by Gregory Colt
Damnit. “Claire, would you please stand with Mr. M&M.”
She didn’t move for a second, but I reached back and squeezed her hand. She returned it and walked through the men coming to surround me, who let her pass untouched, and stood beside M&M who looked from me to her and back again considering, but not saying a word as the ring formed around me.
Before the final man, thug number six I believe, had made it all the way around to my back, number three leapt forward to grab my wrist. I skipped forward to meet him while he was off balance and grabbed his wrist instead, pulling hard and slamming my crown down onto the bridge of his nose. He crumpled to the ground in slow motion to the crunching sound of cartilage. Before he hit the pavement the man opposite him, I couldn’t remember if it was number four or five, was airborne diving at my back. I pivoted my front foot and fired a thundering rear kick into the man’s chest, driving him flat into the outer wall of the building. He grabbed his chest with both arms and slid down to the sidewalk with the wind knocked out of him.
Everyone paused except number seven to my right. I stared at him until he shifted his eyes to M&M. I did as well.
“What do you say Maurice; five minute truce?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
He kept his focus on Claire. “You,” he said after a moment, “are not a prostitute.”
“Easy there, Casanova,” she said.
He snickered and waved his men off. They helped the two who were down and took them to the rear SUV where they popped open the back hatch and sat them down.
“All right, you got my attention, so talk. I don’t like what you have to say then in about four and a half minutes…” said M&M, tapping the big man beside him on the chest. The big guy opened the rear door behind him. He was holding a baseball bat when he turned back around. He kicked the door shut and set the end of the bat on the ground.
“Message received,” I said with a single nod.
M&M inclined his head in acknowledgment.
“Boys, can we go ahead and get to the point already?” said Claire.
“Point,” I said to Claire without taking my eyes off M&M and Numbers One and Two beside him. “As I said, I’m Adrian Knight. I was hired in Mr. Roarke’s stead to handle a missing person’s case. Dr. Spurling,” I indicated Claire, “has spent the afternoon familiarizing herself with the case to further assist me since time is of the essence. As such, we have compiled a list of known associates and have contacted each of them except yourself. It was made known, as we made inquiries around the neighborhood, you were a difficult man to find, but you kept a close eye on anyone attempting to operate in your territory.”
“And you spread it around town so I’d come find you. That’s real clever Mr. Knight, but why didn’t you say anything when I pulled up. Might have saved some trouble,” he said spreading his hands.
I took careful note he said might have saved trouble, not would have.
“Calculated risk. Wanted to see how you’d handle it.”
“Figure out what you wanted?”
“No.”
“Sounds like someone should work on his calculations before he takes his risks,” he said.
Good god that had been true a thousand other times before. I snorted, “No kidding.”
He looked at his watch.
“How am I doing?” I asked, indicating the watch.
“Two and a half minutes,” he said. “Who you looking for? What do they have to do with me?”
“Former employee of yours. Ruby Jordan,” I said.
M&M bowed and shook his head sighing. “Tommy hired you didn’t he?”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” I said.
“Course he did. Been plastering those flyers around everywhere there’s blank space and some places there ain’t. Won’t do him any good. Nobody’s going to say a word about the things going on around here. Like it ain’t happening if they don’t say it out loud. Morons,” he said with disgust.
I told him what I knew of his relationship to Ruby and the events leading to her running off the other night.
“Is there anything you can add?” I asked.
“Nah, that’s pretty much how it happened. Brandon came out of the diner all pissed and they fought. She ran off crying. Thought about sending one of my boys with her, but figured it’d make it worse with her boyfriend. No need to cause more trouble when I thought she’d run home,” Maurice said getting angry. “But I guess she didn’t, did she?”
“You’ve been out looking, haven’t you.” Claire said more than asked.
“Such as I can,” he turned to her.
Claire continued. “We’ve heard there are other girls missing.”
“Yes,” he spat. “I knew something was wrong after Kim didn’t show. She was the second one in as many weeks. Four more after her. Now Ruby.”
“We’ll find her,” Claire said.
“That girl is dead. They’re all dead, and there ain’t no other explanation.”
“I’m going to find her,” I said, walking up to them.
He slammed his boot into the ground. “She’s dead!”
“And I’m going to bring her home,” I finished, emphasizing it would be done regardless.
He looked at his watch. “You’re out of time, Mr. Knight.”
“Your call,” I shrugged.
He took his time answering. “What about the other girls?”
I didn’t know anything about that other than it happened and they were missing. I was already convinced they were dead—or worse. I was only hired to find Ruby. Paid to, in fact, and it was going to be hard as hell just to do that. But the thought of leaving someone dead and rotting in obscurity ate at my soul with the memories. And I couldn’t shake the or worse part.
“I can’t promise we’ll find all of them. But I suspect they would be kept together. If it’s within my power to bring them out from wherever they are, I will,” I said, knowing I was obligating myself, as well as Claire, to more trouble. I also knew I would do it anyway.
I looked over at her and she nodded. She would too.
“Hell, I don’t want the bat all bloody in my ride anyway,” he said, relaxing and motioning for Number Two to put it back.
