Playing the Game (10 page)

Sensing his situation was futile, he lapsed into a vague level of concentration on the room’s television, his eyes half open. Farrington News blared onto the screen, complete with the annoying jingle he had heard so many times before. During the restricted ‘television time’ at San Quentin, Farrington News was an inmates’ favourite for no other reason than the anchorwoman was something of a stunner. A definite nine out of ten. You very rarely heard the actual news when she came on, the catcalls, shouting and whistling were often deafening. He could hear it now though; the top story was something about The Chemist who might or might not have struck again. Having nothing better to do, Tetley gave the screen as much attention as he could muster, actually savouring the sight while he still could.

About a minute into the broadcast something she said caught his attention. What had she said then? Maybe he had imagined it? Glancing at the IV drip, it was nearly empty so he guessed that it would be taking effect by now. But wait, there it was again.

Instinctively, he tried to sit upright, forgetting about the handcuff around his right wrist and the IV drip in his left hand, causing a sharp pain as the metal cuff scraped the skin off the top of his hand, and he had almost knocked the drip stand over.

Had she said
Clozapone
?

That rang a bell from somewhere. Where the fuck had he heard that before? He had definitely heard it from somewhere.

It took a couple of minutes, Tetley fighting to remember, battling against the saline that was carousing through his system. Nevertheless, it eventually came to him. He was sure he’d talked to a particular inmate during his time at San Quentin, and he was sure they had talked about Clozapone and its effects that day, amongst many other things. He hadn’t seen that inmate in the six months between that conversation and his parole.

Was that inmate The Chemist? If Tetley was right, that might be just the sort of information that would broker him a deal. Worming his left hand free from the drip, he began to urgently press the call button.

27

            Pulling onto Sunset Junction, the sun glared down, sending a shimmering heat across the car windscreen. Much to his chagrin, Fergs was along for the ride. We needed him to pinpoint the source of the return signal. He hadn’t wanted to come. I suspect he was still reeling from the detonation at Sutherland Boulevard, but I wasn’t taking no for answer.

            We slowed to a crawl as Fergs concentrated intently on one of his little box of tricks that was far too technical for the likes of Charlie and I to fully understand. He’d managed to isolate the co-ordinates of the return signal; Stella’s laptop had not been damaged by the blast. He’d transferred them to a portable tracker and that was that. We had a fix on the signal, easy as you like. The fact that the device that had sent the signal had not moved during the entire ride to Sunset Junction from the Edwards’ house made me familiarly apprehensive.

            ‘Hey Patton, we’re almost there … slow down Holland’, Fergs looked up, scanning Sunset Junction.

            ‘Pull over Charlie, we’ll take it on foot from here’, I instructed.

            ‘I think I’ve got a fix’, Fergs voice was hushed. ‘Couple of hundred yards up, turn left and you got a phone box another two hundred yards, past a diner. That’s it’.

            For the third time today, I un-holstered my pistol. ‘Be careful, man’ Charlie advised.

            ‘You too’. We’d already seen far too much carnage today. Neither of us wanted to see any more. With one obvious exception.

            I radioed in our position, then we left Fergs in the car and jogged at full pace to the corner. We had the phone box in our sights and paused to check out our surroundings before covering the final stretch to the phone box itself.

            ‘Looks clear to me’, Charlie was scanning the phone box and beyond, I had taken the ground leading to the phone box.

            ‘What about over there?’ I pointed to a couple of people hanging around outside the diner.

            ‘Looks like a couple of muso bums to me’, Charlie said. ‘Par for the course on Sunset Junction, man’. He was probably right. Sunset Junction was a hive for musical activity and its roots had spawned several bands on the alternative scene in the eighties and nineties. I seem to remember reading somewhere that a couple of members of Faith No More, who had been big before they split up several years ago, started off here.

            ‘What do you think, man, should we take it?’ Charlie wanted to move.

