Текст книги "Evil Dark"

Автор книги: Justin Gustainis

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  I shook my head. "Nice try, Milo. You're a credit to whatever law school taught you how to lie, cheat, and steal. You are a lawyer, aren't you?"

  He sounded irritated for the first time since we'd arrived. "Yes, I'm a member of the bar. So what?"

  "So nothing," I said. "Just confirming a suspicion. But what I said about Sharkey – that wasn't a suspicion. That's a fact, you stupid son of a bitch."

  No smiles this time. His lips were a pencil-thin line. "I repeat, I have no idea what – or whom – you're talking about. But, just for the sake of discussion, if I had hired this Sharkey, why would doing so make me, in your words, 'a stupid son of a bitch'?"

  "Because Sharkey's what the Grim Reaper would look like if he had a better tailor and traded in the scythe for an Uzi. He's fucking Death incarnate."

  "I would hardly have expected such poetic language from… a representative of law and order, Sergeant."

  Milo walked over to the desk, where some bottles, ice, and glasses had been laid out. As he poured Scotch into a glass, I said, "If you think that was poetic, then you need to start reading a better class of poet."

  "Um, perhaps." Milo took a sip of his drink, then said, "Pardon my manners. May I offer you gentlemen a drink?"

  I shook my head again. "We're on duty."

  Then Karl chimed in. "Stan's right," he said. "Besides, I never drink… Scotch."

  I bet he'd been waiting to use that Bela Lugosi line ever since he was turned.

  "You pay Sharkey for a body, you get a body," I said. "Trouble is, you sometimes get a bunch of other bodies that you didn't pay for."

  "I heard a story about him not long after I started on the force," Karl said. "Sharkey was sent after some mid-level mobster named Wiley, and Wiley heard about it before Sharkey could find him. So he decided to hole up in his condo until Sharkey gave up and went away."

  "What he didn't understand," I said, "is that Sharkey never gives up."

  "Fuckin' A," Karl said. "So Wiley stocks up on food, keeps the drapes closed, and never answers the door for anybody. He stayed in there over a month, I hear."

  When neither of us said anything for a few seconds, Milo gave a loud sigh. "I suppose I'll have to feed you the next line, if only to move things along. So – then what happened?"

  "Sharkey blew the building up," Karl said. "He likes explosives – the guy he was after should have known that."

  "Didn't even have to buy any TNT," I said. "He got into the basement and dug up the gas line that ran underneath the building. Then he figured out a way to make it blow. The whole thing looked like an accident, if you didn't know better."

  "Sharkey got his man," Karl said. "Along with a bunch of other men, not to mention over a dozen women and children who were in the building when it blew. Now, this next part I'm not sure about, some say it's made up. But supposedly the mob boss who'd hired Sharkey got all kinds of upset over all the innocent people who'd been killed in the explosion. When he said something about it, Sharkey's response supposedly was, 'What's the problem? I didn't charge you for any of them'."

  Milo finished his drink and put the glass down. "This is all fascinating – or, rather, it would be if I had actually hired this Sharkey person, which I didn't."

  He sounded so convincing. If I hadn't seen his eyeballs do the hokey-pokey earlier, I might even have believed him.

  "The adult entertainment industry isn't run by mobsters, gentlemen," he said. "That might not have been the case more than thirty years ago, but in Miller v. California the Supreme Court essentially decided that our product is legal. Disreputable in the eyes of some, perhaps, but entirely legal."

  "What about all the human trafficking that goes on?" Karl said.

  "It's regrettable, to be sure," Milo said, although he didn't seem especially sad about it. "But it has nothing to do with the people I represent."

  He turned to me. "Do you actually believe, Sergeant, that the adult video studios in California have to kidnap young women off the streets of Budapest or Juarez, to force them to appear in, say, Debbie Does Dallas 19? Hundreds of girls seek work at the adult modeling agencies every month, and many are turned away for being insufficiently attractive. There is no need to kidnap anyone, even if we were so inclined."

  "But human trafficking does go on," I said.

