Con Job

by Laura VanArendonk Baugh

Jacob closed the tab and turned slowly back to Christopher and Mickey. The poison had been meant for Valerie and had gone to the wrong person, but it hadn’t gone to just any wrong person. Someone had gotten directions to put the powder into Valerie’s food, and no one had supposed there would be two women in blue suits at a con, where business dress was decidedly out of the usual.

  That meant there were two murderers, or at least a murderer and an uncomprehending accomplice who had access to the victims’ food. Someone like a kitchen worker, or a fast food employee….

  Oh.

  He looked up to see Christopher staring hard at Mickey. “You don’t get it, man. I put a lot into that show.”

  “A lot of money?” Jacob asked quietly.

  Christopher looked at him. “Well, yeah.”

  Something else clicked for Jacob. “Did you produce episodes already? Did you hire Rick Yoshinaga?”

  Christopher’s eyebrows lowered. “Yes, I did. I did a whole season, once FunFilms gave me the go-ahead. We rented a studio, built sets, got lights, the whole works. It looks fabulous! Not that anyone’s going to see it.”

  “You could release it online yourself,” Mickey said.

  Christopher snorted. “It’s never going to recoup the cost that went into it. Even if it got decent ad revenues, I’m still going to have to declare bankruptcy. Rick’s in trouble too, since you already know about him. I was going to pay him out of what FunFilms and then MEGAN!ME were supposed to pay me.”

  “And since Valerie shut down your show before you got paid,” Jacob said, “you needed her out of the way so you could try to get it back again.”

  Christopher seemed to go still. “I just said I wondered if that would happen now, yes.”

  Mickey’s mouth opened, but it was a second or so before he spoke. “Oh, no. Christopher.”

  Christopher looked between them, and then he seemed to decide. “I came by after you tweeted about the conservatory photos, just to see what exactly you were looking for. The fact that you didn’t mention me in them got me worried.” He drew a box-cutter from his pocket and extended the blade. “That’s not the kind of thing you leave out unless you think you might be talking to a murderer.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Jacob said. The metal chair seemed very tight against his back. The pass-through was open, and if they shouted someone down in the lobby might hear, but that wouldn’t save them. At best, someone would call police to confirm that yes, they’d been murdered in the same way the zombie had been.

  Christopher couldn’t reach them both. He had to decide which of them to attack first.

  “And then you were kind enough to explain that this was your suspicion and not the police line. And it’s an easy enough thing to explain away, now that Ken isn’t talking.”

  “Ken is the Fierce Burger zombie,” Jacob said numbly. His phone was still in his hand, resting on the chair by his leg.

  “‘Fierce Burger zombie’ isn’t a phrase you get to say very often,” Christopher mused. “But yes, you’re right.”

  Mickey took a step forward. “Christopher, you can’t—”

  Christopher swung toward him, the box-cutter extended. “Don’t move!”

  Jacob slid the touch-lock on his phone and glanced down at the keyboard which appeared beneath his thumb. He thumbed 911 and hit Send just as Christopher whirled back. “What are you doing?”

  Jacob leaned back as Christopher reached forward with the box-cutter and snatched the phone with the other hand. “What did you do? Who did you call?”

  “No one,” Jacob answered. “I didn’t call anyone.”

  Christopher looked at the screen. “You texted 911? Seriously? Not even to 911?”

  The phone had unlocked to the text conversation with Sam, of course. Jacob’s heart sank.

  Christopher hit the call button, dialing Sam. “I’m going to tell her that if she calls I’ll kill — busy signal? Your girlfriend’s quick, isn’t she.” He looked at Jacob. “Oh, right, not your girlfriend.”

  Good, Sam. Jacob exhaled, his breath tight in his chest. Now they just had to survive until the police arrived.

  That was often harder than it sounded.

  “Is that what you used to kill that Ken guy?” Mickey said.

  Christopher shook his head. “Don’t be stupid. That went in a trash can behind the hotel hours ago. The nice thing about sharp stuff, though, is that it’s everywhere. So easy to come by, and nobody ever tracks it.”

  Mickey looked at Jacob and then back at Christopher. “Christopher, this is stupid. Three people are dead. You can’t kill two more.”

