Fade (2005) (27 page)

"Well?" Egan said as he slammed Fraiser's door behind him again.

"I did it. They're turning around. I hope to hell you're sure "

Egan's cell phone rang and when he saw the incoming number he fell int o a chair and pressed it to his ear.

"Hello, Fade."

Fraiser's eyes widened a bit and he stared at the phone.

"What kind of person misses their own boss's birthday party? How ar e you ever going to get ahead with that attitude?"

"Look, I've got a guy here who think you've given him Ebola and a n office full of people in space suits. Can I call you right back?"

"No problema."

The line went dead and he stuffed the phone back in his pocket.

"That was him? That was al Fayed?"

"Priority one," Egan said, ignoring the question. "Find out what th e media knows. If there's any security video of me and Fade from th e hospital we need to get hold of it. And none of the hospital staf f talks to anyone about this. Tell them whatever you have to that it'
s part of a confidential terrorism investigation. I don't want to see o r hear about anyone I know on TV. Especially Fade. With his disguise, I d oubt anyone would have recognized him, but if it goes out over the ai r .. ."

"Uh, okay. I "

"Priority two: Get Banes and Despain on Hillel at the hospital. Fad e might get the idea to go back."

"They're already there. I've got them covering everyone, but with jus t two of them, it's pretty thin."

"Just worry about Hillel. Put one of them in the room with him and ge t the other one after those security tapes."

"But "

Egan pointed at the phone on Fraiser's desk and went back out into th e reception area for another drink. The haz-mat people were actuall y gone, though most of their equipment was still strewn around what wa s left of the office suite. A good half of the furniture was either ou t of place or overturned, and no less than three still-wet puddles o f vomit stained the carpet, filling the air was a sour, acidic odor. H
e retreated into his office and closed the door, wishing there was a wa y to open the windows.

Fade picked up almost immediately when Egan called him back.

"Matt, you scumbag! You knew I was waiting at that hospital. You ha d plenty of time to divert those ambulances. You were using your ow n boss as bait."

"Worst case, I figured I'd miss and you'd shoot him. Not the end o f the world."

"I've been saying it for years: With a friend like you, a guy doesn'
t need enemies."

"Fuck you, too."

"Oh, that reminds me, man. There are a couple of gals handcuffed to a toilet at the Wild Flour Bakery. Could you send someone over there t o let them go?"

Egan wrote the name down on a piece of paper. "I'll take care o f it."

"That's about it then. I guess I'll be seeing you."

"Wait! Come on, Fade. This is starting to get stupid. You've got n o chance now. I've got Hillel covered at the hospital by good men guy s whose names you'd recognize. And when he gets out, he's going to com e straight back to Homeland Security, where he's going to stay until h e sees your body. And I can tell you that he's not going to be eatin g any takeout from now on. So, you're screwed. You can't get in her e without killing a bunch of people, which we both know you aren't goin g to do "

"Well, what about you? Why don't we get together and finish what'
s between us?"

"Not likely. I've got too much to lose now and I'm smart enough t o know that getting involved in a stand-up fight with you would b e suicide. If you and I can't work this thing out, I'm going to fal l back on what I do best. I'm going to figure out where you are an d shoot you from a safe distance."

"Or maybe I'll find you first."

"Maybe."

"No way to live, is it, Matt? Waiting for that other shoe to drop."

"No. I guess it isn't."

The line went dead and Egan leaned back against his desk, standin g there silently for a few minutes before going back to Fraiser'
s office.

"I've got to go, Billy. Fade probably figures I'm here and I don'
t want him picking me up."

Fraiser nodded. "I talked to the hospital and the docs say all ou r people are going to be fine. You were right. But no one I talked t o could give me an idea when they'd be released, so for now I'm al l you've got. What do you want me to do?"

Egan leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb and crossed his arms i n front of him. "I need everything, Billy. If Hillel's holding anythin g back on us, you've got to find it. Fast."

"I'm on it."

He turned to leave, but then stopped. "Oh yeah. Fade said we need t o get someone down to the Wild Flour Bakery to let the people who mad e the cake go."

"Haz-mat's already there."

"Christ .. ."
t i n Chapter Thirty-Six.

"You're going to have to speak up!" Egan shouted into his phone.

Fraiser repeated himself, but was still unintelligible.

"Yell!"

A disorderly line of people had completely covered the sidewalk and wa s starting to spill out into the road, eliciting irritated honks fro m cars trying to get by. Egan moved right, sliding his shoulder alon g the worn brick of the building next to him as he pushed his way throug h the impatient crush of people. After about twenty feet, he was force d out into the street by a particularly dense knot of revelers splashin g each other with beer. The club's door was almost within strikin g distance.

"We got the report from the hospital," Billy shouted. "The stuff tha t was in the cake is all easily available prescription stuff nothing tha t could kill anyone. But the way it was mixed would apparently make yo u wish you were dead. Anyway, the haz-mat people are finally completel y out of it."

"What about Hillel's files?" Egan said, continuing his slo w progress.

"I managed to get into his cabinet but there wasn't anything there. I'
m having a harder time with his computer. I'm not a hacker, you know? I d on't think I'm going to be able to get access."

"Shit," Egan said quietly, nodding at two enormous bouncers who steppe d aside and let him through. He had to wait for the frustrated shout s from the people in line behind him to subside before he could spea k again.

"Okay. Keep on it."

Even empty, the corridor was surprisingly cramped and dark, lit onl y with ultraviolet, which caused the graffiti scrawled on the walls t o fluoresce garishly. A moment later, he broke out into a cavernou s concert hall ringed with a wide balcony. At the far end he could see a dimly lit, empty stage squeezed between walls of speakers. Egan mad e his way directly to the closest of four strategically positione d bars.

