I pack up a few essentials, my laptop, phone, an assortment of poisons and costumes, Queen Mary and some ammo, and head out for Philadelphia. I figure I’ll start at his last known address and spread my search out to the dealers and bookies. Someone has to know where he is, right? Especially if he’s leaving debts all over town.
I sigh as my car pulls out onto the long highway west.
I can save you from hitmen, but who will save you from yourself?
Chapter 7
JAIME
NOW I’M YOU BUT WHO AM I?
I stumbled over in the bathroom, nearly cracking my skull on the tub. My limbs quivered uselessly at my sides, heavy and numb as though some mad sculptor had replaced them with flesh colored marble. “Dan… need… help…” Slurring unintelligibly, my words tumbled out of my mouth and scattered on the floor. How he was able to function like this, I could only attribute to years of practice. I could barely keep my head up.
“You alright in there?” I heard a young male voice call from miles away in the living room. Dan’s. I had to remember he was young. He wasn’t… something. Someone wasn’t something. Probably not important. Not as important as this warm, sunny cloud I was floating on. A young man burst into the room and saw me sprawled out, old, withered, and floppy. “Shit, what happened?” he said.
“Whoeryoo?”
“It’s me,” the young man said. “It’s Dan.”
“Dan” I wracked my brains trying to remember. “Dan. Dan.”
The young man who called himself Dan sat me up and gasped when he found blood on his hands. “D’you cut yerself?” I asked.
He muttered a few swear words, tilted my head back, and said something else I couldn’t quite make out before slipping unconscious.
It’s not true, what they say about concussions. Falling asleep concussed isn’t in itself a bad thing. It won’t kill you, as old wives’ tales would have you believe. The real reason you’re supposed to stay awake is that you can’t keep doctors updated on your condition, can’t say if you are getting more or less clear headed. With a heavy dose of heroin racing through my veins, I could only imagine Dan decided that keeping me awake would be moot.
When I woke up in a tub of bloody ice water, naturally the concussion was the last thing on my mind.
“Not again!” I shouted, still disoriented from the concussion and the heroin. My hands slapped and prodded my sides looking for surgical wounds. “My kidneys!”
“Your what?” asked a voice from another room that I vaguely recalled somehow belonged to Dan now.
“Where am I?”
“You’re in your bathroom,” Dan said. “You had a concussion so I threw you in some ice water to wake you up and sober you out.”
“So, no one has harvested my internal organs?”
“No.”
“Which brings me to my next question,” I said as I did my best to keep the room from swimming. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a drug addict? What if I had changed first? I could have seriously botched your transformation.”
“How was I supposed to know it’d be a problem for you?” he asked, going so far on the defensive I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had started swinging.
“I become you,” I said. “An exact copy of how you were at the time I took your blood. Look.”
I offered up my leg, which was not a pretty site. I supposed it made us even for me having to draw blood from so uncomfortable a region. I pointed to the spot on my upper thigh where blood formed in small drops.
“This is where I took your blood. Notice how I have a needle wound here? Exactly like you. Blood toxicology and all.”
“So, you have to, like, bandage that up every time you change?”
I nodded. “Or resurrect.”
“That sucks.”
“Imagine how bad it used to be before hypodermic needles were invented.”
He shuddered.
“So yes, I will come back from the dead indefinitely, no matter how bad the accident while we’re in training. Lucky you. But I’m going to come back exactly as you were, drugged to the gills and bleeding a little. Unlucky me. You need to be ready to straighten me out.”
He nodded somberly.
“Good.” I pulled my creaking old bones gingerly from the tub and grabbed a towel to dry off with. “Eighty years old with a heroin habit,” I muttered under my breath. “Who does this guy think he is, Keith Richards?”
“So, if you’re me,” he asked, either not hearing me or ignoring me, “who am I?”
“A deeply metaphysical question,” I said, “but for our purposes, you’re Calvin Watkins, stunt coordinator. You’re my trainer. Now go get dressed. We can’t exactly have you running around naked, now can we?”
