Dead Mann Running (9781101596494)

by Petrucha, Stefan

  “Had enough yet?”

  He tightened his grip, pulled the stone halfway back, then dropped it. Arms hanging, he slumped to the ground, panting. I didn’t tell him, didn’t dare, but he reminded me of me.

  “I liked it better when people just died,” he said.

  “You and me both.”

  Before he caught his breath would probably be a good time to try to talk to him. “Whether or not you want to tell me what you know, you might want to listen to what I do.”

  “Go on,” he said, sounding kind of defeated.

  I walked him through my last few days. I didn’t look at him as I spoke, just rubbed my nails against the rock like it was an emery board. Nails and hair keep growing even after you die. Yeah, in a normal body they stop after a while, but it’s just another way chakz are lucky, I guess.

  I was surprised how much I remembered without my recorder. Poor Misty’s lessons were more useful than I thought. I was also pretty surprised that he didn’t flinch when I brought up the arm.

  How much did he know?

  When I finished, I hoped I could get him to fill in some blanks. “I know you don’t think me or Misty had anything to do with Chester’s death. Half the force saw us being chased. Calling us suspects, putting us on the run, was too insane even for you. So, someone high up had to yank your chain for you to fuck with an investigation into the death of an officer, right?”

  No answer. I rattled off the few possibilities.

  “Our beloved police commissioner McLaurin is a stooge. Mayor Kagan’s in the governor’s pocket, so it’s all six of one, there. Even that slimy crew would be hard-pressed to mess with things this much. If it ever came out, it’d be worse than photos of them chakking up. But someone big wanted a cover story for all the noise, didn’t want anyone else knowing that briefcase was out there before they could get to it. That leaves Rebecca Maruta and the toad. One or another twisted Kagan’s arm, he twisted yours. That explains the cover story and why you weren’t too eager to catch us, otherwise you could have gotten the guard to track my phone. Did you investigate the real culprits or did Kagan make you stop that, too?”

  Booth’s breathing had steadied. I vaguely remembered what it felt like to take long, steady breaths. “Not at first,” he said.

  I leaned back, almost feeling like a detective. “So he did. And here you are, out of your jurisdiction, storming into ChemBet, disobeying orders. Bad career move, Tom.”

  He looked down, defeated. “Worse for the men who came with me.”

  I tried to sound comforting. “You wouldn’t have risked something like that without a good reason. You found something. That’s what made Kagan put the brakes on you. What was it?”

  He said nothing for a real long time.

  “Come on, you bastard! We’re probably the only two on the whole fucking planet who can piece this together. You went this far. Tell me, when did they stop you?”

  “After the tests came back on the arm.”

  The arm. Pieces clicked together in my head, then they fell apart. One minute it started to make sense, the next it felt like a crappy episode of Lost.

  “Okay, so you found the arm? You know it was moving?”

  “Yeah, we found it and that scrawl, just like you said, in the Dumpster. A review of the security cameras caught it as far away as Main Street. At first we thought somebody’s pet python had gotten loose and swallowed some luggage.”

  “Do you know what the fuck it was?”

  He lifted his head and knocked it gently back against the boulder a few times.

  “If I tell you, you’ll go feral.”

  “I haven’t yet, Tom, and believe me, I’ve had reason.”

  “Not like this.”

  “Fuck. What is this, the old joke about how do you drive an idiot crazy?”

  He laughed. “You put him in a garbage can and tell him to piss in a corner. No, it’s not that.” He looked at me. “Sure be a hell of a way to get rid of you, though. Couple of words and you snap like a twig. Problem is, we still have this chain between us.”

  He was serious. What did he know? I kneeled down and looked at him. “If I go, snap my neck, smartass, tear the head off, break my ankle, and you’re free.”

  He exhaled and looked around like he was hoping to spot an idea. His eyes settled on the hollow beneath the boulder.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you, but first you wedge your head in there.”

  I looked at him, then at the hollow. “What the fuck?”

  “That way, if you do go, I can cripple you easy.”