            ‘Yeah, let’s do it. Looks clear’, I agreed, ‘Let’s move!’ We had backup on the way but I didn’t think we had time to wait for them as we had only just given our position. A few minutes might make all the difference to Stella.

            It took only thirty seconds to reach the phone box, and in truth we had no reason to suspect it was safe; for all we knew there could have been another bomb hooked up to the damn thing.

            Charlie remained on the phone’s parameter, circling, looking for any possible threat. I looked inside; there must be something there for us.

            Sure enough, I was right. A pager was taped behind the phone; no doubt the same pager that had activated the bomb earlier this morning.

             ‘Careful Patton, careful’, Charlie advised from the outside. I didn’t say anything, I just nodded. Charlie opened the door, though there was no way that the phone box would hold us both.

            ‘Just looks like a normal pager to me’, I said, ‘but we’ll get Fergs to check it out. Maybe there’s something on it?’ I passed the pager to Charlie who after a quick check, came back with the same verdict.

            ‘Let’s see if Ferguson can work some more of his magic’, he shrugged. ‘You sure there’s nothing else?’

            ‘Well we’ll dust the box for prints when forensics get here, but there’s nothing else left here’, I informed him. ‘Goddamn it’, I slammed my fist into the side of the phone box, venting my frustration. What time we on? How long we got left?’

            ‘It’s just gone eleven,’ Charlie checked. ‘Just under nineteen hours left’, he quickly calculated.

            Just as he said that, the phone began to ring.

28

Last week

            Cyprian Hague sat in his spacious black BMW, parked back in the driveway of Getty House. He sat for a moment in silence, his brow furrowed deeply, looking in wonder at the unopened file he had picked up from Nick Tanner just over half an hour ago. He had wanted to remain inconspicuous; so thought that heading straight back was the safer decision, rather than risk being seen outside the LAPD, even though he had taken the a seldom used back entrance, conveniently located right next to the Video and Imagery department. Nick Tanner had come through for him, just as promised. He didn’t know if that was purely out of friendship, but he suspected not. Somewhere down the line, he would be repaying the favour, no doubt. It never hurt to have the Mayor of Los Angeles owe you one, did it?

            Taking a deep breath, and quickly glancing out of the car windows, despite being in the relative safety of his own grounds, he sliced open the envelope.

            It took several moments to wade through its contents. There were several photos of the guards’ untimely demise and Hague visibly shuddered as he viewed them; it looked very nasty indeed. One of the guards had been lying in a pool of blood so large, that the actual scale of the photograph had to be indicated on the back, and that was frightening. It looked like Caldwell was a particularly violent and deranged individual. That made Hague look around once more, aware of his ever-increasing paranoia he shook his head. Still, something was not right; he desperately tried to think back to the meeting and what Burr and McCrane had told them.

            All of a sudden, it hit him. So much so, that he actually asked the question out loud. ‘Animi. When the time is right, I will come for you all. The writing in blood on the wall. Of course. Where is
that
?’

            Another quick flick through the contents of the file confirmed that despite the graphic and unsettling nature of the pictures, there was not one of writing on any wall, in blood or otherwise. There should be though; everything else was here. Why wouldn’t that be in here?

            Pulling out his cell, he hit redial and connected straight back through to Nick Tanner. ‘Hey Nick, its Cyprian’.

            ‘Cyprian, hi’, Tanner replied. ‘I wasn’t expecting to hear from you again so soon. Is everything ok?’

            ‘Thanks once again for the favour Nick, you really pulled one out of the bag for me there. Listen, are you sure that was everything? I mean, there’s no way you could have missed something out?’

            ‘Absolutely not’, Tanner sounded almost offended, as if his professional integrity was being called into question. ‘Everything I have here, you have a copy of there. Everything’. Well if Tanner was sure, that was good enough for him. Tanner was one of the most methodical and thorough people he had ever known or worked with.

            ‘Ok, no problem, Nick. Just checking. Thanks again’.

            ‘Ok Cyprian, see you soon’, Tanner replied, then hung up.

