Текст книги "Sleep Tight"

Автор книги: Jeff Jacobson

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

CHAPTER 23

3:17 PM

August 11

Ed pulled up behind a uniform laundry van and a Streets and San truck. Sam eyeballed the two vehicles. “Any more and we could start a parade. Busy day in City Hall.”

Inside, everyone was agitated, yelling into cell phones. There was one officer waiting at the front desk. Ed showed him his star and signed in, explaining, “We’re here for a prisoner transfer.”

The cop behind the desk looked skeptical. “They sent a couple of detectives for some old woman? It’s not like she tried to shoot Derrick Rose or anything.”

Ed nailed him with a dead-eyed stare.

Sam, still sore over the bullshit assignment, said, “Fuck you care?”

The cop shrugged. “Fine, whatever.” He picked up the phone. “She’s in the lockup on the county side.”

Ed and Sam moved down the hall. The cop did a good job ignoring Sam’s glare, so Sam stopped, until the cop didn’t have a choice but to look over. Now Sam could be the one to shake his head first, as if dismissing the younger man.

Another cop standing at the top of the escalator stopped Ed from going downstairs. “Sorry, buddy, this part of the building is temporarily closed.”

Ed blinked. “Why?”

The cop hesitated. Ed oozed law enforcement from his pores, but the cop couldn’t be sure. “I don’t have any exact details at this time, sir.”

Ed had to pull his star out again. “Unless there’s some deranged fucknut down there with a gun, I’m going downstairs. Thank you, officer.” He stepped onto the escalator.

Sam passed the second cop, still shaking his head.

They heard somebody with a deep Chicago accent arguing loudly with a thin, sharp voice. The argument got louder. Ed and Sam followed the clamoring voices and turned into a hallway. A knot of Chicago cops and an attractive woman in a tight suit blocked the view of the rest of the hallway.

They got closer, moved through the cops, and Sam got his first look at Dr. Reischtal.

A tall man, somewhere around his early fifties. Wearing a doctor’s lab coat, buttoned to the top. Tiny round glasses, giving his eyes a perpetually narrow look, as if he was zeroing in wherever his gaze landed. Arms held loose, left hand clasped tightly over the right at his waist.

“—has absolutely no bearing on the fact you have just committed a serious felony crime.”

The big guy in the Streets and Sans uniform snorted in disgust. “And I keep saying, we did our job.”

Assistants in protective gear and surgical masks were placing a mangled dead rat into a container with its own air filter. Despite this, the soldiers took Sam’s attention. Three of them, wearing National Guard uniforms. Sam squinted, wondering if he should start bringing his reading glasses with him on the job. He cursed himself for the thought, but something wasn’t quite right with the soldiers. The uniforms were too new.

Ed and Sam got closer. All of the soldiers carried at least one sidearm, some kind of knife, and an assault rifle stowed on a sling behind them. Sam realized that they weren’t AR-15s; he didn’t even know what the hell these were. Something exotic. Fancy. Expensive. More details jumped out. They all wore knee pads. Sophisticated throat mikes. Wireless earbuds.

“Look pal, you’re barking up the wrong tree here. You oughta be talkin’ to my boss, you know, the guy who sent me here.” The big guy in Streets and Sans uniform wasn’t as tall as the doctor, but he might have weighed twice as much. Classic Chicago build. Mustache too. Hawks hat, the whole nine yards.

The other Streets and San guy was much younger. Clearly the quiet half of the pair. Maybe a couple of years out of high school. Didn’t appear to be college material, except maybe on a sports scholarship. He had the build of a shortstop, low, lean, and quick. Cold eyes. The handle of an aluminum bat stuck up from behind his head in some harness.

Sam gave a small smile. It was always the quiet ones you had to watch out for.

“If you think you can hide behind your pathetic job, my dear friend, I can assure you that I will see to it that your bosses crucify you,” Dr. Reischtal said. The guy was so cold Sam was surprised a hailstorm didn’t accompany each word. “I will see to it.”

Ed pushed through the knot of cops and said, “Perhaps I can be of assistance.” He wearily pulled his star out for the third goddamn time in five minutes. “Detective Ed Jones. This is Detective Sam Johnson.”

Dr. Reischtal tilted his head at the detectives. “Ah. I am . . . familiar with your work.”