“I don’t suppose you’ve found anything concerning the missing girls,” I said.
“No. Nothing. They’re out on the street and then they’re gone. No one sees anything. Most aren’t even working, just going somewhere late or coming home. Everyone goes with an escort now and no one works past dark,” he said.
“Is it just your girls being targeted? Rival business? Something internal?” Claire asked.
“That why you tested me? Wanted to see if maybe I’m bumping off my own girls is it?” he snapped.
“It wasn’t an accusation. Just a curiosity. What about one of your guys?” I nodded toward the other SUV.
“No, I don’t think so,” he glanced back at his boys. “I keep interaction between them to a minimum. There is no way one of them would have gotten away with it for this long. Hell, I’m not even convinced it’s not some of these freaky addicts going after people like they’ve started doing. Crazy things.”
“I’ve seen them. I think if that’s what happened there would be more—”
“Mess?” he offered.
“I was going to say evidence, but yeah, mess.”
“Think you’re right, but it’s a hell of a coincidence these freaks take over the streets and drive the regulars away same time my girls start missing,” Maurice said, pointing down the street.
“What do you know about these freaks? We’ve heard there is a new designer drug causing it. Gray Night,” Claire said.
“Gray Night, SaltNPepper, Dirty Snow. It’s got lots of names now. My favorite is Channel Three,” he said.
“I don’t get it,” said Claire.
“It’s a combination. Black and white crystals right? Probably in a powder or smoky liquid,” I guessed.
“What I’ve heard anyway. WHT is the White. The foundation.
Used to call it White Zombie around here because it puts you down hard. Nothing operates but basic urges you know, and you’re real susceptible to things. Sort of becomes part of the false reality the hallucinations build. Black stuff is new. Never seen anything like it on its own. Never saw anything like it period till it showed up in the WHT. New shit sells hot and it’s dangerous. I mean real dangerous. Addiction is strong. Fast. Hallucinations are even faster, and worse. Like a waking nightmare from the worst of WHT. Except the down. Some kind of adverse reaction turns the damn thing into a stimulant.”
“A stimulant that drives only the most basic instincts and urges in someone highly suggestible with dangerous hallucinations,” I said.
“But someone like that would have almost no control. No way to suppress their impulses once they started. Anyone attacked by them would be…” Claire looked sick.
She was going to say ripped apart. Torn. Eaten. She was thinking of the museum. And jumping from that to what almost happened in Nick’s office. I reached over and took her hand. She let me.
“Tore up real bad,” M&M finished for her. Asshole. “We been finding homeless, maybe one or two a week, just like that. Been going on since this new wave supplanted all the old dealers.”
“So, are we sure there is no way it was an addict involved with these girls?” Claire asked.
“Not likely,” M&M said.
No, it wasn’t likely. The men who attacked Brandon and I, in the very building behind us, were wild and out of control. The three men at the office later were very different. They were calmer, collected, cooler. And the weasely guy I’d literally rearranged the face of had been giving the orders. Someone like that could have taken Ruby.
Blame it on a misspent youth, but I might be predisposed to keep secrets even when it didn’t matter. And sometimes when it’s even counter-productive to do so. This was one of those times. I took a chance.
“Someone saw a girl, we believe Ruby, forced into a van accompanied by two or three men right here outside this building two nights ago,” I told him.
“Damn, last thing I want is one of those freaks behind the wheel,” M&M said. “I guess if you had a license number or description you’d be all over it. But you don’t.”
“Know anyone who drives a white van?” I asked.
M&M thought for a minute and looked at both the men standing next to him. They both nodded.
“Yeah, several, but I know most of them personally. Guess I should start checking into it.”
“Anything suspicious,” I said, handing him one of my business cards.
“I’ll call. That is, if there’s something left for you by the time I’m through,” he said. He looked at his watch again. “Are we done here?” he asked more politely than we‘d started.
I nodded.
Claire and I walked back to the car after they left.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to tell him about the white van? There’s no telling what he might do interrogating whoever he finds. He could hurt someone,” said Claire.
“He knows his business. He took the time to hear us out, and no one we’ve spoken to the last two days had anything bad to say about him. It isn’t ideal, but I think it’s at the bottom of our list of things to worry about. Don’t you?”
“I don’t know if that comforts me or makes the rest of that list all the more terrifying. Jacket?” asked Claire before we got in.
“Show me your hands,” I said stopping.
She raised them for me to see. “Why?”
“I’ve seen how you treat your clothes. Want to make sure you don’t have any scissors,” I said, taking my jacket off and turning it around to hold out for her.
She slipped it on and buttoned it over her midriff, then adjusted her vest buckles and buttoned her shirt. I tried not to look disappointed as I gave her directions to the shelter.
* * * *
Putrid fluorescent lights hummed along the ceiling, illuminating more than eighty occupied beds under their tainted glow in a mockery of sterility and clinical detachment.
It had started with the men. That was what Vitale had ordered, what he’d wanted, disposable soldiers to wipe out that upstart, Jack.
