“Wouldn’t you?” “Shit, man. I do it every day.”
TRACY LOCKS THE office and walks us around the corner to an apartment building a couple of blocks away. It’s one of those peculiar L.A. complexes supported on a series of metal legs, with an open parking area underneath and the apartments above. It’s like Hannibal Lecter hired an architect to design something guaranteed to turn into a human trash compactor in any quake higher than a 3.0. She has a corner place on the top floor. It was probably the old owner or manager’s place because it looks like someone knocked down a wall and made two small apartments into one decent-size one. A small blond woman lets us in. “That’s him? I thought it was just going to be one person coming.” “It’s okay, baby. The chick’s a doctor and she brought the candy.” Tracy ushers us in and closes the door behind us. “This is Fiona,” she says, going over to the blonde. “Fiona, this is Stark and Allegra.” “Hi.” “Thanks for letting us in on such short notice,” says Allegra. Fiona gives her a nervous smile. “It’s just that Johnny doesn’t get a lot of visitors and we know most of the people who come to see him.” “So, why are you here to see Johnny?” asks Tracy. I say, “Because Johnny may be top of his class, but his friends cut school and they’re hungry.” She stiffens. “There’s going to be an outbreak?” asks Tracy. “There already is, but it’s early. Maybe Johnny can help us stop it from getting out of control.” “We haven’t heard anything about rogue zeds and we know some important Sub Rosas,” says Fiona. “People have been disappearing for weeks, but just one or two at a time. Last night was the first breakout of Drifters into the streets. If the Sub Rosa isn’t being chatty about it, it’s probably because someone in the Sub Rosa is behind it.” “Are you sure?” “Yes.” “Who?” “Cabal is my guess. He’s got the background, the family chip on his shoulder, and his public drunken crazy act has most of the other families scared. And they should be. Just because Cabal pretends like he might be crazy doesn’t mean he’s not.” Tracy gets a bottle of blue Mexican soda from the refrigerator, twists off the cap, and tosses it into the sink. “If no one is talking about escaped zeds, how do you know about it?” “Because I let them out. They bit a friend of mine and they escaped while I was getting her away.” “You let them out? So this is all your fault.” “They got out when I was trying to save a friend. Someone who came halfway around the world to stop exactly what’s happening and save all your asses. You want to start working on whose fault it is those Drifters got out last night, how about finding out who put them there in the first place?” “I suppose,” says Tracy. “Where were they?”
