Urban Renewal (30 page)

CROSS WAS
alone with Tiger in the back office of the Double-X. “Something’s going on,” he said.

“What?”

“You remember that job I got shanghaied into? The one where you visited me in the MCC?”

“I’m not likely to forget that.”

“That … brand they put on me. The little one right—”

“Here?” Tiger said, touching the spot with a blood-red fingernail.

“Yeah. I don’t know what I’m even saying with ‘they.’ It’s not like I ever actually
saw
anything.”

“You told me—”

“That wasn’t a thing, Tiger. It was a … presence of some kind. We tried to put a name to it, but there isn’t any.”

“Well, it’s gone now.”

“No, it’s not. That little blue thing, you can
see
it when it shows up. I can’t, not even in the mirror. But I can
feel
it. And I felt it when I was talking with Mike Mac this morning. Twice.”

“You don’t think—?”

“It’s got to mean something. And that ‘Taylor’ girl, she was on somebody’s payroll, no question about that. Only we never got to ask her.”

“You should have put me on it.”

“On Arabella, you were the perfect choice. But that ‘Taylor’ girl was on a
lot
of payrolls, I’m thinking.”

“More than the feds?”

“I’m … not sure. They’d be the logical ones, sure. They don’t know what went wrong on that last operation, but they know I’m the only one left they could question about it.”

“What about me? Or Tracker?”

“You hired on, remember? Probably got told some fairy tale to get you to do it. And they would’ve made the money
good enough, too. But you weren’t
there
. Not when it … happened. Blondie and Wanda, either they’ve been pumped and dumped—which is my best guess—or they’re still on a payroll, only further down the ladder. Percy, that guy’s barely human, but he’d be loyal to death—he’d tell them everything he knew. Which would tally with anything
anyone
could tell them, right up to the moment they sent me in.”

“So they’ll need a handle this time? To get you to talk to them, I mean.”

“No,” Cross said, lighting a smoke. “Those guys color outside the lines all the time, but what could they use? Prison? I’ve been there. They couldn’t keep me when I was a kid, and I got a lot more resources now.”

“But if you make it out, what then? You couldn’t take your people with you.”

“I wouldn’t let them. I could disappear, but where would I hide Rhino and Princess? Buddha and Ace, they’re tied to Chicago. They could get money to me, and I wouldn’t need any more than that to stay invisible.”

“They could lock you down so deep that—”

“Sure. And that gets them … what?” Cross said, hitting his cigarette lightly again. “They already know any story I felt like telling them, it’d slide right past their polygraphs. And there’s no such thing as escape-proof. If one guy can build it, another guy can break it.”

“Maybe …”

Cross took a last, quick drag, rubbed out his cigarette in the crystal ashtray on the desk. “There’s one thing they can never stop me from doing, Tiger. One thing I can always do, no matter what.”

“Tell me,” the Amazon said, her eyes telegraphing that she really wanted to know.

“I can die trying.”

“
YOU THINK
those … you think they want payback, boss?”

“I told you what happened down in that prison basement, brother. If … whatever it is wanted to just take me off the count, they could do it anytime they felt like it.”

“But when that little thing on your face turns blue, you can feel it burn, right?”

“Yeah.”

“A message, maybe?”

“I think it’s more like a GPS, only a million times better. No matter where I go, they can find me. Fingerprints, mug shots, they’re way past stuff like that.”

“Maybe
that’s
the message.”

“Maybe.…”

“What, boss?”

“If that’s the message, I got it. I hope you’re right, Buddha. But it just doesn’t … feel like that’s it. I can’t tell you any more than that—I don’t know any more than what I said.”

“Many died inside that prison,” Tracker said, speaking slowly, as if working out a problem as he went along. “Whatever was doing the killing, it might have been random at first. But as it worked its way to where you and the others were waiting to try and capture it, there was no more random. A
choice
was made.”

“You’re saying, it made a decision to let me live?”

“It seems so.”

“Why the hell would it—?”

Tracker shrugged at Buddha’s question, indicating he’d already said all he had to say. All he knew.

The three men were silent for a long minute. Then Princess burst into the back room of Red 71.

“Buddha! You said we were going to go racing again. As soon as that other thing was over. You promised!”

Buddha took a deep breath to emphasize his patience.

“Sweetie wants to go, too!”

“Naturally.”

“Can’t we go—?”

“Princess,” Cross said, gently, “you know there’s no daytime racing.”

