Technomancer (9 page)

We pulled into a parking lot.

“This is the place,” McKesson said. “You want to give me back my gun?”

I eyed him. “We’re not best friends yet,” I said. “You never even told me what I was accused of.”

“We going in, or what?” he asked.

I eyed the place. It looked like a dump, but sometimes these cheap little hole-in-the-wall places had the best food. Cops always seemed to find places like that.

“Are you still planning to arrest me?” I asked.

“Eventually,” he said.

“How about tonight?”

“Are you buying?”

I thought about it. “Yeah,” I said.

McKesson sighed. “All right. You’ve got the gun, and you’re not my biggest problem tonight. We can call a truce. You forget about the slap and don’t talk about the loose cuffs. I’ll pretend you got by me. We’ll sort it out later. But I can’t promise I won’t be coming after you tomorrow.”

I thought about the offer. Even as far as it went, I wasn’t sure it was genuine. But I needed some kind of ally. I figured I could always slip his cuffs again, or get out of his car, as long as I had the sunglasses. He didn’t seem to understand their power yet. I decided to risk it.

“You’ve got a deal,” I said, and I put the gun away.

McKesson got out of the car and walked into the place as if we were old friends. Had he read me so well that he knew I wouldn’t take off running? Was he just swaggering and overconfident? Was all of this some kind of elaborate con job? I really wasn’t sure. He left me wondering what to do next.

The place looked like a dump inside. Ugly old wallpaper with small images of banana splits, hamburgers, and frying pans was everywhere. The seats had rips in them showing yellowed foam rubber.

We sat across from one another in a booth and ordered pie. His was lemon meringue. Mine was coconut cream. He was right—the pie was excellent. Unsurprisingly, it was also cheap.

The waitress recognized McKesson and knew he was a cop. The coffee was free and she refilled it whenever it was halfway down. I smiled at the arrangement. This was a cop hangout, a business with an inexpensive security plan in place.

“You still haven’t told me what I’m suspected of doing,” I said when my pie had been reduced to crumbs.

“All of it,” he said. “You’ve been in or around a dozen strange murders. With this last case you were in the guy’s car at the time. When the showgirl fell from a hundred feet into her own dressing room, you were in the hallway outside. When the bum exploded into flames and burned happily to ashes, you were there, snapping pictures for your blog. The list goes on.”

I thought about his list. I hadn’t realized I’d been present at these crime scenes. I didn’t doubt McKesson, however. Strange events seemed to occur in my vicinity. I couldn’t deny that.

“I’m not a killer,” I said.

“I don’t believe you.”

I frowned. Was I a killer? I supposed I might have pulled a trigger or two in my lifetime. The gun had felt natural in my hand. I knew how to use it, where to place it. The thought was disturbing. Was I one of those guys who woke up happy and forgetful after every psychotic killing?

“Maybe ignorance truly is bliss,” I said, frowning into my coffee. “But I’m more determined than ever to figure out what the hell is going on in this town. No one seems to know everything, but everyone I meet seems to know more
than I do. And we all have one thing in common: we are all paranoid.”

McKesson laughed. “You’ve got that right, Draith.”

“You have a family, Detective?”

“No. You?”

“I don’t think so.”

McKesson nodded. “Let me clue you in there: you’re right. You don’t. I would have been sitting at your momma’s place, if you had one. I mean, what kind of perp comes back to their burned-down house a week later? It was a long shot.”

“Why didn’t you look for me at the sanatorium?”

He shook his head and snorted. “No one goes into that place—not if they want to come back out.”

I didn’t reply to that. I was too busy thinking about Dr. Meng and her odd staff. The halls were quiet, and the rooms were windowless. It was a weird, dangerous place. I didn’t want to go back there, although I knew I might have to.

“So what else have you got for me?” McKesson asked.

“You give me more first,” I said, bluffing.

McKesson shook his head. “No way. I’ve told you too much as it is.” He leaned forward and gave me an intense stare. “But this isn’t over between us. We have a truce right now, tonight, but don’t think that makes us tight. When the time comes, I’ll do what I’ve got to do. Just so we understand each other.”

I nodded and sipped my coffee calmly.

“Right,” I said. “I hear you. And just so
you
know, I’m not your typical, terrified perp on the run. I’m in this to find out what the hell happened to me—what the hell is happening to my hometown. And I’ll go right through anyone who gets in my way.”

McKesson studied me for a second, then leaned back, smiling and checking out the waitresses. He nodded. “The funny thing is, you and I want the same thing.”

“Wait a second,” I said. “Does that mean you are going to let me dig into this? Without harassment? Like you said, we are on the same mission.”

McKesson stared at me. “Maybe. For a day or two. That’s all I can do. We all have our masters, you know.”

I thought about Dr. Meng, and I wondered if he had someone like that behind him—some member of the “Community,” as they liked to call themselves, who pulled his strings.

I nodded finally. “I understand.”

“You know what you are, Draith?” he said, looking me in the eye. “You’re what they call a
hound
. A bloodhound who finds things. The Community uses your type, because most of them are stuck in one place in order to hold onto their power. Do you understand any of that?”

“Yeah,” I said. And I thought that I truly had begun to understand. These people who called themselves a Community had
domains
. Dr. Meng had explained that. She had also indicated I was a fringe member, a minor personage barely worthy of note in this community of important people. I suspected I was looked upon the way celebrities might look upon a lifelong member of the paparazzi. I was a face they’d grown to recognize among what they otherwise considered to be a crowd of gawking vermin.

“I get it, all right,” I said. “You and I are both hired hands. Meng called me a rogue.”

“Exactly,” he said.

“Do rogues work together?”

“Sometimes—or sometimes we kill each other.”