Sam glanced at the dead rat, Tommy’s bat, and the blood on the wall. “Seems to me what we got here is a situation of a couple of Streets and San workers doing their job.” He stared at Dr. Reischtal. “You got here late.”

The techs glanced at Dr. Reischtal and showed him the lights on the container. They glanced at the mess on the wall and more blood on the floor. Dr. Reischtal gave his head a short shake. “This mess is not ours. Leave it to them to clean it up.”

As the techs headed for the escalator, Dr. Reischtal turned to the detectives and the Streets and San men and held his head so that the fluorescents caught his glasses. His eyes crackled with white energy. “Understand this. You will all be held responsible. I will see you again.”

CHAPTER 24

3:19 PM

August 11

The running joke among the cleaning women at the Clark Adams Building was that Herman Smith looked like a Muppet that belonged on Barrio Sésamo. His body was covered in short fur, and his face was all mustache and eyebrows. He wasn’t a large man, but when he got to yelling at anybody he thought was underneath his position, he would puff his chest out and bounce on his toes, trying to make himself more physically intimidating.

The women had a pool going about his age; everybody had put in five bucks and given their best guess. Estimates of his age ran anywhere from thirty-five to fifty-eight. They knew he’d changed his name, as his former name was some unpronounceable jumble of consonants, but nobody had gotten a look at his records yet, so the pot was unclaimed. Apart from their curiosity about his age, they didn’t like him much. He refused to help out upstairs, preferring instead to remain by himself in his basement.

He liked to think of it as his building; it took up an entire city block. He’d worked there for thirteen years and thirteen years was a long time. Long enough to see his three children old enough to attend college. It was dull, mindless work, but he didn’t care, because it left him with time to find other ways to generate income.

He pushed through the employees’ entrance. Paid his ten-dollar debt to the guy at the desk. His father had taught him the invaluable lesson of paying any debts immediately. Last night, the Cubs had surprised everyone and won two out of three against St. Louis. The security guard was a Cubs fan and bet with his heart. For once, he’d won. Herman, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about one team or the other.

One level down, he followed the utility corridor all the way from the Clark side of the building to the east side. He always made sure to unlock a certain door the first level down as soon as he started his shift. This wasn’t part of his regular job, but he had to uphold his end of the bargain. This provided access to the building from the relative privacy of the alley. He found the chain already unlocked.

Those rich pricks.

They had forgotten again. Or they were breaking another rule, going in or out during the daytime. It got dark back here, but not dark enough. It needed to be night; otherwise, someone passing on the street might see them. He locked the chain tight again, as a reminder to the bastards. If they were outside and needed in, well then, that was too damn bad.

He moved with an urgent purpose now, heading down another level to a forgotten storeroom that had been sealed off decades ago. Before retiring, Herman’s predecessor had explained that the room had been repurposed and outlined the deal he’d struck. It served as a crash pad for a small group of stockbrokers and was a place for a quick snort of coke to get pumped for the trading floor and fuck girls from the downtown bars. Over the years, it had dwindled to just two brokers. Still, they paid Herman rent and everybody kept quiet.

But lately, they had been slacking off adhering to Herman’s rules.

Vest-wearing ass-clowns.

He tried the door. It was locked.

He swore in Croatian, dug around his front pocket for the key. He stepped inside, and locked the door behind him. The place was dark and filled with furniture looted from the Chicago Board of Trade. A couple of desks with outdated computers, office chairs, a couple of leather couches. He switched on one of the lamps and the room grew a little brighter with the muddy light. They’d decorated the concrete walls with stolen street signs and abstract images taken from beer advertisements and horror movie posters.

Herman wrinkled his nose. The place smelled. Bad. The desks were covered in fast food containers and white Chinese food boxes. It didn’t look like they used the half fridge in the corner for anything but beer. The garbage can was overflowing with old food. This was just the first room.

They had walled part of the room off using cubicle partitions, presumably for a bit of privacy. The first room was empty. Which meant they were probably outside, and Herman would be damned if he was going to clean this mess up himself. They would follow his rules or he would find someone else to rent the room.

He went to check the back room before he locked up the place for the night, just in case they were sleeping off an early drunk. Herman knew they had at least two couches behind the partitions. He just hoped they didn’t have any girls back there. Girls didn’t listen. Girls were loud. Girls were trouble.

