Shift: Infected, #5, page 39
“You shouldn’t have to.”
Dylan angrily yanked on a T-shirt, unaware that he had just pulled on one of Roan’s Pansy Division shirts. (Not that he cared, it just seemed funny at the moment.) “Are you picking a fight? Do you want to leave me, is that it?”
“I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“That something’s going to happen to you because of me. If it did, I’d hate myself for the rest of my life. There wouldn’t be enough drugs to make it go away.”
Dylan’s annoyed expression collapsed into one of bruised sympathy. “Oh, honey, nothing’s going to happen to me. And if it does, it’s not your fault.” He leaned over him, cupped his face in his hands, and kissed him softly, on the forehead, the lips, trying to soothe him. It was very sweet of him. Too bad it wouldn’t work. Dylan then stared him straight in the eyes, as if trying to will his certainty into him, and said, “Okay?”
“Okay,” he agreed, pretending to mean it. Well, he did mean it, he just didn’t believe it.
That was the problem with caring. It left you vulnerable, open on one side to the most hideous pain imaginable, and the only antidote was to stop giving a shit, but how did you do that? How did you turn it all off? He thought if he numbed himself with enough meds he could fake it, but that turned out to be wrong. He always thought he was more cynical than this, more inured to it all. Obviously, that was just something he wanted to believe.
After Dylan left, he forced himself to get up and went to the bathroom to dig a couple of pills out of his hidden stash. He took them without knowing what they were, but he guessed codeine from the shape. He then went to the closet and felt around for a box on the upper shelf until he brushed it with his fingertips. He pulled down the cherrywood case with the simple locking mechanism and opened it to make sure it was all there. It was: the Glock 26 Subcompact handgun, which had great advantages in being small enough to easily conceal and yet also had a ten-round magazine, as well as not being a piece of shit like your usual Saturday night special. Holden had already told him he’d be dropping by after his “gig,” so Roan put the case and a spare ammo clip aside, figuring he’d be here long before Dylan came back.
He got his own HK P2000 SK out of the drawer he kept it in, and because he hadn’t used it for a while, he got the cleaning kit out of the back of the closet and got to work on it. He spread an old towel on the floor so he didn’t get any oil on the carpet.
As he cleaned the gun, feeling oddly phallic doing it in nothing but boxers (but hey, it was probably appropriate), he wondered why he was bothering. If he went through with this, would he ever even pull the gun out? If he unleashed the lion, clawing back to his own humanity would be difficult if not impossible. And the lion should be able to get things done. Well, in theory.
He found himself thinking of that Jane Doe Dropkick had told him about, the seventeen-year-old girl found in a ditch in Spokane, possibly tied to this case. Her family was never going to know her fate, never going to know she was rotting in a Potter’s field in another country, and his resolve hardened, turning his shaky nerves to concrete. She was found but never identified; what about those who had never even been found? What about all of them? Someone had to do something on their behalf. No one said it had to be him, but who else was there?
He just hoped that, if Dylan ever found out about it, he would forgive him.
20
Red Line Season
THE next couple of days were purely devoted to getting ready for the sting on the snuff guy’s place. It felt like a sting operation, only he wasn’t a cop anymore; he was going in alone. Yes, Holden would be there, but he was bait, the undercover guy in the room. It was all on him alone to ingress, to get in without getting Holden killed. He still had no idea how many people he’d be dealing with, or what manner of security precautions. It was all guesswork, therefore inherently impossible to plan for, and yet here he was trying. Was this another definition of insanity?
He arranged many things. He made sure Tank and Grey knew he needed Dylan and Fiona protected on that day (night) especially and arranged a car. He couldn’t use either muscle car for the tail—they were too noticeable—but renting a car might not be a great idea. Some of them could be traced and mileage would be noted. But he still knew the guys at the auto yards that Paris had known, and he managed to arrange to pick up a car from them, a fairly anonymous ’02 Honda that was due to get torn up for parts once he was done with it. As soon as he returned it, it would be reduced to scrap. This guy in particular, Jorge, didn’t ask why he wanted the car, nor what he planned to do with it; he knew Roan was a detective and figured it was a “detective thing.” All Jorge asked was that he pay for the car if he couldn’t return it, which seemed fair enough.
