Dead and Gone

one of your little boys … you like that picture?”

“Stop it! Stop it, you—”

I dragged deep on my cigarette, staying inside. “That’s what I want to do—stop it. That’s what you’ve got to do. Help me.”

“I …”

“You know. You know it happens. They did it to my client. A little boy. They split him open like a ripe melon. He’s a basket case. And they videotaped it. A group. An organized group. Satanists, they call themselves, but we know what that’s about, don’t we?”

“I don’t deal with …” His voice faded away, sweat streaking his high forehead, tendons cabling his hands, veins like wires along his throat.

“I know you don’t,” I finished for him. “You wouldn’t do anything like that. Or your people. I know.” I spooled velvet over him, a cop telling a rapist he understands.… Those dirty cunts, displaying themselves, wiggling like a bitch in heat, fucking begging for it, right? Men like us, we understand each other. “But freaks like that, they have to be stopped. They bring heat, and heat brings light, you know what I’m saying? You know what I do. But it’s been years, and I’ve never made trouble for you, right? So help me now. ”

“How could I—?”

“The computer. They raped that little boy to make a commercial product. Not like your icons—not to remember a boy as he was—pictures to sell. The kid was a product, and they need a market. They’ll be on the board somewhere. You could find them. Your friends could find them. That’s all I want.”

“And …”

“And, one day, if you should happen to slip yourself, Wolfe will make sure you don’t fall.”

He searched the pockets of his robe. Found a black silk handkerchief, patted his face dry, deciding. I waited, watching the dice tumble across the green felt in my mind.

Finally, he looked up. “Tell me what you have so far.”

“Leave him alone!” Gem’s voice. From somewhere outside … me.

I shook my head. It wouldn’t clear. My eyes wouldn’t open, or I’d gone blind. But then my mind started to clear, and I realized my body would catch up—I’d been down there before. I concentrated on staying quiet, letting the air in my lungs bring me to the surface.

They were all standing around me in a loose semicircle. Only Lune hadn’t moved.

I took deep breaths through my nose, coming the rest of the way back.

Everyone watching could see it happening. Maybe they knew what they were seeing, maybe not. Maybe some of them had been there, too.

They all breathed in rhythm with me, helping.

I felt Gem’s hand against my cheek, her little thumb against the bullet hole, rubbing it in tiny circles.

My screen cleared. I knew where I was. Why I was there.

And where I’d been.

I turned to Lune. “You broke me out, brother,” I told him.

His eyes looked wet. Or maybe my own were still cloudy from the trip.

I told them the whole story, exactly as it had just flashed back to me. How the freak had stumbled into the trap I’d set and found out his “immunity” was as real as his “love” for little boys. I knew he went down, heard it was a pretty significant jolt.

“He fits either side of the pattern,” Lune said. “He might want vengeance for what you did to him. Or he might believe you would be coming after him, anyway, once you connected him to Darcadia.”

“Or both,” the Latina said.

“Or both,” Lune acknowledged. “He knows you are dangerous in ways your ‘reputation’ does not indicate. And he knows you have resources within law enforcement. This Wolfe … the prosecutor who—”

“She’s gone,” I told him. “Off the job. Fired for not kissing political ass. Wolfe wouldn’t be a problem to him.”

“The way you describe her, she sounds like a fierce woman,” Heidi said. “What does she do now?”

“She runs a private network. Mostly info-trafficking.”

Clint and Minh exchanged looks, but it was Levi who put it into words: “And she still has deep law-enforcement contacts, yes?”

“She does,” I admitted.

“And if she came across this Darcadia thing, she’d know who to take it to, right?” Clint asked.

“Yeah,” I said, seeing the tiles drop into the mosaic.

“This man knows you have a … relationship with Wolfe, as well,” Lune said. It wasn’t a question.

I just nodded.

“And he must have considerable resources. Indicated by several authenticated factors in addition to his financing of the assassination attempt. But the Darcadia project has already taken in …?” he asked, turning to Heidi.