Dulwater.”

Which was Dulwater’s cue to unlock the briefcase. He took one key from his jacket pocket and slipped off his left shoe to retrieve the second key from where he had taped it to the heel of his sock. The case was fireproof, bombproof, and tamperproof; if anyone attempted to open it without both keys, a small incendiary wiped out the contents. Dulwater opened the case with ease, Kosigin avoiding eye contact as he waited for the investigator to place the file on his desk. The first time they’d met, Dulwater had held out the file and Kosigin had sat like a dummy until Dulwater realized what was wanted of him: Kosigin didn’t want any contact with the investigator, not so much as linkage by a document folder. So now Dulwater placed the file on the desk, and when he’d taken his hand away, Kosigin slid the file a bit closer and opened it, leafing through the sheets of paper.

It was a thick report this time: further background, biographies of friends, colleagues, family. It had taken hundreds of man-hours to compile, including use of investigators overseas. It was utterly thorough.

“Thank you, Mr. Dulwater.”

And that was it—no small talk, no drink, no eye contact, even. Alfred Dulwater was dismissed.

After the investigator had gone, Kosigin took the file over to one of the leather chairs and made himself comfortable. He glanced up at the TV whenever he turned to a new sheet, but otherwise had eyes only for the report. He didn’t like Dulwater—the man was oversized and slow-witted—but he had to concede that Allerdyce ran an impressive operation.

He reread the report, taking his time. He didn’t want to make the wrong decision, after all, not when it might be such a serious decision. James Reeve the journalist was no longer just a thorn in CWC’s side, and the man would not take a warning. Money had been attempted; threats had been attempted; physical threats, too. But the journalist was either very stupid or simply overconfident.

Kosigin read for a third time the updated biography. Several things caught his eye: a failed marriage which ended in acrimony and legal debts; a drinking problem; flirtation with narcotics—some speed and coke, plus grass, but then nearly everyone in California did grass—several unsuccessful relationships since the marital breakup. No children. And now a story that was go-ing nowhere—a state of affairs which might just break Reeve. There was one brother, but no one of importance. And no powerful friends, no real allies.

He buzzed Alexis and asked her to bring him coffee, decaffeinated with one percent milk. Then he took out his leather-bound address book and made a telephone call to Los Angeles.

“It’s me,” he said into the receiver. “How soon can you get down here?”

THREE

JAMES REEVE WOKE UP THAT MORNING feeling the usual apprehension.

He’d really tied one on the previous night, but there was nothing so unusual in that. In the course of his life he’d been kicked out of more bars than he cared to remember. His motel room looked unfamiliar to him, until he caught sight of the large suitcase—his suitcase—its contents spewing out onto the olive-green carpet. Yes, that looked familiar all right. He’d seen that suitcase look the same way all over the USA, Europe, and the Far East. The case had probably done more traveling than most of the world’s population.

It took him a couple of minutes to reach the bathroom, what with getting dizzy and having to sit on the end of the bed for a moment, screwing shut his eyes against the headache and the white flashes. It was the kind of thing Vietnam vets should get: huge phosphor explosions across the glaze of his eyeballs.

“I’m not cut out for drinking,” he told himself, reaching for the first cigarette, knowing it was a mistake even as he did so, even as he placed it between his lips, even as he lit it and inhaled.

He almost had to pick himself up off the floor after that. God, it hurt, and it tasted foul. But it was necessity. Sheer addiction, like with the drink. Some men were built for alcohol; they had large frames which soaked up the juice, and brains which rejected all thought of a hangover. On the other hand, he was lean and lanky—and by Christ he got hangovers. He guessed by now his liver must be about the size of a sheep’s head. It was a wonder it hadn’t pushed all his other organs aside, knocked them out of the game. He loved drinking but hated getting drunk. But of course by the time he was getting drunk, the defenses were all down, so he kept on drinking. It was a problem. It surely was a problem.

So why did he drink?

“I drink therefore I am,” he reasoned, rising once more from the bed. He smiled through the pain. Maybe his brother would have appreciated the philosophy. Or maybe it was the wrong kind of philosophy. He’d never been able to figure Gordon out, not for a minute. He suspected—no, hell, he knew—Gordon had been in the SAS or one of those other quasisecret branches of armed service. He knew it just as surely as he knew the bathroom was only another three hundred yards away. Maybe if I crawl, he thought, maybe everything would be easier if I resorted to all fours, returning to nature, communing with my fellow beasts. Hell, this is California, the idea might catch on. Every other idea in the world had. You could get Tai Chi with your chili or send your kids to Satanist preschool. Every loony in the world seemed to have landed here with their One Idea, some life-changing thing that might take off. You’d always find at least one sucker, one easy-to-dupe disciple.

I’m a journalist, he thought. I’m a persuader. I could have half of Beverly Hills crawling on all fours and talking to the dogs and cats in no time. What I can’t do, right now, is find my way to the bathroom.

