Known Devil (17 page)

He doesn’t get them very often, so he pulled out his phone, thumbed an icon, and looked at the screen. From his expression, I was pretty sure he wasn’t reading birthday greetings from his mom, and my suspicion was confirmed when he said, “Aw,
fuck!
”

As he put the phone back in his pocket, Christine and I both said, “What?” at the same time.

“There’s been another bombing,” he said to Christine, then looked at me. “Ricardo’s Ristorante.”

The sudden jolt of adrenaline started the bump on my head throbbing all over again as I asked Karl, “How bad?”

“McGuire didn’t say – you can’t put a lot of info into a text message, anyway. But when’s the last time you heard of a bombing that
wasn’t
bad, Stan?”

“Yeah – I withdraw the question.” I threw back the blanket and sheet and swung my legs slowly over the side of the bed.

“Where do you think
you’re
going?” Christine asked, but before I could say anything, she went on, “Never mind, I know where. But
why
, Daddy? The fucking bomb already went off, right? And there’s gonna be a gazillion cops and firemen and paramedics and gosh knows what – all over the place. Why do
you
have to be there?”

“So I can find out what the fuck is going on!”

I stood up, and the pounding in my head immediately shifted from second gear into third. I glanced back at the sterile-looking hospital bed, and at that moment it looked like a really good place to be. But I turned away from it and started walking toward the suitcase that Christine had brought me.

“I don’t mean to throw you out, honey,” I told Christine. I picked up the suitcase and tossed it on the bed. “But unless you want to embarrass us both by seeing your old man naked, maybe you’d better leave. I’ll see you when I get home, unless it’s after sunrise. In that case, I’ll talk to you at breakfast.”

She made an exasperated sound, but her voice was calm as she said, “I don’t suppose arguing’s gonna do any good, huh?”

Karl answered her before I could. “You’ve known him longer than I have, babe. What do
you
think?”

Babe
. I wondered if it was too late to have that talk with Christine about the bats and the bees.

Yeah – about twenty years too late. Maybe more
.

Christine gave him one of those
What can you do?
expressions, then turned to me and said, “I guess I’ll see you at breakfast, Daddy – if not before.”

She stepped closer and kissed my cheek. “Be careful – there’s likely to be a lot of broken glass out there.”

“I will.”

I wondered if Karl was going to get a kiss, too – but apparently they weren’t willing to do that in front of me yet. He got a friendly nod and “’Bye, Karl,” and then she was gone.

I dropped the hospital gown, then opened the suitcase and began to pull clothes out of it. Getting dressed doesn’t usually pose a challenge for me, but this time was a little different. The first time I bent over, I was afraid my head was going to explode. Then I started hoping it
would
explode and put me out of my misery.

With a little help from Karl, I managed to make myself presentable. I filled the empty suitcase with the dirty clothing I’d been wearing when they brought me in, closed it, and said, “OK, let’s go.”

“You want a wheelchair, get you as far as the front door?”

I looked at him. “You figure they’re going to have any wheelchairs at the fucking crime scene?”

He shrugged. “I could borrow one from here.”

“Yeah, and I can just hear the other guys from the squad when I show up looking like you just sprung me from the Shady Rest Old Folks Home. I might hear the end of it in ten, maybe fifteen years. Fuck that shit – no wheelchair.”

“Then at least let me carry the damn suitcase.”

“Fine – take it.”

As we passed the nurses’ station, one of the ladies in scrubs glanced up at us from her clipboard, then did a double take. “Mister Markowski! What are you doing out of bed? I need you to–”

With his free hand, Karl held his ID folder out and growled, “Police business.” Then he flashed her a little fang. I’m not sure which impressed the nurse more, but after a second, she picked up the clipboard again and began studying it like she was trying to memorize every damn word.

When we came through the sliding doors of the front entrance, Karl said, “Wait here – I’ll bring the car around.”

“I can walk to the fucking car, dammit! Stop treating me like some kind of invalid.”

