He takes a deep breath and nods. “Yeah, I’m good. Good enough I guess. When I shot that guy in here last year, none of it seemed real. He was going to kill us, so I didn’t think about it much. It was like a video game, you know? You just never know when reality is going to hit you.”
I give Marvin’s shoulder an encouraging squeeze. “I know that feeling more than most.”
Marvin releases a long breath and slowly wags his head. “All right, tell me how you booby trap a bomb.”
“There are a lot of ways.”
“Let’s stick to just the ones you can cram in your skull.”
“The easiest way is a depressed contact pin. Move the bomb, the pin pops up like a turkey thermometer, and it goes off. A sophisticated method would be some kind of proximity detonator. You implant two electronic objects close together. If one moves more than X distance from the other it goes off. There are a few other possibilities, of declining likelihood.”
“Sounds to me like we need to x-ray your head. At least we can see if you have one object or two and narrow down the list.”
I clap him on the shoulder. “There’s my big-brained guy.”
“Just basic troubleshooting.”
I grab one of my dozens of phones and punch in the number. “Raj.”
“Leo? What the hell time is it?”
“Time for you to wake up. I need your help.”
“Christ, are you sending me another present?”
“No, my guys took care of him. I need you to x-ray my head. Someone stuck a bomb in it.”
There’s a pause on the other end. “How did you…never mind. I’ll be in my office in half an hour.”
“Thanks, Raj.” I hang up the phone and turn to Lesile. “Hey, bitch, time to go see the doctor.”
Katherine gives me the stink-eye. “Leo, you should not talk to people like that. Be polite.”
“I was. I was going to use a much harsher but equally accurate descriptive word. Want a hint? It rhymes with cunt.”
“Ignore him, Katherine. Despite his age, he is still a man-child.”
“If he uses that word in my presence again I’m going to beat him like one.”
I smile provocatively. “Promise? You know I love a good spanking when I’m naughty.”
“Don’t try to deflect with a show of sado-machismo.” She rolls her eyes at Lesile. “I thought he was going to cry the first time we had sex.”
“I did not, and shut up, Marvin!”
Marvin cuts his laughter short and hunkers back behind his computer.
“Where are we going, Leonard?”
“We need to see a friend about these bombs in our heads. Marvin, you come with us so you can monitor the signal in case we do something to piss them off.”
Kat asks, “What can I do?”
“I imagine Meat is already howling from the rooftops and pissing on all the streetlights, but maybe you should make some calls too and help get everyone together.”
“Okay. I can do that from here.”
“Hopefully, these guys are lying low after just losing a plane full of their operatives, but you should probably stay here and be careful. They know about you and threatened to use you to hurt me.”
Katherine picks up the shotgun. “Let them come. I owe them a little payback.”
“Just get inside my armory if there’s trouble and call me.”
“Okay. Please be safe.”
“I will.”
“She really loves you,” Lesile says as we drive across Brooklyn.
“Yeah, she does.”
“I can tell you care very deeply about her too.”
“Hard not to.”
“I am happy you have each other. I am glad you found someone to love. I regret the circumstances of our relationship, but I knew you were special and needed…extra attention to achieve your full potential.”
“Thanks.” I stare out the windshield for several minutes. “I’m still going to kill you.”
Lesile smiles and pats my arm. “Of course you are.”
We take Lesile’s spaceship to the Brooklyn medical examiner’s office. One nice thing about working these hours is ample parking wherever I go. I glide in front of the building and watch for a minute out of habit before getting out of the car. Half the lights are off, and the others are dimmed in an effort to conserve electricity.
Raj appears in front of the glass door moments after I push the buzzer. He holds the door open to admit us and leads us down the hall to the exam room.
“Leo, what have you gotten yourself into now?”
“The problem is what’s gotten into me.”
“Yeah, how exactly did you manage to get a bomb in your head?”
“Government of course. The mechanics of it are pretty straightforward.”
“Right. I’m not going to set this thing off by x-raying it, am I?”
Marvin says, “Naw, x-rays operate on a much higher frequency than these things and by themselves don’t produce any electrical current or interference that might set it off.”
“Raj, this is my resident genius. Marvin, this is my corpse doctor.”
“We prefer medical examiner. It sounds a little less ghoulish on our eHarmony profiles.”
“Yeah, but you still poke around dead bodies, and that’s gotta be a leg closer no matter what you call it.”
“Sadly, yes, but not all the time. It’s one reason why I stay in New York.”
Marvin asks, “There’s bitches who like it freaky with dead bodies?”
“You’d be surprised how many think this is a great place for a first date.”
“Damn, the freakiest I ever got was with a chubby girl in the back of an Apple Genius bar.”
“If you two can stop comparing your levels of deviancy, I’d like to get back to removing this bomb in my brain.”
Raj lays me on the cold, metal table and maneuvers the x-ray contraption over my head. “I’m going to get three angles to give us a clear idea what’s going on in there.”
He steps behind the wall and pushes the button. The machine hums and clicks for a brief second.
“Everything all right, Marvin?” I call through the door.
“You ain’t dead, so yeah.”
