by Kirk Dougal
“You want me to tag along, Mr. Dowland?”
I made it most of the way through the following day after Dutch’s visit before I decided the time had come to get off my backside. A quick call to the cab company and Shea drove straight to the hospital. I hobbled out the front door a few steps in front of the sputtering nurse, threw myself across the backseat, and told him to kick the mule. The taxi squealed away from the curb and the look on the nurse’s face made me laugh despite what it did to my ribs. Now I stood in front of the building where the two mugs had beat me down and I felt the tingle of a different kind of fear.
“No,” I said as I handed some money through the window. “Drive three or four blocks away and then come back and park on Sycamore across from the side door. I’m going to bring somebody out and I don’t want to be seen.”
“You got it.” Shea pulled away as I lit a cigarette.
I moved back to lean against the building and watch the street as I smoked. I told myself I waited to go inside to make sure no one had followed me. But the thought of my last visit ending up in the hospital struck closer than I wanted to admit.
There was also the chance of running into Gretchen in the building. I had no idea where a meeting would lead since she had not visited or called when I was in the hospital, far as I knew.
I flipped the butt into the bushes and walked inside the building. The two women near the mailbox wall ignored me as I moved through the lobby but my attention remained on the man reading the newspaper in the chair along the opposite wall. I remembered the man stationed in the lobby when Voice and I escaped from the Lansford. But then a woman walked off the elevator and the man, more accountant than killer with his wire-rimmed glasses and puffy face, folded the paper under his arm and the two left.
The elevator opened on the sixth floor and I hesitated for a moment before peering out into the landing. The area was empty and, even more important, well lit. Shaking my head in disdain, I walked to Voice’s door and knocked.
“I can’t come to the door right now. Please come back later.” The response had been the shaky, high-pitched answer of an old woman.
“It’s Dowland. Open up, Voice.”
The bolt slid back and the door creaked open against the chain. Voice peeked through the slit for a second before he closed it enough to release the loop as well.
“You’re still looking a little used around the edges,” he said, stepping back so I could enter the apartment. “I didn’t expect to see you for a while.” He locked the door again.
“How’d you find out about it?” I asked.
“Your lady friend dropped by and told me a couple of guys got the drop on you and put you in the bone palace.” He filled two glasses with gin and soda and offered me one. “You know who did it?”
The mention of Gretchen puzzled me. Maybe I had judged her incorrectly but Dutch had not said anything about talking to her at the hospital. Her visit had probably slipped his mind. “Rose’s men.”
“Rose? I’ve never done anything to him.” Voice gulped down the last of his drink and poured another.
“Easy, tiger. No one said anything about them hunting you.” I offered him a Lucky which he accepted with a shaking hand. “I think the two-step was a personal call for me.”
“Jesus, why’d they look for you here?”
I opened my mouth but just as quickly shut it. Voice was right. How did Rose’s men know to find me where I was headed? They had needed time to set up the reception.
“You’re going after him, aren’t you?” I glanced up at the question and saw Voice staring at me. “I can see it the way you set your jaw when you said his name.”
“It’s that obvious?”
For the first time, Voice laughed. “I read people’s emotions for a living. A tick here, a half-smile there—I need to understand it all for the con to work.”
“Well, you read me right.” I finished off the drink and checked my watch. Shea should have had enough time to wind his way back to the side door. “Come on, I’m moving you out of here to some place safer.”
“Where’s that?”
“My apartment.”
Voice nodded as he threw the few things he had into an old carpet bag, along with the rest of the bottle, and then grabbed the money he stole from Big C. He shrugged when I looked at him. “It’d be a shame to leave it behind now since it’s caused so much trouble.”
We moved to the door and stood there for a few seconds, listening to the quiet in the hall. As I reached for the locks, Voice grabbed my wrist.
“I can tell you how to find him.”
“Who?” I was anxious to leave but he had my attention now.
“Rose. I know his schedule inside and out.”
I stared at him for a moment. “You were casing him for a con.”
“No,” Voice said. “After the hotel dick ran us out of the Ashford, this guy shows up and says he wants to hire me to follow Rose and find out where he goes and who he sees. He paid me for it.”
“This guy have a name?”
“Yeah. Wheeler.”
The breath caught in my throat. “Let’s get you out of here,” I said. “And when we get back to my apartment, we’re going to crack open a new bottle and have a long talk.”
Chapter 35
The talk with Voice lasted as long as I could handle before the pain and the whiskey left me asleep on the couch. He told me about his talks with Wheeler and the agreement to trail Rose, as well as the fact my partner had missed the final meeting, the one where Voice was going to hand over the mob boss’s day-to-day routine.
As we talked, I wondered if I would have realized Rose was Gardener just from this description. My former business partner had been a methodical stuffed-shirt when we were all a part of The Kindred—stopping at the same coffee house for an identical latte every morning, holding meetings at exactly the same time every week, even down to his superstitious knock on the door frame every time he entered an empty room—Riley’s life had consisted of one regimented action after another. Rose's schedule showed him to be almost as strict.
