Hunger didn’t motivate me, so much as the dull, acidic rumble of my empty gut. I stopped at McDonald’s and ate a couple of perfectly round breakfast sandwiches, popped an Auracel, and walked to the South Loop slowly enough to ensure the drug hit my system before I hit the prison.
A pair of older ladies whose arms bristled with Macy’s bags brushed by me. I tried to imagine myself coming downtown for something other than visiting hours at the federal penitentiary or hypnotic stabs at my buried memories. That I might just go shopping, or visit the aquarium, or ride the Ferris wheel on Navy Pier. I couldn’t visualize it.
I had no gun, no cigarettes to surrender at the prison. My biggest collateral was my willingness to recant my testimony. When Burke had first asked me to do it, I’d thought there was no possible way he could convince me. And now I was sitting on the fence.
The guard put me in a different attorney visiting room this time. It didn’t have a repeater pounding on the security mirror, but it did smell like a combo of disinfectant and piss. It reminded me of CCMHC, which wasn’t my favorite residence, but at least I’d never repressed the years I spent there.
The Auracel had me waxing philosophical about the parallel of my brain and the Internet, seeing the nuthouse plain as day but needing to be searched long and hard for traces of Camp Hell, when Roger Burke joined me in his shackles and orange jumpsuit. I think I may have even been smiling just a little.
“So you checked out Dreyfuss and found out he’s legit?”
I felt my smile wither. “We talked.”
“You talked to him.” Roger shifted in his chair, and his shackles clanked. “That was really smart, letting him know you knew about him. Really smart.”
“What did you say he did, again?”
“I didn’t. But don’t let his hippy-guy act fool you. He’s high up. They’re all like that, anyone who’s higher than those grunts in uniforms who sprout up at your crime scenes. You’d never pick ‘em out of a crowd. Like Jen.”
“Who?”
He looked at me like I couldn’t have been more of an idiot. “Doctor Chance. She played you like nobody’s business. And she didn’t even have to flash her tits to do it. Although, she probably would have. She had a thing for you.”
This was nowhere near the direction I’d wanted our conversation to go. What I’d actually wanted was to get a bead on whether or not I should agree to work with Dreyfuss, because even though it seemed like I really didn’t have any other option, I figured I could get some insight from Burke. Not that I could come right out and ask him for his advice. But I could gauge his reaction.
“This job that Dreyfuss wants me to do….”
“What?”
“I don’t know if I should take it. Sure, it’ll get me closer to him, give me an in. But it works both ways. He’ll get to know me, too.”
“He offered you a job.” Burke’s lip curled. “Bullshit. Don’t think that you’ll climb into bed with the FPMP and you’ll be safe. That’s not how it works over there. Dreyfuss thinks he’s the head of his department—maybe he is—but believe you me, someone’s watching him.”
“I can’t exactly refuse.”
“Sure you can. It’s not as if they can take you out for saying no. Marks would figure it out, and he’s too high-profile to pick off.”
True, Jacob did have his face splashed across the Tribune and the five o’clock news periodically, often enough that total strangers stopped him at the bank or the gas station just to say hello—and to be able to tell their friends, yeah, he looks even better in person. But if the FPMP was as super-stealth as all that, I was sure they could kill two PsyCops with one stone and get both Jacob and me at the same time, with a gas leak, or a housefire, or a dash of arsenic in our Korean takeout.
“So…you’re saying I shouldn’t work with Dreyfuss.”
“Oh no. By all means. Let Con work a con on you, make you think that you’re all ‘in the know’ while he’s probing into every last aspect of your life to see what you can be manipulated with. I won’t stop you.”
Burke’s reverse psychology left a lot to be desired if even I could see through it. Or did it? Maybe he was right. Maybe I should figure out how to walk away.
“The name I gave you panned out. So you can’t deny that I know what I’m talking about. Recant, and I’ll give you more names. And better yet, I’ll tell you how they keep tabs on all the high-level Psychs.”