Dan laughed, as I slipped into his old clothes and led him to one of my walk-in closets. “Male clothes in your size on the left,” I said.
Moments later, he emerged dressed and ready to go. He was lucky vintage was in style. Dan Germany still dressed like he did in his heyday back in the seventies. Not that it mattered. I only needed two things from him, training and money, neither of which required him to be a snappy dresser.
“What now?” he asked.
“Now we train,” I said.
“I know just the place.” He grabbed a jacket, despite it being mid-summer, and led me to the door. “Come on, ‘Dan.’ We’re taking you to your childhood home. Philadelphia.”
As I locked up, I noticed the same black car creep down my street.
Chapter 8
OLIVIA
FAKERS ALL, AS YOU CAN SEE
Waiting in the car down the block from Danger Man’s place, I research the guy Malone sent. Marv “the Fist” Taggert fancies himself Leon the Professional, but he’s really just a small-time thug with delusions of grandeur. From what I gather, there isn’t even a story behind his nickname. Maybe it’s because he’s a brute force kind of guy. He certainly doesn’t seem to be the subtle type. The few pictures I’ve found are all flash. Silk shirts. Gold chains. Black Cadillac. What few kills are attributed to him seem scattershot, a back-alley stabbing, a poisoning. Nothing consistent except the sloppiness of his work. The mob doesn’t seem to be getting their money’s worth out of him. I guess that makes them both stupid. Good. Stupid is good. Stupid is gullible, and gullible is money in the bank.
I check my phone. Five minutes later than the last time I checked, and no new notifications about Malone or Danger Man. I feel so useless waiting for something to happen, but I don’t want to step away and have him come home right as I’m ordering my Big Mac and fries. Popping my trunk, I rifle through my usual stash to see if I have anything useful. I have some bugs, but the range on those isn’t great. I’d still have to stick around here watching a doorway when I could be beating the pavement and talking to people who might be associates of Danger Man’s. I do find a motion detector—standard passive infrared sensors that I bought in bulk off Amazon when I was in my Arduino/Raspberry Pi phase. By itself, it isn’t much, but a couple years back I found a way to hook it up to a cellular transmitter, so it will send me a text when it goes off. As Houston once said, it doesn’t matter if she’s the prettiest girl at the dance; what matters is, can she dance. This rig isn’t fancy, but she dances.
Genius that I am, I left my lockpicks back at home. Fortunately, I have options. I slip into a pair of workman’s coveralls, make my way to the building, and ring the buzzer labelled “Manager.”
“Who is it?” comes a voice, garbled by age and old wiring.
“Power company, ma’am,” I say. “Checking on a client who’s behind on his bills. We may need to shut it off.”
“Who’s the client?” the woman’s voice asks, dubious as a customer at a used car lot.
“Germany?” I say, trying my best to sound like I’m reading the name off of paperwork. “Dan Germany? Says he lives here.”
“Yeah,” she says. Her voice doesn’t warm to me, per se, so much as bond over a mutual dislike of Mister Germ
any and his poor bill paying habits. “Fourth floor. Room three.”
There’s a weak, rattling buzz like a swarm of mosquitos dying, and the door clicks open. The landlady’s waiting at the office. She’s a squat, mousy woman whose hair, though bound back, has several strands that have broken free and decided to live their lives imitating avant-garde sculptures. Peering at me through thick Coke bottle glasses, she sizes me up, deciding whether or not she can trust me. After a prolonged silence, she grabs a set of keys sitting on her purse and leads me up the squeaking flights of stairs to Danger Man’s door.
We knock and wait, but no response. I don’t expect to find him that easily, but it would have been nice. We knock again. “Mister Germany, are you home? It’s the power company.”
Still no reply.
“Can you unlock it?” I ask. “He’s behind on his bill but not showing much power use. Seems ridiculous to not pay such a small bill. We need to see if he’s tampered with the meter somehow.”