But Voice never answered the two questions still rolling around my mind: Why had the man who hated to play the games become a sleeper and, more importantly, what had driven him to becoming a murderer?
The early morning stream of people heading to their jobs died down, only to be replaced by those without work or those who did not need to suffer the nine-to-five chase. The two sides of the coin were never more obvious than at this time of the morning. Scruffy men with three days of beard trudged down the sidewalk, searching for odd jobs or an easy touch for enough money to last another day. Rag-tag kids weaved in and out of the traffic, lifting whatever was not tied down when a merchant turned his head. They expected a life like the one Voice had ended up in—running cons if they were lucky, dead before they needed to shave regular if they were not.
Through this crowd moved the other end of the spectrum, the rich who wasted as much money in an afternoon as the kids stole in a year. The society royalty rode in decked out cars with private drivers or who walked with the protection of a guard or servant. They shooed away the unfortunate men like they were gnats buzzing around their ears and paid the children even less attention, thinking only of the dinner party that night or the newest fashions. The rich stood out like harsh lights on a moonless night, bright stars streaking by until they blended together in a stream of dozens.
But I only searched for one of them.
Voice had told me Rose summoned a barber to his hotel suite every morning for a shave and then ate breakfast in his rooms while he read the newspaper and received reports from the previous evening’s illegal business activities. Understanding the routine, however, was not the same as knowing how I could use the information to get close to the man. His first appearance in public each day usually took place when he arrived at what he called his office.
I glanced again across the street at the three-story building. The first floor retained its u
se as a men’s clothing store but the suit racks were the only thing that had remained the same as decades past. A thorough renovation turned the second floor into a gathering place for the gang members with a full bar, pool tables, and even some rooms with beds for extracurricular activities, according to Voice. The third floor, however, stayed all for Rose. Walnut desks, luxurious sitting areas, a small kitchen, and a knockout of a private secretary who reportedly took more than dictation—these were the marks of his station.
My back stiffened when a Pierce-Arrow limousine pulled to the curb in front of the building, a Ford sedan filled with men close behind. They piled out, spreading along the sidewalk, hands close to the bulges in their suit jackets.
Two men hopped out of the Pierce and I noticed immediately they were the pair I had seen with Rose outside the Eagle Club. A third man stepped into view, the sunlight shining off his white suit. The fedora stayed low over his eyes but I would have bet dollars to donuts the deliberate actions revealed Bones Johnson. His head swiveled back and forth, taking in the cars on the street, the people walking down the sidewalk. Finally, he stepped back.
Rose stepped from the car and my eye twitched. He looked like the Gardener of old—slicked back hair, narrow frame, and the feeling he somehow looked down his nose on even taller people—yet he was more as well. A little taller, a little more graceful, I wondered if this was the way Riley had seen himself when he looked in the mirror while we were partners or the way he had always wanted to appear. The answer did not matter; I just wanted to knock the smug smile off his face. Rose led the entourage into the building.
The minutes turned into hours and the sun climbed high before beginning its descent. I memorized the newspaper stretched across my lap and the bench slats chewed their way into my back before a familiar Duesenberg pulled in behind the other two cars. The driver worked his way across the front seat and opened the rear passenger door. Out stepped Evelyn.
I closed my eyes. After she hung up on my warning from the hospital, I assumed she would remain loyal to Rose. The disappointment still tasted bitter in my mouth, however. I stood to leave and glanced across the street again.
Evelyn stared at me. We stood there for several seconds, cars passing between us and the sounds of the city swirling down the street.
She walked toward me, our eyes still locked on each other. Car horns blared; drivers yelled curses. She continued moving forward. The closer she came, the easier it was to notice Evelyn did not wear a smile.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “Did you follow me, Rick?”
“You know why I’m here,” I said. “It’s time this ended.”
Evelyn stepped in close enough for me to feel her breath on my face. “So what I want means nothing. My father, my husband, they mean nothing to you. You just used me to get closer to Rose. At least Roberts tried to help me.”
“No, he didn’t.” I grabbed Evelyn’s elbow and pulled her into the shadow of the building where we could not be seen as easily from Rose’s office. “Roberts was searching for a killer, the same as I am, but he ran out of time before he could decide if it was Rose or Big C. Now he’s dead.”
“I don’t believe you. He…”
“He’s dead, Evelyn.” I stepped away from her while the anger radiated between us. “His real name was Coltin Reese. He was forty-six years-old and he was a computer programmer living in Philadelphia. And now he’s just as dead in the real world as his avatar was in The City.”
The blood drained from Evelyn’s face. “You can’t… Rick, don’t talk about the real world or the game programmers will pull you out.”
“They won’t take me out,” I said and moved in close again. “I’m a homicide detective and I was sent inside The City to find a murderer from the real world.”
“That’s not the way it works.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “If you die inside a game, you don’t die in reality.”
“There’s a murderer loose in The City that says different. He kills them here,” I reached down and grabbed her wrist, pulling it up so she could see her watch, “and then takes off their watch. Underneath is the IP tag of the player. The killer can use that to locate the sleeper in the real world and kill them there.”