  “If I didn’t snap when I saw what Maruta did to Hudson, nothing you tell me could make me go, Tom.”

  “Then, you’ve got nothing to lose. Stick your head in,” he said. He patted the rock he’d used to try to break the chain. “Go on. I could’ve smashed you a dozen times by now if I’d wanted to.”

  “Shit,” I said. “There better not be a squirrel in there.”

  If it was some kind of trick, I didn’t see what it could be. He was underestimating me, as usual. At least I hoped he was.

  I got down onto my chest and wriggled my head against the cold dirt and hard stone until I’d gone in as far as I could go. I felt Booth lift my leg, pull my arms behind me and wrap half the chain around my wrists. There was no way I’d be getting out unless he let me.

  “Do I get a safe word?” I asked.

  “Who do I look like, Maruta?” he answered. “Mann, you know I can’t stand you, so you know I’ve got a good reason when I ask you if you’re sure you want to hear this.”

  “You asshole, I’m up to my neck in this. I’m the only one who knows where the case is, and everyone knows it. It’s not like I have a choice. Tell me already. What the fuck was that arm?”

  “I don’t know what it was.”

  I tensed. I pulled at the chains, tried to kick him with my free leg. “You don’t know? You don’t know? How the fuck did a piece of work like you ever get to be chief detective?”

  “Because the only other guy up for the job had a temper.”

  “Compared to you? That must have been one sorry SOB.”

  “It was you, you idiot. You didn’t know?”

  “Me?”

  “You were the one with the fucking photographic memory and the track record of breaking cases. But you were always blowing up. The men weren’t afraid of you, but they weren’t going to follow you, either.”

  Chief Detective. Shit. I could have been his boss. The real troubles with Lenore started over money. Chief Detective would have solved that in a flash. Everything would have been…

  I thought of Vishnu and Arjuna. I thought of Pandora. I groaned, struggled, pulled the chains tight…and then let it go.

  “If you’re testing me, it won’t work, Tom. I’m not going to lose it over some embalming fluid under the bridge. You were more of a leader, anyway, until you started porking a subordinate’s spouse. Did you shove me under here just to let me know how close I was to not being as completely fucked up as you or are you working out your guilt with sadism?”

  “I said I didn’t know what the arm was. I didn’t say I didn’t know who it was.”

  “I’m listening.”

  I couldn’t see him, but I imagined him shrugging. “The DNA tests showed…I don’t remember the exact words.”

  “You got DNA samples? Tough to do with a chak.”

  “That’s just it. Forensics said it wasn’t a chak.”

  “Okay. Kind of figured it was some new ChemBet monster.”

  “That’s what I thought, but they said no, the tests showed that it was alive, same as you and…well, same as me, anyway. It’d died twelve hours before we found it, they weren’t sure from what, and the DNA was normal enough for us to try to track it.”

  “So I’m under here because you figured out who it was. What? Did I have a kid I didn’t know about?”

  He gave off a little laugh. “That’s a closer guess than you think. You know how the database works, covers kn
own criminals, city and state employees. The preliminary search came up with your name.”

  “It was my arm? Like they cloned me?”

  “It was only a partial match, more likely a relative. When we went wider, we found a military file buried in the system. That’s when it came up with an exact match. Lawrence Mann, dishonorably discharged.”

  I furrowed my brow so tightly, the skin clenched the dirt I was facing.

  “My father’s fingers were missing. He lost them in a drunken disagreement with a table saw.”

  “Well, now he’s got a whole arm missing. We double-checked, triple-checked. That arm belonged to Lawrence Mann.”

  The darkness under the boulder swayed. My body filled with searing, electric syrup. My stomach and intestines roiled in agony. The rest of my body started to vibrate.

  “What’s this?” Booth said. “You going feral?”

  “This…” I said between dry heaves, “is how chakz process emotion.”

  23

  I couldn’t move or see, which made it easier for the memories to yank me out of my body. They came in flashes, bite-sized bits, with sharp teeth. The only thing missing was the melancholic sax music. All at once my father felt so real and near I couldn’t remember where I’d left the difference between us.