Damn it. Maybe Burke was psychic himself if he could figure out exactly what I wanted to know, and dangle it right there in front of my nose.
“What’s the problem, Bayne? Are you worried that your reputation’s going to suffer if you tell the Feds that you made a mistake, you were confused, exhausted? I’ve got news for you. The rest of the force avoids you for a reason, and not just because you’re on the Spook Squad. You’re a wreck, a disaster waiting to happen, and only someone as reckless and arrogant as Marks would chain himself to a sinking ship like you.”
Was I supposed to be insulted? Cripes, I didn’t know what to think. Or how he’d pegged Jacob so well. The two of them seemed to have each other’s number at first eye contact.
I stood up and stretched my arms to call attention to the fact that he was the one in shackles and day-glo orange, not me. “You keep sweet-talking like that, you’re gonna spoil me.”
“You think I don’t know how they follow people? I told you, I was one of them.”
I did my best to look expressionless. “No. I don’t think you do. Back in Buffalo, I think you were one of those fake cops who looks like a patrolman, but cashes a paycheck from the FPMP. You picked up one name—Dreyfuss—and you’re using it to make yourself look smart. But that doesn’t mean you really know anything.”
“Good guess. That might be how I got my foot in the door. But don’t forget, I didn’t stay a beat cop. I made detective. And I moved up the ranks of the FPMP, too.”
Holy shit, I’d guessed right? Too bad it was illegal for me to buy a lottery ticket, or I’d hit a jackpot and buy my own little island somewhere that the FPMP couldn’t follow. I decided to press my luck with Burke. The more I could force him to reveal, the less likely it was that I’d have to call up the Feds and feed them a big, fat, steaming pile of lies. I might not have much of a reputation, but that didn’t mean I wanted it to get any worse than it already was. “I’ve been talking on my cell phone. I might as well have been e-mailing my agenda straight to the FPMP.”
Roger frowned hard. Hot damn. I’d found another angle all by myself. With the help of Jacob. And his gym buddies.
I didn’t have to fake the feeling of elation I had as I turned to knock on the door and summon the prison guard. I was proud of myself. I’d read someone right, and I’d outmaneuvered him. What a great feeling.
“That’s not the only way they’ll track you,” he said.
My heart sank. I should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy. I knocked on the door anyway. I didn’t feel like giving Roger the satisfaction of looking at him.
The guard opened the door.
“Two words for you, Bayne. Remote viewer.”
No.
I froze. Probably just for half a second. But I felt a sickening lurch, like vertigo, like hypnosis, like a bad combination of pills hitting my bloodstream all at once.
If they had a remote viewer looking at me, a fucking psych who could see and hear through walls from any distance, then all the anti-surveillance technology in the world wasn’t worth shit.
-FIFTEEN-
The map of the transit system should’ve been easy to read. I knew where I was, and I knew where I was going. The routes were even color-coded. But there was that transfer thing, and the special Sunday turnaround, and every time I thought I had a handle on which train station I should go to, the route dissolved in my mind and I was left gazing at the big map and starting over again at “you are here.”
I was tracing the transfer point at Jackson and State with my forefinger when my phone rang. I flipped i
t open. Crash. “Hello?” I said cautiously.
“Lisa says that when she left, she gave you my MP3 player to give back to me. You holding it for ransom, or what?”
I touched the breast pocket of my overcoat. The MP3 player was still there. Along with a week-old parking ramp receipt, a Milky Way wrapper, and a bunch of change that would accumulate until the weight of it unbalanced the coat, and I had to empty it out.
“I’ll drop it off some other time. I’m kind of downtown right now. Without my car.”
“The blue line lets off two blocks from the store.”
I looked at the map. There was the blue line, plain as day. An easy ride with no transfers and no reversible routes. “Did Lisa say anything else?”
“Like what?”
Like anything about remote viewers spying on me. Why would she, unless I asked her about it directly? And I’d promised to give the si-no a rest. Besides, I shouldn’t be talking about it on a cell phone. “Never mind. You gonna be around? I’ll bring it by.”