  "Of course it does," Milo said. "And its victims either end up in forced prostitution or, if they are young enough, in child pornography. Neither of which has anything to do with my principals. Adult entertainment is a legal business, run by legitimate businessmen."

  "And those legitimate businessmen are getting worried," I said.

  "With good reason," Milo said. "There's no shortage of right-wing politicians eager to exploit something like this 'snuff film' phenomenon for their own benefit, to tar the whole industry with the same brush, as it were. And if these videos continue to be made, it's only a matter of time before they become public knowledge."

  "And so they sent you," I said.

  "They sent me to act in a legal capacity and protect their interests. My principals certainly would not countenance my hiring some… dhampir assassin to murder those responsible, tempting though the idea is."

  I stood up, and Karl did the same. "Well, thanks for seeing us, Mister Milo. Since you're planning to stay in Scranton awhile, I'm sure we'll talk again."

  "I look forward to it," Milo said, sounding almost as if he meant it.

  We had the elevator to ourselves for the ride down. "What do you think?" Karl asked softly.

  "I think a couple of things," I said. "One is, his eyeballs jumped when I said Sharkey's name."

  "That PDM stuff you were telling me about."

  "Uh-huh. Sudden changes in emotion produce immediate pupil dilation. And here's the other thing I think."

  We reached the lobby and the doors slid open. Before leaving the elevator, I said, "I never said anything to Milo about Sharkey being a dhampir."

When we reached the street, I saw a young guy in a scraggly beard was standing on the corner trying to hand out leaflets. Even in Supe City (which some people call Scranton) there isn't a lot of pedestrian traffic at almost five in the morning, so the guy was either an optimist or a lamebrain – or whoever sent him was.

  As we got closer, he held a leaflet out toward us. It was in color, printed on slick paper. Better than the usual stuff these street guys hand out, which tends to look more like crayon on a paper bag than an IPO for a software company. "Learn the truth about the Catholic Church, fellas. The time is nigh." He didn't seem very enthusiastic about it all. How can you respect a weirdo who doesn't even believe his own rhetoric?

  I took one, more out of pity than anything else. We still had half a block to go, so I handed it to Karl. "You can see better in this light than I can," I said. "What truth about the Catholic Church are they peddling now?"

  He gave it a quick flip through as we walked. "Looks like the Church of the True Cross is at it again."

  "Figured it was them – or somebody like them."

  "Let's see," Karl said. "The Mass in English is a sacrilege, supes are the devil's children, all nuns are lesbians, and…" He glanced at the back cover. "…the pope is the Antichrist."

  "In other words, business as usual."

  "Seems like." He dropped the leaflet in the next trash can we passed. I was glad he did that – I hate littering.

  "I dunno about that lesbian thing," Karl said. "I mean, aren't nuns supposed to be the brides of Christ, or something?"

  "That's what they say." I shrugged. "Maybe He likes to watch."

On the way home, I stopped at Sup'r-Natural Foods to pick up some plasma for Christine. You can buy whole blood lots of places, but plasma is considered a specialty item. It's expensive, and only a few stores carry it. For vamps, plasma is to whole blood what prime rib is to hamburger. Christine won't buy the stuff for herself because of the price, but every once in a while I'll bring some home for her as a treat – even if it means going into Sup'r-Natural Foods to get it.

  Anyway, I figure if she has plenty of commercial product available in the refrigerator, she won't feel the need to tap the source, if you know what I mean. She wouldn't go around attacking people, like some vamps do – I ought to know, since I've busted a lot of them over the years. But the idea of Christine picking up some guy, or letting him pick her up, just so she can get her fangs into his neck – that makes make my skin crawl. I can't explain it; maybe it's a parent thing.

  So I stop at Sup'r-Natural Foods (Open 24 Hrs!) every once in a while, but that doesn't mean I enjoy the experience. You can imagine the kinds of customers the place attracts, especially during the hours of darkness. Vamps, of course. Sup'r-Natural has the best selection of the red stuff in town – both whole blood and plasma.

