Tom let out a sigh as he turned down the volume. “What was the name of that guy you ran into again?”
“Frankie,” Hank replied sourly.
“Right, Frankie. So, are you thinking what I’m thinking about all this?”
“Depends on what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking your buddy, Frankie, knows a little bit about what happened to Wendy. Maybe he knows those two soldiers…personally.”
Hank nodded, holding the glass of milk out for Penelope. “The thought crossed my mind.” He hadn’t told Tom about recognizing Reese. Not yet, at least. He wanted to get Tom’s take on things, a fresh perspective, not one clouded with eight years of emotional baggage.
Penelope smiled as she took the glass, then gulped it down like a child. Hank grinned and sat in the chair next to the heater, groaning as he sank into the cushions.
“We need to work on that. The only problem is, I need to go see my brother.”
“Why don’t you just type an email to him on your phone.”
“Text,” Tom corrected. “I jacked the battery. I don’t want anyone tracking us. It’ll look like I ran out of juice, but only for a little while. I need to get back to town.”
“Okay,” Hank said, a little leery of the idea. Even Penelope stopped stuffing her face with sweet rolls to narrow her eyes at him.
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Tom said, leaning forward and turning off the television with the remote. “I’ll take the Jeep back and pretend I came over on the tug. It lands in half an hour. I can make that if I leave now.”
“It’s over thirty miles,” Hank pointed out.
“I’ll speed. Don’t worry. Once I get there, I’ll call my brother and have dinner with him. He’ll check me into a hotel, I’ll tell him I’m exhausted, I’ll call my dad,” he added, acting put upon by the thought, “then I’ll come get you two and bring you back into town.”
“Yeah, and then what?”
Tom seemed taken aback by the question. Even Penelope straightened like a puppy hearing an unexpected sound.
“Your brother’s going to want to come into your room. You can’t hide us in there.”
Tom sighed. He realized what Hank meant. Penelope wasn’t supposed to be on this side of the channel. The whole reason Tom went through the dunking booth earlier was to get her over here without anyone knowing.
Penelope looked at Tom imploringly.
“Shit,” he whispered.
“Besides, we already have a room right here. We can just hunker down for the night, and you call us later. We’ll figure it out from there.”
“Yeah, but,” Tom said, and looked at Penelope. “I mean, what about—?”
Penelope’s head tilted as she stared into his eyes curiously. She made a few gestures with her hand, the last pushing against him. “Go,” she rasped. She pointed at Hank and made a couple of other signs.
“What’s that?” Hank asked.
“She says she’ll keep an eye on you for me,” Tom said with a grin.
Hank chuckled. “Alright, I can handle that. Look, there’s a convenience store a couple blocks down the street. Kitty and I can get some more sweet rolls and we’ll be fine for one night.”
Penelope brightened, nodding.
Tom took Penelope’s hand and squeezed it gently. “Are you going to be—?”
“Go,” Penelope rasped again.
Twenty-Four
Hank stood at the counter of the convenience store, looking over his shoulder from time to time to make sure Penelope was okay, but paying more attention to the clerk, who was holding Hank’s phone sideways. Penelope walked cautiously up and down the aisles, poking at the plastic packages, feeling most of them for the first time, sniffing some to try to get a sense of what things were. She opened and closed the refrigerated doors to touch the bottles and cans. Hank worried she might break something expensive. He wasn’t exactly flush with cash.
“Looks like you’ve got a data plan,” the clerk said encouragingly.
“It’s a burner. I didn’t know,” Hank reiterated.
The clerk smiled. “So, what’s the name of this guy you’re looking for?”
“Hey, Kitty,” Hank said, snapping his fingers. “Don’t touch that. Hot.”
The clerk gave Hank a questioning eye.
“She’s from Nepal,” Hank explained. It was a good enough lie, quick enough to sound real. The clerk probably didn’t know where Nepal was. Hell, Hank was fuzzy on that one himself.