  “It was supposed to be just one,” he said. “Just Valerie, and really who would miss her? But stupid Ken gave the stuff to the wrong woman.”

  Keep him talking. “What did Ken have against her?” Jacob asked. “What had she done to him?” He made the question serious, not indignant. Let Christopher rant and rage and burn time until the police could arrive.

  “He didn’t,” Christopher said. “He thought it was something else. He was happy to help out a celebrity. I told him she was my girlfriend, and we’d had a fight, and it was just something to help her be, you know, more friendly. More cooperative.”

  “I can’t imagine why your girlfriend is now an ex-girlfriend,” Mickey said dryly.

  Christopher jerked toward him and then caught himself as Jacob shifted in his chair, swinging the box-cutter toward him again. “Oh, no. You stay put.”

  Jacob raised his hands, both conceding to Christopher and warning Mickey to stay where he was. Knives were as dangerous as guns — sometimes more so. A gunshot made a single hole, while a knife slash could open long wounds which bled free and fast. There was a reason police were trained to confront and, if necessary, shoot hostile knife-wielders from a distance.

  They were close, and Jacob had no gun.

  “But Ken caught on after Tasha was found dead.”

  “Was that her name? Yeah, but not right away. It wasn’t supposed to be obvious, not for a while, and by the time anyone started thinking murder we’d be getting out of here. And I figured he’d be the type to keep his mouth shut rather than admit he’d helped. Even if he didn’t think it was poison, date rape drugs aren’t the kind of attention he’d want, either.”

  He paused, and Jacob tensed. He had to keep him talking. “But he got chicken.”

  “He kind of put it together after Valerie died.”

  “And Ken realized he wasn’t accessory to make-up rape, but to murder.”

  “He came to me, wanted to talk. Of course that’s not the kind of thing you can talk about. I told him I’d get more money for him, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to go for it, but he came back to pick it up anyway. Greedy bastard was probably going to take my money and then rat me out.”

  “He came right before the zombie crawl?”

  “I told him it would be a good way to not be identified, in case anyone saw him.”

  It was a foolishly antagonistic thing to say, but Jacob couldn’t stop himself. “And you let him panic and bleed out in the middle of hundreds of clueless people who didn’t know to help him. That’s sick. Really sick.”

  “You think I wanted that? It wasn’t my idea. But look at what kind of person he was — he was fine with taking money to help me drug a ho. I just wanted to get rid of someone no one would be sorry about. Everyone would talk about how they were horrified but they’d all be secretly glad she was gone, and I figured people wouldn’t even stress about helping police too much because they’d all be kind of relieved, if anyone even thought it wasn’t some sort of accident. That’s all I wanted, and he was the one who was drugging girls and then trying to scam me while he went behind my back. He got what he deserved.”

  “And what about Tasha?” asked Mickey. “What did she deserve? She was a fan, Christopher, same as you. And you murdered her and two other people. I hope you fry.”

  “Shut up,” snarled Christopher. He glanced between them, realizing he was wasting time
he didn’t have, if Sam had indeed called the police.

  Mickey read it too. “You can’t take us both,” he said. “You caught Ken off-guard, I’ll bet, but you can’t surprise us and you can’t take both of us at once. Drop the knife.”

  “Mickey,” Jacob cautioned.

  But the voice actor shifted his weight. “Come on, Jacob. Together we can take him, hold him for the police. Let’s—”

  Christopher lunged, catching Mickey’s upflung arm with one hand and slashing with the other. The box cutter carved a red streak across Mickey’s face. Jacob hit Christopher’s back as its second stroke swept across Mickey’s neck, catching in his throat.

  Christopher spun with a roar and Jacob ducked, the blade scorching hot across his upper arm. He scrabbled backward — charge the gun, flee the knife — and scanned desperately for something he could use as a shield or weapon.

  Christopher lunged, and Jacob caught the metal folding chair and swung it hard. Christopher yelped and swore as it struck his arm, but it wasn’t the hand which held the box-cutter, and he stumbled over the chair and came on.