“Oh, that?” the woman asks. “He’s on the road a lot. Used to be some kinda big shot or something. I don’t know.”
“Yeah, I think I heard of him growing up,” I say. “Stunts or something. But I gotta take a look at his wiring just the same. Due diligence. You understand, ma’am.”
The woman heaves a heavy sigh, shrugs, and opens the door for me. Her face contorts to a scowl.
“Who are you?” she shouts. “I don’t allow no subletters.”
I follow her gaze and see a man in coveralls with a boyish face holding a bag and some strange piece of electronics in his hand.
“I’m with the power company, ma’am,” the startled man says.
The old woman casts me an accusing stare, and I panic. Sounds sputter and tumble out of my mouth, but none of them manage to collide and form a sensible word. It’s everything I can do not to bolt.
“What’s going on here?” she asks.
“I… he…” I point around the room, trying to get out some technobabble that might make sense. I mutter words like wiring and Ohms and circuits. And that’s when I see the open window, the crowbar, and the badly damaged window sill.
“He doesn’t work for the power company!” I shout. “He’s broken in through that window!”
Instantly, the fiery intensity of her gaze burns its way from me to him, and I’m out of her mind completely. She plants her fists on her hips and storms toward the other faker, snatching up a magazine and rolling it to strike the intruder. It’s after she’s thwacked him twice that I notice what’s in his hand. The stranger holds a detonator.
“Lady, get back!” I shout but don’t wait for her to listen. I race across the room, shoving the landlady to the couch as I close on the stranger. She cries out as she falls backward, but I have bigger concerns, namely not becoming a Spaghettio stain on Danger Man’s walls.
I’m no fighter. My forte is the discrete, distant kill. I prefer poisons and accidents, but I’ll take a shot if I must. This? Punching and kicking and hair pulling? Not so much. So, I do what I always do. I flail violently at sensitive parts.
Curling into a cannonball, I launch myself straight into the stranger’s knees. He gasps, cries out, and buckles over, crumbling atop me like a heap of dirty laundry. Desperate to catch himself, he flings his hands out wildly, and the detonator flies from his hand, skidding across the hardwood floors. I track its path as it escapes across the room, holding my breath until it collides against the wall with a soft click as the button presses. My heart stops, and I brace for all Hell to break loose.
It doesn’t. I stare, bewildered, trying to make sense at how not dead I am when suddenly, the jarring impact of my head against the floor snaps me back to my senses. The stranger tugs at my hair, and though I try to resist, there’s not much I can do belly down on the floor while my assailant sits on my back.
Thankfully, a cracking of glass fills the air, and the stranger slumps to the hardwood. Standing over me, the old woman pants, broken lamp in hand. “What in the Sam Hill is going on here?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, ma’am,” I lie. “Burglary?”
I walk across the room to check out the detonator. It’s a simple, home-made affair. A little poking and prodding and I figure out why we’re still alive. The thing is built for a tripwire. He hadn’t hooked it up yet. Lucky, lucky us.
“What’s that?” the landlady asks.
If I say it’s a bomb, she’ll ask how I know. Police will get involved. They’ll quickly find out I don’t work for the power company, and once they take a look in my car, it will only get worse. It’s rough working a career where honesty is seldom the best policy.
“It’s a…” I scramble to assemble my thoughts, to find some plausible lie. What did I say earlier? “It’s a power bypass. Yeah, someone was stealing power alright. That guy was probably the guy who installed it for Mister Germany, come to take it back.”
We turn to question the fellow, but he’s halfway out the window before we realize he’s not on the floor anymore. Shoving the detonator into my pocket and making sure my own tool bag is securely around my shoulder, I give chase. I dive out the window and roll onto the fire escape, casting my glance from side to side trying to spot my mad bomber. I just barely catch a glimpse of him disappearing around the corner and onto the streets.
