Splintered

by Jamie Schultz

  “What is this shit?” Anna asked. She hauled a chair out from the table and sat. Guy had replaced his jacket, she saw.

  “We met where you wanted last time. I’m more comfortable here.”

  “You serious? We’re way outclassed by the criminals in this place. At least you know where you stand with the Mongols.”

  Guy smiled neutrally. “The clientele here is less likely to push my face in.”

  “What is it you want?”

  Guy glanced to the tables on each side. He didn’t have anything to worry about, Anna thought. The nearest tables weren’t all that close, and anyway, the occupants were busy. The ones on the left were deeply engrossed in a conversation that prominently featured words like “leveraged,” and the ones on the right were loudly comparing sexual conquests.

  “You had a vision,” he said, smooth cheeks pushed up in a smug smile.

  “I didn’t have shit. But if you’ve got more of those little sticks, we have something to talk about.”

  “But . . . He spoke to you?”

  Didn’t take much to figure out what “He” Guy was referring to, and Anna thought back to the one-sided conversation she’d listened to when Karyn was holding the toothpick. Something had spoken to Karyn, but Anna had her doubts about whether it was the Lord. God might have triggered some of those looks of fear, but outright revulsion seemed a little less Godly, at least as far as Anna was concerned. She wished Guy were a little more . . . stable. It would have been nice to get an unbiased take on all this. As it was, though, she thought it best to tread lightly. “Not to me. To a friend.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, what do you want?”

  “I told you, I need you to bring the woman in the picture and meet someone with me.”

  “Not gonna happen. You get me, or nothing.”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  His hands twisted together as he spoke, and he kept chewing at his bottom lip. At first she’d thought it was nerves. Some of her clients were like that. They’d never done anything illegal before, but they wanted something so bad that it pushed them over the moral hurdle. They still felt uncomfortable about it. The more she watched him, though, she didn’t think this was that kind of anxiety. He wasn’t looking up every time the door opened, and after the initial glance around, he’d totally forgotten about the people around them. This was more like junkie anxiety. Need-a-fix anxiety.

  “You don’t actually have any more of those little sticks, do you?” she asked.

  She saw denial flash across his face—tightened brow, open angry mouth—and then it was gone and he slumped, deflated. “No. Mona has the reliquary.”

  All at once, the background noise faded to nothing, and Guy stood out in sharp relief against the crowd. “Did you say Mona? Mona who?”

  “Mona. Just Mona. I—I don’t actually know her last name. I mean, if she even has one. I guess she does.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Anna said, pushing back from the table.

  “Wait! Where—”

  “Bathroom.” She stood. The bathrooms were in back, which was perfect. She brushed past a few tables full of excited yuppies and went into the ladies’ room. She busied herself washing her hands while she thought. This might be a setup. Some kind of loyalty test from Sobell? That didn’t seem too likely. Surely they’d proven their loyalty by now, and anyway, Guy was nobody’s idea of the kind of smooth operator you’d want to draw somebody out. This wasn’t coincidence, though. L.A. was just too goddamn big for a coincidence like that. She thought of the lawyer guy being disappeared into Mona’s backyard. Did that mean they were on the same side? Or was this too fucked-up to worry about things like sides?

  She dried her hands on her pants and went out. From the back, she could see the whole room, and she scanned the faces as she walked. Nobody familiar, nobody paying her any attention aside from the occasional brief glance, nobody hiding conspicuously behind a newspaper or any bullshit like that. If this was a setup, it appeared that Guy was the only one in on it.

  “Mona,” she said as she sat. “Everything you know, right now.”

  “She speaks to God,” Guy said, his voice edging up past plaintive into whiny.

  “Then what the hell do you need us for?”

  His face was bland as he studied her. Coming up with a lie, or deciding whether to tell the truth?

  “We’re at war, you know. The real deal—good versus evil. Maybe this is really the end times, I don’t know.”

  Now Anna felt like looking around to see who was listening. “The end times.”

  “Well, I mean, I don’t really know about that. But the war is real.” He leaned as far over the table toward her as he could and whispered, “Demons walk the earth.”

  “‘Walk the earth’? Are you serious?” Funny enough, the demons part she had no trouble believing. That anybody would talk like Guy, though, was a hell of a lot to have to swallow.

  “It’s true,” he said. He spoke calmly again, all trace of his earlier whine gone. It was the voice of someone speaking in undeniable certainties, so sure he was correct that he didn’t care whether you believed him or not. Maybe it was inconceivable to him that you wouldn’t.

  “No argument here,” Anna said. “I mean, really—I know.”

  “Mona’s a saint. A miracle worker. I’m just a soldier.” His face softened, and Anna thought she saw the slick glimmer of tears welling up in his eyes. “She can save us all, if we serve her.”

  “Save us from the demons.”

  “Yes.”

  Anna had never felt the urge to pistol-whip somebody just for being infuriating before, but it was coming on strong now. “What does that even mean? Are you being literal?”

  “A great enemy has risen against us. Mona can save us—but she needs help. She needs an oracle.”

  “Oh my fucking God.” If not for Karyn, for that tiny shred of hope, there was no way she would have had the patience to drag all this out of him.

