Blood Hunt

Around the back of the house again, the guard in the gazebo looked like he’d been struggling for a while. It was good tape; the U.S. Postal Service used it for taping parcels. It had nylon crosspieces-you could cut it, or tear it with your teeth, but no way could you snap it. This hadn’t stopped the guard from trying.

Reeve walked up to the man and punched him unconscious again.

Back in Allerdyce’s den, the old man had nearly finished the copying. Reeve found an empty folder and put the warm copies into it.

“Mr. Allerdyce,” he said, “I think you’d better get dressed.”

They went to the old man’s bedroom. It was the smallest room Reeve had seen so far, smaller even than the bathroom which adjoined it.

“You’re a sad old bastard really, aren’t you?” Reeve was talking to himself, but Allerdyce heard a question.

“I never consider sadness,” he said. “Nor loneliness. Keep them out of your vocabulary and you keep them out of your heart.”

“What about love?”

“Love? I loved as a young man. It was very time-consuming and not very productive.”

Reeve smiled. “No need to bother with a tie, Mr. Allerdyce.”

Allerdyce hung the tie back up.

“How do the gates open?”

“Electronically.”

“We’re walking out of the gates. Do we need a remote?”

“There’s one in the drawer downstairs.”

“Where downstairs?”

“The Chinese table near the front door. In a drawer.”

“Fine. Tie your shoelaces.”

Allerdyce was like a child. He sat on the bed and worked on the laces of his five-hundred-dollar shoes.

“Okay? Let me look at you. You look fine, let’s go.”

True to his word, Duhart had come back. The car was parked outside, blocking the gates. His jaw dropped when he saw the gates open and Reeve come walking out, dressed like something from a Rambo film, with Jeffrey Allerdyce following at his heels.

“Get in the back, Mr. Allerdyce,” Reeve ordered.

“Jesus Christ, Reeve! You can’t kidnap him! What the fuck is this?”

Reeve got into the passenger seat. “I’ve not kidnapped him. Mr. Allerdyce, will you please tell my friend that you’ve come with me of your own volition.”

“Own volition,” Allerdyce mumbled.

Duhart still looked like a man in the middle of a particularly bad dream. “What the fuck is he on, man?”

“Just drive,” said Reeve.

Reeve cleaned up a bit in the car. They went to Duhart’s apartment, where he cleaned up some more and put on fresh clothes. Allerdyce sat on a chair in a living room probably smaller and less tidy than anywhere he’d ever been in his adult life. Duhart wasn’t comfortable with any of this: here was his idol, his god, sitting in his goddamned apartment-and Reeve kept swearing Allerdyce wouldn’t remember any of it.

“Just go get the stuff,” Reeve said.

Duhart giggled nervously, rubbed his hands over his face.

“Just go get the stuff.” Reeve was beginning to wish he’d given Duhart a dose of birdy, too.

“Okay,” Duhart said at last, but he turned at the door and had another look at the scene within: Reeve in his tourist duds, and old man Allerdyce just sitting there, hands on knees, like a ventriloquist’s dummy waiting for the hand up the back.

While Duhart was away, Reeve asked Allerdyce a few more questions, and tried to work out where they went from here, or rather, how they went from here. Allerdyce wouldn’t remember anything, but the two guards would. Then there was the corpse of the dog to explain. Reeve didn’t reckon Mr. Blue Oyster Cult had heard much, if anything, of his short dialogue with Allerdyce. So all they’d know was that there’d been an intruder-an intruder who’d fucked with Allerdyce’s mind. They’d be wondering what else he’d fucked with.

Duhart was back within the hour, carrying a shoe box. Reeve opened it. Smothered in cotton wool, like a schoolboy’s collection of bird eggs, were listening devices of various shapes, sizes, and ranges.

“They all work?”

“Last time I used them,” Duhart said.

Reeve rooted to the base of the shoe box. “Have you got the recorders to go with these?”

“In the car,” Duhart said. “So what about Dulwater?”

“I want you to keep tabs on him.”

Duhart shook his head. “What am I into here?”

“Eddie, by the time you’ve finished, you’ll have so much dirt on our pal here he’ll have to give you a senior partnership. Swear to God.”

“God, huh?” Duhart said, staring at Allerdyce.

Duhart brought his car to a stop beside the entry / exit ramp of the Alliance Investigative building. Reeve told Eddie Duhart to stay in the car, but not to leave the engine idling. They didn’t want him stopped by nosy cops. It was four in the morning: he’d have some explaining to do.

“Can’t I come with you? Man, I never been in there.”

“You want to be the star of Candid Camera, Eddie?” Reeve turned in the passenger seat. Allerdyce sat so quietly in the back it was easy to forget him. “Mr. Allerdyce, does your building have security cameras?”

“Oh, yes.”

Reeve turned back to Duhart. “I don’t mind them seeing me; Allerdyce is already going to have a grudge against me. Do you want him to have a grudge against you, Eddie?”

“No,” Duhart said sullenly.

“Well, okay,” said Reeve, picking up his large plastic carrier bag and getting out of the car. He opened the back door for Allerdyce.

“Which way would you usually go in?”

“Through the garage and up the elevator.”

“Can you open the garage?”

Allerdyce reached into his coat and produced a chain of about a dozen keys.

“Let’s do it,” Reeve said.

He briefed Allerdyce as they walked the few steps to the garage entrance. “I’m a friend, in from England, if anybody asks. We’ve been up drinking half the night, tried but couldn’t sleep. I asked you to show me the offices. If anyone asks.”

Allerdyce repeated all this.

“The only guard is in the lobby,” Allerdyce said, “and he’s used to me coming in at all hours. I prefer the building when it’s empty; I don’t like my staff.”

“I’m sure the feeling’s mutual. Shall we?”

They stood in front of the garage’s roller door. There was a concrete post to one side with an intercom, a slot for entry cards, and a keyhole to override everything. Allerdyce turned the key, and the door clattered open. They walked down the slope into the Alliance Investigative building.

Allerdyce was right: there was no guard down here, but there were security cameras. Reeve put an arm around Allerdyce and laughed at some joke the old man had just told him.

“The cameras,” he said, “are the screens up in the lobby?”

“Yes,” Allerdyce said. Reeve grinned again for the cameras. “And do they just show or do they record as well?”

“They record.”

Reeve didn’t like that. When the elevator arrived and they got in, Allerdyce slotted another key home.

“What’s that for?”

“Executive levels. There are two of them-offices and penthouse. You need a key to access them.”