Raj repositions the camera twice more. He comes back several minutes later bearing a folder. He sticks the three x-rays on the viewing light and flips it on.
“We can see the device clearly from three different angles: top, front, and side. Unless there are two devices connected to each other, we can assume there is only one.”
“So that makes it likely that it has a contact trigger. If you try to pull it out it goes off and kills me.”
“Pretty much. It appears to be sandwiched between the two lobes of your brain. That provides a good, stable method of depressing any kind of contact switch before arming.”
“So how do we get it out without tripping the switches?”
“I really don’t know. I’m not a bomb expert. I suppose we could cut out the section of brain around it, but I don’t know how much that’s going to affect your memory or motor skills.”
“Not to mention having no guarantee of not tripping it the moment it feels the slightest change in pressure.”
Marvin chuckles from behind his laptop. “Too bad we can’t freeze your head like an ice cube and chip it out.”
“Raj, can you do that? The explosive is tiny and designed to shatter the vial containing the Cure, which is liquid. If it’s frozen it’s rendered inert…mostly.”
“Whoa, Leo, you can’t freeze your head,” Marvin exclaims. “Freezing causes cellular rupturing and you die. It’s why we haven’t brought back Walt Disney.”
“Marvin, you have done a lot of work for me over the last few years, and I have come to rely on you for your technical expertise.”
“Genius.”
“Right, genius. Since I expect us to continue our working relationship, there is something I need to tell you before you find out on your own.”
“Goddammit, Marvin, I’m not coming out the fucking closet!”
“Thank God. I had a hard enough time adjusting to Neil Patrick Harris. I don’t think I could handle it coming from you. Don’t get me wrong. I got nothing against the gays, but you’re not pretty enough, and you’re just such an asshole.”
I cast my eyes to the ceiling and search for the strength not to strangle him. “Maybe it would just be simpler to kill you.”
“Golden goose, Leo, golden goose.”
“What I am going to tell you, you cannot share with another living soul. You cannot blog it, tweet it, repeat it, or in any way allow anyone to find out. There are people out there who will kill you just for knowing what I am going to tell you. Do you understand?”
“Is it why you killed that guy in the park?”
“It is.”
“Maybe I don’t want to know.”
“Tough shit, I’m going to tell you. You’re too damn stupid to be trusted if you find out on your own.”
“I got an IQ of 187! I’d have to get an NFL-sized concussion just to be considered smart.”
“Fine, you’re too damn irresponsible then!”
“Yeah, you have a point there. My mom says the same thing.”
“Marvin, please focus. A lot of lives depend on your ability to keep this secret, yours paramount amongst them.”
“That is my favorite one. Go ahead then, lay some serious conspiracy on me.”
Marvin is hands down the smartest idiot I have ever known, and trusting him with our secret is like trusting Bill Maher to guard your pot. But he is also someone who needs to be brought in the loop before he stumbles in on his own.
“I’m a vampire. Lesile is a vampire, and the guy I killed in the park was a vampire.”
Marvin leans back and looks at me skeptically. “Get the fuck outta here.”
“Think about what you have seen and know about me, Marvin.”
Marvin’s eyes dart back and forth as he processes the vast amount of data stored inside his computer-like brain and gasps. “The refrigerator full of blood and how a white man can run so damn fast! And you never eat pizza! I knew there was something seriously wrong with anyone who doesn’t eat pizza.”
“It’s also why Lesile and I have a bomb in our heads. The stuff you helped me with last year was to shut down one of our kind who risked exposing us in a grab for power. The government found out and used the information they discovered to make vampire soldiers and round us up. When their homemade vamps ran amok, they took us in, put bombs in our heads, and sent us to deal with them. Do you understand why it is so important that you never tell anyone or even allude to our existence?”
“Yeah, man, I get it. You’re all like a super-secret hacker club, only you go around biting people’s necks and cutting off their heads instead of busting into servers.”
“If that helps you keep a secret, then sure.”
“So you think you can freeze yourself, cut out this bomb, and still live, or whatever it is you do?”
“I don’t know, but it’s possible. There’s one person I know who might have the answer and a method to do it. Take a cab back to my place and keep Katherine company. While you’re there, see if you can figure out where the agents who took me are hiding out.”
“You got anything to go on?”
“I was taken southeast on the turnpike for two, maybe two hundred and fifty miles. I guess the halfway point being near Trenton. The building was large and concrete or brick. Despite the recent renovations, I could smell the musty scent of an old building. I got the impression of an old hospital, asylum, or maybe a school of some kind.”
“It’s not much to go on, but I’ll try.”
“I’ll hit up some of my contacts around the city and see if I can narrow it down any, but first I need to get this goddam thing out of my brain.”
After giving Marvin fifty bucks for a cab and pizza, Lesile and I head into Manhattan. I hope Marvin can track down Snow and his group with the little information I gave him, but I’m not putting much stock in it. But Marvin has surprised me before, and I hope he does so again. You can’t fight an enemy if you can’t find them.
This is my second visit here, so I know right where I’m going. We take the elevator to the top floor, gain the roof, and drop three floors onto a balcony. The apartment inside is dark, as are most of them at the waning hour just before dawn. I try the sliding door, but it’s locked this time. I’m about to force it open when the tenant throws back the curtain.