Roan realized he was taking way too many pills, but he felt it was probably insurance. He would be on a minimum of pills during the tail because he wanted to be as sharp as possible. That still meant a couple of pills because he was remarkably functional on pills, but not the really heavy ones. Tylenol codeine, maybe. Of course, he’d have a bottle of Percocet standing by for after, because he already guessed he’d be in so much pain he’d be moving like he was full of broken bones and acidic blood.
Gordo told him the white supremacist link was confirmed, at least between the guys that had come after him and the shooter at the church. They were a little fringe group, and they had some kind of online hate page where they preached the usual bullshit about the Bible coming out against the children of Satan (which supposedly infecteds were), with the added tinge of racism. (The infecteds would “dilute” the snowy white Aryan bloodline—like that was a bad thing with these particular inbred morons.) Roan couldn’t help but ask how they could think he would pollute anyone’s bloodline, as he was one hundred percent gay and had no intention of being a breeder, but Gordo couldn’t answer that one. He admitted this had occurred to him as well and just assumed they meant viral infection or something along those lines, but again, that didn’t make a lot of sense, unless they expected him to buttfuck their members any time soon. (And while he was flattered they would think of him, he had no interest in their flabby, spotty behinds.)
Dylan knew something was going on, but of course Roan couldn’t tell him what, and they fought a bit, although not as much as he'd honestly anticipated. So that’s why he decided to entertain Dylan’s suggestion that he actually do an interview with this guy who had both called and e-mailed him. His name was Aidan Lambert, and apparently, he wrote for some magazine Roan had never heard of. He was doing an article on ten people whom he felt were changing the world but were as of yet relatively obscure, and he wanted to throw Roan in the mix. He thought he was trying to be funny (sarcastic?), but then the guy reeled off facts Roan already knew, but that were still surprising to hear. Roan was the first (known) fully functional virus child, the first openly infected police officer in the United States (really? The entire country?), was the oldest living infected to date (tell him about it), and was the only person recognized legally as a bloodhound (okay, he didn’t say “bloodhound,” but that was the gist) due to his superior and measurable sense of smell. Aidan explained that he knew the infecteds didn’t have an actual organized group, but if they did, he was pretty sure he’d be their leader, because who better?
What a weird thought. Here he was, preparing to fuck some people up, and this guy was touting him as the leader of the infecteds. If that were actually true, the normals were in so much trouble.
Wait a minute. Weren’t they already?
He told him he’d think about it. He didn’t want to do any interview, but Dylan wanted him to, and the guy did sound weirdly sincere (and he had done his homework, which Roan had to give him credit for). Dylan said it might give fellow infecteds some hope, but if he was supposed to give them hope, they were totally fucked. But then again, they were. Could he make it worse? It was just a weird thing to throw on his “to-do” pile, along with Rosenberg scanning the shit out of him and him and Dylan signing up for the domestic partnership registry.
He prepped the car like he would for any long stakeout: snacks, pills, and liquids, along with a piss bottle, so he didn’t have to make a stop while tailing these guys. Of course, he might have to stop for gas if they went an insanely long way, but he hoped they weren’t traveling that far. He also got a hands-free headset for his phone, so he wouldn’t have to have his cell wedged up against his ear.
He told Dylan he was off on another cheating husband tail and wasn’t sure when he’d be back. Dylan thought nothing of this, as he’d done similar jobs a million times before. He picked Holden up at his place, and as always, Holden looked the part he was assuming. He went with looser jeans with holes in the knee and near the crotch as opposed to tight jeans because they were more comfortable in case a fight broke out, but his shirt was white and skintight and so thin it probably became translucent when wet, and his motocross-style leather jacket said thrift store chic. His biker boots looked expensive, though, and hid the Glock nicely. His almond hair had a calculated bedhead look to it, and as he slumped in the passenger seat, he gave Roan a look of sleepy-eyed seduction. “Do I look like a porno movie manwhore or what?”