            It didn’t make sense. The photos should be there. There would be no reason for them not to be.

            He sat, stroking his chin with his thumb, carefully considering the possibilities. None made any sense.

            It was one of the many strict, unwritten rules of the Animi that contact between its members should be kept to a minimum to avoid any ties between them ever being established. Their paths would cross naturally in their day to day business, of course, some more than others, but other than in the natural line of duty, communication between them all was very much discouraged. Nevertheless, Hague was somewhat puzzled and thought that this could certainly be classed as an exception. He picked up the cell once more, dialling a number. It rang twelve times times.

            ‘Hello’, a voice said.

            Contact, although discouraged, had at times been necessary in times of severe emergency; times where an urgent phone call was needed to relay information between them, particularly if one or more were in transit. Each member of the Animi had taken the name of an Oscar winning actor as a pseudonym so that they could speak anonymously, avoiding their real names. You never knew when someone might be listening, who really shouldn’t be. He had picked Robert De Niro.

            ‘Mr. Brando, hello’, Hague replied. ‘It’s Robert De Niro’.

            ‘Mr De Niro, this is highly irregular. I trust this is important?’

            ‘It is. At least I think it is, I’m not sure’, Hague responded.

            ‘Go on’.

            ‘Cast your mind back to our last meeting. Our friend who escaped, yes?’

            ‘Yes’

            ‘And how they escaped, yes?’

            ‘Yes’.

            ‘I have copies of all the photographic evidence relating to the escape’.

            ‘And?’

            ‘There’s no writing on the wall in blood. None at all.’

            ‘But the guards were killed?’

            Yes they were’.

            There was a silence on the phone for a minute which suggested Mr. Brando was compiling the information he’d just received, and what it could mean.

            ‘Well then Mr. De Niro, we could have a problem’, Brando contemplated. ‘I suggest we meet. Shall we say usual place, usual time, tomorrow?’

            ‘I think that would be a prudent move on our part Mr Brando’, Hague replied, then terminated the call.

            He didn’t feel any better than he had done before he’d called his compatriot, but at least it was someone to bounce ideas off. Maybe figure out why there had been no photos on file of the message from The Chemist on the kitchen wall of the safe house. And maybe figure out why McCrane and Burr had told them there was one.

29

            For several seconds both of us were transfixed by the ringing telephone and it was Charlie who spoke first. ‘That
must
be for us, man. It
has
to be!’ he said. I concurred.

            I pointed to my eyes with two fingers then to outside, signalling to Charlie that he should keep watch; be extra vigilant. If this was The Chemist, then we were probably being watched. Anything could happen. I took a deep breath, composing myself, and then another. Eventually, I picked up the telephone, bringing the receiver cautiously to my ear. ‘This is Patton’, I said, straining to pick up any background noise, any clue to The Chemist’s location.

            It was the voice I’d heard three times before. An eerie, almost electronic sounding voice, obviously disguised with some kind of digital effect. Did that mean I would recognise the voice if I heard it undisguised? That had been a question that had been rattling around the inside of my head for several weeks.

            ‘Good morning, Detective Patton,’ the voice said, ‘and also good morning to Detective Holland’. I would fill Charlie in after the call, for now he was where he needed to be.

            ‘Well you’ve got our attention’, I replied. Although The Chemist had called us, I had to drag out this conversation. I could see Charlie already on his cell outside the phone box, hastily trying to authorise a trace on the call.

            ‘I’m sure I have’, the voice sounded cold, all the more so for its mechanical tone. ‘But I have not even
started
yet. I’m glad I have this opportunity to speak to you, I was afraid we wouldn’t get to talk. I wasn’t sure if you would make it this far, but you haven’t disappointed me’.

            ‘Glad to hear it’, I could think of nothing else to say.

            ‘And poor Stella’, The Chemist continued, ‘Time is just ticking away, isn’t it?’

            ‘Tell me where she is’. I knew it was futile at best. Still, I had to try. ‘Where’s Stella?’