There were no lights in the second room. If anything, it smelled worse back here. Something rotten. And something else too . . . something that smelled strangely like the bear claws he used to buy every morning, until he stopped because he couldn’t shake the feeling he was wasting money on something frivolous.

He fished his penlight out of his pocket to check the couches.

Sure enough, there they were. Illuminated in the narrow, weak yellow beam, he could see one of the brokers still passed out on one of the couches. The other one had rolled off the second couch and lay facedown on the floor. He shook his head. Stupid, arrogant assholes.

“Hey,” he said, kicking the frame of the closest couch. “Wake up. You forget the rules, hey?”

Neither man moved. In fact, they seemed unnaturally still.

Herman kicked the couch again. “Hey! Time to wake up. I’m talking to you!”

Still no movement.

He aimed the light straight into their faces and his gut knew before his brain figured out that the two brokers were dead. Something looked wrong with their skin, but it was hard to tell in the wavering light. They both seemed unnaturally pale, and the skin looked puffy almost, something akin to the texture of a rough sponge.

He backed out of the room, knees buckling. He dropped into an office chair and pushed himself across the room. He could not understand how they had died. For the first time in over six years, if he could have found a cigarette, he would have broken his solemn vow. He placed a trembling hand out to the desk to steady himself.

He switched the flashlight off. It wasn’t much help in the first room anyway. He took several deep breaths, focusing on just inhaling and exhaling, long and slow. He needed to think this out. But the two corpses in the makeshift room, not ten feet from where he sat, kept getting in the way of making a decision. He felt paralyzed. He pulled his hands into fists and tried to just breathe.

The CO₂ he exhaled caught the attention of a dozen bugs dozing under the chair’s seat. They set out to the edge of the fabric, thousands of years of instincts directing them to a large warm-blooded mammal.

To feed.

To spawn.

The bugs found Herman’s slacks. Their jaws could not penetrate the fabric, so they latched onto the threads, wriggling along on six legs. They stopped when he moved, and just hung on, and when they felt the stillness, they worked their way closer to the warmth of bare flesh.

Herman couldn’t feel them. The thought of fingerprints had just crossed his mind. He jerked his hand off the desk and wiped it with his rag. He stood up quickly and patted his pockets, making sure nothing had fallen out. His wife was always watching those police forensic TV shows, and it seemed like the cops would inevitably find some hair or some damn thing to discover the killer. He backed out of the room, hoping he hadn’t touched anything else.

Outside, in the corridor, he locked the door and twisted the rag around the handle. He could always call 911 later, after he figured out what he would say. In the meantime, he would do his job and stick to his usual routine. He could always claim he found them later.

He started up the stairs, moving slow, and had to pause near the top to catch his breath.

The bugs crawled up under his shirt and over the waistband.

Herman opened the door to the basement and rubbed his sore back, rolled his shoulders, and made sure to lock to the door behind him. He still couldn’t feel the bugs.

CHAPTER 25

3:21 PM

August 11

Sam shook his head at the empty hallway. “What a fuckin’ asshole.” He called back to Captain Garnes, “You want to write this up?”

“Hell, no.”

“Me, neither. He say who he’s with?”

“CDC.”

“Ahhh . . . shit.”

“Shit is right. Listen, I’m sorry, but when this comes down, I’m passing this down to you, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.”

“I got no time for the kind of shit that’s gonna rain down, understand? What the hell are you doing here anyway?”

“Prisoner transfer. Some homeless woman.”

Captain Garnes laughed. “I see. Assignment like that, you’re already in trouble. What are you, a goddamn shit magnet or something? She’s in the old jail. Get her and then get the fuck out of here.”

Ed said, “Good seeing you again too, Harold,” as Captain Garnes led the cops upstairs.

Sam gave Tommy his card. “That’s us, your local shit collectors. You got problems, you let me know.”

“Thanks,” Don said and tilted his head at Tommy. “Fuck it. No more rat. We’re done. Happy Hour isn’t gonna last forever.” He shook Ed and Sam’s hands, doffed his Blackhawks cap at Tonya, and started upstairs.

Tommy grabbed the equipment, gave Tonya a nod, and followed.