  You'll find some weres in there, too. Usually they're looking to pick up a double rack of goat, which is hard to find elsewhere. I don't know what it is with weres and goat meat – must be an old-country thing. I've seen trolls in the place a few times, too, buying monkey steaks. I once heard a troll tell another one, "It tastes just like children!" And you don't want to know what's for sale in the Ghoul Specialty Section.

  I picked up a one-pound bag of Type A frozen plasma and turned to head for the checkout. A second later I wondered if I'd managed to walk into a wall, because something big was in my way that hadn't been there a minute before. I took a step back and saw it was an ogre, like the one Karl and I had busted earlier in the evening. In fact, I thought I saw a family resemblance. He looked down at me and rumbled, "You're Markowski, right?"

  I took a couple more of steps back – not out of fear, but to give myself room to maneuver. I switched the plasma package to my left hand, and let my right hang down by my side. To get at my weapon, all I'd have to do is sweep the sports coat back and draw. Like I said before, ogres aren't generally violent – but that doesn't mean that some don't believe in payback.

  I tilted my head back so I could see his face clearly. "Yeah, I'm Markowski. Who're you?"

  "I'm Ivan." If he was known among his friends as Ivan the Terrible, it wouldn't have surprised me any. I lowered my gaze a little, so I could take in more of him.

  Watch his body, they'd taught us in training. The other guy can fake with his head or his hands, but not with his trunk. Watch the body.

  I waited for the ogre to say something more, but he just stood looking at me, his expression unreadable. After a couple of seconds I said, "Something on your mind, Ivan? I'm kind of in a hurry."

  "I'm the brother of Igor."

  Fuck. Looks like I was right about payback. I let my right hand drift under my jacket and push the material back a little.

  "You arrested Igor tonight, yeah?" the ogre went on.

  "That's right, I did. He'd busted up a bar, hurt a couple of humans, and grabbed a woman as hostage. I didn't have much choice."

  "I know," the ogre said quietly – for an ogre. "I wanna thank you."

  OK, that wasn't what I'd been expecting.

  "Thank me? For what – doing my job?"

  "Yeah, kinda. Igor drinks too much – we knew he would get in bad trouble, sooner or later. Maybe jail will teach him something, yeah?"

  "Could be," I said. "It works that way, sometimes."

  "And you coulda killed him, is what I hear. He gave you the excuse. But you didn't."

  "There was no need to," I said. "So I didn't."

  "That's why I say thank you," Ivan said. "And I owe you. If you ever need something that an ogre can do, you let me know, yeah?" He gave me a piece of paper with a phone number scrawled on it.

  "I'll keep it in mind, thanks," I said. I held up the package I was holding. "I gotta get going, before this stuff thaws."

  "OK, see ya around, Markowski."

  When I entered the kitchen, Christine was staring intently at the screen of her laptop, which was facing away from me. Vamps have pretty acute hearing, so she must have been really focused on what she was looking at for me to surprise her when I walked in.

  The movement at the edge of her vision must have caught her attention, because she looked up with a start. "Oh, hi, Daddy."

  "Hi, baby. What're you doing?"

  She was logging off even as I spoke to her. "Oh, just the Help Wanted section of last Sunday's paper."

  "How come? You're not having trouble at work, are you?"

  "No, work is cool. But I don't want to be an emergency services dispatcher the rest of my life – which is likely to be rather lengthy."

  I've been a cop long enough to keep what I'm thinking off my face, if I want to. I maintained the pleasant expression I'd worn coming in, but it wasn't easy. Vampire or not, I know when my daughter is lying to me.

  I held up the bag from Sup'r-Natural Foods. "Got you something." I brought out the frozen package of plasma and said, "Type A – your favorite."

  She clapped her hands together a couple of times. "Oh, Daddy, how sweet. Thank you!" She rose, came around the table, and gave me a hug. As she stepped back, I said, "Do you want some now?" Warming it up in the microwave wouldn't take long.