I scramble down the first few flights of steps, then leap over the side when I’m low enough I think I won’t injure myself. Overestimating my own athletic prowess, I wince as my ankle rolls beneath me, refusing to take my weight. Damn. Above me, Danger Man’s landlady calls to ask if I’m okay. Not that I have time to reply. I have a bad guy to catch.
I use a nearby dumpster to pull myself to my feet, then hobble out of the alley after the bomber. My ankle may be shot, but at least the guy had the decency to run toward my car. I wouldn’t need to chase him forever. Just long enough to take the wheel and close the distance. Plus, it occurred to me as I finally managed to reach the driver’s seat, at least chasing the guy down got me out of the apartment before the police arrive.
Fumbling with the keys, I barely manage to get my Sedona started. As I slip the minivan from park to drive, I punch the gas and close the gap between me and my bomber. He darts left and I do my best to follow as he disappears down a side street. Thank goodness my car isn’t a stick. I’d never be able to handle the clutch on this foot. He turns, looks over his shoulder, doing his best to avoid me, but even with the trash cans littering the road, there’s no place to hide.
“Stop or you will seriously regret making me chase you!” I shout over my engine, which screams as much as a minivan can and still maintain its dignity. He either can’t hear me or doesn’t listen. Either way, he doesn’t do as I asked so nicely, so I keep my word. Pressing down on the accelerator, I pick up speed and pull up next to my quarry, throwing open the driver’s side door as I pass. A loud, crunching thud echoes down the narrow street as the car makes contact and drops him to the ground. No one’s around to see, so I pull over, tie him up, and throw him in the rear hatch, taking only a moment to bemoan the fresh ding in my door.
Several miles later, I hear muffled cries from the back, and having no means to quiet him down until we get someplace safe, I crank up my Depeche Mode and drown him out instead. Answers will come in time. For now, I intend to enjoy the silence.
Chapter 9
JAIME
I DARE YOU TO PLAY DEAD WITH ME
It was only a two-hour drive from my apartment in Baltimore to Philadelphia, but half an hour in and I already wanted to die. The soundtrack had been nothing but Southern rock and songs about ‘Murica since we pulled onto I-95. Don’t get me wrong. I like music of all sorts. It was just that some I preferred came in smaller doses. It was Dan’s car, though, and his radio. His new identity didn’t have a driver’s license yet, so I took the wheel. I tried making the case for the driver picking the tunes, but he had none of it. He slapped my hand away from the station knob and said, “You want people to think you’re me? Y
ou play my music.”
As we drove, he told me his car’s specs, but I wasn’t exactly a car person, so it may as well have been Greek he was speaking. Except I at least spoke Greek once, long long ago. Perhaps it was all Incan to me? I assumed it translated to something big and cool. Not that I knew the first thing about what to do with that kind of horse torque power stuff. After a few thousand years, trying to keep up with everything was exhausting, especially after humanity had to get froggy and decide to invent more in the last hundred years than they had in the last ten thousand. Damn overachievers.
Sensing my confusion, Dan used this opportunity to start my training. “Look, if you’re going to drive this car off a ramp, you need to know how to get every ounce of power out of her you can.”
Fair point. The last thing I wanted was for my leap into certain doom in two weeks to fall short and have me hacked to bits by the helicopter. A brutal crash I could recover from in a couple of days if conditions were optimal. Being diced to a million pieces first? That took a lot longer. Of course, there was still the explosion to avoid and a metric ton of other things that could kill me in that stunt. I knew that one of them would. It was the plan, after all. I still wanted to make it through as much of the stunt as possible before buying the farm.
“Alright, Dan,” I said. “Tell me how to make this lion roar.”
Dan gave me a crash course on aggressive shifting. I already knew how to drive a stick, thankfully, so the lessons weren’t too hard, and his radar detector gave us warning enough to slow down before we hit any speed traps. All in all, Dan was a surprisingly good teacher given his heroin habit and the beginnings of a withdrawal pang creeping in. My nerves tightened, but I channeled it, focused it on the task at hand.
The Daredevil Corpse (The Departed Book 2) Page 4