Sam and Ed worked their way through City Hall, heading to the County side. The hallways were slowly beginning to fill up with people again. A deeply tanned, middle-aged guy came out of the sheriff’s office. He was dressed like a tourist, baggy shorts, even looser loud Hawaiian shirt, but he was far too muscular for a regular tourist. He had a crew cut, and scars on his scalp. He tried not to limp, but something in his right knee was sore. He kept his gaze pointedly straight ahead and passed the detectives without a glance in their direction.

Something about the lack of expression on the guy’s face set off Sam’s radar, so he filed it away, and then focused on the job immediately in front of him. Inside, they saw an empty front area. Ed signed in. Sam stepped behind the front counter and knocked on the security door. It was unlocked. Behind it, the two rooms were empty, and the cell door stood open.

It didn’t feel right. Something was off.

Sam unbuttoned his sport coat, keeping his hand near his shoulder holster. Ed sensed it too, and unsnapped his own holster.

Qween lay facedown inside the cell. Her hands were handcuffed behind her. When she heard Ed and Sam’s footsteps, she rolled over and kicked out, yelling, “Dirty motherfucker.”

“This is Detectives Ed Jones and Sam Johnson, ma’am,” Ed said.

They got a look at her face. One eye was starting to puff shut. Her bottom lip was cracked bloody. Somebody’d been using her as a punching bag. “Come git some, motherfuckers. That’s right.” She kicked out at them.

“Ma’am. We’re here to pick you up. You promise to behave, we’ll take those handcuffs off.”

“You just want to get my back turned, fucker.”

“We’re serious, ma’am.”

A pause while she thought about it. “Slide them keys over, then.”

Ed sighed, slid the keys over to Qween, then stepped back and waited. When he was a rookie, he’d learned that ninety percent of being an effective patrol officer was being patient. Give people enough time to blow off steam and calm down, they would accept the situation, sometimes willingly follow him to the station. He didn’t look at it as wasted time. It was worth going slow, instead of having some homeless prisoner puking or shitting in his car.

It took Qween a full minute to scoot over, grab the keys, and unlock herself. Ed thought she might be moving slowly on purpose; it felt like she might have done this before. She tried to pocket both the keys and the handcuffs but Ed made her give them back.

“Who did that to your face?” Sam asked.

“Who did that to yours?”

Ed tried not to laugh, but sometimes he couldn’t help himself, like when his three-year-old grandson swore.

Sam said, “Ma’am, we’re trying to help you out here. We don’t much like it when someone decides to beat up a handcuffed prisoner. You want to tell us? We’ll see to it that something is done.” He kept seeing the guy in the Hawaiian shirt.

Qween squinted at them, then snorted. “The day I need some dumbass cracker and his Oreo partner to fight my battles is the day Jesus calls me home.”

Ed brushed at some invisible lint on his suit jacket without meeting Sam’s eyes. It was his signal that Sam should drop the questions. Patience was key here. Clearly, she’d rattled something near the top of the food chain if serious heavyweights like Dr. Reischtal were taking an interest.

“You don’t want to tell us, fine. Let’s go,” Sam said.

“Where we going?” she demanded.

“To Twenty-sixth and California,” Ed said.

“Goddamnit.” She rolled her eyes. “They gone sent another goddamn stupid dick licker.”

“Excuse me?” Ed asked.

“Don’t you people ever stop to think? Ain’t nobody ever asked me why. Too busy thinking I just another crazy nigger lady. Stupid motherfuckers. Why you think I did it? Answer me that. Do this one thing, before hauling me off to another piss tank.”

“Did what? Turn a rat loose?”

“No, take a dump on the sidewalk. ’Course the fucking rat.”

“No idea.”

“You did it to prove a point,” Sam said.

“No shit. You be a regular Sherlock.”

Sam started to like the homeless woman. “Okay. I’m listening. You tell us.”

Herman was halfway through cleaning his floors when an insistent sluggishness began to take hold. He couldn’t believe it. He’d gotten nearly four hours of sleep last night, enough to keep him going at least until eleven, when he would start his second job as a cab driver, shuttling passengers back and forth to Midway. And tonight, panic had been flitting through his system because of the bodies in his secret rented room.

Still, there was no denying the exhaustion pulling at him. He finally gave up, and promised himself a short nap now, and finish the floors later. He switched off the floor buffer and went back to the desk in the maintenance room. Ever since he’d yelled at one of the cleaning women who had come down to ask for help one night, nobody ever came down here anymore during his shift, so he knew he wouldn’t be disturbed.

