Dead Mann Running (9781101596494) (7 page)

Once they realized we’d left the clinic, the cops would probably focus on the park and the Bones, knowing it’d be stupid for me to try to hide in an LB neighborhood, so that’s where I stayed. I needed a direction, though, an idea, and Misty wasn’t in the mood to offer suggestions.

After maneuvering some alleys that were cleaner than my office, I spotted an ancient Chevy Nova all by its lonesome, begging to be stolen. I don’t usually steal cars, or anything else for that matter, but whistling for a cab in the middle of the street here wasn’t going to work. Most won’t pick up a chak anywhere.

A fallen brick took care of the driver-side window. I put Misty in the passenger seat, the briefcase in the trunk, and climbed behind the wheel. Next, I pulled off the plastic column covering the ignition. It wasn’t until I was staring at the three pairs of wires that I realized I’d forgotten how to hotwire a car.

I grabbed a few, to yank them free, but picked the wrong ones. Nasty sparks rolled into my fingers, making my arm vibrate until I let go. The car filled with a gross smell, like a bad hamburger cooking on a grill. There were black scorch marks on my fingertips, but I didn’t feel much of anything that resembled pain.

“Red pair’s usually the battery, brown’s the starter,” Misty mumbled.

I eyed her. “Now you tell me. What do I do with them?”

She sounded like she didn’t care. Part of her must’ve or she wouldn’t have kept talking. “Twist the red together, then touch the brown ones for a second. Careful you don’t…”

Another set of sparks, more burning. That time, I felt it.

“Ow. Careful I don’t touch the brown ones, right?”

She gave off a weak laugh. That was something, anyway. Almost worth the burn.

The engine roared to life.

I
doubted there was enough gas to reach any of the major shantytowns where most chakz lived. Besides, between the weekly LB raids involving machetes and rice grinders, and the guard passing through to hunt for chakz who hadn’t shown for their tests, they had enough troubles of their own.

The closer option was a darling of a cheap motel on the southern outskirts of town called the Deluxe Econo-Sleep, false advertising on all three counts. If a liveblood with a penchant for chakking-up preferred his necrophilia in a bed instead of an alley, it was the place to go. On the plus side, the police treated it like it was in another dimension. We might even get a nice view of the desert out the back, if the windows weren’t painted over.

It was past midnight when I pulled onto the buckling asphalt of the parking lot. Out front, a blue oval hung from a tilted steel post. The neon that used to spell the name was long gone, angry rust stains dripping down the
center. I was expecting it to be quiet, but there were barely any spaces left. Love, or something more contagious, was in the air.

Misty wasn’t perky, but she was on her feet, walking with me to the office at the end of the L-shaped building. Inside, there was a short line and a familiar face, or I should say half face. The raggedy was here, the girl Chester swerved to miss, arm in arm with a paunchy, slimy-skinned pederast.

I’d say it was funny how the law worked for chakz, but I’ve yet to laugh. If she died six years ago aged twelve, technically she was eighteen, the age of consent. That’s how the courts saw it anyway, mostly thanks to perverts like billionaire Colby Green, current owner of Nell Parker.

Misty grabbed my arm to keep me in place, but it took all I had to keep my mouth shut. Of course she didn’t recognize the kid, she was just a blur in the windshield at best. Probably better that way. At least this explained why a raggedy was in that part of town. She’d been meeting her john.

But here we both were, and I like coincidences about as much as I like child molesters. I wasn’t about to let either go. Hearing the room number the clerk gave them, I reached for my digital recorder to get it down, but my pockets, like Mother Hubbard’s cupboard, were bare. I’d left it in the office. Whispering the number to myself over and over, I let Misty fill in the motel form.

At least we didn’t raise any eyebrows. Between her clothes, and my good looks, this was the only place in the world we’d pass for a couple. The only problem was that they rented by the hour. I knew she had Chester’s credit
card, but didn’t want to mention it because one, it would remind her about Chester, and, two, it could be used to track us.

We still had some money from the last case, and between us, enough cash for three hours. When I forked over my share, the bespectacled night manager, who looked like a watermelon with suspenders, a greasy head and gray stubble, gave us an impressed whistle.

