The Neon Boneyard

by Craig Schaefer

  We also found out Todd was as incompetent a hit man as he was a drug dealer. He hadn’t gotten the money up-front. Santiago gave him the tainted batch of ink and told him he’d be paid once the job was done. I could use that.

  The three of us peppered him with questions until we’d wrung him dry. There wasn’t anything left inside of him after that, nothing but fear and the faintest, most distant glimmer of hope.

  I saved the hope for last.

  “That’s it, then,” I told him and turned to walk away. Caitlin curled her arm around mine and followed suit.

  “Wait!” he called out. “What…what now? Are you going to let me go?”

  I glanced back at him, then looked to Emma.

  “Not really my place to say. I mean, under the circumstances, I think that’s Melanie’s mom’s decision. What do you say, Emma? Should we let him go?”

  She lingered beside a tray of autopsy tools. Her outstretched fingers glided across the implements while she thought it over. Her hand stopped. She scooped up a long pair of stainless-steel jaws, designed to crack open a corpse’s rib cage, and held them up to the light.

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  Todd started to scream. Caitlin and I walked out. As the door swung shut, my last glimpse was of Emma leaning over the pine box, slowly reaching inside.

  11.

  I needed some air. I sat in the front seat of Todd’s van, sideways, legs dangling out the open door as I huddled over his burner phone. I’d have one shot at approaching Santiago and setting up a meet. If I got it wrong, he’d dive underground, too deep to follow.

  “It’s like submarine warfare,” I muttered.

  Caitlin leaned against the side of the van. She stretched, languid, one hand raised like she was beckoning to the cold and starless sky.

  “How’s that?”

  “We’re prowling around each other, aiming for a direct shot. When we de-roached one of their dealers, and I had my run-in with that lawyer from Weishaupt and Associates, Smith…that was the opening salvo. We know the Network exists. They know that we know. The outstanding question now is, how much do they know about us?”

  “You’re straddling two worlds these days, pet. Do you mean how much do they know about our court, or how much do they know about your criminal friends?”

  “Both,” I said. “Look, I think we can agree that Melanie wasn’t targeted because of that article she was trying to write. There’s no chance the Network murdered over a dozen people—with their own product, no less—to knock off a teenager who wants to be an investigative journalist. The most Melanie could have possibly uncovered was…well, Todd. And that’s as far as the cops would have gotten, too.”

  Caitlin nodded, taking that in as she got on my wavelength. “Not remotely worth the risk or the cost. Which suggests the real target was Emma.”

  “Exactly. Kill a family member to send a message. But here’s the kicker: Emma works for your court—”

  “Our court,” Caitlin corrected.

  “—and she has a seat on the New Commission. So who were these people trying to attack? The infernal underworld? The criminal underworld? Both? And what’s the message supposed to be, anyway? Remember what Santiago said to Todd: they wanted it to look like an accident. This whole scheme, it seems solid from a distance, but the second you start poking at it the entire thing falls apart. There’s something we’re missing here. Something we’re not supposed to see.”

  And under it all, the taunts of the King of Worms kept drifting back to me. I eyed the phone again and clicked the custom app Todd used to communicate with his boss. I tapped in his password—geronimo—and a message.

  Job’s done, just like you told me to do it, I wrote. I want my money.

  Three minutes later, a response pinged in. One word. Patience.

  Fuck your patience, I wrote back. I need that money. I kicked over a hornet’s nest, cops everywhere. I want to get out of town for a while.

  Cops looking at you? came the reply.

  I had to be careful here and put just enough pressure on Santiago to push him into a face-to-face meeting. If I pushed too hard, he might cut his losses and run.

  No, I typed. I’m careful. Careful enough that I want to split town before they do start looking. And it’s in your best interest to help me do it. If I go down, you go down.

  Are you threatening me, Todd?