Part of his mind knew something was wrong, but he ignored it, attributing it to the panic he’d felt earlier with the dead bodies. They didn’t seem so important anymore. Nothing seemed important anymore. Only sleep. Shadows crowded at the edges of his vision and he had to feel around for the chair. He fell into it, but it rolled backwards and he slipped to the floor.

He didn’t get up.

CHAPTER 26

4:28 PM

August 11

Qween took the detectives back to the Washington Blue Line Station under City Hall and made Sam pay for three tickets. Sam went first through the turnstile, followed by Qween. She took her time squeezing through, enjoying the tightness around her hips. “About the only action I get these days,” she said with a lewd grin. Ed tried not to touch the bars any more than he had to. They descended into the subway down a wide set of smooth concrete stairs. The entire place needed to be repainted. The air was cool, but stale.

On the platform, they followed her through the crowd to the northbound edge and then along it. “You never see ’em in the light,” Qween explained. They reached the end, where the platform simply stopped, dropping off to the darkness of the subway tunnel. One by one, they climbed down the utility ladder and walked along the tracks ten yards up the tunnel.

“Stop,” Qween said. “Smell it?”

Sam shut his eyes and tested the air. She was right. Something thick clogged the atmosphere, stronger down in the shadows, almost enough to blot out the smell of human piss and burnt steel. He opened his eyes and found them fully adjusted to the dim light.

He saw dozens of rat corpses, curled up like pill bugs. The more his eyes adjusted to the dim light, the more rat corpses he could see. Hundreds of them. Something glinted in the wash from the fluorescents, then disappeared. Ed held up his smartphone, using a flashlight app. It was his favorite feature, once his oldest grandson had downloaded it and shown Ed how to use it. The light caught movement fifteen feet down the tunnel. It was the eyes of a living rat, which tugged at the shoulders of one of the corpses.

“Damn,” Ed said. His voice echoed off the curving concrete.

The feeding rat flinched and hissed. Dozens of other answering hisses, as if they were tuned to the same radio static, erupted from the shadows all around them.

“Fuck me,” Sam said, backing to the lights of the station. Ed splashed the light around, revealing square holes regularly spaced along both walls. These black tunnels were full of eyes. The closest rat squealed, whether in fury or terror Sam couldn’t tell, and scuttled forward. Qween kicked at it and they scrambled back to the ladder. Ed and Sam pushed Qween up ahead of them, then pulled themselves over the ledge. They moved quickly into the light and stood for a moment, catching their breath, watching the edge for rats.

“Don’t know about you, but I’ve seen enough,” Sam said.

They decided a drink was necessary. After collecting Qween’s cart, they found a quiet booth in the back of Monk’s Pub a few blocks away. While the regulars laughed and shouted at the bar, plugging quarters into the jukebox, Ed, Sam, and Qween didn’t talk. They concentrated on their shots of Jameson and slowly swirled the shot glasses in the condensation on the table that had collected from their beers.

Sam got tired of waiting for the waiter and went up to the bar for another round. The bartender poured the shots and glanced over at their table. “I appreciate the business, but just so you know, the only reason she’s allowed in here is ’cause she’s with you.”

“Fucking relax,” Sam said. “You oughta worry about me instead. Tell you what. Give me six shots.”

The bartender shrugged and didn’t look at Sam again.

Sam popped another stick of nicotine gum and chewed on it ferociously. Some dipshit on the TV caught his eye. The evening news, interviewing some “witness” at City Hall. “Hey, turn that up,” he said.

The bartender found the remote, and increased the volume.

“—crazy, you know. I heard people saying it was some kind of political statement, but I don’t know.” This was from the witness. They cut back to a perky reporter, wearing an elaborate outfit and about a gallon of hairspray to combat the humidity. The shot was live, outside of City Hall. “Some are calling it a sick joke, some are calling it a political prank that got out of control, and some are even saying it is part of some bizarre performance art piece.”

The shot cut back to a prerecorded piece, shot inside City Hall. Tonya, looking cool and unflappable, smiled compassionately. “It’s true that we experienced an unfortunate incident earlier today, yes. However, the important thing to remember here is that a mentally disturbed individual will be getting the help they need at this time.”

Back to the reporter. “This is Cecilia Palmers, live from City Hall. Back to you, Barbara and Rob.”