I went underground for the train that let off in Crash’s neck of the woods. The air down there felt moist, and smelled like minerals, bleach and piss. The cavernous space was thick with gray industrial paint where the graffiti had been covered, and covered again, and it seemed like it would be the perfect place for spirit activity. But I was on Auracel. Not only would I not be able to see most ghosts, I’d need all my concentration to make sure I didn’t end up riding in the wrong direction, nodding off, and finding myself in a strange neighborhood with my wallet and shoes missing.
The train was short—only three cars, since it was Sunday. I picked the middle car. A young, artsy-looking couple got on at Washington and proceeded to get into a screaming match in something that sounded like Russian. Or maybe Polish. They were a lot more fun to watch than repeaters.
Sleet belted me when I emerged from the subway station by Sticks and Stones. Shitty driving weather. I patted my pocket. The MP3 player was still there. I trudged two blocks and up the stairs, and opened the door. The room was hazy with cigarette smoke and incense.
And there were people there. Shopping.
I stood there in the doorway and gawked. A woman who looked like someone’s mom was cruising the crystals. A shabby white kid with dreadlocks studied the Wicca paraphernalia. And a very serious teenaged girl browsed the Voodoo aisle with her hands clasped protectively around her middle and a scowl on her young face.
Crash rang up the purchase of a glowering Asian woman, tucked a sale flyer that was printed on bright pink paper into her bag, and gave her an especially syrupy, “Have a great day.” Then he looked up and me, batted his eyelashes, and ran his tongue-barbell over his lower teeth. “How now, brown cow. What happened to your car?”
“It’s, um…at home.”
“Deceptive. Cryptic. Color me intrigued.”
I made my way up the crowded aisles so we wouldn’t have to keep shouting at one another across the store. Crash had one eye on me and the other on the teenaged girl, who kept glancing up and tucking her long, straight hair behind her ear. “Psy-groupie?” I asked quietly.
“No. Shoplifter. She never takes anything worth more than a buck or two. But I’m trying to make sure it doesn’t escalate.”
“You want me to go say something? I have my badge.”
Crash snorted out a stifled laugh, knuckled his nose, and turned the noise into a cough. “Let her be, she’s a fucking kid.”
“Stealing from your store.”
“Jealous that she’s taking the same five-finger discount as you with that High John the other day?”
“That’s different. I forgot to pay you.” I pulled out my wallet and put a ten on the counter. Instead of ringing it up on the cash register and giving me change, he folded up the bill and slipped it into his pocket.
I moved over to make room for the dreadlocked Wiccan. Crash rang up his stuff without any small talk. The lack of upselling seemed odd to me. Crash struck me as a natural salesman. But maybe his attitude was based more on what his gut told him, that the Wiccan wanted to get his stuff and get out without being harassed, than with the urge to make another couple of dollars from the sale.
Crash closed the register and lit up a cigarette. “So you found a bus pass laying in the street and decided to see how the ghetto folk live, or what?”
“I was, uh…downtown.” I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye, and I glanced toward the candles, hoping Miss Mattie was there. Talking to her would calm me down. It wasn’t her. It was the middle-aged woman, the one who looked totally out of place. And then I realized I couldn’t expect to see much of Miss Mattie, not today. “I took some Auracel, actually.”
“No kidding. Your pupils are gigantic.”
Great. “So, uh, you do all that sage smudging and…stuff.”
“Stuff.”
“Y’know. Protective stuff. Spells.”
He crushed out his cigarette and tucked his ash tray under the counter. “I prefer the term rituals.”
“What can I do to protect my house?”
“What’s wrong with your house? It feels fine to me. And you said there’s no spirit activity.”
The door opened and a middle-aged suburban couple edged in, eyes wide, trying to look everywhere at once. I’m not sure how I can spot a suburbanite from thirty paces; I just can. Crash watched with a tolerant smirk as they ogled his paraphernalia.