“Oh,” the clerk said, nodding and ignoring her.
“Cory Smith,” Hank said.
The clerk used his thumbs to quickly tap in the name. Hank leaned over the counter, watching closely. He didn’t want to be a know-nothing, old man like he was feeling. Technology had made a massive leap forward in eight years.
“That’s not going to be enough,” the clerk said. “Got anything else? You know where he lives?”
“Boston. At least he used to. He went to English High School, if that helps.”
“Might. Depends on his social media presence.”
“Social what?”
The clerk smiled again and tapped some more. He squinted in concentration, swiping his thumb up and down the screen. Things whooshed by, and Hank wondered how the clerk made any sense of it. “Okay, here’s a photo,” the clerk said, turning the phone toward Hank. “That him?”
Sure as shit was. Thick, curly black hair peppered with silver, dark skin, dark eyes, a mean disposition even though he was smiling in the photo. He was the kind of guy you just knew not to fuck with. Hank loved that about him. Best right-hand man anyone could ask for. Damned good man in charge, too.
Penelope stepped up beside them and dumped five boxes of sweet rolls onto the counter as well as another quarter gallon jug of milk.
“Dinner, huh?” Hank asked.
Penelope nodded, grinning.
“You got enough money to pay for all that?”
Penelope shot him an inquisitive look.
“Two,” Hank said, holding up two fingers. He wasn’t made of money. Was this what it was like having kids? “Just two.”
Penelope scowled, but Hank was already looking at the phone in the clerk’s hand. “That’s him. How’d you do that?”
The clerk showed him how to bring up the browser and type in a search, then tapped the photo again to show how easy it was—that was easy? He tapped the back button to lookup more information about Cory. All the while, Penelope watched over Hank’s shoulder as Hank leaned across the counter to follow along with what the clerk was doing.
“His profile says he’s living in Richmond now.”
“Does it show a phone number?”
“No.” The clerk laughed as if the question were preposterous. “Nobody puts that sort of information on the web. If you had a Facebook account, you could send him a message. Do you have a Facebook account?”
“Is that part of the phone?”
The clerk chuckled.
Twenty-Five
Hank’s cell phone rang, scaring both him and Penelope. The volume was way up, and he’d never heard the ringer before. As his heart thumped wildly and he rushed to the nightstand to grab the thing, he realized that he was living through an entirely new experience exactly as Penelope was. She glared at it suspiciously, at first, and as Hank picked it up, she recognized it for what it was, too.
Hank tapped at the green circle on the phone’s screen, but it rang again. “Come on, how do you answer—?” He pressed hard with his thumb. “Piece of—”
Penelope crawled over the bed and swiped her finger across the screen, dragging the green circle toward the center. The phone stopped ringing and the screen displayed a call was in progress.
“Huh,” Hank said, taking a second to realize that a zombie girl had just schooled him on the use of a telephone. “Hello,” he said, holding the thing to his ear.
“Hank,” came the caller’s voice. It wasn’t posed as a question.
Hank recogn
ized Tom’s voice. “What’s up?”
“Is Penny alright?”
“We’re fine,” Hank said as he walked toward the television. He walked past it as he turned it off. “She’s showing me how to use my phone. How’d your meeting with your brother go? Did you call your dad?”
“Yeah. First thing he wanted to know was where Penelope was.”
“Did you tell him?”
“No,” Tom replied tersely. “I changed the subject. Look, I’m thinking we should meet up tomorrow night. My dad’s here. In town. Big press conference in the morning. The usual shit. He’s unveiling Larissa, I think.”
Hank began pacing. “What about Wendy?”
“I didn’t get any answers about what happened to her. My dad changed the subject.”
“Well, crap. I’d sure like to know what they’re planning to do with her. I mean, she’s a good woman. The only reason she’s involved in any of that shit is because she didn’t die at Rock Island with everyone else. That’s not fair.”
“I agree. Hey, I did manage to get my brother talking about that Reese guy. He’s not military.”