“But why?”
I shook my head. “Greed. Money. Power. Take your pick. But this bastard has a taste for it now. I was sent inside because of eight murdered players, one of them a friend and another a cop. But there have been dozens of murders in The City where the avatar’s watch has been removed. Remember, the man in black tried to take yours outside the deli.”
Evelyn stared at her watch before looking back at me. “But I’m…there’s a watcher, a peeper…”
“All of the victims had peeps.” I watched her stagger backwards until she used the brick wall as a support to stay on her feet. “Gardener, the person you know as Rose, we’ve known each other for a long time. He’s the one who is responsible for all this death. I don’t know why he’s chosen to be Raven, but I’ll make him pay for what he’s done.”
Evelyn stood up straight. “What did you call him?”
“Raven. That was the name of a player I used to battle with a long time ago. Now Rose has become Raven, maybe to pull me into the game, maybe to remind me of what we had before.”
“No, Rick.” Evelyn shook her head and then grabbed my arm. “I always thought Raven was a myth, some kind of world class assassin, a part of the game. But not Rose. He was terrified of Raven.” She let go of my arm. “You’re wrong about Rose, Rick. If Raven really does exist, he's not Rose.” She walked away but stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “You're wrong about a lot of things.”
I watched Evelyn cross the street and climb into the back of the Duesenberg, not bothering to go up to Rose’s office. As the car pulled into traffic, I wondered if that was how I would always need to remember her, walking off with disappointment in her eyes.
*****
Evelyn had shaken my faith in the case. Or more accurately, my faith in myself. I walked for several blocks, not paying attention to where I headed. Even a stop for coffee and a smoke did nothing to clear my thoughts. I finally gave up and flagged down a cab.
“Western Union,” I said and then spent the next twenty minutes in silence as the hack rumbled its way through traffic.
The telegraph office was quiet out front but a bevy of boys ran around behind the counter, each one picking up multiple messages before sprinting out the door with a canvas pack slung over their shoulder.
“Can I help you, sir?” asked a clerk.
“Any messages for Dowland?”
The clerk disappeared for a few minutes and returned empty handed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Dowland. There’s nothing in the office for you.”
“Did you deliver a message to my office today?”
The clerk looked down at a clipboard and began flipping through page after page. “No, nothing in a few days, Mr. Dowland.”
I ran a hand across my chin. What was going on with Strick that he was not answering my telegrams? I needed more information before I moved forward. “Give me a paper. I’d like to send a message.”
The clerk handed over a form and I walked to the standing station in the middle of the foyer. I wrote Strick again, stressing how important it was I receive the avatar names of the victims and about Gardener posing as Rose. I also added what Dutch had told me about the sixty-two murders with watches removed.
When I finished writing, I gave the clerk the message and walked back out to the street, shaking my head the entire time. Early in my police career I had been hung out to dry by a cop with an agenda that did not include watching my back. Now I wondered if the situation had changed with Strick and I was on my own against Raven.
Chapter 36
The street lights flickered on while I tossed a few bills through the cab window. I had intended on going into the office to check in with Gretchen, but when the cabbie had asked, my mouth gave him the address to my apartment building. Af
ter the meeting with Evelyn and the disappointment at the telegraph office, if I needed to catch anymore hell from Gwen’s clone, it could wait until tomorrow.
The apartment was dark when I opened the door. I stood there for a moment, waiting for some kind of response from Voice but all I received was silence. I pulled my .45 from its holster. “Who’s there?”
A single light bulb turned on in the living room, the ring of light appearing on the floor in front of the foyer opening. I eased forward, pistol up for action as I leaned around the corner.
Big C sat in the chair by the light. He gave me an emotionless grin, thin lips held together in a line, his eyes dark and unblinking. He raised a glass and took a drink. “Congratulations on making it out of the hospital, in record time I might add. I hope you don’t mind but I helped myself to some of your whiskey while I waited. It’s not my flavor but it’s not bad.”
“It gets the job done,” I said.
“It does indeed. Tell me, Mr. Dowland, do you always get the job done?”
“Once I take a job, yes. I see it through to the end.”
I felt the business end of a gun against my neck at the same time I heard the hammer pulled back. I held the .45 up and a hand reached over my shoulder to pull it away. A push in my back prodded me toward the empty chair and when I sat down I saw Jimmy Color, his face white against the shadows from the lamp.
“Then I’d like to talk to you again about performing a service for me.” Big C noticed my glance at Color and he laughed. “Oh, come now, Mr. Dowland. Don’t let your past unfortunate dealings with Jimmy sway you from a profitable business transaction.”
“I was more worried if his normal operation was always to stick a roscoe into a guy’s back.” Jimmy stiffened at the insult and I smiled when I leaned forward to pour myself a drink. After a good gulp, I leaned back and glanced at the fat man sitting across from me. So far I had not seen any sign of Voice—alive or dead—and I wondered what they had done with him. “Word on the street is you might be missing a package. Is that what you want, for me to find it?”