I glanced along the walls for telltale signs of spy equipment. If the FPMP had planted any, they’d had a dozen prime spots to choose from. The walls were covered with posters and signs, and the old plaster had been covered with paneling. The only way to spot a bug would be with one of those metal-detector-looking things. No doubt Jacob’s gym buddies would swing by and show Crash how to use it. No doubt Crash would work out a sweaty, naked barter with them so he didn’t have to pay them in cash.
“Did you see a bug?”
My eyes snapped to his.
“I think someone upstairs sprayed, ‘cos they’re all showing up down here. They usually have the decency to wait ‘til I turn the lights out. I’d set off a roach bomb, but that shoots the Noble Eightfold Path straight down the crapper. You don’t know any animal communicators who can convince ‘em to get lost for me, do you?”
A Camp Hell scene popped into my head. Benign. Rhonda the Animal Psychic telling us the chickadee perched on the windowsill had thoughts that would make a truck driver blush. “I used to. Not anymore.”
“Maybe I’ll try one of those electronic things that’s supposed to emit a deterrent force field.”
“Like a GhosTV for insects.”
“Oh. That again.”
“Just because you’ve never found one doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
“I’m not giving you attitude because I think you dreamt it up.” Crash gave the shoppers in his store a once-over, then leaned toward me and dropped his voice low. “I just think you’re playing with fire if you start fucking around with technology that someone was willing to kidnap you to develop.”
First the bug-scare, now the kidnapping. “Do you get a kick out of feeling my adrenaline spike?”
“I’d get a bigger kick out of feeling something else….” Crash’s gaze slid from mine and focused over my shoulder on a murmured question. “Yeah? No, it’s not dyed green. It’s natural jade.” He clucked his tongue. “Honestly….”
I looked back at the shoppers. The suburbanite woman had found the astrology section and was looking in earnest. Her husband looked like he was dying to leave. The goth girl wasn’t actively stealing anything, and the middle-aged woman was pondering a Buddha statue.
“So, how do you stop remote viewers from looking at you?”
I’d aimed for a casual tone. Too bad I couldn’t match it up with a casual emotion inside myself. Crash went serious again. “Is this just a vague idea you’ve got, or is someone watching you?”
“That’s what I’ve heard.”
Crash gave a low whistle. “Y
ou could start with the chakra cleanse….”
“That didn’t work.”
“Hey. You asked me for advice. Don’t bite my head off.”
I crossed my arms and stared down at the jewel-studded prayer statues in the Plexiglas case.
“Try another discipline if Vedic’s not your bag. You could make up an affirmation, or do some transcendental meditation, or say a few Rosaries…or dust yourself with Get Away powder, light a Reversible candle and tie a bat’s eye around your neck. How am I supposed to know what would keep the invisible eyes off you?”
“That’s all stuff that amplifies talent. I want to back it off.”
“No—you’re thinking about it all wrong. You want to strengthen your own mojo so that you can bounce their energy back at them.”
“Like a white balloon.”
He smirked. “Like rubber and glue. Anything you spy on bounces off of me and sticks to you.”
“Great. So that means if I’m on antipsyactives, I’m a sitting duck.”
The store’s door opened and shut. I glanced over my shoulder. Goth girl was gone. Crash took a good, hard look at the three remaining customers, then leaned in and spoke in my ear. “You mean to say you think someone’s watching you right now? All the time?”
“I’m pretty sure of it.”
“Look, this place isn’t a fortress or anything, but I do take precautions to make sure the less ethical botanicas don’t curse me out of business. I’d be surprised if your Remote Pen Pal could reach you here.”
Maybe not. When I’d been tweaked on experimental psyactives, the ghosts hadn’t followed me into the shop. Still, I couldn’t very well stay there all night—actually, scratch that. All I’d have to do was ask. But I was positive it wouldn’t be a very good idea.
“What can I do to shake off this Auracel?”
PsyCop 5: Camp Hell Page 11