“Yeah, I know,” Hank admitted. “Look, I didn’t get to tell you earlier. I wanted your opinion on things, and then you shot out of here like a cannon, so we didn’t get to finish talking about him. I actually know the guy. Knew him, I mean.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Hank stopped pacing in front of the window. He leaned against the wall and pulled the curtain back a little to look out at the parking lot. He didn’t know what he expected to see. It was just an ordinary hotel parking lot, except the Jeep wasn’t there anymore.
“That guy Frankie?” Hank said. “He hired Reese for a job once. I’m thinking they’ve done work together a few times since.”
“Did Frankie mention him when you ran into him?”
Hank let the curtain go and began pacing again. “It didn’t come up. I was trying to stay off his radar, not attract more attention. I just let Frankie do most of the talking.”
“Okay,” Tom said. “Interesting. Look, I’m going to text you the plan as I come up with it. Text me back with anything.”
“Why not just call?”
“I’m not going to be anyplace I can talk. I can text and not worry about anyone overhearing me. I might change things as I learn more from my dad and Gary.”
“Alright,” Hank said, a little uncertain about how it was going to work. He wasn’t even sure if he was going to be able to read the texts when Tom sent them.
“Can you put Penny on the line? I want to talk to her.”
“Sure,” Hank said. He held the phone to Penelope. “He wants to talk to you.”
Penelope sat upright and snatched the phone out of Hank’s hand, immediately pressing it to her ear. “Hell low,” she rasped. Tom had been teaching her words and phrases for some time now, things to say and when. She was quick at figuring things out, too, so it was no wonder she had the phone thing down. Of course, it helped that Tom was one of the only people on the EPS who was actually allowed to have one.
Penelope listened intently, nodding as though Tom could see her. Hank continued to pace. Being stuck with Penelope another day didn’t seem like too much trouble, but he was running low on cash. He needed to get to his stash in Boston, and soon. And he needed to call Captain Palmer’s mother, which was something he wanted to do when he was alone.
Penelope tapped the phone to hang it up and held the phone out to Hank, smiling.
“What’d he say?”
Penelope raised an eyebrow. Like she could tell him. Well, she could tell him, but he’d never understand a thing she said with her hands.
“Alright, fine. Never mind.” He took the phone and looked at it, wondering if he needed to do anything to make it go off or hang up all the way. The phone chimed and vibrated in his hand, startling him again. A little window at the top appeared saying he had an email. “That was fast,” Hank said, thinking Tom must have started typing something the moment Penelope hung up on him, but then he noticed the sender. Facebook.
Cory Williams Smith has sent you a message.
Hank straightened, staring at the phone and wondering what he had to do to read it.
Twenty-Six
The message disappeared from the top of the screen by the time Hank was done reading what little of it the phone let him see. Finding the Facebook app wasn’t easy. He only had a couple of apps on the front screen, and he hadn’t really figured out how to slide from one screen to the next.
“How the heck—?” Hank asked, fumbling with the device. He held it out for Penelope. “Can you get the Facebook thingy to show up?”
Penelope shrugged, licking her fingers to get the sticky sweet roll off of them, then took the phone. She squinted in concentration, swept her fingers around a few times, then held her finger up high for effect, zoomed it at the icon on the screen, and made a muffled explosion sound as she tapped it. She smiled as she handed the phone back.
“Thanks,” Hank said blandly. She obviously watched too much television to have this kind of a sense of humor already.
The screen showed him the brief version of the message and he tapped it to see more.
For real!!! Is it really you? I thought you fell off the world and died you son of a bithc. If your back your damned right we need to talk. You can reach me nite or day at…
A phone number! Hot damned. About time.
Call me. Lets talk.
Hank grabbed the hotel pen and wrote the number down on their scratch pad in a hurry. He wasn’t sure whether or not his phone would remember it, or if he could bring up the message again later.