“Last guy I had to argue with to pay the full hour. Only wanted fifteen minutes,” he croaked. “Bless your endurance, both of you. Making a video or using some kind of pills?”

I grabbed the pen from Misty and scribbled the raggedy’s room number on my hand. “Neither.”

He smiled, showing shreds of some kind of food between his teeth. “No offense. Just asking. I could use some pills myself.”

“I’ll let you know if I find any.”

Our room was on the second floor. A thick odor of bleach swept out as soon as I opened the door. The sheets were clean, though sterilized would be a better word and they weren’t Egyptian cotton. The cloth was so thin, the deep depressions and wildly shaped stains on the mattress made it look like a relief map of a mountain range.

“At least it’s germ-free.”

Misty, moving faster than she had since the ambush, headed for the window and tried to open it. “The only way this place would be germ-free is if you burned it.”

I smiled. Not that it was funny, but she seemed a little less shell-shocked. I pulled the cushions off the couch, laid them on the bed and motioned for her to lie down.

“I doubt anyone uses the couch.”

She sat on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know if it’s worth it anymore, Hess.”

“What? You don’t like the room?”

“No, I mean, anything.”

I parked myself beside her. “You just got hit in the head with a baseball bat. Not a good time for making plans.”

“Y’know how you get, staying in your office day after day, doing nothing, like you’re ready to just say fuck it all and give up completely, go feral?” she said. Her eyes bored into me. “And don’t bother telling me that’s not how it is.”

“All right.”

“Well, except for the feral part, I finally think I know how you feel.”

I wasn’t sure that was true, but I wasn’t about to argue the point.

“Okay, yeah, I’ve been on the darker side lately. Used to be I held on to the crazy idea I might find Lenore’s killer, but that’s done with, other than proving it to Booth and the police, and frankly, I don’t care about that. But, I haven’t gone feral, have I? I figure a lot of the reason is you, the promise we made. We take care of each other, right? Keep each other from falling in the toilet?”

“Hess, it’s just…never mind.”

I hesitated, wanted to pet the hair on her head, but didn’t. “Baseball bat, remember? It’s going to hurt a long time, but until it slows down, no decisions, no big investments. Lie down, pretend you’re somewhere else, someplace you can rest.”

Soon as I stopped talking, thumps from the wall behind
the bed filled the room, shaking a torn picture of a crying clown. I wouldn’t call them rhythmic.

“Well,
try
to rest,” I said. “You heard the man. The racket won’t last longer than fifteen minutes.”

I stood up.

“Where the fuck are you going now?”

“The ark of the covenant or whatever, is in the trunk. I don’t want it near us. I’ll take it maybe a few miles into the desert. Take less than half an hour. Make sure you’re here when I get back.”

She didn’t lie down. She remained sitting, hands folded in her lap. “Will do.”

There are sins of commission and sins of omission. I hated the first when it came to Misty, but it wouldn’t be the first time I didn’t tell her everything. There were two things I wanted to take care of, the case and the raggedy.

The case put everyone in danger, so I handled that first. I drove a mile or so past the motel then headed off-road into the desert. The Chevy’s rear-wheel drive got me a few yards into the filthy sand before the back started wobbling. Worried I’d get stuck, I got out and walked, my feet doing near as badly as the tires.

I thought about opening it. Some squeaky pain in the ass part of me wanted to pull out the foam and see if there was anything under it, but I shut it up quick enough. The less I knew the better. And I had to get back to the raggedy in less than fifteen minutes.

I found a sad-ass clump of trees that didn’t seem to realize they shouldn’t have tried growing in a desert, and wedged the case behind two branches so it wouldn’t be visible unless you came right up on it.

Back at the motel, I grabbed a tire iron from the
trunk. Then I stood there like an idiot, trying to remember the room number. I’d almost given up, when I happened to glance at my hand. Room 154. A short walk.

I didn’t pause long enough to listen at the door. You’d think the manager would want to keep the locks working in a place like this, but it swung open with a nudge. Seeing me, the pederast at least had the decency to be embarrassed. Had something to lose, I figure, wife, job, whatever. The raggedy, who didn’t, was pissed. She gave me a catlike hiss like the one she made at the accident scene.