“We came close to doing both tonight,” I said. “Who are you working for then?”

“Myself.”

I snorted. “Liar.”

“Do
you
work for Meng?” he demanded.

I shook my head. “She gave me a hand—sort of. But I’m not her servant.”

“So, you understand my position then.”

I looked at him. “OK. You aren’t a power player, but you
are
a player. Is that what you are saying?”

“Yeah.”

“So just give me the name, then. Who else wanted Tony murdered? Who is on the top of your suspect list?”

McKesson looked around as if the walls themselves were listening. Maybe they were.

“No names,” he whispered. “But I’ll give you a place: The Lucky Seven. You might just find somebody interesting there—dressed in white.”

“OK,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Now you give
me
something,” he said, putting out a hand and making tickling motions in the air. “My gun.”

I shrugged. “Don’t have it.”

McKesson looked like he wanted to lunge at me from across the table. “Just taking it from me was your sixth felony by my count.”

“You’ve got a fair number of them racked up yourself,” I said, enjoying the process of baiting him for a change. I saw his face grow purple. I knew he couldn’t go back to the station having lost his gun and his suspect. He would be humiliated.

I put up a flat palm to halt his next tirade. “Calm down. I left it in the car. Before you ask, your cuffs are there too.”

The detective showed me his teeth and gave a tiny snort, nodding. “Smooth,” he said. He stood up then and fished inside his coat. I thought for a second he was pulling out a twenty to pay for the meal after all. I was disappointed when he threw down a business card with his name and cell
number on it. “If you ever feel like turning yourself in, or you have a wild flash of returning memories, give me a call, Draith,” he said.

As he left, I called out after him, “You want to know how to find me?”

“I’ll find you,” he said, pausing at the door. “All I have to do is follow the trail of bodies.”

I paid the tab with Tony’s folded twenties and walked out soon afterward. Somehow, I didn’t feel relieved in the slightest after my encounter with the law. I now understood much more thoroughly why Holly had told me to avoid them. Still, I had made a connection. McKesson and I had met, sized each other up, and both lived through the experience.

What the hell, I thought. For all I knew, it would blossom into a wonderful friendship. Somehow, however, I doubted it.

I wandered the Strip for an hour or so, thinking hard. There were tourists and palm trees everywhere. The tourists seemed to fit the scene. I tried to recall if the city had always had so many palm trees, but couldn’t. Maybe they were more noticeable because they were moving. Their fronds waved and rattled in the cool autumn winds.

I’d learned a lot about what was going on in this town, and some of it was very hard to believe. I did believe it, however. My acceptance of the situation taught me something about myself. I decided that this had to be one of my personality traits, or based upon a personal philosophy. I knew I believed in playing the cards life dealt me, rather than whining or dreaming about a better hand. I was a pragmatic person. I didn’t believe in witches or aliens—but if you plunked one down in front of me and it performed as advertised, I would change my mind on the spot. Maybe that
sort of flexibility had allowed me to survive in this tough city full of strange people, things, and events.

As best I could sum up the whole situation, I was caught up in the center of a struggle between powerful people. They called themselves “The Community” and they were a distrustful, secretive bunch. I was reminded of the organized crime families that had run this city in the past, when this was the center of vice in the nation. In recent years, with the spread of vice into the diffuse online environment, their power had faded somewhat. Something new and possibly worse had come here in their place.

This new power was based, as far as I understood it, on objects or locations. They performed various tricks, such as Tony’s sunglasses making metals soft and flexible. I supposed Meng’s object, that hood ornament, gave her the power to teleport people here and there. I could see how useful that could be. Being able to open a lock was one thing, being able to pop a rival into a room with no exit was quite a bit more powerful. Meng had indicated, however, that her object worked within a domain. I suspected that meant it would only work in and around the sanatorium.

Tony’s sunglasses seemed to be different. They had worked at different spots around the city. Looking back on our conversation, I had to surmise that Meng had decided to let me go with the sunglasses to snoop around for her. Perhaps during our interview, while I sat there smugly with my pistol, she had really been deciding my fate. Maybe it had been within her power to instantly kill me. If she could have sent me anywhere, she could have popped me ten floors up into the air and dropped me onto the concrete. Or, maybe she could have put me into a sewage tank full of bubbling liquid far below the earth to drown. Instant death had been facing me, and I had been blissfully clueless. I guessed she
had given me the sunglasses and let me go so I could use them to gather information. So far, they had been a significant help.

After encountering two of these powers, I had to wonder what else was out there. I’d seen evidence of more strange effects. That lava slug that had burned my house had come from somewhere. And Tony had been filled with sand while driving along the street—that could have been Meng, but the street was nowhere near the sanatorium. What about the bum in the painless flames? What about the rest of the dead?

Vegas casinos never close—at least they don’t these days. In the middle of the night, you can walk in and throw your money down. When red-eyed wanderers stagger in and gamble their credit cards over the limit, they always find a smiling dealer to take their money. Even at 3:00 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. Coincidentally, it was six minutes after the third hour of Tuesday when I reached the Lucky Seven.

The casino was huge, but it was mostly deserted. Only a few of the massive salons full of gaming tables and one-armed bandits were still lit and operational. The others were sectioned off with green velvet ropes. Vacuums with headlights worked the carpets in those quiet zones, where the lights were turned down to a dim, flickering blue-gray.

I eyed the tables and the patrons. They were unremarkable for the most part. The gamblers looked liked they’d been in their clothes too long. The dealers and security looked like they were bored and waiting for the night to be over. The only spot with any real life to it was a high-stakes blackjack table at the far end. I saw the little sign that listed the minimum bet at a hundred dollars. I winced at the thought, but walked in that direction anyway.