“Hot damn,” he said to Penelope. When she raised an eye at him, he figured he should explain himself. “My old pal Cory gave me his number. He used to work with that guy on the TV that tried to shoot Wendy, too. He may have an idea about what’s going on. Maybe give me the skinny on what the hell Frankie’s been up to.”
Penelope shrugged, her eyebrows lifting in a “worth a shot” gesture.
“I can’t wait until you can string a sentence together,” Hank said as he looked between his phone and the scratch pad to make sure he was dialing the number right. “That’ll be the day.”
“Where,” Penelope said, the word sounding as though she were out of breath, just like all the rest. “Is. The. Bath. Room.”
Hank looked up. She raised an eyebrow at him, curling one lip in a satisfied grin.
“Funny,” Hank said. He pressed the call button and put the phone to his ear. “Now shut up. I’m on the phone.” He shot her a wink.
She chuckled, which was a little eerie because her voice was so low and throaty to begin with.
“Yo,” came the voice on the other end of the phone. Hank recognized it at once. Cory Smith. He had one of those distinctive, deep voices that would scare anyone in a dark alley.
“Cory. It’s Hank.”
Cory started laughing. “Holy shit, man. Back from the dead!”
Hank wasn’t sure how to take that, but he smiled and chuckled. When Cory was upbeat, it was infectious. “Yup. Feeling like it, too.”
“Wait a minute, what’s this number? When did you get it?”
“It’s a burner,” Hank replied. He kind of liked the word. It described what he wanted to do to the phone most of the time. “Just got it yesterday.”
Cory laughed again. “A burner. What, are you running a meth lab or something?”
“Huh?”
“What?”
There was a moment of silence as the thread of that conversation died uncomfortably.
“Hey,” Hank started. “I just got back over yesterday. I’m trying to get resituated. I was going to head back into Boston to get all my stuff. I thought we could—”
“I’m in Richmond now, man,” Cory interrupted.
“Well, I’m in Kentucky. Thought I’d swing by on the way, if you’ve got time?”
“Sure, sure. I mean, I’ve got to be at work and
all, but I can swing a long lunch, or maybe we can go out for some beers in the evening.”
“A few beers sounds good. I’m sort-of stuck here for another day or so helping a guy out, so can we rain check?”
“You’re already rain checking me? We’ve been talking for three minutes, and you’re already rain checking me?”
“Come on,” Hank grumbled. “We didn’t make any plans yet.”
“You just said rain check. You rain checked me.”
“Ah, seriously?”
There was a brief silence. Hank felt bad. He used to make plans with Cory all the time and work got in the way. It was why Cory had a wife and kids and a life outside of the job and Hank didn’t.
“I’m fucking with you, man,” Cory said, letting Hank off the hook with a chuckle.
Hank sighed. “You had me going for a second.”
“Didn’t I?”
“You sure as shit did.”
“Well, anyway, you’re buying. You still owe me for the last time you stood me up.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Hank said dismissively. “Let me give you a call when I leave for Richmond and we can set things up.”
“Okay. That sounds good.”
Hank looked at Penelope, who was watching him with more interest than the muted television. Hank was pacing again, walking back and forth in front of the screen, looking down as the news scrawl showed a note about Senator Jefferson to hold a press conference in the morning about his daughter.
“Hey, Cory,” Hank said seriously. “Did you see that shit on TV with the doctor?”
There was another brief silence. “I was wondering when you were going to ask.”
“That was Tony Reese, right? I mean, I wasn’t seeing things.”
“No, no. You got it right, man.”
“Shit,” Hank said, sighing. “What the hell are we going to—?”
“What do you mean we, white man?” Cory said, sounding as serious as a heart attack. “I ain’t saying shit to anyone, and if you’re smart, you’ll do the same.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You heard their call signs. Brick? Brokenrock? Come on. That ain’t coincidence.”
Plagued States of America (Book 5): Plagued [The Angel Rise Zombie Retribution Experiment] Page 10