  I felt that tinge of wrongness again. Yes—as Todd I was absolutely threatening him. And I shouldn’t have been able to. The Network was careful, obsessive, neurotic about protecting itself. Not long ago we’d pulled a bottom-tier dealer from Albuquerque off the street, a guy who knew less than nothing; he’d been implanted with a geas-roach just to be safe. Todd had been commissioned to commit mass murder for hire, and they’d left him free as a bird. It didn’t make sense.

  No, I replied, choosing every word carefully. I’m just saying, I gotta get paid. Tonight. Help me out, I’ll disappear, and neither of us has anything to worry about.

  If I were in Santiago’s shoes, I’d be thinking of ways to make Todd disappear for good right about now. Minutes drifted by in the dark, just listening to the occasional car rumbling by, and I started to worry I’d overplayed my hand. Then the app let out a happy ping.

  Container Park, 11 tonight. Be at the benches closest to the soundstage. Don’t be late.

  “He took the bait.” I showed Caitlin the screen. The message history slowly erased itself, line by line. “He’s either coming to give Todd his money, or he’s coming to kill him. I figure it’s even odds.”

  “Todd won’t be able to make it,” Emma told us. She came out the side door alone. Her hands had the pink sheen of blood after a vigorous bout of scrubbing, the stains faded but not quite clean.

  “Have a good time?” Caitlin asked.

  “I did, as a matter of fact. You could have stayed and joined in, you know.”

  “You needed to vent some frustration. Next time we’ll share.” She glanced my way. “So, shall we arrange a welcoming party for our new Network friend? Santiago should have all the answers we want, and then some.”

  Sure. It was the natural next move. The obvious next move.

  And then I saw it.

  “They weren’t after Melanie,” I said. “Whether she lived or died, it didn’t matter. It was the attempt that mattered. They weren’t sending Emma a message. They weren’t sending a message at all.”

  Emma put her ruddy hands on her hips, frowning. “Could have fooled me.”

  “Fooling us. That was the point. Look, do we all agree that none of this makes any damn sense? For starters, regardless of who they wanted dead, why would the Network use a tainted batch of their own designer drug to kill people? We know they have assassins, they have magic—spiking a batch of ink at a house party isn’t just pointlessly risky, it’s going to undercut their business. So I asked myself—what does using poisoned ink accomplish?”

  “Considering they’re the only people who know how to make the drug,” Caitlin mused, “it tells us that they’re the ones responsible. Breaking their usual patterns of stealth and sticking their necks out for no good reason. Which…tells us that being seen was entirely the point.”

  I pointed at her. “Bingo. Now, Todd said that Melanie was the target. Problem number one, and this is a biggie: Melanie doesn’t do drugs. Let’s not kid ourselves, it’s not like she never gets in trouble, she’s a typical teenager—”

  “Lucifer save us all,” Emma muttered, rolling her eyes to the night sky.

  “—but ‘trouble,’ for Melanie, means staying out after curfew or sneaking a beer when she can get away with it. Anyone who knows anything about her knows she wouldn’t take ink. So not only is it a stupid way of killing anybody, spiking the batch was a spectacularly stupid way of trying to kill her.”

  Caitlin moved closer to me. Hovering, eyes narrowed, catlike. She was prowling along in the wake of my thoughts and overtaking me fast.

  “And the Network isn�
��t stupid,” she said. “Thus we can surmise that their goal was to put Melanie in a dangerous situation—as you said, it didn’t matter if she actually died or not, only that she was threatened—and put their stamp on it so we’d know exactly who to pursue.”

  Emma glanced back at the side door. “Not just them. Todd.”

  “Todd,” I said. “He knew that Melanie was the target. But why would Santiago even need to tell him that? Why tell him that the drugs were poisoned at all? Not a huge loss if he went to the party and died there with everybody else.”

  “So he would tell us,” Caitlin said.

  “Exactly. Which is also why he didn’t have a roach inside of him, when as far as we know, all of the Network’s flunkies get one. Because the extraction process has a fifty-fifty chance of killing the patient, and they needed him to talk to us.” I held up the burner phone. “We followed the trail of clues, asked all the right questions, and ended up right where they wanted us.”