  I saw Larry smiling in a photo, rubbing the hairs on his belly, a beardless Santa.

  I saw him kicking our Labrador, Sheba. The dog whimpering, skittering into a run, vanishing, golden tail between her legs.

  Larry ducking a thermos hurled by my sobbing mother.

  The thermos shattering against the wall. I’d had no idea a thermos had glass in it.

  Myself, twelve, holding a crowbar tight enough to make my fingers bleed, swearing I’d swing if he took another step toward my mother.

  He laughed in a way that reminded me of the Santa photo, said he’d never hit her and that I was really still mad about the stupid dog running away.

  Years later, he was sitting in our small kitchen, thin glass in front of him, quarter full, no water, no ice. He was hunched like an old man, rubbing his bad hand with his good one, petting it like it was the dog he’d hurt and he was sorry.

  “Don’t look at it, please,” he said.

  It’s the only time I remember him saying please.

  I saw the hand in all its glory, the one I wasn’t aware I’d been staring at, with its half-missing fingers, three sealed at the top with little prunelike wounds, a pearl of white bone poking from the fourth.

  I saw him leaving us for the last time, like the dog.

  “I’ll get you something,” he said. Not even good-bye, just “I’ll get you something.”

  The flashes came so fast and furious, they were bound to stop. Yellow teeth clenched, I waited them out, waited for their effect on my ChemBet-crippled limbic system to pass, waited until the present finally slouched back into view.

  I saw the hard, dead ground beneath my dead face, the stony hollow filled with dark, felt the chain against my wrists and ankle, and I was glad to be here, in the lousy stinking present.

  Lawrence Mann wasn’t the worst thing to walk the earth on two legs. He was a bully, but not a sadist, violent, but not a killer, a drunk who fought the bottle as best he could, a deserter who stayed with his family until he couldn’t. Like a lot of us, he was just really fucked up.

  Cagey bastard, though. All those years, and here he was, back in my…well, back in whatever this was.

  Booth was still holding the chain tight, waiting to hear a moan.

  “Let me out,” I told him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  The tension on the chains released. I felt him grab my ankles. He pulled me out. Still nauseous, I shifted into a seated position.

  “When he left, my mother told me he’d joined Special Ops, but I didn’t believe her. She was always lying for him. So, when I got on the force, I checked and found his dishonorable discharge. That’s why his file was in the system. I always figured he was dead or on the street somewhere, drunk and homeless.”

  I didn’t say it, but I was also wondering if maybe that was why I wound up taking care of Misty. Because I couldn’t do a thing for Larry. Not that I’d saved Misty either.

  “So how’d he wind up with Travis Maruta’s last project, and why bring it to you?” Booth said.

  I shook my head. “No idea. I heard the crazy lady say live test subjects were hard to come by. Maybe they pulled a few off the streets. Or maybe he was Special Ops and he volunteered to become Captain America. Why me? A familiar face, if he was in his right mind, or any mind. I mean, the arm…could it think?”

  Booth rubbed his temples. “Fuck do I know? I still don’t believe you think. Christ, if O’Donnell hadn’t been sticking his dick in that stupid nothing friend of yours…”

  Before I knew what I was doing, I’d punched Tom Booth square in the jaw. The blow was so fast, it caught us both by surprise. He took the worst of it. His head twisted sideways long enough for me to punch him again.

  “Don’t talk about her like that!”

  Next thing, Booth was on the ground, glaring at me with blue fire in his eyes. I kicked him in the side, sent his right shoulder into the little hollow, then, before he could rise, crashed down into him, knees first. I put one knee on his shoulder to keep it stuck under the boulder and the other on his upper left arm. All the while, I kept punching.

  A thousand years ago, I knew how to fight. Since coming back, I’d avoided it like the plague. Chak bruises don’t heal, our broken bones don’t mend. A fistfight had higher stakes than a gun battle.

  But I wasn’t exactly thinking things through, and the next blow split his upper lip.

  “She is not nothing! I am not nothing!”