Karl turned and faced me. “Stan – I’m a member of the bloodsucking undead, right?”

“Yeah – so?”

“So, I can’t see myself in a mirror. But I’d still bet fifty bucks that right about now
you
make
me
look good. Just stay put while I get the fucking car, OK?”

Before I could come up with a suitable retort, Karl turned and started walking away. Then a few seconds later the vampire afterburners kicked in and he disappeared into the night.

Fucking undead showoff.

 

We hadn’t gone very far from Mercy’s parking area when I started to wonder why Karl was driving like a little old lady on her way home from a Sunday social. Then I got it: he was trying to avoid the many bumps and potholes, to cut down on any bouncing around that would make my head hurt worse than it already did.

“Karl.”

“What?”

“I know what you’re doing, and I appreciate it. I really do. But nobody ever died from a goddamn headache, and I want to get to the crime scene ASAP – so will you fucking
move
?”

He glanced at me. “Yes
sir
.”

Karl pressed down on the accelerator while reaching under the dash with one hand. He flicked a switch, and the red LED lights behind the grille started flashing their get-the-hell-out-of- the way message. Then he found the toggle that controls the siren.

The high-pitched wailing noise that began an instant later cut into the back of my head like the business end of a Black & Decker Model 12V. And like the Energizer Bat, it just kept going, and going, and going.

Be careful what you wish for, Markowski
.

I did my best to keep the pain off my face, but that’s the thing about having a vampire partner – he can sense changes in your heart rate, and sudden agony will definitely kick things up a notch or two.

Karl gave me another sideways look. “Pretty bad, huh?”

“I’m alright – just drive.”

Eight long minutes later, we arrived at the scene of the restaurant bombing – or as close as we were able to get. What looked like dozens of official cars and vans were blocking Moosic Street, all with their own lights going – red, blue, or yellow, depending on the department responding. The effect that light show had on my pounding head made me want to squeeze my eyes shut and keep them that way – for a week, maybe. But Karl and I had a three-block hike in front of us, and I wasn’t going to do it like some kind of blind man. So, squinting like the second lead in a spaghetti western, I got out of the car.

The walk was slow going, what with the police and emergency vehicles parked at crazy angles and the immense crowd of gawkers standing around, probably hoping to see a dead body being carried away – or, better yet, a headless corpse.

Finally, we came to the barrier of yellow crime-scene tape that extended from one side of the street to the other, uniformed cops standing behind it every fifty feet or so. The one we approached, a red-haired patrolman named McHale, knew us by sight and lifted the tape so Karl and I could duck under it. Bending over like that achieved something I wouldn’t have thought possible – it made the pounding in my head even worse. When we’d straightened up, I said to Karl, “Let’s wait here a minute or two, see what’s going on.” Truth was, I just wanted to stand still and see whether the pain would back off a bit – just receding from “Intolerable” to merely “Pretty Fucking Awful” would’ve been OK with me.

Karl looked at me, but all he said was, “Sure, Stan.”

If McGuire had been there, I was prepared to listen to a bunch of “I told you not to act like some TV hero” crap, but I guessed he’d stayed back at the station house. Maybe my night was improving – a little.

Christine had been right, back at the hospital. There was nothing I could do here that all the other professionals on scene couldn’t do, and probably better. But there were things I wanted to know. Besides, I couldn’t stay in a hospital bed while every other cop in the city was on the streets working this case. I just
couldn’t
.

After a while, the pain did let up a little – enough for me to focus on the scene before us. And quite a scene it was.

This section of Moosic Street was brightly lit, but all of the illumination came either from the headlights of emergency vehicles or the dozen or so HMI lights that had been rigged by the police and fire departments. None of the usual light sources were worth shit at the moment.

Up and down the street, tall wooden lampposts were either bent in half, their lights smashed on the ground, or just knocked flat by the explosion. Most of the power poles had gone down, too, taking the electrical wires along with them. Several loose wires lay on the asphalt, still live, sparking and hissing like wounded dragons.