The chemical synthesis had worked beyond anything the old man could have hoped for. Beyond anything he could have foreseen. The increase in strength was incredible, and fast, even if it did start the timer on their hearts burning out. The pliable will, the rage, was perfect. And if any got loose, if any were caught, they couldn’t remember a thing. It was brilliant. Vitale had given it right to him to handle all the recruiting.
But Vitale was no different than his rival. Both created, built, and fostered the system of filth and decay, which ate at the city’s underbelly. He’d watched it grow, year after year, from the sidelines. Had watched it consume block after block, family after family, until decades of slow progress was wiped out. Not anymore.
After twenty years of doing nothing, he’d been given the perfect weapon. Vitale would get his victory. All the diamonds in the world wouldn’t give Jack a second sunrise. But the most amusing aspect was old Joe Vitale had planned the attack that would eradicate all organized crime—including him.
Justice would be delivered soon against the city’s leeches. The indigents, the addicts, the whores; they would be the instruments of destruction against the underworld system that created them.
No more men were needed. Vitale had the soldiers he wanted. Most of the beds held women now. Prostitutes and addicts, of one kind or another, prepared to serve a higher purpose. All he needed was the capital to see it through to the end and Vitale offered that avenue through his Auctions.
The women responded to the treatment even better than the men. Less adrenaline rage, but so many more faculties kept alive and a will pliable as clay. It only took selling the first two women before all the buyers wanted one of these girls and the money flowed.
It was more lucrative than selling the drug on the streets had been. That was now reserved for reducing bad inventory. Destroying its own users was a pleasant side effect. Two birds, one stone.
If only everything were so simple. Everything had, in fact, until Adrian Knight came asking questions. Which should have been simple as well, but Mathews fucked it up. Even lost one of the men and damaged two more going after Knight. When all this was over he’d find a new assistant.
Mathews wanted Knight dead no matter the cost. Which might have been preferable until this evening. There he was out asking more questions with her in tow. How fortuitous since the loss of Jessica.
He hoped to keep one of the girls for himself as a companion or simply a reminder. Perhaps a little of both. He had tasted several of the women before, in the beginning, to test the extent of their will, and Jessica had secretly been his favorite. Still, she had never been worthy. Claire Spurling, on the other hand, was going to be a very worthy choice. He would make her so. Bending her will to perfection, breaking her. She would last a long, long time.
Roman Sawyer flipped the lights off on his way back upstairs to plan for tomorrow.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mr. Sawyer seemed sincere, and it was apparent everyone loved Ruby. Most of the people at the shelter had spoken with Thomas or Brandon and had nothing new to say. Many were frustrated, and worried, and tired of all the helplessness and inevitability of it. The rest had succumbed years ago, living now in a gray world of nihilism and apathy. The shelter painted a bleak view of humanity in shades of hopelessness. Gotham had spent millions fighting back urban decay, people were going back to work, crime statistics were lower than they’d been in decades, but standing there I wondered if, after all the battles we’d won, we hadn’t lost the war for the heart and soul of the city in the process. The toll it would take on someone like Roman, who had dedicated his life trying to help, must have been devastating.
Adrian and I left the shelter and caught up with Brandon to compare notes. His efforts were as fruitless as ours, and he left soon after to call every
one in and see what they had found. He wanted to keep going into the night, but Adrian talked him out of it.
I knew how he felt. It was difficult walking away when there’s more to do. But they were pushing themselves hard and needed to be ready to go come morning. Adrian and I had as well, him more than me, and it was past time to go. I said so, and Adrian tossed me the keys to his car.
I started it up while Adrian reached into the backseat, grabbing the folder I’d brought from Nick’s office.
“This it?” he asked.
“That’s it,” I said. “Where to?”
He thought for a second, looked at his watch, and smiled. “Swing back by The Box.”
“Forget something?”
“Yeah. Dinner.”
After The Box, where the huge, satisfied man behind the counter charged a small fortune for a meal-to-go without even taking our order, Adrian asked if I remembered the way back.
He meant back to his place. Under normal circumstances I would be put off by something so presumptuous, but normal was on vacation. Besides, we had tons of material to cover on the artifacts and it would be my luck to find Ruby, find the Auction, get into the Auction, and then Adrian pass right over everything and not recognize them. Not to mention the fun discussion that was on hold about him keeping things from me. He had good reasons, or thought he did anyway, and that had been the only thing preventing his verbal destruction. We still needed to talk about it and discuss plans for things going forward a number of different ways.
And any other reason I could think of to justify not being alone for the night. My strength slipped away with the last light of day and I knew keeping busy with work would help. Not that we couldn’t do that at my place, but all I had to look forward to there was being left alone to a tiny shower, clothes that needed washing, and a cold bed. With Adrian I had an intriguing manor as mysterious as its owner, more security than I’d felt anywhere in months, and a big beautiful copper bathtub.
“Of course,” I said.
He smiled and turned away to look out the window.
I had the sneaking suspicion he knew all that as well and had avoided giving me the option to protect my pride. Then again, the look of unreserved lust he directed at the paper bags with our dinner in it I hadn’t seen directed at me in years. He was probably just hungry and wanted to get home to eat. Yeah, that made more sense.
