They Tell Me I'm The Bad Guy Page 4

  Will came back with everything I asked for. We went out to the bars to get laid for good luck. He broke a guy's wrist playing pool and shot to shit my only prospect for the night. He went out Sunday morning and brought back donuts as a peace offering, but I didn't have an appetite. Two of the Wilmont Avenue bodies had been identified as kids under twenty.

  "You gonna make it?" he asked as I packed my suit into the brown suitcase he had picked up for me.

  "Yeah, I'm all right."

  "You better be, man. Get your head right. You're a bad motherfucker."

  "Uh huh," I nodded, shoving my toothbrush into a pocket.

  "I mean it."

  "Fuck off and let me think, man."

  He threw an empty beer can at me. "Hey, you listen to me."

  "What? I'm trying to pack."

  "I'm serious. Get your shit straight. If you walk in there without your old fire, they'll eat you alive."

  "Fuck, I just wrote me real name on these goddamn suitcase tags. Would you stop fucking talking to me while I do this?"

  "God, man," he said, frustrated with my lack of his enthusiasm for all this. "Hey, finish up fast. I wanna make a stop on the way to the airport."

  "For what?"

  "You'll see," he said.

  "Jesus Christ, just tell me."

  "You want a ride or not?"

  "Fine. Just don't make me miss the plane."

  We hit the road for Cincinnati in Will's Mustang. He stopped in the next town at a Wal-Mart and picked up five five-gallon plastic gas containers and filled them up at a station down the road.

  Gas fumes seeped from the trunk and filled the car. "You know, I was really wanting to smoke," I said. "When you pulled in here, I thought you were gonna ask me to blow the place up so you could get some free beef jerky."

  "Ha ha, shut it. One of the cans spilled, but y'know go ahead and smoke. Just let me know so I can pull over while we explode."

  "I don't know what you've got planned, but--"

  "Just quit your bitchin', Francine. You need to do this."

  Five miles from the gas station, he pulled the Mustang off onto a back road. After twenty minutes of bouncing down what was basically a trail through the woods.

  "Will, I swear to God if you make me miss this flight I will fucking kill you."

  "You're not gonna miss it, man. Just settle down. You have to do this."

  Will drove past a broken security gate that hung open on rusted hinges. Past the gate, the trees on both sides of the trail opened to a dusty, abandoned quarry. He punished his suspension bouncing over the rocky clearing and parked near the quarry pit.

  He pushed his door open. "Let's go, son. Das Biest needs a comeback."

  I got out and stretched. "Motherfucker, I need to get the airport."

  "You need to cut loose and get your balls back," he said sharply. "Now just blow these things up." He pulled the gas cans out of the trunk.

  "Jesus, man, come on."

  Will jumped off the edge of the pit and landed near the shallow lake at the bottom.

  I lit a cig while he set the containers on the ground twenty feet from each other. All around, the quarry had craters smashed into the packed ground. Long white oaks and maples had been ripped up out of the woods and smashed to pieces, and one of the mined, cut rock walls had chunks broken out of it, chunks that were scattered all over the place, sunken into the earth like they had crash-landed.

  "Come here a lot, do you?" I asked Will when he had climbed out of the pit.

  He nodded. "Just when I feel the need to cut loose. Just like you need to do."

  He had never mentioned a thing about it to me, which was pretty damn weird. But with a guy like Will, with the kinds of things he could do, living every day like other people was a chore. Every waking hour of every day he had to measure every move he made, keep the pressure light whenever he touched someone or something, hell, not even walking too hard or he would break the damn floor. I gave him a lot of shit, a lot of shit, for not keeping himself in check more, but he had to live life a whole different way than I did.

  But it was just like his dumb fucking ass to bring me way the hell out to nowhere when I had to catch a plane.

  I sucked on my cigarette. "I'm gonna be late."

  "Booo! Shut up and do it. Put on a show."

  "Did you fill them all the way up because they won't explode like that."

  "They're fine. Shut up and do it."

