“Nolan says you’re an investigator.”
“Used to be. Now I’m just trying to track somebody down.” I picked up a book from the coffee table, a paperback that promised to reveal the secrets of the Illuminati and Freemasons. I put it down next to the latest issue of Maxim.
Nolan sat on the couch and closed her eyes.
“If you’re not an investigator, then what are you doing looking for people?” Max’s tone was accusatory.
“It’s a hobby.” I smiled and tried to quell my growing irritation.
“My dad says you’re a bartender now.” He stuck his chest out, going for badass and falling far short of the mark.
Nolan snorted once.
“Max, were you born a punk or did you take lessons?” I wondered what the significance was that my name had come up between father and son.
“You’re the one asking for help, jerkface.”
I nudged Nolan’s foot with mine. “Let’s go.”
She stood up slowly. Yawned and stretched. Looked at Max and said, “Don’t make me tell Daddy you wouldn’t help me.”
Max scrunched his lips together and blew air through them. He sat down and pulled a wireless keyboard into his lap.
“Can you find somebody who doesn’t want to be found?” I smiled, trying to show there were no hard feelings.
Max tilted his head to one side and started talking. Sixty-four-bit this, secure routers that, spoofed IP addresses, UNIX mainframes, blah blah.
“Gotcha.” I held up both hands in a gesture of surrender.
Max smirked. “Gimme the info.”
“Already Googled and tried a commercial database.” I handed him a slip of paper.
“This is gonna take a while.”
“How long?” I looked at my watch.
“A day or so.” He chewed on his lower lip. “And I’m going to get a buddy to help.”
“How much?”
“A thousand.”
Nolan shook her head. “I’m calling your father as soon as we get in the car.”
“All right, all right.” Max stood up and crossed his arms. “How about five hundred?”
“And check out this client of his while you’re at it.” She turned to me. “What was her name?”
I hesitated for a moment, wondering how my former partner knew I had an actual client—and how she knew said client was a female. “Anita Nazari.” I spelled it out for him.
Max scribbled the name down on a yellow pad. “That will be an extra hundred.”
“Done.” I turned and left.
We drove back to Nolan’s in silence. The sun had set; traffic was lighter. I pulled into the driveway behind a parked Lexus.
“Looks like Rufus is back.” I put the transmission in park. “Domino night must have ended early.”
Nolan said, “Are you still living at that flophouse?”
“A Studio Six is hardly a flophouse.”
She rolled her eyes as the ornate front door of her new home swung open and a shaft of light swept across the front porch.
“I’ll talk to you later.” I put the VW in drive.
“I miss you, Hank.”
“You’re married now and don’t need to work anymore.”
A figure appeared in the doorway, silhouetted by the light from inside.
“He’s twice my age.”
“He was when you married him.”
“Nolan?” Rufus took a few steps outside. “Is that you?”
“He’s got prostate trouble.” Nolan lowered her voice even though her husband was too far away to hear. “Gets up at all hours to go to the bathroom.”
“What part of ‘in sickness and in health’ don’t you understand?” I drummed my fingers on the wheel, more than a little anxious to avoid playing marriage counselor to a woman I cared for more than I was willing to admit.
She got out. “I’ll let you know what Max says.”
“Max?” Rufus was by the car now. He wore a double-breasted blazer over a beige silk sweater and linen pants. His thick gray hair was close cropped. He looked like a WASP version of Ralph Lauren.
“Hi, baby.” Nolan kissed him on the cheek. “Max was helping Hank check some stuff out. You know, on the computer.”
“That so.” Rufus looked at me but didn’t offer a hand to shake. “Honey, why don’t you run on inside while Hank and I visit for a moment? Maybe see what Consuelo’s got for dinner?”
I cringed, waiting for the blowup. Nolan once stabbed a man who made a joke about her being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.
Nothing happened. My former partner kissed her husband again and scampered away.