  Jacob seized one side of the table and heaved, overturning it in Christopher’s path. Jacob bolted, tripping over the computer’s power cord which snapped taut, and slid across the multi-colored industrial carpet.

  Christopher kicked aside the falling computer and climbed over the table. Jacob scrambled forward, beneath the skirted table along the wall, where at least Christopher would have to crouch or move furniture to reach him. He bumped into a plastic bin and squeezed past it, and then he realized what it was.

  “I’ll kill you!” Christopher snarled. “You won’t get a chance to tell them what you think you know!”

  Jacob reached an arm between the edge of the bin and the loose lid and grasped. Please. Oh, God, please. He lifted the first and discarded it, but the second was plausible.

  Christopher hurled the table to one side and then recoiled as Jacob rolled and sighted the gun on him. “Back off,” Jacob ordered, his voice shaking. “Now.”

  Christopher hesitated. “Where’d that come from? You can’t carry a weapon at the con.”

  “No, but we can stash one for emergencies. This is Con Ops, we have money and stuff here. It seemed like a good idea, what with the killings and all.” Jacob shifted his weight slowly, rolling upright.

  Christopher didn’t move. “You’re bluffing.”

  “Try me, then. You know what I am, what I’ve been training to be. You know I’m prepared to shoot if necessary. And I just watched you cut an innocent and unarmed man, so it’d be pretty easy to argue it was necessary.” How long could he keep this up? How long before the police arrived, before Christopher realized the truth? “Mickey? You okay over there?”

  There was a sickly croak from the far side of the office.

  Jacob didn’t take his eyes from Christopher. “You hang in there, Mickey. Help is on the way. Just hang on.”

  Christopher took a breath, but it was unsteady. “I can’t let you tell them.”

  “They have all the same pictures,” Jacob said. “It’s only a matter of time. And I already texted Daniel to ask if the zombie was the Fierce Burger guy, and they’ll have him identified by tomorrow, even without me mentioning it. And then they’ll put it together with the photos. It’s already over, Christopher, you just haven’t caught on yet. There’s nothing you can do about it — nothing you could do at all, once you killed them. It’s over.”

  His shoulder was burning and his shirt felt wet. He didn’t look away from Christopher. “It might not have been me,” Christopher said. “It might have been someone cosplaying me. That happens. I’m famous, people know me. It might have been someone playing me.” But it sounded desperate, and his expression was all despair and panic.

  That panic worried Jacob. “Give it up,” he said, trying with only moderate success to keep his voice steady. “It’ll only get worse if you keep going. Give it up.”

  Christopher swallowed visibly. “Ken can’t tell them anything, and no one can connect his powder to me. The photos aren’t conclusive. I just have to shut you up.” His voice was rising, as if he were trying to steel himself to rush the gun.

  “Christopher, don’t,” Jacob said.

  And then Christopher’s eyes widened. “That’s one of the confiscated fake gun props, isn’t it?”

  Jacob tried to remain still, but Christopher saw something to confirm his guess. He extended the box cutter and rushed forward.

  Jacob jerked upward, trying to get to his feet while keeping the fake gun in front of him. The gun barrel took the first slash of the cutter, catching it against the plastic trigger guard which snapped with the impact. Christopher grabbed the gun and Jacob released it, recoiling and knowing that he couldn’t stumble backward fast enough to avoid the cutter’s next sweep.

  “Get down!”

  A pole stabbed over Jacob’s shoulder and struck Christopher just below the collarbone, shoving him hard. He fell backward, folding a little and grasping at his chest. “What—”

  Jacob looked up and back and saw Sam slide across the pass-through counter, one hand holding the glaive and the other springboarding her over Jacob and into the Con Ops office. “Back off.”

  Christopher’s face twisted, and he snarled something deeply misogynistic. He started forward, hand and box cutter extended.

  Sam swung the glaive, using not just her arms but her full body, and cracked the staff across his shoulder. The pole splintered, snapping in half where the two pieces joined, and Christopher stumbled but did not go down. Sam gripped the remaining part of her staff, stepped forward and reversed direction, catching his head this time.

