Dead Mann Walking

real loud, each heh ping-ponging wall to wall. Anyone inside, they’d hear. Chances were good they’d be unfriendly. So much for waiting.

“Come on,” I told him. “Let’s look for Frank.”

I held the knob, pressed my shoulder to the door, and pushed up and in. I think there are special charges for breaking and entering a police station, but I didn’t remember what they were. As we entered the stairwell, I spoke in as soft a voice as I could manage.

“If anyone’s sleeping we don’t want to wake them up and make them cranky, right? So it’s really important that we be quiet; got it?”

“Heh-heh,” he whispered.

Well, it was something.

It was a quick walk up to the second floor, then down the hall to homicide. The floor plan was open, desks and computers all the way up to the glass door to Booth’s office. It was also completely empty.

My old desk was against the left wall, third up. At least, I thought it was my old desk. Looked awfully clean, compared to the others, and the hole in the wall must’ve been repaired. I doubted they kept it as a memorial to me. More likely they couldn’t afford to hire a replacement.

The computer was on and logged in. Had Haze set it up for me? If I worked fast, we’d be gone long before they extinguished the gas station fire.

Rather than bother with the printer, I handed Ashby my recorder and told him to press the red button whenever I said go. He seemed to warm to the idea of doing something important, so two birds with one stone.

I hit the keys. With a missing liveblood the best bet for getting some official attention, I started with my client. The name Turgeon turned up nothing, but it wouldn’t unless he had a record. There were always a couple of murders, knife and gunshot wounds, but none matched the baby-egghead description. I thought maybe I could get a license plate for the Humvee, but couldn’t access the traffic cams.

Time to move on. I checked on any chopped chakz found sans head over the last five years. Chak files were originally kept under animal control, along with citizen requests to remove dead dogs and other roadkill. The more conservative types insisted that since we were soulless, godless, and otherwise suspect, that was where we belonged. The bleeding-heart liberals objected. Anything with a face had to have feelings, even garden gnomes. So eventually they compromised and put us under sanitation. That’s politics for you.

A couple of hits came up quick. Nothing as spectacular as the desert cases, no effort made to identify the bodies, and it wasn’t just the heads missing. Could have been Booth’s handiwork, or maybe it just gave him the idea. Still, with Ashby dutifully recording my dulcet croak, I cataloged them all, times and places.

Next I hit the Justice Department records, looking for supposed spouse killers ripped under an RAR after having been exonerated. In the last five years, there were five: me, Frank Boyle, Colin Wilson, and two others: a woman named Nell Parker, who used to be some kinda women’s advocate, and Odell Jenkins, who was, I kid you not, a brain surgeon.

Brain surgeon. That was worth a chuckle. I didn’t expect more than that, but unlike Nell Parker, Jenkins actually had some newer entries. He wasn’t a surgeon anymore, but he was a real rarity, a chak in good enough shape to get a job. He had a regular gig with Hammer Rejuvenations, LLC, a remediation company that did toxic- site cleanup. Made sense. If Jenkins was smart enough to tell asbestos from drywall, they could send him in without so much as a hazmat suit. Save on insurance, too. Lots of toxic sites in Fort Hammer to keep him busy.

At least it was something. If Jonesey could help me find Parker, I’d be able to warn them both. Not bad for a half hour’s work. I had nowhere near enough information to convince Hazen of anything, but I figured I could e-mail him the details along with my “confession.” At least he might follow up on Turgeon. There’d be a record of his 911 call during the hakker attack to back me up on that much.

“Okay, Ashby, let’s get out of here.”

“Did you find Frank? Heh-heh.”

I was wondering how to answer that one when I noticed the light in the hallway shift. The shadows on the linoleum floor wobbled and grew. Jim Hazen? No. Of course not. Not in this life.

Next thing I knew, Tom Booth was blocking the only exit, and while he wasn’t surprised to see us, he wasn’t happy about it either. And he had company, a pair of toughs in black tees and jeans. Their pretty faces made mine look like it belonged to a cover model. They looked like they’d been in a thousand fights, losing more often than winning. One had dark skin, crew-cut white hair, bushy eyebrows, and enough wrinkles to be a grandpa. The other was younger, light skinned, thicker, stronger. He didn’t look so bright, a forty-watt bulb at best. The scar across his forehead was big enough for his brains to have seeped out.

The kid started shivering and doing his heh-heh, heh-heh thing. He wasn’t staring at Booth, though. He was staring at his friends. He was terrified of them.

“Ashby,” I whispered, “these the two guys who attacked you and Frank?”

“Heh-heh,” he said. From the way he said it, I could tell he meant yes.

I didn’t need any more proof, but my opinion wasn’t worth much. The livebloods who could give Booth grief would need something more, like a confession, something recorded that would play nice in the papers. Hand in my pocket, I slipped my fingers around my recorder and pressed a button, hoping it was the right one. All I had to do, aside from getting out of this in one piece, was try to look natural.

I nodded at Booth’s new friends. “They accepting Orcs on the force lately? I knew things were bad, but . . .”

He shook his square head. “They’re not on payroll. I hired them special, just for you. Professionals.”

“So why aren’t they jumping out of a cake?”

“Not that kind of pro. More a cleanup crew.”

“I guess old Hazen told you I’d be here, huh?” I said.

Booth nodded. “Good cop.”

“Matter of perspective,” I said. “That mean he does or doesn’t know about Wilson and Boyle?”

Booth’s lips curled like he was getting pissed, but instead he looked confused. “Who?”

“I’m dead, but I’m not that stupid. The chakz your buddies here D-capped for you because they had the gall to be innocent. I know you blame me for Lenore, but why not just come after me?”

At the mention of her name, a sound like a cracking walnut came from his clenching jaws. “That the shit-ass theory you told Hazen? You think I’m the man? Maybe I killed Kennedy, too, or brought down the towers. I take shits I’m more worried about than a couple of chakz.”

He sounded for real. “But . . .” I said. That was as far as I got.

He tensed like he was going to charge. “If I thought you were still the man who killed her, even half that, I’d not only start with you, I’d do it myself. Cut your head off? Too good. Garlic press, maybe. But you’re not; you’re all just a set of recordings with a stench.”

Crap. Was I wrong? I stared at the help. “Tom, you ever work with these guys before?”

He didn’t answer me. He grunted a few words at them. “Break some bones and leave him close enough to the border so he can crawl out of town.” Then he walked away.

16

If I hadn’t ever been a decent detective I wouldn’t mind being such a shitty one now. Don’t know what made me think I could handle this one. Instead of getting involved, I should’ve just wandered into a cemetery and asked someone to bury me.

If it wasn’t Booth, it’d be a pretty big coincidence he’d hire the D-cappers. That didn’t quite fit either. The older one, Grandpa, didn’t seem to have anything against chakz. He asked if the cuffs were too tight, and even lowered Ashby’s head as he pushed him into the backseat of their sedan. He came across like a good limo driver, doing a lousy job he’d done a dozen times, intent on doing it well.

Mastermind or hired hand, if we were going to get away, Gramps was the one I’d have to take out. Knock him down and Forty-watt would wander around like a windup toy not knowing what to hit. I was surprised the old man let him drive. Despite the GPS, Grandpa had to keep giving Watt directions. They were kind of like Lennie and George from Of Mice and Men. Couldn’t imagine why they were working together, but the