Rufus watched her go and then turned to me. He leaned against the car, palms on the top of the door. “Nolan’s quite a woman.”
I nodded but didn’t speak.
“She’s got a good life now.”
“Rufus—”
“Let me finish.” He held up one hand. “What I’m trying to say is I think it would be best if you didn’t come around.”
I didn’t reply.
“One more bit of advice.” He leaned in closer, elbows on the door now. He smiled, lips tight across impossibly white teeth. “Stay the hell away from my son.”
I shrugged. “Last time I checked, Max is an adult.”
“I’m playing in the big leagues.” He looked around at his house and the grounds. “You’re still trying to figure out how to put on your jockstrap.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Professor had always been fascinated by blood.
Life’s fluid essence, a sea teeming with trillions and trillions of infinitesimal specks of matter, each perfectly suited to its particular function, whether it was the transportation of oxygen and glucose to fuel the meat carcass or the removal of the waste by-products.
Like any ocean, though, blood also possessed bad elements, tiny dollops of poison lurking beneath the surface, waiting to attack the host.
The Professor knew all too well about toxins in the blood. The doctors had been quite specific about the damage endured after his exposure to certain substances during his last trip to the Gulf.
Fortunately, he wasn’t concerned with his own blood at the moment. He forced the memories of the doctors and the sand and the heat from his mind and instead pondered what poisons lurked in the pool of red liquid on the floor underneath where Marty Costello dangled, his arms tied to a hook mounted in the ceiling of the van.
Alcohol definitely. Marty had been drunk when the Professor had found him in the bar on the west side of Fort Worth, intoxicated enough that he had admitted to knowing the Toogoode brothers. The Professor had gotten the name and address of the drinking establishment from the wallet of the man he’d killed.
Marty had been drinking shots of cinnamon-flavored schnapps and mugs of beer. He’d been smoking, too, as had most of the other blue-collar workers, the air in the tavern cloudy with carcinogens.
The Professor sniffed his sleeve and smelled the fumes of burnt tobacco. He imagined the havoc the benzene and carbon monoxide molecules were wreaking on his delicate immune system.
Marty Costello made a noise, trying to speak, probably, a difficult task given the missing teeth and damaged mouth.
The Professor looked at the man and smiled. Marty had told him so much, once the pain had burned through his alcoholic haze. The second contractor, Collin Toogoode, was within his grasp.
He tried to envision Toogoode, what he was doing at that exact moment, if he was eating or drinking or coupling with his wife or girlfriend. The Professor hoped that whatever he was doing, he was enjoying it to the fullest. Because Collin Toogoode’s time on earth was drawing to a close.
Marty gurgled. Another few ounces of blood dribbled onto the floor of the panel van.
The Professor pulled out his knife.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Fort Worth, once the redheaded stepchild a few miles west of the bigger and bolder Dallas, had undergone a metamorphosis in the last dec
ade or so. Where there was once a vagrant-laden downtown, a vibrant city center now thrived, an appealing mix of funky shops, eclectic restaurants, and trendy clubs, all supported by the pedestrians who lived in the nearby high-rise apartments. Big D could take a lesson or three on how to do it right.
I was on Main Street with the top down on the VW, checking out the lunchtime crowds. At a stoplight, I nodded and smiled at a tall brunette wearing a lacy skirt and tight T-shirt that showed a couple of inches of bare midriff. She looked at me, an expression on her face that I hoped was amused detachment but in reality was probably disdain. Must have been the VW.
When the light changed I continued west, past a boot shop on the bottom floor of a five-story brownstone that could have been in Greenwich Village and a restaurant called the Eight-O. A crowd of people dressed in business casual sat on the brick patio of the eating place underneath a canopy of live oaks.
I debated stopping for lunch to see if Emily with the long blond hair and the sunburst tattoo on the small of her back was still a hostess at the restaurant. I decided not to. I had things to do, and Emily was probably still a little miffed since I’d stood her up for her sister’s wedding a few months back.
