“Not all of them. Some of those Career Day things I sent Jake instead.”
“Jake?” Greg sat forward. We hadn’t heard anything about a Jake before now. “Who’s Jake?”
“Jake’s the manager of my Pineville store. I sent him to the schools on the south side of town, ‘cause they’re closer to him. But what’s this got to do with me? I don’t know anything about any of this stuff.”
But he did—I could see it in his eyes, and more importantly, I could smell the little sweat that comes with fear. After a while you figure out what different kinds of fear smell like. For example, innocent oh-crap-I’m-about-to-get-eaten-by-a-vampire fear smells completely different than guilty as sin yeah-I-really-raised-a-super-demon-and-I’m-lying-out-my-butt-about-it fear. Joe’s fear was somewhere between I-cheated-on-my-taxes fear and I’ve-got-corpses-buried-under-my-tomato-plants fear.
I turned the fear smell inside out, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on the cause. I was so busy playing “Name That Fear” that I didn’t sense a disturbance in the force until I heard Greg whisper “Oh, crap.”
Chapter 16
Okay, fine, you got me. I didn’t sense a disturbance in the force. But I did notice a silence fall over the bowling alley and smell a wave of fear rippling out from the main entrance. I looked over at the front door and saw the female detective from the night before talking to the shoe rental guy. He pointed to where we were sitting with the Tire King, and she started our way.
“Looks like we might have to come back to this conversation later, Mr. Arthur,” I said, getting to my feet and looking for another exit. “Where do you think you’re going?” Arthur asked, getting up himself
and blocking my escape route. “You can’t come in here and make all these
accusations then go running out on me. You sit your skinny ass right back
down here and tell me what you think I have to do with those missing kids!” I leaned down to the Tire King’s face, which had gone an interesting
splotchy purple color. I looked in his eyes and said, “Sleep.”
He passed out cold and fell face-first onto the table, crushing his plastic
cup full of Miller with his forehead. I turned him to the side to make sure he
wouldn’t drown in cheap beer and tried to formulate a plan.
“What are we gonna do?” Greg asked.
“I was really hoping you’d have a plan.” My mind worked as fast as it
could, which really isn’t that fast, all things considered.
“I never have a plan. At least, not one you like.”
He had a point there. Greg’s plans usually involved some expensive
piece of equipment that only existed in comic books, or so many plot twists
that by the time he finished explaining the plan, I’d already punched
somebody.
“Well, there’s a first time for everything. But obviously tonight ain’t it.”
I stood up as the detective got to our table.
The look on her face dispelled any lingering hope that she hadn’t
noticed me looking out Tommy’s hospital-room window. She was tall, and
she’d pulled her curly hair back in a severe ponytail. Her blazer was pulled
back to reveal an impressive rack, but my attention was drawn to her Smith
& Wesson .40 pistol in a shoulder rig. I’ll admit it, I have a bit of a thing for
women who pack heavier ammo than me.
She snapped her fingers in front of my face and brought me straight out
of my happy place and back to the beer-soaked bowling alley. “This would
be an excellent time for you to explain to me who you are and why you keep
showing up around my investigation.”
The look on her face said she was a woman who brooked no BS, but I
never let that stop me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, holding out my hand and dropping into the hick
accent I grew up with. “I think you must have me mistaken for somebody
else. I’m Jimmy Black, assistant manager at the Monroe location of Joe’s
World of Tires. Can I help you with . . . something?” I put a little sleazy twist
in there and ogled her chest, trying to make myself look like a slimy tire
salesman.
Ogling her chest was not hard to do. More like a job perk. “Really?” She said, and raised one eyebrow as if she knew something I
didn’t. “There is no Monroe location of Joe’s World of Tires, and you’re no
more a tire salesman than I am a private investigator. Why don’t you cut the
crap, Mr. Black and tell me what you and your little friend here are doing
screwing up my investigation before I haul you both downtown and book
you on obstruction of justice charges.”
I knew going legit and getting PI licenses would come back to bite me
in the ass. And the irony of that concept is not lost on me. Having failed so
miserably with Plan A, I skipped the as-yet-undeveloped Plan B and went
straight for the mojo. I looked her in the eyes, which was surprisingly easy
since she was almost my height, and said, “These are not the droids you’re
looking for. Move along.”
“Are you on drugs?”
I looked over at Greg, who was as flabbergasted as I was. Mojo didn’t
fail. This was entirely unexpected. Surprise didn’t help me process or
communicate. “Huh?”
“You are on drugs. Great, just great. Not only do I have a PI sticking
his nose in my case, I have a stoner PI sticking his nose in my case. Get up.
You two are coming with me.”
