Bad Karma

Eli shrugged and admitted that was true. “Still, it raises an interesting question. Why are a couple of Russian gunsels involved with a cult?”

“Gunsels,” Shannon said, repeating the word slowly. “That’s an interesting word choice for you.”

“Hey, I read the classics. Hammett, Spillane, Chandler. So how about it-why are a couple of gunsels hooked up with a cult?”

Shannon shook his head, frowning. “That’s what I have to find out.”

After leaving the Center, Shannon went back to his apartment where he tried without any luck to get fingerprints from the Russian’s driver’s license, then checked his email and found another note from Professor White. This time White tried to clarify his previous email, stating that he at no time suspected Taylor Carver was in imminent danger or at any risk of being harmed, simply that he thought his ex-student was an extraordinarily callous individual who, borrowing from the Dylan song All Along the Watchtower, acted as if life were but a joke. He apologized for not being able to give Shannon names of other students to talk to, but as far as he could tell Carver was a loner who didn’t socialize with fellow students. He ended the email by adding that Shannon’s initial correspondence had gotten him thinking about Carver’s Masters thesis and if Shannon sent him his home address, he’d have his office make him a copy.

Shannon emailed his address, thanked him for his help and asked if he could provide examples of Carver’s callous behavior. After that he sent Kathleen Tirroza an email telling her that he was finally calling in the favor she owed him. Kathleen worked as a forensic investigator for the FBI and had spent hundreds of hours with Shannon in the aftermath of Charlie Winters. Their work ended up tying Winters to over a hundred other killings. In his email, Shannon told her he needed information about a cult leader operating in Boulder and also a Russian mobster who had tried with only partial success to rearrange his face. He told her his guess about the Russian having boxed professionally, and also described his associate who he was fairly certain was named Dmitry. He faxed her the Russian’s drivers license and Vishna’s photograph from the yoga studio’s brochure.

He was in the bedroom packing up a few items Susan had overlooked when he heard the front door open. For a moment there was dead quiet, then the creaking of someone moving across the hardwood floor of his living room. He moved silently to the dresser, took a roll of quarters from his sock drawer and made a tight fist around it. Then opening the bedroom door, he saw Emily standing in the middle of the living room as she gripped a Louisville Slugger, her knuckles almost as white as her face.

Shannon stepped into the room and asked her what the hell she was doing. The bat clattered out of her hand as she took a step back and clutched her chest.

“Goddamn it, Bill, you damn near gave me a heart attack!”

“I’ll ask you again. What the hell are you doing?”

“I was walking by and heard noises. What do you think I was doing?”

“I thought we had an agreement. That if you heard anything you’d call me and the police?”

“Well, if I had done that you probably would’ve gotten yourself shot up when the police came,” she argued, her jaw pushed out as she challenged him to say otherwise.

“Do we have an agreement or not?”

She looked away, kicked at her bat.

“Emily, these are dangerous people. I don’t want you getting involved.”

She met his eyes and smiled defiantly, “How am I supposed to know it’s you coming back here and not one of those others if I don’t look inside?”

He had to admit she had a point. “Next time I come back here I’ll knock on your door first,” he said. “In the meantime, give me your key.”

“Damn it, Bill-”

“I mean it, Emily.”

Shannon stood patiently and waited while Emily handed over the spare key to his apartment. After he slipped it into his pocket, he asked her what she was doing with a Louisville Slugger. She grumbled that her pop had given it to her for protection when she left home.

“Not the best thing for that,” Shannon noted. “You hit someone with the wrong part of the bat and that handle will snap, leaving you holding splinters. If you want a bat for protection, you’re better off with something aluminum.”

“Can’t get myself to buy an aluminum one,” she said with a half-smile. “I’m too much of a traditionalist.”

Shannon got a laugh out of that, then turned serious as he warned her again about not getting involved. “These are people who’d just as soon cut your throat as look at you,” he said. “I’m not exaggerating. If they come here, keep away from them. Okay?”

“Damn it, Bill, you’re a pain in the ass.”

“Just tell me you’re not going to do anything stupid like this again.”

“Alright, already, you don’t have to bite my head off.” She manufactured an injured look, added, “If you’d asked, you and Susie could’ve stayed at my place.”

“Susie and I both know that, and I’m sure she appreciates it as much as I do.” He hesitated, added, “It’s better that the two of us get away from here in case they end up watching the building.”

“I figured it was something like that,” Emily said, nodding. She gathered up her bat and grudgingly promised Shannon she’d behave herself. After she left, he finished packing then took out a couple of toys he had bought for his business-motion activated spy cameras. He set one up in the living room, the other in the bedroom. Satisfied that they were hidden well enough, he grabbed his suitcase and headed back to the hotel.

Chapter 8

They ate dinner at an Italian restaurant a couple of blocks from the hotel, Susan having the pan fried trout in garlic, butter and lemon sauce, Shannon the Linguini a la Puttanesca. It was a nice dinner, and for an hour or so Shannon was able to relax. Susan looked especially stunning. For long stretches he’d find himself lost in her large beautiful brown eyes, at times almost forgetting the day he’d had. There were even moments when she’d flash her dazzling smile and he’d forget how banged up he was feeling. Now that he was back at the dead students’ condo complex knocking on doors, he found himself again wondering why he was doing this investigation work, especially given the psychic cost and that he could’ve been spending the evening watching the Red Sox or simply meditating peacefully. His eye, jaw and cheek ached on his right side, and his lower back had started to go into spasms. He wasn’t sure what was causing his back pain-either the jabbing he took from the gun barrel, or maybe the muscles that had tightened along his chest were affecting the ones in his back. All he knew was that when the spasms came, they would suck the breath right out of him. Aspirin only helped a little and he’d already chewed on a dozen or so tablets. It didn’t help matters when he called Pauline Cousins and told her what Daniels had told him. She had the same thought he did about the cult putting someone up to masquerade as Melissa and became close to hysterical when she insisted on seeing him. He couldn’t afford to do that-one look at him with all his bruises and cuts would’ve pushed her over whatever edge she was clinging onto. After twenty minutes on the phone, he calmed her down and convinced her that he wasn’t going to give up on them. That somehow he’d get to Melissa.

Another back spasm stopped him in his tracks. When it passed and he could breathe again, he took the bottle of aspirin out, stared at it disgustedly, and popped a couple of tablets into his mouth.

He’d already been at the condo complex a half hour and had talked to the people in the townhouse next to the murdered students. The setup was the same, one unit had the first floor, the other the second. The couple in the second floor unit had little to offer. They never had much to do with Carver or Gibson, never saw anything to make them think they’d dealt drugs, and neither of them saw or heard anything the night they were killed. The husband, a professor in civil engineering at the university, told Shannon that the firewall between the two townhouses was well constructed and had a fair amount of soundproofing material packed around it. He didn’t think he would’ve been able to hear anything from that unit unless windows were open in both his apartment and the students’. The investment banker who owned the lower level unit seemed more interested in finding out about the fight Shannon had been in than talking about the students. He made it a point to mention that he had a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and throughout gave Shannon a tough guy look as if he were going to challenge him to go a few rounds. Just