“Do you have some sort of aversion to using the door like a normal person?” Dr. Johnston asks when she unlocks and opens the door.
“I like to keep people guessing.”
“You lose some mystique coming in the same way every time.”
“Aren’t you snarky in the morning? What happened to the overwhelming fear? I like that attitude a lot better.”
“The boogeyman’s scarier when he stays under the bed. You also brought much nicer company, so I assume I’m not in trouble.”
Lesile extends a delicate, alabaster hand. “Lesile.”
“Sandra.”
“Hurray, everybody knows everyone’s name. Can we get down to the important stuff before we start debating our favorite Bieber haircut or delving into the exciting world of feminine hygiene products?”
“What do you want, Malone?”
“I need you to freeze my head.”
“It would be my absolute pleasure.”
I give her an exaggerated roll of my eyes. “I have a bomb in my head, and the only way we think it can be removed is by freezing it.”
“Aw, that’s tragic.”
“Lesile also has one in her head.”
“That really is tragic.”
“Can you do it, and can I survive it?”
Sandra sits on her couch and thinks. “We have the proper cryogenic ability at the lab. I’m not nearly the expert on vampire physiology Dr. Guzman was before he took his life, but I have studied his notes extensively. I don’t think we could survive a full cryo-freeze. There would be too much cellular damage with nothing available to repair it. But if we just froze your brain and kept a fresh supply of blood in your system, it might be possible to recover.”
“Might?”
“No one has ever done it, so I can’t guarantee the results. Even if you do survive, there could be memory loss if the brain cells and neurons suffer catastrophic damage.” Her face twitches as she runs several ideas through her brain. “However, the cells responsible for memory, personality, and identity are more durable than most. With the proper cryoprotectants and our ability to spontaneously repair cellular damage, I think there is a better than even chance of pulling it off.”
“Finally, some good news,” Lesile says.
“Great. How soon can we get started?”
“Our laboratory is only a few blocks from here. It will take a couple of hours to set up the equipment. Give me half an hour to get ready, and I can meet you there.”
Lesile smiles and cocks her head. “Maybe I can stay and walk over with you?”
Sandra returns her coy look. “Make it an hour.”
My head twitches left and right between the two women. “Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me.”
“Leonard, don’t be such a prude. What good is living for so long if you are not willing to enjoy everything life has to offer? Join us if you like.”
“No thanks.” I make for the balcony and look over my shoulder. “But feel free to send me the link if you shoot a video.”
I leave the scissor sisters to their deviant explorations and hop from balcony to balcony until I reach the street. It’s apparent I have some time to burn, and I hate sitting around doing nothing. I take Lesile’s car back to Brooklyn in h
opes of digging up some information on Snow’s goon squad. His guys are pros and move with surprising stealth, but the shadows hide a lot of eyes, and few things go unnoticed in New York. If anyone saw any takings, I know the guy who heard about it.
Nick might be a useless, skeevy, little cocksucker, but he makes his stock and trade in information. He’s also a fearful little shit, and knowing the goings-on keeps him alive. He is a cockroach by every definition. There’s a good chance he’s closing down his favorite club before crawling back into his dumpster to wait out the daytime hours.
The doorman has long since abandoned his post. Only the true hardcore partiers are still out, and they’re already inside. I’m assaulted by a cacophony of electronic dance music sounding like R2-D2 if he were the victim of a brutal prison rape. The club is sparsely populated with only a few people still running on their favorite drug to fuel their dancing. Most lie collapsed in booths against the wall or on the floor.
I pick out a dancer whose bra size greatly exceeds her IQ. “Where’s Nick?”
She looks at me with eyes more glazed than a Krispy Kreme donut and shouts over the music. “I think he had to take a shit!”
I make my way to the back of the club and find the doors leading to the bathrooms. I deduce the one guarded by the extra-large fellow in a medium T-shirt is where I’ll find Nick. I make to walk past him, but he blocks me with a palm to my chest.
“Occupied, pops.”
Several emotions surge through me. Firstly, yeah, I’m old, but I don’t look that old. When did thirtyish become old? Okay, I’m a rough thirtyish, but still, it kind of hurts my feelings. The second thing I sense is surprise. This guy’s not just an asshole seconds away from meeting Jesus, he’s a goddam bloodling like Nick.
Bloodlings are victims of a non-lethal feeding who get just a tiny bit of whatever it is that turns us into vampires but who don’t fully turn or die. They are so rare they make snow leopards look like an invasive species. Both those feelings are washed aside as the biggest one takes the fore, and that is the absolute hatred I have of people putting their hands on me.
I grab his wrist with my left hand and break both bones in his forearm. Grabbing a wad of his shirtfront, I fling him halfway across the massive room and leave a 7-10 split of dancers. Three goons jump out of a booth, and my chances of picking up the spare are looking good. Hands dive into coats and waistbands, but before they can draw, they find themselves looking into Shalonda’s open mouth.
Blood Conspiracy (Brooklyn Shadows Book 2) Page 14