What I could see of the street – the part that wasn’t covered with debris or puddles left by the fire hoses – had depressions in the asphalt, as if a T-Rex had stomped through, on his way to eat Dixon City. Broken glass was everywhere, and the air was thick with the odor of gasoline, burned rubber, scorched metal, and several other smells that I couldn’t identify.

“Blood,” said Karl, the mind reader. “There’s a lot of blood in the air.”

“You gonna be alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said quickly. Maybe a little too quickly.

“Look – Scanlon’s here,” I said, as much to change the subject as anything else.

“I’m not surprised. Lot of work for him and his boys tonight.”

Hugh Scanlon made his careful way toward us, stepping over or around the worst of the debris, avoiding the puddles made by the fire hoses. He kept his hands in the pockets of the light topcoat that he seemed to be wearing every time I saw him.

When he reached us, Scanlon stopped and looked me over. “I heard you were dead,” he said finally. “Looks like the reports are only half right.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” I told him.

“Me, too,” Karl said.

Scanlon gave him a look and turned back to me. “I’ve heard about six different stories about you,” he said. “You know how cops are – they gossip worse than a bunch of old ladies.”

I gave him raised eyebrows. “
They?
”

“I just listen,” he said with a shrug. “That doesn’t count.”

“If you say so,” I said.

“One version says that you were jumped by a bunch of guys behind Jerry’s and managed to take out three of them before they finally took you off the count.”

“I think I’ll encourage that one,” I said. “The first part of it, at least. Makes me sound dangerous.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Scanlon said. “Another story has you in Mercy Hospital, deep into a coma due to a fractured skull.” He leaned a little to one side to get a better look at my bandaged lump. “Looks like they weren’t far wrong,” he said. “About the fractured skull, I mean.”

“I’m doing OK,” I lied. “They say I don’t even have a concussion. Just some bruises, a big lump, and frequent visits from the Headache from Hell.”

The sudden whoop of an ambulance siren sent a fresh jolt of pain through my head. When it had receded a little, I said, “Look, I dragged myself out of my bed of pain because it seems like the gang war’s escalating. I want to know what the fuck happened here and why.”

“Short version,” Scanlon said. “The answer to your first question is ‘car bomb’, and I’m guessing the answer to the second one is ‘to kill a bunch of folks’.”

“Well, duh,” Karl said, which earned him another look from Scanlon.

“How many dead?” I asked him.

“They’re still bringing bodies out,” he said. “Nine that we know about, so far.”

“They’re all human, aren’t they?” Karl said.

“How the hell do I know?” Scanlon said. “That’s for the Medical Examiner’s people to figure out.”

A third-story parapet that had run across the front of an apartment building directly across from Ricardo’s suddenly came loose and fell to the sidewalk with a crash. I was glad nobody had been standing underneath it. There’d been enough dying on this street tonight already.

“My point is,” Karl said, “that I’m pretty sure none of them were vampires.”

“Yeah?” Scanlon said. “And you reached this conclusion how, exactly?”

“
Because you can’t kill vampires with a bomb
.”

Scanlon and I both stared at him, then we looked at each other. “He’s got a point”, I said.

“Does he?” Scanlon frowned. “Look, I freely admit this isn’t my area – I mostly deal with humans who kill other humans.” He looked at Karl again. “You’re telling me you can sit a vampire on top of a ton of TNT, set it off, and the vampire just gets up and walks away once the smoke clears?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Karl said.

“But the vampire’d be blown into a million pieces,” Scanlon said. “Do they all get –”

“No, he wouldn’t,” I said. “A human would be in a million pieces. The vampire wouldn’t discorporate like that. He’d probably be blown a fair distance by the blast, and he wouldn’t feel so great for a while – but, yeah. He’d get up and walk away.”

Scanlon shook his head slowly. “How the fuck is that possible?”

“Who the hell knows?” I said. “How are vampires possible? How is magic possible – and lycanthropy, and all the rest of it? It just
is
.”