I used the crowbar to pry them apart. Figuratively, meaning I threatened to do some damage if the liveblood didn’t get out. Flushed red and panting like he was going to have a heart attack, he grabbed his pants, didn’t bother putting them on, and made for the door.

The kid glowered at me with sunken eyes. “I was getting paid!”

I got it. Chakz don’t care what livebloods do with their orifices. I could well be robbing her of enough cash for a decent place to stay a night or two. I reached into my pocket, planning to give her some bills. Her face lit up until we both realized I was out of money.

She rolled her eyes, favoring the missing side of her face. The exposed tendons had a weird sheen, like plastic. Reminded me of that travelling corpse exhibit that shows you how the body works.

“Great. You can’t even remember what the fuck is in your pocket.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven.”

My turn to roll my eyes. “Not so great with the math,
huh? Ripping’s about eight years old. You can’t have been more than twelve when you died.”

She wrapped herself in a blanket and stood. One shoulder slumped, like part of the bone was gone. “
That
you remember. Fine. Sixteen. Five years since I died from multiple myeloma, four since my parents stopped looking at me.”

“Then you’re still illegal.”

She grabbed her clothes from the floor and headed for the bathroom. Other than the face, I didn’t see any rot or damage. “Give me a break! I’m trying to save for a cheat sheet so I can pass the next test.”

Now I actually felt guilty. There was an active black market in exam answers, but they were pricey. From what I hear, sometimes they worked.

“Not doing so good?”

She stepped out and grabbed her coat. The anger had faded from her face just a bit. “Last time I made it by one question.”

“Look, I don’t have any money right now, but I can help you study. Well, not me, but Misty can. She’s good at that. Got me through the last few times.”

“Who the hell is Misty? Who are you? What do you care? Why are you here? What are you, my guardian angel?”

“Remember me from the accident?”

She paused, like maybe my question meant she was in trouble. “Yeah.”

“Someone pay you to be there, too? Wait for a car?”

Her forehead was like a smooth piece of marble until her brow knitted, “Do you realize how stupid that sounds? Here, chak, here’s a dollar, stand on the corner
until you scare someone into flipping his car? That’s what you ruined my gig for?”

“When you put it that way, it does sound like a long shot,” I said. “But that’s not my only question.”

She looked at the clock. “I’ve got the room for another three minutes. Go on.”

“A friend was driving.”

The lines in her brow grew deeper. “That was a cop car. A chak friends with a cop? No wonder you believe in long shots.”

“Fine, friend of a friend. Point is, he didn’t have to brake. He could’ve driven right into you, left you with just an arm to hold your teddy and drag your torso around. But he didn’t, and now he’s dead. Not dead tired, not dead like us, really dead. You were standing there a while when the second car pulled up. Did you get a good look at the guys who came out?”

“Tick-tick. Couldn’t you have just asked?”

“I like to set the scene. See how you react.”

“Am I reacting okay so far?”

“So far. Did you get a look at them?”

She shrugged her good shoulder. “Happened quick. I think they wore black, kind of like in a movie. You know
Reservoir Dogs
? Like that. One balding, I think. There was something shiny up on top. The other had light hair, maybe. That’s all.”

I’d seen how they were dressed, so she wasn’t lying. The balding part and the light hair sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

“See that? Your memory’s not so bad. What’s your name? Where can I find you?”

“Why?”

“To help you study.”

She smiled, looking girlish for a second, until the skin around the exposed bone crinkled, ruining the effect. “The guy who can’t even remember what’s in his pocket? No thanks. My ride’s gone, though. Can you get me back to the city?”

I walked her out to the car. She eyed it up and down.

“Looking for something?” I asked.

“Is that thing safe to drive?”

“All of a sudden, it’s about safety?”

She hissed and climbed in.

Wishing I had a few bucks, or a toy to give her, I dropped her at one of the smaller shantytowns, going as far as I dared with the needle tapping E.

The ride back gave me time to think. With Chester dead and the police after us, the smart move would be to leave. Not like we’d be leaving a lot behind. It wouldn’t be easy, though. Legally, wherever we went, I’d have to check in to keep up with the testing. Even if they lacked the equipment to track my cell, the police could find me through my chak registration. Fake IDs were tough to come by. Then again, I might be able to avoid the test for a month or two, and by then the whole briefcase thing could blow over.