  “It’s a trap,” Emma said. “But…why me? I’m a ranking member of the Court of Jade Tears and I have a seat on the New Commission—which group are they targeting?”

  “Most likely both,” Caitlin told her. “You’re an intelligence asset. If you fell into enemy hands, anything they could wring out of you would be valuable.”

  I had to smile. “There’s one more layer to this thing. We know the Network isn’t stupid. Can we assume they know that we aren’t, either? We followed the clues, then we realized the whole thing was a house of cards and took it apart with one good poke. They’re counting on that.”

  “This is feeling like a game of speed chess,” Caitlin said. “I approve. So, they never really expected to fool us. We were supposed to realize that this is a trap. And they’re expecting us to act accordingly, in the mistaken belief that we’re a step ahead of them.”

  “Let’s say we figured out everything except that last part. We know it’s a setup, we know we were supposed to figure it out, but we don’t know that’s actually the key to whatever surprise they’re planning to spring on us. How would we react? What would our next move be?”

  Emma paced the driveway, slow, hands clasped behind her back.

  “The one thing we need most right now,” she said, “is information. The Network thrives in the shadows, and we can’t fight them until we drag them into the light. So we’d still show up at the ‘meeting,’ one way or another, hoping to capture at least one of their people for interrogation.”

  “And since they went after your daughter?” I asked.

  “I’d be the one to show up,” Emma said. “If I offered myself up as a target—assuming that they’ll want to capture me, not kill me—it would be the easiest way to spot their people. Surround me with covert operatives, and when the Network moves in to grab me, our people move in to grab them.”

  “A counter-ambush,” Caitlin said. “But now we have a problem: if we were supposed to work out their scheme, and they’re expecting us to respond in the most likely manner…what’s the point? If they want to abduct Emma, they’ve just made their job that much harder.”

  “That’s because she’s not the target,” I said. “I am.”

  Emma stopped pacing. They both looked my way.

  “Emma’s going to need backup, watching from a safe distance. You asked whether they’re targeting your court—”

  “Our court,” Caitlin said.

  “—or the Commission. Doesn’t matter, because there’s only one other person with a foot in both worlds. Me. No matter which side I’m repping, if Emma decided to play the bait, I’d be there to watch over her. See, the King of Worms overplayed his hand. He wanted to pitch me on his ‘game,’ this death match with his wannabe disciple. But he slipped when he said the guy’s a big deal in the Network, and that he’d already started making his move.”

  “That’s what this is all about,” Caitlin said. “This entire scheme, from start to finish, was intended to draw you out and distract you. While we’re watching Emma, expecting that she’s the target, they’ll be coming for you instead.”

  “Exactly. So we get a line of sight and backup on both of us. We can surround Emma with obvious muscle, so it looks like we took the bait, while everybody else keeps their eyes on me. When they pounce, we pounce.”

  “One problem,” Emma said. “This man who’s trying to impress the king…he’s been ordered to murder you, yes?”

  “Well, I’m hoping he’ll want to snatch me and kill me someplace less public.” I jammed my hands in my pockets and stared up at the onyx sky. “Hoping. If I’m wrong, this could get messy. We may have to improvise.”

  12.

  I wanted to keep improvisation to a minimum. I’m good at thinking on my feet, but knowing somebody out there wanted me dead put a chill on my adventurous spirit.

  I wasn’t sure why it should matter. Lots of people wanted me dead. All the same, it wasn’t every night that I willingly walked into a trap orchestrated by a necromancer who planned to kill me for a job promotion.

  “I want coverage at all high points,” I said to Jennifer. “My worst nightmare is this guy turning out to be a sniper. If he jumps me, I can roll with that. A shot from a few hundred yards away, not so much.”

  Her voice crackled over the phone. Tired, and I could hear a strain as she scribbled frantic notes.

  “Done and done. I’ll see if I can round up some of those Triad boys who helped us out at the Cobalt Lounge. Nobody spots a sniper like another sniper. They won’t be able to carry long arms, though, not without starting a stampede. Best you’re gonna get is a heads-up.”