  He nodded. His cheeks were now wet with tears, but he didn’t wipe them away. “And you can bring her to us.”

  “That’s the part I don’t follow.” Well, one of them.

  “We’ve seen you, in the visions. And the other woman. What is her name?”

  “None of your business.”

  “The visions were clear. We need a prophet. She is one.”

  “What do you need a prophet for?”

  Puzzlement pulled Guy’s eyebrows together. “We were told to find her. You don’t question the will of God. You simply obey.”

  “Tell me about Mona.”

  “Get the prophet, and we’ll go meet her.”

  “Not a chance. I meet her first. Then we deal. Let me give you a hint: I’m gonna want more of those black toothpicks. A lot more.”

  Guy did a lousy job covering up his wince. “Mona will dispense some from the reliquary.” He licked his lips. “Maybe not a lot more, but some.”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  So there it was. If this was for real, she had options. Deal directly with Mona for more of those sticks, maybe get hooked up with a steady supply. Failing that, maybe she could steal this reliquary and get the tooth at the same time. She’d have to play it by ear, and the situation was tricky. If she could get hooked up with a steady supply, that might mean fucking Sobell over—after all, if Mona became her new hookup, it would really screw things up to get caught stealing from her.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “Right now.”

  “Can’t. Got places to be.” And, more to the point, Genevieve would be watching the place right now.

  “Then tonight.”

  “That doesn’t work, either.” Her next shift wasn’t until tomorrow. Changing shifts was a possibility, but she’d need a reason for that, and right now this didn’t look like anything she wanted to try to explain. Maybe it would all go smoothly and she’d walk away with everything—and maybe she’d come out with Sobell as an enemy. She couldn’t risk telling Genevieve. There was no tel
ling if Gen would tip Sobell off or not. “Tomorrow. Ten p.m.”

  “Not sooner?”

  “No.”

  “All right. I guess.”

  “See you then,” she said.

  Chapter 16

  Nail slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop, his pulse pumping so loud in his ears it drowned out the traffic. The light was green, but some dumb kid had gone wandering out into the street anyway, and Nail had been so preoccupied he hadn’t seen her until he damn near mowed her down.

  “Get the fuck out of the road!” he yelled. He balled up his fist to keep his hand from shaking.

  The kid gave him the finger and ran the rest of the way across the street. “I gotta get my head in the game,” he muttered. He’d thought this latest job would be more straightforward, like the old days. Go in, steal some shit, get out without anybody being the wiser. It was looking less like that all the time.

  He didn’t know how many people were holed up in the house, but it was at least four, of that he was sure. He’d seen two, and Anna had seen another two. He’d seen them come back from a supply run, and either they ate like a platoon of marines or there was a hell of a lot more than four. They came and went at irregular hours, and as near as he could tell, there was never a moment when all four were gone.

  The light turned yellow, and he drove through the intersection, shaking his head. He’d sat there the whole time it was green, head in the clouds. Bad sign.

  Somebody honked, and he checked the mirror. Shit. The sight of the red bubble flashing on the dash of the car behind him sent a sick jolt through his gut, and he almost floored the accelerator. Instead, he guided the car to the curb, swearing under his breath the whole time. The car was unmarked, sure, but he should have seen it.

  The guy who got out didn’t look like a cop so much as a sales guy or someone belonging to a related category of empty suit. Off duty, or what? He rolled down his window and waited.

  “Mr. Owens, I’d like you to come with me.”

  Even better. This son of a bitch knew who he was. Not a good sign. He knew a couple of corrupt cops who worked for various arms of organized crime, and they’d do you just like this. Come with me, and next thing, you were lying in back of a warehouse somewhere. “Aren’t you supposed to ask for my license and registration?”

  “This is a little more informal. We just want to talk with you.” The guy grinned humorlessly. “Scout’s honor.”

  “Talk.”

  “We should do it at headquarters.”

  “We should do it right here.”

  “Do you know why I stopped you?”

  Nail gave him a bland look.

  “It’s because you sat at a green light for two minutes, then ran a red. That gave me probable cause. What do you suppose I’m going to find when I search your car?”

  “Not one goddamn thing.”

  There was real humor in his smile this time. “Want to bet?”

  “It’s like that, huh?”

  “Just like that.”

  A battered Taurus rolled by, close enough to the cop to ruffle his hair. “Can I see some credentials?”

  The guy flipped open a wallet. Not a cop. FBI. The bands of tension squeezing Nail’s chest actually loosened a notch. Corrupt city cops were a dime a dozen, but an FBI guy was another thing entirely. He checked the mirror again, saw another guy sitting in the car. Two FBI guys. Maybe legal trouble, then, but the odds he was about to end up facedown in a field seemed a hell of a lot smaller.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  He spent the ride in the back of the car, watching the two guys. Nobody said a word until they got to the municipal building. “Come on,” the first guy said. Then it was up the stairs and into a small, dingy elevator. Walking into the municipal building with a couple of cops and not wearing handcuffs. What’s the world coming to? On the fourth floor, the cops—agents, he supposed—led him down a hallway done up in industrial beige. They knocked at the door. A black woman, similarly attired in a suit, dark hair pulled back in a severe bun, opened it.