“Please don’t tell me you studied for it.”
“No need to study for it. I was born to play this part.”
“That’s what scares me.”
Roan dropped him off two blocks away from the bus station, and they checked phone reception as Holden walked toward the Burger King. It was surprisingly good, which boded well. Roan had to wait a while before a parking spot opened up that had a decent view of the Burger King and the bus station. (He had no idea what the snuff guy’s car would be or which exit he would take, so he had to visually cover the biggest area possible.) Then he settled in to wait, wishing he could listen to an audiobook or something to kill the boredom.
But he didn’t have to wait long. The guys (Roan distinctly heard two different male voices) approached Holden not long after he settled in a window booth, where Roan could clearly see his profile through binoculars. Roan couldn’t get a good look at either man (nor could he hear them clearly; they were too far from Holden and his phone), but he got an impression of young, white, and generic. The three talked for a couple of minutes (he could only hear Holden’s side; it seemed they were setting a price), and then they left. Holden told him they were driving a black Range Rover by acting surprised that was their car and then complimenting it.
Roan watched them drive off, then let a couple cars go before he followed in pursuit. Let them go? Traffic was nuts; he had no hope of pulling out directly behind them anyway.
One guy was sitting closer to Holden than the other. He’d hear snatches of his conversation, a word here or there, and Holden got these guys to talk, so he knew they were in for a long drive. He also knew this guy told Holden (whom he called Fox, of course, because that’s how these guys knew him) to call him “Matt.” No one in that SUV was using their real name; it was a caravan of disingenuousness.
The driver, whoever he was, drove like a fucking lunatic on the freeway. Roan knew he was in for a long drive. Matt lit up a joint and offered some to Holden. Although Roan didn’t think it was a smart thing to do, Holden apparently took him up on the offer. Hopefully he could hold his drugs, as he didn’t need the pot making his reflexes sluggish. It would make sense that they’d give drugs to the victims, though. It would make them more pliable, less likely to realize how dangerous things had become.
The drive was insanely long. In fact, when they hit the mountain passes, Roan realized they were heading to Eastern Washington. Were there two filming sites? A basement is a basement, so if they had one in Eastern Washington and one in Western Washington, who would know? It would allow them to dump bodies in each place as well, hopefully confusing the issue.
Night set in hard, and he almost lost the cell connection on the passes, but it managed to pull itself back from the brink. Holden continued chatting with the guys, asking where they were going, but Matt was evasive—he only said they were going to his uncle's place, since his uncle had moved to Florida. How wonderfully vague. He didn’t even bother to make up a plausible lie! Roan was offended on Holden’s behalf.
Matt and his friend asked Holden how he got the name Fox (no one was under the illusion that they were using real names), and when he told them he got it because he was “smarter than the average bear,” the guys snickered derisively. But Holden snickered too, and all three men were laughing at something different. Matt and the driver were laughing because they knew Holden was going to his death; Holden laughed because he knew what was in store for Matt and the driver.
Once they were through the mountains, Roan found his natural curiosity battling the exhaustion that was settling in. Where could they be headed? Yakima?
At an intersection, the Range Rover ran a red, and Matt said there were never any cops around here anyway, so it didn’t matter. Roan still waited for the green and was wondering how close the house had to be when he saw a glimpse of dark movement out of the corner of his eye. By the time it registered in his brain that it was a car with its lights off running the red, it crashed into him full force.
Roan remembered impact, the sense of sudden force, glass breaking and metal screaming, but then he must have blacked out because he didn’t remember anything until he woke up hanging upside down, looking at the ground through a broken windshield.