  The next shot turned his head sideways, leaving my hand to rake his incisors. When I pulled back, a flap of dry skin hung from my knuckles like beef jerky. When I punched him again, I left bits of my flesh on his teeth.

  Repulsed, his free hand stopped trying to push my knee away and reached for his mouth. “Jesus, stop it! Get off of me! What are you, shedding?”

  He tried spitting. Drops of blood from his lips landed on my shirt.

  “Go ahead. Try to kill me,” he said. “Give it your best shot. You think I’m Lenore?”

  “I didn’t kill her, you fuck!”

  “Bullshit. I saw that look in your eyes before you raced out of the office.”

  I pulled back to punch him again, but stopped. I hated him, I was furious with him. He’d slept with my wife, blamed me for her murder, treated me like I was nothing, but…

  “I don’t want to kill you, asshole. I never wanted to kill her, either.”

  His eyes narrowed. “But you did, didn’t you? This a confession?”

  My shoulders slumped. I pinched Booth’s cheek. “No, like I’ve been telling you, Lenore was dead when I showed up. It was Lamar Derby, that lead you refused to follow. And I…well, geez, I’ve been thinking I would’ve killed her, if I’d gotten there first. I don’t remember much, but I remember how those photos of you and her made me feel. It was like my insides were falling out, back when they were wet and I needed them for something. I thought I was just about fucked up enough for it. But, I didn’t kill her, I wasn’t going to hit Larry with my crowbar, Flat-face was an accident, and I’m not about to kill you, so…”

  I got off him. He huffed, spraying more blood. “She said you hit her.”

  “Once. She hit back. I had a welt the size of a grapefruit. We both went to counseling. Never happened again.”

  He blinked and nodded. “That’s what she said.”

  “Was she…still afraid of me?”

  He shook his head. “Not that I could tell. Afraid of having kids, not with you, just afraid of having kids. I was a way out, big-time.”

  “Tom, you never had a relationship that lasted more than a month. Did you love her?” I asked.

  For a second he looked like a boy who’d been caught stealing, or my father rubbing his half a
hand. “I…don’t know. Sometimes I think I should have. If we’d run off, she’d still be alive.”

  “Easier to blame me than yourself?”

  “Oh, I blame myself. I blame myself a whole lot. I just blamed you more.”

  He twisted his arm out from under the rock, rubbed his teeth with his fingers and kept spitting until he was sure the dead flesh was gone.

  “Who’s Flat-face?”

  “Never mind. I’ll tell you later and you can decide whether the DA will want to press charges.” I looked around at the dark. “So now what do we do?”

  “We?”

  “Fine. What do you want to do?”

  He eyed me cautiously. “You’re really not going feral?”

  I shook my head. “You hate chakz so much you think you’d take the time to study them a little. We go feral when we feel hopeless, not when we’re pissed. Truth to tell, I’m not even pissed anymore. I feel kind of relieved, like I should take myself out to dinner and a nice zombie movie or something.” I looked at Booth. “You done with your bullshit, yet? Ready to tell me how you wound up at ChemBet?”

  He wiped the blood off his face, then the dirt off his clothes. “Like you said, I thought the arm was the result of one of their experiments, so it was a lead. When we got there, that alarm was already going off. We let ourselves in, poked around, and I saw a few things I wasn’t supposed to, like the fact they had no idea how to duplicate Travis Maruta’s last project, code-named Birthday. He destroyed his records. Those two vials are it. And you’ll never guess who hired the fake cop that went to your office.”

  “ChemBet.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not clear if the board of directors is in on it. He was a merc, Blackwater style. The paperwork was on Rebecca’s desk. She paid for him with her damn personal credit card, so it wouldn’t be on any corporate account.”

  I smiled in disbelief. “And you were going to arrest her?”

  “Once I got the warrant. Being head of homicide has to count for something. With O’Donnell dead, I figured there wouldn’t be a man on the force who wouldn’t back me, or look at me again if I didn’t. If the press found out before the governor, his hands would be tied. If not, fuck the pension.”