  “Hi,” she said, offering her hand. She smiled pleasantly. “I’m Special Agent Elliot. Come on in and have a seat.”

  “I got a choice?”

  “Of course. But I think you’ll want to hear this. I really do.”

  Nail’s first impulse was to answer, Well, in that case—big dramatic pause—fuck you, but he stayed quiet. Maybe she was right. Given all the shit they were in, maybe he’d pick up something useful.

  He stepped through the door. The room inside reminded him, oddly enough, of the teachers’ lounge at his high school. A couple of cheap, long tables were set up in the middle of the room, a flat-screen TV set up on one of them. A closed door was in the center of the wall at the far end of the room. Cinder block wall to the right. Corkboards on the walls to the left. He saw his picture on one. Anna’s, too. And Karyn, Genevieve, and Tommy. The sight filled him with a sudden anger. Who were these people to be messing with his? He ground his teeth and said nothing.

  Behind him, the door closed, leaving the two guys who’d picked him up out in the hall, so there was that to be thankful for.

  “I want to show you something,” Elliot said. “Have a seat.”

  “Think I’ll stand.”

  “Suit yourself.” She picked up the remote control and pointed at the TV.

  The scene was a parking garage, shown from a slightly shaky handheld video camera. A man got out of a parked SUV.

  Sobell. Shit. Way too close to home. He was carrying something in both hands. It was tough to make out, and his body was in the way most of the time, but it looked kind of like an urn. He walked around the vehicle.

  Nail recognized Anna’s car in front. This was the meeting that was supposed to be the drop, then. Just as DeWayne said. They must not have anything else, or they wouldn’t still be barking about this. In the video, Anna parked the car and got out.

  Sobell greeted them. “Ms. Ruiz, Ms. Lyle. I suggest you remain in your vehicle for a few more moments. Be sure to roll up the windows.” The audio was amazingly good—no way it came from some crappy video camera mic. Somebody’d been there with something a lot more sophisticated.

  Anna: “Why?”

  “Exodus, chapter ten.”

  Anna and Genevieve got back in the car and, following instructions, rolled up the windows. Then Sobell bent down out of sight. For ten seconds, Sobell was blocked entirely from view by the vehicle. And at the end of the ten seconds, fifty zillion locusts came pouring up out of somewhere, creating an explosion of sound that dissolved the audio feed into deafening static.

  Elliot stopped the film and studied Nail’s eyes. “I’ve watched this thing a hundred and fifty times, and I still can’t figure out what happened there. Got any ideas?” She smiled all the way to her eyes, as if there was real humor in it.

  “Great special effects. ILM?”

  She chuckled. “No, it’s the real deal. Good audio, huh? I keep listening, wondering if I’m hearing it wrong, but I don’t think I am.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Exodus, chapter ten. It’s from the Bible. I actually went and chased the reference down. Exodus, chapter ten, is the bit where Moses unleashes the wrath of God on Pharaoh in the form of a plague of locusts. I memorized verses fourteen and fifteen.” She cleared her throat, then held out her arms as though addressing a huge crowd. “‘And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt: very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such. For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt.’”

  “That’s all kinds of fucked-up.” It was, too, but Nail didn’t see what it had to do with him.

  “We sent a team in afterward to figure ou
t just what happened in there. They had to clean eight inches of dead locusts off the floor of the garage to even get started. I thought they were going to find some kind of, I don’t know, drain or hatch or something that Sobell let all those bugs come in through. But no.”

  Elliot paused, seeming to wait for some kind of acknowledgment. “It’s a weird old world,” Nail said.

  “I am one hundred percent sure a crime was committed in that parking garage, but I’m stumped on exactly which one. Littering? Vandalism? Oh, I know—maybe I can charge Sobell with ten million counts of malicious mischief.” She sat upright in her chair, hands holding the edge of the table. “None of those count as RICO predicate crimes, though.”

  Nail let the words bounce off as though they meant nothing to him, but now he got it, the reason he was here. All they needed was to prove a pattern of illegal activities, and prove Sobell was in charge, and they could bring Sobell down even if he hadn’t lifted a finger himself. Somehow they’d tied Nail and the crew to Sobell, and they thought they could get him to put Sobell on the hook for them. “I hope you get him. That shit with the bugs fucked up traffic something fierce.”

  Elliot’s smile didn’t diminish a bit. “Look, we’ve got your crew on video talking to the guy. We know you’re working for him.”

  “I musta missed where I showed up on that video. Maybe we can watch it again, and you can point it out this time.”

  Elliot waited. The urge to take a closer look at the photos on the wall nagged at Nail like something caught between his teeth, and it was all he could do to keep his eyes trained on hers.

  The stare-down went on for long enough to become mildly ridiculous, and finally Elliot looked down at her hands, grinned, and looked back up. “Mr. Owens, I’m with FBI, NSIB. Do you know what that is?”

  “No. That’s a lot of alphabet right there.”

  “Not many people do. It stands for ‘Non-Standard Investigations Branch.’ We handle events of an . . . unusual nature.”

  “Like bioterrorism and shit?” Nail said.