  The hollow crack made Jacob flinch despite himself. Christopher went to one knee, wavering but still upright. Sam glanced over her shoulder to where Mickey had been, out of Jacob’s sight now beyond the upturned table. Without speaking she turned back and raised the staff high, striking downward as if splitting wood, and the bones of Christopher’s knife wrist broke audibly.

  He screamed and dropped the box cutter, clutching at his arm with his other hand. Jacob rolled to his feet. “Sam? You okay?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” She took a step and kicked the box cutter away from where Christopher had dropped it. “Keep an eye on that, or whatever you do.”

  The door was open, Jacob realized, and Lydia was kneeling beside Mickey. Jacob grabbed a sheet of printer paper and picked up the box cutter — no fingerprints, keep control of the weapon — and then went to where Lydia was pressing hard against Mickey’s throat.

  Oh, no. Not again. Not again. Jacob grabbed a Con Aid shirt from the dwindling supply and pushed it against the bloody wound, Lydia’s fingers closing on it and holding it tight. “Hang on, Mickey, help’s coming.”

  Christopher swore and lunged at Sam, who jumped backward and swung the staff with less precision. Still the blow caught him in the head again, and he went down slowly and unsteadily, sitting upright but loose on the floor.

  Jacob’s mind reeled. He couldn’t do much more to help Mickey; Lydia had pressure on the wound, and that was all they could offer at the moment. Securing Christopher was next, but he didn’t have cuffs or a weapon. Where was the other half of Sam’s glaive?

  “How is he?” Sam called without looking.

  He couldn’t answer her without scaring Mickey further, and Mickey needed to stay calm — or as calm as possible, anyway. “He’ll be okay. Help’s coming soon.”

  “Help’s here,” Lydia said, as figures came in the door, guns and cuffs in hand.

  Chapter Thirty One

  “Christopher Adams,” said Daniel slowly, testing the consonants. “Yeah, I guess it’s there. R-F-D.”

  Sam and Jessica sat on either side of Jacob, with Zach nearby. Sam had an arm around him, carefully below the line of stitches across his upper arm and shoulder. Daniel sat on the edge of a table, a few empty cups of ramen discarded behind him, and Detective Martin was seated near him. Vince was a
lso in the staff suite, looked haggard but faintly relieved.

  “It was the chibi after all.” Detective Martin shook her head. “I’ve lived too long, to see the day a man kills over a big-eyed cutesy mascot.”

  “And bankruptcy,” added Daniel. “He spent a lot to produce that show. He expected to get his investment back.”

  “And he has a history — unofficially — of violence against women,” Detective Martin added darkly. “Been arrested three times for domestic, but neither woman would testify against him and charges were dropped. So this isn’t such a surprise. Just an escalation.”

  “He’d been arrested before?” Sam repeated.

  “But without testimony, they probably couldn’t get a conviction,” Jacob explained.

  “Yeah,” Jessica said, “but maybe three more people would be alive today.”

  There was a moment of chill silence, and then Daniel rose from the corner of the table. “Only three,” he said. “Mickey’s going to be okay. They’re not positive how his voice will be, but the doctors say he’s got a really good chance.”

  “I ought to go and see him,” Jacob said. “He probably saved my life. If Christopher hadn’t been torn between us, he would have been cutting me wholesale. I’d never have had time to text Sam or get to the confiscated guns.”

  “Oh, about that.” Daniel nodded toward Jacob. “That’s assault.”

  “What?”

  “Pointing a fake gun at someone. Assault.” He shrugged. “But in this case it was pretty clearly self-defense, so no arrest will be made.”

  Jacob grinned, but Sam did not. “Are you kidding me? For a fake gun?”

  “It’s not about whether the gun is real,” Daniel said. “It’s about how it’s used. And yep, lots of cases of felonies with fake or unloaded guns.”

  “Well, Jacob’s a hero,” she said with an edged voice.

  “Stand down, Sam. He’s just razzing me.”

  “Still. Seems like maybe people would be more concerned about the real murderers.”

  “We are,” said Detective Martin sharply, “or hadn’t you noticed?” She gave a little jerk of her head toward the Con Ops room, where a few technicians were still marking blood spatters and evidence. “Adams has been arrested and is in jail awaiting a public defender, as he says he can’t afford one of his own.”