I looked at her again, and got serious with the mojo, really tried to
supplant her will with mine. “No, we’re not. You will leave here and forget
you ever saw us. You came in, Joe Arthur was passed out drunk, he has
nothing to do with these disappearances and you left. That is all.” She looked back at me just as hard and said “You are a pain in my butt,
and you are going to jail for interfering with my investigation.” Since my vampire willpower wasn’t working, Greg stepped in for the
save. “Sorry to disappoint, but we’re not going anywhere with you. I’m sorry
we’ve run into this misunderstanding, but it’s not going to happen. Now
why don’t you get in your car, go back to the station, and forget you ever ran
into us this evening.”
Greg’s best mojo netted equally disappointing results and a disgusted
headshake from the officer.
Both of us were seeing this cop in a whole new light. I’d never run into anyone who could shrug off multiple vamp mojo attempts, but this chick
evidently had a will of cast iron.
She reached around to her belt and grabbed a radio, clicking it on as she
brought it to her lips. “This is Detective Law. I need a wagon at Lucky Strike
for two passengers.” She put the radio back on her belt and looked at us.
“You two are going to spend the night in a holding cell while I figure out
exactly what I’m going to charge you with. Unless you have a really good
story and start sharing it with me right now.”
“Um . . . we were hired by the family of one of the kidnapped girls?” I
offered up.
“The Reynolds family?” she asked.
I nodded.
“No, you weren’t. They called me as soon as you left there. I left
instructions with every family to call me as soon as the vultures, and that
means you, started coming around, so that I could run you off. So you came
around, they called, and voilà! Here I am, running you off.”
“But . . . but . . . ,” I spluttered. I’m not pr
oud of it, but splutter was the
best I could come up with.
“But how did I find you? Mrs. Arthur also called me, and told me that
you had just left her house, and were probably headed here to harass her
husband publicly. Looks like she has some shred of marital loyalty left. And
here we are.”
“And here we are,” I muttered. Here I was in the middle of a brightly lit
public space with a human that I couldn’t put the whammy on. This was so far outside the norm, I was totally stumped. Greg and I had
been bespelling humans for fun and foodstuffs for the better part of two
decades, and nothing like this had ever happened before. Primitive survival
instincts kicked in. We shared a look that said, “You wanna hit her or you
want me to?” and I had just decided to deck the pretty detective in front of
about seventy witnesses when her cell phone rang.
She pulled out her phone and pressed a button. “Law”
Thanks to our super-duper hearing, Greg and I had the benefit of
following both sides of the conversation.
A disembodied voice said, “Detective, we have another abduction.
Marjorie Ryan was last seen leaving a school dance with three of her friends
forty-five minutes ago. Her friends all arrived home, but Marjorie did not.
We’ve established a perimeter between the school and the home, and we
have a chopper in the air. What’s your twenty?”
“Lucky Strike bowling alley. I was about to question a potential suspect.
Obviously, he’s not our guy. I’m on my way, should be there in fifteen.” I held up my hands and started to back away, saying, “You’ve obviously
got a lot going on, so we’ll get out of your way. Good luck catching the bad
guys!”
“Don’t even think about moving. As a matter of fact, you two are still
going downtown, if for nothing else than to keep you out of my hair. No
way do I need you mucking around my crime scene and getting in my way.
Gimme your right hands.” She reached behind her and grabbed a pair of
handcuffs.
I shook my head. “Look, Detective. You don’t have enough to charge
us with anything, and handcuffing us and leaving us here is a bad idea no
matter whose police procedure manual you cite.” I thought if mojo wasn’t
working then maybe I could appeal to her sense of reason. “If you think you
need to keep an eye on us, take us along. My partner and I have a lot of
experience in unusual cases. We could probably be helpful if you’d just let
us.”
“Okay, maybe you would be useful.” She seemed to relent, and reached
out to shake my hand. Without thinking, I took her hand, and just like in a
thousand bad cop movies, she slapped a cuff on it. Then she reached over to
the swivel chair mounted to the scoring station and locked the other cuff
around it.
“Now stay put. You,” she said to Greg, “give me your keys.” He reached in his pocket and handed her the keys to the Pontiac. “I’m
gonna get those back, right?” he asked, looking like a whipped puppy. “Sure. You can pick them up at the station downtown tomorrow
morning. I’ll be sure to have them there by nine.” With that, she turned and
headed for the door. I sat down with my arm twisted uncomfortably behind
me and looked over at Greg, who took the other seat.
“This would be a very good time to tell me you have a spare set of car
keys,” I said, glaring at him.
“Under the back bumper, bro. No worries.”
“Good, then I won’t have to strangle you in your sleep.” “I don’t breathe, so it wouldn’t make any difference.”
“It would make me feel better.”
“Yeah, I can see where you might be a little disgusted with yourself for
falling for the old handshake/handcuff switcheroo.” He looked unbearably
smug sitting there. I hate it when he’s got the right answers for things. It
messes with the natural order of the universe.