  “Long as my head stays intact, I’ll take what I can get.”

  “I’m not sure what we can get, not until I make a dozen last-minute phone calls. You know we’re cuttin’ this down to the wire, right?”

  I glanced to the dashboard clock. I was back in Todd’s van, latex gloves gripping the dusty wheel as I muscled through nighttime traffic. I kept to the side streets, staying away from the congestion on the Strip as I hunted for a good place to dump the ride, but taking the long way around wasn’t helping my time-crunch problem. The clock read 10:14, which gave us just over forty-five minutes to round up as many guns as we could, set up a counter-ambush, and plan for every contingency.

  Like Caitlin said, it felt like a game of speed chess.

  I almost called the whole thing off. The opposition couldn’t make their next move if we didn’t show up to play. But this was our best shot yet at digging up some serious intel on the Network and their so-called “kings,” and I couldn’t let it go to waste. If I blew this, there was no telling when we’d get another chance.

  The King of Worms expected me to kill his protégé before he killed me. Forget that. I planned on taking him alive. Then, once we got him locked down someplace nice and far off the grid, we could have a chat.

  My next call bounced through two other extensions before I finally landed on Mayor Seabrook’s desk phone. She was burning the midnight oil again, just like I hoped she would be.

  “I’m listening,” she said. Not exactly a warm hello. We weren’t there yet.

  “Need you to use your leverage with Commissioner Harding,” I told her. “We’ve got a thing. Kind of thing where it would be good to keep Metro clear of the area until we’re finished.”

  “When and where?”

  “Container Park,” I said. “Forty-five minutes. We’ll need…maybe half an hour of clear sailing and closed eyes. Call it an hour to be safe.”

  “Park’s open to the public until midnight,” she said, cagey now.

  I read between her lines. The place would be crowded with civilians, and I’d just asked her to pull the cops away.

  “No rough stuff,” I said. “Nothing in public, nothing that breaks our agreement. We need to have a word with some people about the ink epidemic in our fair city. If the fine members of law enforcement saw us politely escorting them from the park, they might get the wrong idea. We wouldn’t want to make a scene.”<
br />
  The line went dead quiet. I could hear her gears turning.

  “I’ll make the call. One thing.”

  “Yeah?” I said.

  “If anything happens that makes the papers tomorrow, in any way, shape, or form, I’ll be making a second call to the commissioner.”

  “Don’t worry,” I told her. “The papers never print good news.”

  * * *

  Container Park was an open-air mall on the end of Fremont Street. The architecture coined its name; the three-level walls ringing the rectangular park, lined with shops and cafes, were all built from recycled shipping containers. A riot of colors adorned the ridged steel, ivory and hornet yellow and Halloween orange, giving the place a funky, art-hipster vibe. Like a wasteland settlement from a Mad Max movie, but more boutiques and Frappuccinos than leather and spikes.

  A geodesic dome out front lit up like a giant glowing beach ball, next to a towering metal sculpture of a praying mantis. As I walked past, blending in with the evening crowds, twin gouts of flame erupted from the mantis’s antennae.

  A soundstage stood at the far end of the park, where throngs of people packed an artificial lawn. Raw, grinding guitar chords drifted through the chilly night air. It took a second, picking up the lead singer’s warbly, underwater voice, before I realized it was an Aerosmith cover band. Not a good one, though the audience was too raucous and too drunk to care. I found a spot to stand out of the way of foot traffic, ducking under a steel awning. Caitlin sidled up a moment later, her gaze tracking faces in the crowd.

  “Well, now I know everything’s going to be all right.”

  “How’s that?” she asked me.

  “Because I have too much self-respect to die to an Aerosmith tune. I just won’t do it. How’s Emma?”

  “Eager,” Caitlin said. “I called up everyone I could reach; she’s surrounded by some of our finest, who are all under orders to be very obvious while pretending to be discreet. They’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”