  I gave him the finger and ignited all five gas cans at once, each exploding under pressure with the force of over seventy sticks of dynamite. The sound echoed off the rock walls. I squelched the flames out just as quickly as I had ignited them, leaving only some blackened earth and shattered pieces of red plastic.

  "There. Get me to my damn plane."

  "Y'know, you really suck," he said to me.

  "Will, for fuck's sake, do you get that I don't want to be doing this, man? This isn't fun for me, all right? This is piddly kid shit, and I may get my fucking door kicked down by the cops thanks to this fire or your fucking robbery.

  "Old guy still hasn't reported it," Will said defensively.

  "Grow the fuck up and get me to the goddamn airport."

  "Shit, man, I was just trying to help you. I mean, fuck, that's how you want to--"

  "Yeah, that's how I want to be. Get in the fucking car."

  We didn't speak the rest of the way to Cincinnati.

  At the airport, the TSA woman screening passengers had all the enthusiasm of an animal dying in the sun.

  "Did you pack your bags by yourself?"

  "Yes."

  "Did you have your luggage with you at all times while coming to the airport?"

  "Yes."

  "Is there any possibility that someone could have put something into your luggage without your knowledge?"

  "No."

  "Do you have any weapons or bombs in your luggage?"

  "No."

  "Do you have any weapons with you?"

  "No."

  "Have you felt the sensation of being pricked or injected with something while at the airport or on your way here?"

  "No."

  "Did you experience any instances of 'lost time' on your way to the airport today?"

  "No."

  "Do you have any artificial implants or limbs?"

  "No."

  "Are you now or have you ever been mentally-controlled or possessed by persons who forced you to do things against your will?"

  "No."

  "Have you recently had dreams where you are not in control of your actions?"

  "No."

  "Have you recently had frequent nosebleeds or painful headaches?"

  "No."

  "Have you ever been certified as Post-Human by an SCEIA physician or are you currently being tested to determine if you are Post-Human?"

  "No."

  "And are you Post-Human?"

  "No."

  Federal law made lying to any of these questions a felony, especially the last two, and especially since I was not registered with the government and especially since I had the power to take the entire plane down myself. But if lying to this fucking unpleasant woman who hated her job was the worst thing I did on this trip, I'd be lucky. I took off my shoes and belt and emptied my pockets and stepped through the metal detector while my bags were x-rayed. They asked me about the suit in my second bag, and I convinced them it was for dirt bike racing. It was easier than it should have been.

  I figured my last-minute first class ticket had been paid for in cash, which it had been, so I traded it in for a coach one at the airline counter, showed my fake Ohio state driver's license and got handed a little north of fifteen hundred dollars out of Kamikaze or whoever's pocket for the downgrade. The trip wouldn't be a total loss.

  After a pants-shitting two hour layover in Chicago of all places, where cops and Feds were all over the airport thanks to Silvy's shit, I made it to my final stop and came through the gate looking for the ride that was sup
posed to be waiting for me, hoping to God these people had enough sense to send someone more inconspicuous than Kamikaze to get me.

  Waiting with the wives, husbands and children, in a red, kind of lopsided pant and blouse outfit that I had to assume was too in-style for based on how ugly it looked was Tracey Miller: terrible singer and teleporter who I hadn't seen since our last days in Die Chaotische Sechs.

  A handwritten sign that just said 'Clive' rested in her red-nailed hands.

  "Hey there," she said with a broad smile. "Welcome to this shit hole called Missouri."

  Chapter 5

  Reassurances

  Tracey wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me like an old friend. She had gotten implants. Nice.

  "Good to see somebody I know," I said while I wondered why in the fuck she had given somebody like Kamikaze my real damn name.

  She pushed her auburn hair back over her ears. "Yeah, that was the idea. Did you have a good flight?"

  "It sucked. Chicago gave me a shit-fit."

  She touched my arm, "I heard about that, yeah, that thing with Psycho Silvy. That's crazy."

  "She always was."

  "I know, right? God."

  She folded the sign with my fake name up. "Here, put this in your suitcase, like in the pocket."