He was sweating when he finally crawled up to the toilet, the sweat cooling his back and brow as he threw up in the bowl. He hauled himself up and sat, resting his head against the cold porcelain sink. He was beginning to feel better, his heart rate slowing, even starting to consider the day ahead, his agenda, things that must be done. Like phone Eddie. Then he’d try to talk to that pharmacist again. But first he had to phone Eddie.

He pulled himself up to standing and stared into the mirror. Most of the glass was covered with dried toothpaste. A woman he’d had back here a few nights before had left a message for him. She’d been gone by the time he got up. He’d stumbled through to the bathroom and leaned against the sink, rubbing his head against the cool mirror. When he’d finally looked up, he saw he’d smeared away whatever the message had been and had red and white stripes of toothpaste clogged in his hair.

When he went back into the bedroom, he saw he’d plugged the laptop in some time the previous night, which showed forethought; the batteries would be charged up by now. He couldn’t live without his laptop. Just as some people had cats, and held them in their laps and stroked them, he had his computer. It was like therapy; when he picked it up and started to work the keys, he felt his worries evaporate. It felt stupid when he said it to people, but it made him feel immortal; he was writing, and that writing would one day be published, and once something was published it became immortal. People would store it, hoard it, keep it for reference, read it, devour it, cross-reference it, transfer it to other media like microfiche or CD-ROM. His laptop was a hangover cure, a panacea. Maybe that was the reason he wasn’t afraid of Co-World Chemicals. Maybe.

He sat on the bedroom floor and went through his recent notes. The thing was shaping up—at least, he hoped it was. There was a lot of speculation in there, stuff that needed, as any editor would tell him, meat on its bones. And by meat they’d mean validation. He needed to get people to talk on the record. Hell, even off the record would do for the moment. He could still let an editor have a listen to off-the-record remarks. Then maybe that editor would have a check made out to him so he could bolster his flagging finances.

The catch was, he was in hock to Giles Gulliver in London, and the bugger was refusing to front him any more cash until he’d seen a story he could run with. Catch-22. He needed more money if he was going to be able to give Giles that story. So now he was looking for a spin-off, something he could sell elsewhere. Jesus, he’d already pitched at a couple of travel editors, pieces about San Diego, the border, Tijuana, La Jolla. He’d do the zoo or Sea World if they wanted it! But they didn’t want anything from him. They knew his reputation. Knew several of his reputations. They knew he was bad with deadlines, and didn’t write nice little travel articles to be read over the Sunday cornflakes and coffee. That wasn’t journalism anyway—it was filler, an excuse for a cramming of ads, and he’d told three travel editors exactly that. Also that they could go bugger themselves.

Which left him running out of money fast, and reduced to cheap motels where they cleaned the rooms once a week and skimped on the towels. He had to work faster. Either that or take CWC’s money, use it to placate Giles, and buy a holiday with whatever was left. Everyone would be happier that way. Maybe even he’d be happier. But it didn’t work like that. There was a story out there, and if he didn’t get it, it would nag him for months, years even. Like the time he had to give up on the Faslane story. He’d been working for a London paper then, and the proprietor had told the editor to rein him in. He’d fumed, then resigned, then decided he didn’t want to resign—so they fired him. He’d gone back to the story, working freelance, but couldn’t get any further with it, and no one wanted to publish what he had except Private Eye, who’d given it half a page at the back of the mag.

God bless the Fourth Estate!

He had another cigarette, then pulled the phone off the bedside cabinet.

Once, he would have been living in a Hyatt or Holiday Inn, maybe even a Marriott. But times had changed, and James Reeve with them. He was meaner now; meaner in both senses. He left smaller tips (when he tipped at all: that guy in Reservoir Dogs had a point), and he was less pleasant. Poor people can’t afford to be pleasant; they’re too busy barely getting by.

Eddie’s phone kept ringing and ringing, and Reeve let it ring until it was answered.

“What? What?”

“Good morning, sir,” Reeve said sweetly, smoke pouring down his nose, “this is your requested alarm call.”

There were groans and hacking coughs at the other end of the line. It was good to feel you weren’t alone in your afflictions.

“You scumbag, you loathsome string of shit, you complete and utter douchehead.”

“What is this?” said Reeve. “Dial-a-Foulmouth?”

Eddie Cantona wheezed, trying to speak and laugh and light a cigarette all at the same time. “So what’s our schedule?” he finally said.

“Just get over here and pick me up. I’ll think of something.”

“Thirty minutes, okay?”

“Make it half an hour.” James Reeve hung up the phone. He liked Eddie, liked him a lot. They’d met in a bar in the Gaslamp Quarter. The bar had a western theme and sold ribs and steaks. You ate at a long, hewn wooden bench, or at hewn wooden tables, and at the bar they served the tap beer in Mason jars. It was an affectation, yes, and it meant you didn’t get a lot of beer for your money—but it was good beer, almost good enough and dark enough to be English.