Even with the crowd still being held at bay outside, the coveted ba r stools were already full. He vaguely recognized most of the people o n them employees of the venue, promoters, roadies, friends of the ban d members. And they recognized him. The stool he'd locked onto wa s quickly abandoned and by the time he'd settled in, so were the one s surrounding it.

He waved at the bartender for a beer and watched the crowd begi n spilling in, fanning out at a half run, seeking to stake out the bes t real estate for the show. In less than a minute the empty stool s around him had filled with people who weren't aware of the alternativ e music industry's widely held belief that he was a governmen t constructed killing machine ready to snap at any moment.

As always, he was amazed at the sheer size and broad diversity of th e crowd: everything from dreadlocks and tie-dye to shaved heads an d leather jackets. Elise had a strangely universal appeal meaning tha t weirdos of all types loved her. She rarely played live locally anymor e and when she did, the shows sold out within a few hours. He reache d for his wallet but the bartender just shook his head and slid the bee r across the bar to him. The free drink seemed to increase the interes t his khakis and polo shirt were getting from the two typically dangerou s looking skinheads sitting next to him.

They were right, of course. He shouldn't have been there, but hi s confrontation with Fade and the chaos that was sure to ensue had lef t him feeling completely unanchored. It was almost like he was goin g backward in time rewinding himself into the ball of nerves and violenc e that the Special Forces had temporarily transformed him into. H
e needed something to remind himself that he wasn't that person anymor e and frankly had never aspired to be that person in the first place.

Besides, the risk was almost nonexistent. There was no way that Fad e would think he'd be stupid enough to show up at one of his own wife'
s concerts. Too obvious.

He was on his second beer when a general roar from the crowd prompte d him to spin around on his stool, just in time to see a young woman wit h shockingly green hair and a matching bass guitar stride out onto th e stage. She was undeniably his least favorite person in the band a n evil bitch who had gone out of her way to make sure he was aware tha t she had an insane crush on his wife, while carefully keeping i t completely hidden from everyone else. Even Elise was completel y oblivious. Next out was the violin player, an incredibly gifted an d impossibly thin guy with an uncontrollable passion for heroin and a n even more uncontrollable paranoia that Egan was a DEA snitch. Finally , Erik, a genuinely good guy, stepped into the lights. He was the onl y person in the band other than Elise who didn't refer to him as "Th e Baby Killer" behind his back. Thank God for drummers.

The roar turned to screams when Elise stepped out, wearing a blac k miniskirt and a rather Puritan white blouse that had been her mother's.

She plugged in a glittery silver guitar that he'd gone into hock to bu y her a few Christmases ago, sang a few a cappella lines into he r microphone and then slammed a hand into the strings, producing a wal l of sound that seemed like it should have shattered the mirror behin d him. Predictably, people near the stage went nuts gyrating wildly an d bouncing off one another in a display of childlike enthusiasm that he'
d once mistaken for a riot.

He inserted a pair of custom made earplugs and watched his wife put a foot up on a monitor, flinging her black hair back and forth agains t her face. It was hard to imagined what he'd have said if, ten year s ago, a fortune-teller had told him that one day he would be sitting i n a concert hall with nine hundred people looking up his wife's skir t while she tried to destroy a guitar he still had seven payments to g o on. And that he'd be happier than he'd ever imagined he could be.

What would that fortune-teller have to say to him today? Would sh e tell him that he was going to lose everything just when he'd finall y gotten it?

Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he glanced up. The light ha d turned a bit chaotic and for a moment he could only see a six-foot-tal l outline wearing a white, vaguely Asian-looking shirt tucked into a pai r of jeans. When one of the wandering spotlights hit the mirror behin d the bar, there was a sudden flash that revealed the man's tan skin , short brown hair, and a pair of blue tinted glasses perched on a n elegant, Mesopotamian nose.

Egan half jumped, half fell, off his stool, landing both himself an d his beer in the lap of the person next to him. That person , understandably upset, shoved him hard from behind and Egan ended up o n all fours on the floor. By the time he'd made it to his feet, th e skinhead wearing his beer was off his stool and coming at him. H
e looked to weigh about two hundred and fifty pounds and wasn't a distraction that Egan needed at that moment.

He braced himself for the inevitable impact but, before it coul d happen, Fade swung an arm into the man's throat, clotheslining him an d sending him crashing to the floor. He followed up with a bored-lookin g kick, connecting the silver tip of his cowboy boot with the man'
s temple.

In his peripheral vision, Egan saw two bouncers running as fast as the y could in their direction and tried to watch both them and Fade, who wa s now seated and waving a ten dollar bill at the frozen bartender.

"Stop!" Egan shouted loud enough to be heard over the feedbac k emanating from his wife's guitar. The bouncers both knew him and di d as they were told, eyeing Fade but, fortunately, not making a mov e toward him. Egan pointed at the man lying motionless on the floor an d then toward the door. The bouncers grabbed him by the jacket and bega n dragging him out, never taking their eyes off Fade, who was now perche d cross-legged on his stool, sipping at a Budweiser.

Egan looked around him, making sure that everything was as unde r control as could be expected during one of his wife's shows and pulle d his earplugs out.

"I underestimated you," he shouted, sitting down again and waving for a fresh beer. "Good guess."

"I'd love to take credit," Fade said, leaning in close enough to b e heard, but still keeping some distance between them. "But I bought m y ticket weeks ago. Your wife's a genius. Honestly, I remember you a s more of a Village People kind of guy."

Egan gave the bartender a twenty and indicated that he should keep th e change.

"Who's the bass player, Matt? She's cute in kind of a character-from-a-Japanese-cartoon sort of way."