The smug, smiling face of a male anchor filled the screen. “Thanks, Cecilia. And now over to Tad Schilling, in Weather Center One. So tell me Tad, when are we going to get a break with this heat?”

Sam paid and borrowed a tray. He put all the shot glasses on it and carried it back to their table. “Just saw the news. They’re brushing it under the rug as we speak. By tomorrow, it’ll be forgotten.” He passed out the first three shots and said, “Salute.”

They downed the shots and sat in silence a while longer.

“So what now?” Ed asked. “We go back to Arturo. We tell him there’s something going on with the rats. Some kind of disease. Shit. I can see the look on his face right now.”

“No,” Sam said. “We call the TV stations. Tell them what’s going on. Get some footage of those dead rats.”

“And you think they care about dead rats?” Ed asked.

“Shit. They don’t care about folks killing each other, as long as it stays on the South or West sides. What makes you think they gonna care about dead rats?”

“We need to pray to the good Lord for some guidance,” Qween said.

Ed and Sam pretended they hadn’t heard her suggestion.

Qween said, with a little more conviction, “I said, we need to pray.”

“If that helps,” Sam said, “go on ahead and pray.”

“What’s your religion, Mr. Sam Johnson?” Qween asked.

“I don’t think that has any bearing on this case,” Sam said.

“I think it has a whole lot to do with this case,” Qween said. “Answer the question. If you want any more help from me, answer the question.”

Sam took his second shot. “Okay. My folks were Jewish. I grew up in Skokie. Reform, I guess you’d say.”

“Be straight. You Jews, you don’t believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“Not in the way you believe, no.”

“Okay, then. I ain’t hold that against you.”

“Good to hear it.”

“But you ain’t got any bearing on this, so shut the fuck up.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Edward Jones. What’s your story? Don’t break my heart. Tell me you’re a Baptist from Down South. Please, boy. Please.”

“Ma’am. Don’t take this personally.” Ed picked up his shot glass and held it, waiting until Qween held hers and they clinked the glass together. “I don’t believe in God.” He knocked his shot back. “Sorry. Your Bible, it’s just myths and legends. No different from any other culture on Earth.”

She surprised them and gave Ed a grin that displayed how few teeth she had left. “Don’t you worry. Jesus Christ doesn’t judge. He understands.” Qween knocked back the Jameson, slammed the shot glass upside down on the wood. “You need to get yourself to church. Make sure it’s Baptist. None of that Pentecostal foolishness. Shit, when I want to speak in tongues, I just drink Sambuca. Now, excuse me.” She wriggled her bulk out of the booth. “All this quality whiskey goes right through me. I expect at least three more on the table when I get back.”

When his cell phone rang, Lee was grateful for the interruption. He’d been sitting in a back room at a shithole of an Italian restaurant on the Near North Side and his throat hurt from all the laughing he was having to fake at all the stupid jokes. They kept shoving sausage and pasta on his plate; it wasn’t like he could refuse to eat, so training tomorrow was going to be brutal. And it didn’t help that he was sweating his balls off. Christ, what was it about these old fucking goombah types that they needed to keep the heat going in August?

Still, he was careful. The last goddamn thing he needed was for one of them to suspect he wasn’t being sincere when he laughed. They’d turn on him like starving dogs. Forget his career. He’d be lucky not to end up as another “suicide” in the river.

Even though some of the older men frowned when his phone went off, he checked the number, saw that it was his uncle, and apologized profusely, saying, “It’s Uncle Phil.” The old men understood the importance of family, more specifically, the importance of getting a call from an elder in the business. Lee excused himself and slipped into the alley.

“What the fuck, Phil? These guys, they take it personally if you answer a phone in their presence.”

“I know. I wouldn’t have called, but we got bigger problems. You see the news? Hear about the rat loose in City Hall?”

“If this is your idea of an emergency, then I’m gonna have these guys cut your nuts off.”

“Watch your mouth and listen close. Somebody’s reaching out to you, and they’ve got enough juice to know to contact me first.”

“So what?”

“Somebody from the CDC wants the names of the two employees that were in charge of catching the rat.”

Lee’s mind spun. “What the . . . why the fuck?”

“I have no idea. Only something big, bigger than us, is here, and they are serious.

“You need to find out who the fuck was downtown today and give them up quick. These people, they aren’t fucking around. They got a hard-on for this rat and I don’t want to know why.”