“So, how you planning on getting out of there?”
I stood up and stepped around behind the chair, hiding the handcuff
from the rest of the bowling alley with my body. I twisted and pulled, but
couldn’t get enough leverage to get it off my arm. The cuff groaned a little. I
shoved the metal band further up my forearm until it was nice and tight. I
flexed one more time, but all I got for my trouble was a red mark around my
arm and a couple of stares from a passing waitress.
“Did somebody forget to eat his Wheaties this morning?” Greg asked.
“You should be able to snap that like a pretzel.”
“Yeah, I know, but I can’t get a good angle on the cuff. Time for Plan
B.” I reached down and grabbed the back of the chair with my free hand. I
worked the molded plastic for a minute, couldn’t get it to give at all, and
finally just ripped the whole seat free of the swivel, which consisted of cheap
metal fastenings. I stood there in the middle of the bowling alley with a chair
hanging from one wrist. “Let’s go,” I snarled at Greg, who was having
trouble getting to his feet because he was laughing so hard.
I trudged to the front door, pausing long enough to tell the counter guy
that the chair in lane nine was busted, and dragged the stupid chair all the
way out the mall entrance to the parking lot, attracting more than one
strange look on the way. I got to the car and reached under the bumper. I felt
around and pulled out one of those magnetic key boxes, and slid it open,
only to find a business card for Detective Sabrina Law. She had written a
note on the back of the card saying, “Hide it better next time.” Greg made it out to the parking lot in time to laugh some more at the
sight of a gangly six-foot-three-inch vampire stomping around the lot
cursing inventively and swinging a plastic chair around his head by a
handcuff.
“Dude, hold still, let me get you out of that thing,” he said when I
stopped swearing and flailing.
He reached into a pocket of his utility belt and brought out a small
folding saw, the kind they sell at sporting goods stores. I thought of about
seventeen wisecracks, but decided I valued emancipation from the bowling
alley furniture over a good zinger and held my tongue. His little saw was
surprisingly effective, and in a couple of minutes, I was free.
Well, mostly free. I still had a handcuff dangling from my wrist, but
there was no longer a giant hunk of molded plastic attached to it. Some
nights you can only ask for so much, and this was shaping up to be one of
those.
“I don’t suppose you have another set of keys in that belt, do you?” I
asked hopefully.
“No, but I have the next best thing,” Greg replied.
Before I could ask what exactly that was, he reached under my arm,
grabbed my Glock and walked over to where a young couple was doing what
young couples do in the back lanes of parking lots. Greg tapped on the glass
with the pistol, and then put his fist through the back passenger window. He
pulled a skinny teenage kid out through the window, pointed the gun at his
rapidly shriveling pride and joy, and hinted that the kid should run away.
Then he leaned into the back window, smiled at the girl broadly enough to
/> show a lot of fang, and laughed as she beat a hasty retreat out the other door.
He tossed a T-shirt at her retreating, and naked, back, and reached into the
floor of the backseat for the boy’s pants.
“Subtle. That looked like something I would do,” I said as I walked around and got into the passenger seat. Greg had retrieved the car keys from the boy’s pants by then, settled himself behind the wheel and put the car in
gear.
“Sorry,” he said without an ounce of remorse. “I was under the
impression that we were in a hurry. Problem solved.”
He peeled rubber out of the parking lot and handed me back my gun. I
tuned the radio to an oldies station and cranked some vintage Springsteen as
we headed off to the site of the latest kidnapping. I wasn’t sure what our
detective friend would think about our appearing at her crime scene, but I
wasn’t too inclined to care. We only had about forty-eight hours to stop the
summoning of a serious metaphysical beastie from taking place, and our Big
Bad was now one ankle-biter closer to its quota.
Flying under the radar of the cops was no longer an option.
Chapter 17
Every cop in the greater Charlotte area was camped out in a three-block radius between the latest victim’s school and home. It would have been a great time for bank heists, jewelry store capers or just knocking over liquor stores for pocket change.
Greg and I parked the car a couple of blocks outside the ring of flashing blue lights and left the keys in the ignition. I’d rifled through the kid’s wallet on the way across town and found twenty-seven bucks and six condoms. The kid was something of an optimist. Or an overachiever.
We circled the perimeter until we found a young, scared-looking cop working a section of sidewalk alone. I walked up to him, smiling my friendliest smile, which is not much more reassuring than Hannibal Lecter after eating bad steak tartare, but I got close enough to see the color of his eyes.
“H-hold it right there,” the kid stammered and put his hand on his gun. I hoped he wouldn’t shoot himself in the foot before I mojo’d him. “You’ll have to go around, sir. Sorry for any inconvenience.”
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