  "All right." I shoved it into the case I had brought on the plane. "You didn't need it, y'know. You haven't changed at all. I recognized you right away."

  Her eyebrows went up. "Really? Shit, then I'm suing my plastic surgeon for malpractice." She rubbed her hand on my buzz-cut head. "I like the hair. Getting a little thin up top, though, huh? Have you thought about transplants?"

  "I really hadn't thought about it."

  She kept eyeballing my hair. "Well, I'll give you the number of a good guy to talk to. You don't want somebody doing your work who's a fucking hack because it will come out even worse. They can make the hairline look totally natural now."

  "Yeah, yeah. Thanks." Why the hell were we talking about my hair? "Do you need to like call somebody to tell them I showed up?"

  Tracey rolled her dark brown eyes and gestured for me to walk with her to baggage claim. "No, that's not going to happen. Your family is fine. That was a little extreme. He wanted to make a strong first impression. He talked a lot about first impressions with me."

  "He's a little asshole is what he is," I said.

  I let Tracey walk ahead of me so I could enjoy the view. The hot young body she'd had back in Europe had been replaced with the tighter body of a woman who spent time in the gym fighting off age with kickboxing classes. Her arms had more definition, her skin almost too tan. The near perfect ass she'd had was a little lower and muscled where it had been more natural. Didn't have as much bounce, but it still had a great shape.

  Yeah, I still would have given my left foot to get her in the sack again.

  "Sometimes he can be a bit much," she said, "but he's aiming to move up the ladder and takes it very seriously. You have to respect him for that."

  "Is it the 'get his ass beat' ladder 'cause he's already way the fuck up it."

  "No, that's not the ladder, Clive," she replied with a smile back to me.

  We stood around at baggage claim until my mismatched luggage showed up. With all the people around, both of us knew better than to have a real conversation so we walked through the terminal without saying anything other than small talk and brushed shoulders with people who would have had heart attacks if they knew who we were.

  She led me out into the parking lot to a shining silver SLK Class Mercedes-Benz convertible and pushed a button on her keys to pop the trunk for me. I laid my suitcases in the back and unzipped it so I could get my cigarettes. She waited in the car blasting Usher on the stereo and singing badly along with it while I smoked the stick and a half I needed for a fix before sliding into the leather passenger seat.

  She put on a pair of Dolce Gabanna sunglasses and turned the volume down on the music. "You can find something you want to listen to."

  I cut the radio off. "So, why am I here?"

  "Are you pissed because you sound like it," she said flatly, instantly taking a tone with me I didn't like. "Don't get all pissed off at me, okay? We're here to get paid, and I hadn't seen you in ages. When I got the parameters of this, I thought of you like right away."

  "The problem is I don't want to get paid. I'm out of this bullshit."

  She put the car in gear and backed out of the parking spot. "Please don't start whining, Don, it's just one job. We never get 'out' of this bullshit, we just get more selective with what we take. You're not hitting liquor stores anymore because you're above that now, right? Well, this is a job for grownups like you, not little shitheads who accidentally level a strip mall trying to rob a pawn shop to buy angel dust. It's a one-time gig. Nobody's going to initiate you into a gang or anything."

  "You have no idea what--seriously, Trace? I have a life, I have a job. I can't get into all this shit again. That little fucker floated there like a fairy and told me he would kill people if I didn't come. And you told them my real name! Why would you do that?"

  Her face turned stony when she told me, "You'll go back to your job. Plenty of guys pull this stuff in their spare time. Listen to me. It's a one-time thing. One time. That's it."

  New body, same Tracey. She never fucking heard what was being said to her. Fuck. I leaned my head on the passenger window. "Just keep me away from that kid. I can't guarantee I won't accidentally cook him."