It took me ten minutes to reach the address on the business card, on the far west side of town off Jacksboro Highway, a dingy, four-lane blacktop filled with pawnshops, strip clubs, and used car lots.
I pulled into a parking spot in front of the Emerald Isle Saloon. The bar was in a cinder-block building with blacked-out windows. A neon sign over the door flickered that the establishment was open for business.
The exterior had been painted kelly green sometime during the Ford administration. On one side of the windowless door was a relatively fresh rendition of Bono in a cowboy hat. On the other side was a faded painting of a leprechaun sitting on a longhorn steer.
The Emerald Isle Saloon didn’t look like a contractor’s place of business. Unfortunately, the address matched the one on the nearly disintegrated card.
I put the top up. Locked the car. Walked inside.
The place was smoky and dark, the tobacco haze lit up by a big-screen TV on one wall and a half-dozen neon beer signs. I blinked a few times to adjust my vision.
An old Willie Nelson song was playing softly on the jukebox. “Whiskey River Take My Mind.”
One bartender. Three men sitting at the bar, leaning over mugs of beer. Scattered tables, empty. Conversation stopped as the door shut behind me and everybody turned to look my way.
Without thinking about it, I felt the vacant space on my right hip where the Browning Hi-Power usually resided. I was glad for the Spyderco lockback knife in my belt.
The bartender stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. He blew smoke in my direction but didn’t say anything.
I went to the corner of the bar, by a video poker machine, and sat down.
Four sets of eyes sets tracked my movement.
I nodded hello.
Blank stares back. One of the patrons, a tall, skinny guy in a blue work shirt, coughed.
“How about a Guinness?” I pointed to the taps, trying to feel all Irishy.
“The hell are you?” The bartender let a trail of smoke drift from his nostrils.
“I’m Mr. Thirsty.” I smiled. “You the bartender?”
He blew a smoke ring at me.
The skinny guy in the blue work shirt pushed himself away from the bar and walked toward me. His shirt had a name tag sewn on it. Ryan Sherlock, of Sherlock Roofing.
He said, “Yuppie bar’s on the other side of town.”
I was wearing a Pat Green concert T-shirt that had been washed one too many times, faded Wranglers, and a pair of old Justin Roper boots. No jewelry except for a paint-spattered Timex Ironman. I looked about as much like a yuppie as did Michael Jackson.
“I just want a drink.” I slapped a ten on the bar.
“Leave him be, Ryan.” The bartender placed a glass full of beer the color of motor oil in front of me. The top quarter was straw-colored foam.
“Sorry about that.” The bartender scooped up my money. “We had a little trouble in here last night.”
“In this place?” I took a sip, getting a foam mustache in the process. “Ce n’est pas possible.”
“Huh?” The man stared at me as he put my change down.
“Never mind.”
He started to say something else, but a commotion from the other end of the room interrupted him. Ryan Sherlock banged his hand on the bar. The others murmured and shook their heads slowly.
“What happened?” the bartender said.
“Collin’s cell phone.” Ryan whapped the bar again. “Still no answer.”
“Collin?” I said to no one in particular.
“Just who the hell are you?” Ryan took a few steps my way, fists clenched, face flushed. “I told you already the yuppie bar’s on the other side of town.”
“I’m a friend of Toogoode’s.” I decided to mix things up a little. “Collin Toogoode.”
The bartender sucked in a mouthful of air. The place got quieter, nothing but smoke and Willie’s nasal singing filling the room.
Ryan pulled a pistol from his pocket, a black semiautomatic not much bigger than a pack of cigarettes. He spat on the floor and looked at me, one corner of his mouth turned up as if something distasteful were on his tongue.