He was aching, especially his head, and he was tasting blood, but it was different than the blood he tasted when he changed. (Why, he had no idea. Different concentrations of chemicals? Viral load?) The sound of liquid hitting the dirt and a small hiss told him the radiator was toast. Actually, since it was a Honda, he was surprised there was anything resembling a car left.
He hit the release on the seat belt and braced as it retracted, and he plunged toward the ceiling (now the floor) of the car. He felt the aches throughout his body, but he knew from being injured too many times in his life that nothing was terribly serious. He gathered up the equipment he needed to find Holden and crawled out the shattered passenger window to discover that the Honda had been knocked to a bit of grassy verge about a hundred feet away from the intersection. He looked back at the Honda and saw a distinct U bend to it. How was he walking away from this? Maybe his hybrid life form status was finally doing him some good. Or all the painkillers he was on.
The car that had hit him was sitting half in and half out of the intersection, the driver sitting on the ground beside it, drinking malt liquor from a brown paper bag. The car was a piece of shit Cadillac, old enough to be mostly steel and therefore hardly scratched by impact, mostly primer gray with yellowed ivory peeling off like teeth with bad enamel. “You came outta nowhere, bud,” the guy said. He had long, lank, greasy black hair, which was thinning so much in front it looked like he was wearing a two-part wig with a missing piece. His face was round and pockmarked with acne scars, discolored by broken blood vessels, telling him this man was a career alcoholic, one so deep in addiction that he probably needed to down a keg or two to feel anything. His front teeth were also gone, but he probably didn’t miss them.
“You T-boned my car.”
He looked, his glazed eyes needing a couple of minutes to actually focus. “Really? I don’t remember that at all.”
Roan felt dizzy for a minute, but it passed. He walked over to the Cadillac and peered in. The windshield was cracked, but otherwise the car wasn’t much worse for wear. Keys still dangled in the ignition. “What’s wrong with the car?”
He made a negative noise, sort of shrugged, but it may have been a full body tremor. “Wouldn’t go.”
Had it actually suffered some damage, or was it just stalled or flooded? Only one way to find out. He got in the car, ignoring the overwhelming smell of malt liquor, old puke, and even older fast-food wrappers and body odor that seemed to permeate the vehicle (he wouldn’t be surprised if roaches lived under the front seat), and tried to start it. The engine coughed and died, but he tried again, gently giving it gas. This time the engine sputtered and didn’t exactly roar, but at least cleared its throat and kept going. The man finally noticed and said, “Hey, that’s my car!”
“I’m making a beer run. Want anything?”
As Roan thought, that stopped him. He’d been trying to stand up, but he plopped back down happily, and said, “Hey yeah, pick me up a coupla forties, okay?”
“Gotcha.” The Honda had dead plates, so there was no way it could be traced back to Jorge. He’d just have to pay him for the lost parts.
He drove off, hoping he hadn’t lost too much time on Holden and the snuff guys. And if he had, well, if God existed, it better help them, because nothing else could.
NOW
ROAN ran down toward the sprawling house in the depression of downwinder land, the desert just down from the old nuclear reservation, where the snuff guys had brought Holden for a final performance. He just hoped he wasn’t too late, although he doubted he was. Holden was a survivor, after all, and if anyone could stay alive, it was him.
He had to fight the urge to collapse to all fours, as he felt he could run faster that way. The lion was creeping through him, revealing itself in pain that distorted his bones and twisted his muscles, and as his thinking began to slip sideways, words harder and harder to conceive of, it came out more. The lion thought in concrete terms: blood, rage, hunger. It would be so easy to give in to that, and just about what they deserved.
He parsed the scents, tried to determine how many people were here now, but they were overlaid with so many older scents it was difficult to tell. But he was dealing with at least a dozen; he could smell Holden’s scent here too, leading toward the nondescript ranch-style house. He had just about reached the door when it opened and a man started coming out. “... her. I’ll call her back later, I’m outta smokes.” He turned and saw Roan, but he had only a second, hardly long enough for recognition, before Roan barreled into him and sent him flying back into the house.