  She sprayed some air freshener, probably to cover up the cigarette smell in my clothes, and nearly pulled out of the airport parking lot into the path of a truck, braking at the last second. "Calm down, I saw it," she said. "Don't be so hard on Kamikaze. Nobody got hurt, you're fine and nobody outside of he and I know who you are." Little wrinkles formed at the corners of her mouth when she smiled at me from behind her sunglasses. "Don't be mad at him. Kids are stupid. I think if you try really hard, you'll remember doing some stupid shit as a kid. If you don't, I can remind you of some stories."

  I ran my fingers through my short hair. The cut still felt weird. "Fine. Whatever, I'm here already, right? So what's the job? Why do you need me?"

  "I'm not a'pposed to talk about it," she said innocently.

  "Tracey."

  Her voice got sharp. It was the same tone I talked to Will with half the time. "Donnie. This isn't my show, okay? I'm just the hired help." She said it like she was making a confession. "I don't get to call the shots, I just get to follow orders, and I'm not supposed to say anything about the job to anybody. This is all Rory's ballgame, and, like I said, he's big on first impressions."

  "Who the fuck's Rory?"

  She looked confused. "The guy who told you about the job, baby."

  "Who, the fucking Asian kid? He's in charge of this?"

  "Oh, no. Please don't tell me he didn't give you his real name, either?"

  "Fuck no. You've got to be kidding me. Did you check him out? I looked him up on the Post-Human Database. He pulled a couple of robberies. That's it. Big. Fucking. Deal."

  "Oh, my God," she exclaimed. "Are you serious? The Post-Human Database? Donnie, do you know who puts information on the Post-Human Database? Housewives and teenagers that don't date. It's for morons. Jesus, Das Biest surfing the Database. Wow."

  She merged way too damn close to an SUV into the next lane and went on, "No, let me tell you about our little Rory. Rory is a member of a crew on the West Coast; all young guys, distributing with some ties to smuggling, protection, etc, etc. It's a complete, all Poster crew. To get in with them, you have to kill seven people using only your powers. So our boy flew seven different people out over the Pacific at night, up as high as he could go, and dropped them screaming down to freefall and drown in the water. If the impacts didn't kill them first. That, is Mr. Kamikaze."

  Aw, shit. "We're not working with his crew for this, are we?"

  "No. And speaking of, I'm supposed to ask you the following: Are you a cop or are yo
u affiliated with any divisions of law enforcement?"

  "Yeah, I am. Me and Agent Red hang out all the time."

  "Come on, you know this drill. Honest answers."

  "God Almighty. No, I am not a member of law enforcement."

  "Are you currently under surveillance either electronic or organic?"

  "The hell is organic surveillance?"

  She tried not to laugh at me. "Is a psychic in your head right now or not?"

  "Oh. No. Just ask me that."

  "Fuck!" She smiled broadly. "It's like pulling teeth, I swear. What the hell happened to you? You're really working in a factory as your day job? It shows. Nothing on the side at all?"

  "No, no, no side shit. I don't do that anymore. You guys know that, right?"

  Her brow furrowed. "Then what was that big fire a few days ago? Rory said that was you, you made this big thing to announce you were coming back."

  "That mother--I'm gonna kill that little fucker. I didn't say that shit, he said that."

  She looked confused again and tailgated a car way too closely without watching the road. "Wait, then why'd you do it? I swear to God, please don't tell me you get off on it now. He asked me if you were a pyromaniac, and I said no, so please don't tell me you're a pyro now."

  "I was just drunk. That's it. I lost control of my shit." And one thing life had taught me was that you could cover pretty much any stupid thing you ever did by saying you did it while you were drunk. Admitting that I had done it because I got mad that a baby had died was not an option going into this thing. I changed the subject before she pressed me on it. "What have you been up to since London? I figured you made it out of London when Jurgen with batshit, but, y'know, we kind of went our own ways."

  "Are you shitting me?" she said. "You burned down that much because you were drunk? Jesus Christ, Don. Okay, stay away from the alcohol while you're here. My God. Anyway," she kind of laughed, "Yes, I made it out of London before it got really bad. I didn't sign up for that hot mess. Did you see the pictures of what Bill did to that tour bus?"

  "Yeah. How did we not know how fucked up Jurgen was?"