“Aye, another country folk, asking around.” He spoke with a strange accent now, an Irish brogue, but not really. He turned to a man in his early thirties wearing black jeans, a beige silk shirt, and a gold Rolex. “Lock the door, Petey. Let’s find out what color this yonk bleeds.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Professor pulled off the gravel road that ran through the compound and parked the Ford underneath a live oak tree, a few dozen yards from a small patch of dirt where a woman stood leaning on a hoe. On the other side of the square parcel of earth sat a late-model Cadillac.
She stared at him as he approached.
When he got to the edge of the dirt he saw that the land had been tilled and planted with vegetables. Tomatoes, peppers, and squash grew in neat little rows.
“Hello.” He smiled and tried to look as nonthreatening as possible. He wore a pair of khakis and a white T-shirt. The Sig Sauer .40-caliber handgun rested in a holster tucked behind his right hip.
The woman was in her fifties, pale skin, reddish-going-gray hair. She frowned at him but didn’t say anything.
“I know that you’re a Traveler.” He took a few steps in her general direction, between two rows of tomato plants. “I am, too.”
She spoke a few words in a language he didn’t understand.
“I’m looking for Collin Toogoode.” He cut across the row of vegetables. “I have something he needs.”
The woman looked at the Cadillac for an instant before returning her gaze to the Professor.
“Perhaps the information is in your car?” The Professor smiled and nodded toward the luxury automobile.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the woman said.
“I mean you no harm.”
“The men will be back any minute.”
“No, they won’t.” The Professor shook his head. “Everyone has left like they always do when there’s trouble. It’s the Traveler way.”
The woman tightened her grip on the hoe, knuckles now white.
“But you stayed behind for some reason,” he said. “Maybe you don’t like to travel as much as the rest of them?”
She swung the hoe, the metal point aimed at his temple.
The Professor had been expecting the attack. He moved a few steps closer and let the wooden shaft connect with the fleshy portion of his forearm. With his other hand he grabbed the hoe and yanked it from her grip.
She took a step backward but not fast enough.
The Professor swung the tool like a baseball bat and hit her on the side of the head, not putting his full strength behind the strike but still using enough force to knock her u
nconscious for a while and leave a nice goose egg.
She fell to the dirt, landing on top of a pepper plant.
He hoped she wasn’t out for a long time, as he might need to interrogate her. He threw the hoe across the gravel road and walked to the Cadillac. The door was unlocked, keys in the ignition. A red leather purse sat in the passenger’s seat. He rummaged through its contents and found the information he was seeking in a few minutes.
He would dispatch the woman and then take the Cadillac. The Ford with the dead pharmaceutical salesman in the trunk had been in his possession long enough.
He pulled the Sig from his waistband and pressed his way through the rows of vegetables toward the woman.
She had pushed herself up to her hands and knees, backside facing him.
He brought the pistol up to his line of sight as she rolled over and pointed a hose of some sort at him.
His finger tightened on the trigger as the first blast of liquid hit his face. He heard the explosion from the muzzle of the Sig, felt the grip buck in his hand, but could see nothing.
The stench of the chemicals was overpowering, as if a thousand pounds of fertilizer and pesticides had been shoved up his nose.
The Professor dropped to the dirt and curled into a ball. He retched, and his half-digested breakfast dribbled out of the corner of his mouth. A sharp pain knifed across his thoracic cavity.
The product the woman had been spraying probably contained carbaryl, one of the few remaining organophosphate pesticides left on the market, or perhaps the recently banned diazinon. Both substances killed insects by preventing the neurotransmitter acetylcholine from doing its job in the nervous system, their respective chemical structures having been patterned on certain gases developed during World War II.
By the Nazis.
The Professor willed his heart to slow, his breathing to even out. He had sodium bicarbonate in his bag in the car, a neutralizing substance that would slow the reaction his body was experiencing. He wondered how many more exposures to such levels of toxins he could handle before his immune system cratered or his heart gave out.
He wiped liquid from his face, blinked several times, saw the woman a few feet away. Her eyes were open but unseeing. A thin stream of blood snaked across her forehead from the bullet hole a few centimeters above the bridge of her nose.
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