“Well … Sure. But it’s been—”

“Saturday night’s the money night,” Buddha explained for at least the tenth time. “That’s when the cops are busiest, handling heavier business. And the racing, it’s flash-mob style now, too. The location doesn’t go out until an hour or two before.”

“This is Thursday,” Princess said.

Buddha again took a deep breath.

“So maybe this Saturday, huh, Buddha?”

“Fine,” Buddha snapped. “This Saturday, okay? But not until at least after midnight.”

“That would be Sunday, then.”

“Will you—?”

“That’s right, Princess,” Cross cut Buddha off, possibly averting a disaster. “But people who go out Saturday night still think it’s Saturday even when they stay out real late, see?”

“Oh. Then we’ll be here at midnight on Saturday, right, Buddha?”

“Swell.”

“
WHAT THE
hell am I supposed to do with—?”

“Just take him along. What’s the big deal?”

“No big deal at all. Unless somebody ‘starts something.’ Then I’d need a few rounds from a ten-gauge tranq-out gun to slow down that maniac. And that dog … damn!”

“They don’t have to get out of the car.”

“But they
could
. And don’t even
think
about me bringing Rhino, too. He might calm down the psycho, but I’m adding—what?—another half-ton of weight. Which nobody’s gonna credit me for.”

“You don’t have to
win
the damn race, Buddha.”

“They don’t play for fun out there, boss.”

“It’s just money. We’ve got plenty. Tell you what: you put up a G—that’s plenty, right? I’ll pay it myself. You win, keep the cash, and just pay me back what I put up. You don’t, forget about it, okay? No way you can lose a dime.”

“Boss, it’s gonna
cost
a lot more than a grand just to run. I got to rewrap the car—somebody might recognize it.”

“How much?”

“There isn’t enough,” Tracker said.

Cross turned his head slightly in Tracker’s direction.

“Amen,” Buddha said.

Cross didn’t change position.

“It is not in Buddha to lose,” Tracker said, quietly. “Cheating to win would work for him. But cheating to lose, that would not be in Buddha’s spirit.”

“Just say a number,” Cross sighed.

“That’s okay, boss. Tracker just gave me a great idea.”

THE SHARK CAR
rolled into the gathering on the outskirts of the Badlands, now wrapped in a coat of pearlescent orange, with tiny fish scales embedded to catch any ambient light.

“When do we—?”

“Will you
please
remember what I told you? I got to
make
a race before we
get
a race. You know I got to talk to people to do that. And you know what
you’re
supposed to do. Okay?”

“Okay,” Princess said, just short of sulking. “But we
are
gonna—”

Buddha was out of the car and moving toward the gathering before Princess could finish whatever he was going to say.

“
WHO YOU
think you’re talking to, some fool who wants to race on TV?” Buddha said to a tall man who was standing at the front of a refrigerator-white Mustang, arms crossed to emphasize his heavy-investment biceps. “I’m supposed to believe this is your daily driver, right? Why? Because it’s got plates on it? Sure. Those headlights pop right out, don’t they? How else are you gonna feed those turbos you got under there?”

“I don’t run a lot of boost, so I can drive to work and all.”

“You got your laptop boys handy—you can dial up any boost you want. And those fittings out back, say you’re
not
gonna snap in a set of wheelie bars before you go? And that
means leaving
on
that boost; otherwise, you wouldn’t need them.”

“I’m not trying to get over on anyone,” the man said. “My car is
known
, pal. Where’s yours?”

“Right over there.”

“
That?
The orange one?”

“Yeah.”

“And you want to go for …?”

“Whatever you show.”

“I can show five G’s, if
that’s
what you want.”

“If that’s all you
got
, sure.”

Buddha walked back to the Shark Car, with the Mustang man and at least a dozen others in his wake.

“How much does that thing weigh?”

“Over seven.”

“Get the hell out of—”

“Well, that’s with me in it. And my passenger.”

“That must be some passenger.”

“Tap on the window,” Buddha invited. “See for yourself.”

The Mustang’s owner took up the challenge, tapping the window with the knuckles of his right fist.

The glass zipped down.

“Hi!” Princess said, extending his hand.

The Mustang’s owner stepped back, not interested in letting whatever in hell
that
was grab his hand. Then a warning growl came from a black-faced beast that popped its head out the same window. The entire crowd moved back.

“Want to see more?” Buddha asked.