  "I better not," she said. "Gotta go beddy-bye in less than fifteen minutes. I'll save it for breakfast."

  "Sure," I said, and put the package in the freezer.

  "Oh, I found out about Victor Castle for you."

  "Who? Oh, the Supefather, right."

  "You probably ought not to call him that when you meet him, which you can do at 'Magic Carpets, Mystic Rugs', on Susquehanna Avenue."

  I smiled at that, a little. "The capo di tutti supe is a rug merchant?"

  "He has a bunch of business interests, or so I hear, but that's the one he uses as headquarters."

  "OK, I'll be paying him a visit. Thanks."

  "No prob." She grew a smile of her own. "Capo di tutti supe," she said, and shook her head. "You've been watching The Sopranos again, haven't you?"

  "I sneak one every once in a while." I didn't mention that one of the reasons I liked the HBO series was that all the bad guys were human, and whenever somebody shot one of them, they stayed dead. No wonder it was considered fiction.

  Not long afterward, Christine was on her way downstairs for her day's rest. She left the laptop on the kitchen table.

  I waited a couple of minutes to be sure she wasn't going to come back for something. When I saw the first rays of sunlight creep in through the kitchen window, I went over and sat down where Christine had been when I'd come home. I opened the laptop and the screen came alive immediately, asking me for a user name and password.

  Her email account was [email protected], and I was pretty sure the first part of that was her user ID. She'd never told me her password, but I understand my daughter better than she realizes. I typed in ritaelainemarkowski, clicked, and watched the screen welcome me back to the world of cyberspace.

  The password was her mother's name. Like I said, I know my daughter.

  She'd logged off from whatever page she'd been viewing, but I went to the bar that ran across the top of the screen and clicked on the drop-down menu. The most recent site visited was something called "Drac's List." It was a name I'd heard before. I double-clicked on it.

  A second later, I was looking at

DRAC'S LIST

FOR VAMPIRES AND THOSE WHO LOVE THEM.

It's my job to know what's going on in the supe community, and I was aware of a couple of websites, like Witch.com, that are devoted to bring together supernatural creatures for whatever it is that they want to do together. But this place, I knew, was different.

  "Looking for a bite?" it said. "Drac's List is the place to go for vampires looking for a willing… partner, as well as humans who just can't wait to know what the undead's 'touch' feels like."

  This was a business that brought together vampires and those who wanted to be bitten by one. And Christine had been looking at it, then tried to conceal that fact from me. I didn't go any deeper into the site. If she had a profile in there, I didn't think I could stand to read it.

  I shut the computer down and lowered the lid. The "click" as it closed seemed unnaturally loud in the quiet kitchen. I sat looking at the vampire rights sticker that Christine had put on the lid. It had a drawing of a wooden stake, and superimposed on it was a red circle with a diagonal line through it – the kind of thing they use in airports over a picture of a cigarette to mean No Smoking. Inside the circle were the words: "Van Helsing bites it."

  I don't know how long I sat there, but eventually I got up and went to bed. There have been days when I've slept better. Quite a few of them, in fact.

I left for work without waiting for sundown. It didn't matter if McGuire wasn't paying overtime – I wouldn't put the extra couple of hours on my time sheet. I didn't know yet what I was going to say to Christine about Drac's List, and I didn't want to sit around the house with her and pretend nothing was wrong. She knows her old man pretty well, too.

  I decided to pay a call on Harmon Pettigrew, head of the local chapter of the Homo Sapiens Resistance. It started out as an anti-vamp organization back in the Fifties, when it was known as the Johannes Birth Society. The name was a reference to a guy who was supposedly the first human vamp victim in the USA, but that story's a myth. In the late Sixties, the Birthers changed the name and broadened their focus to include all supernatural creatures. These fuckers hate everybody – except humans, that is. And they don't always respect the law.

  I thought a conversation with Pettigrew might go easier if Karl wasn't with me. Those HSR jerks don't like cops much – they regard us as human race traitors, or something. You can imagine what their attitude is toward a vampire cop.

  Having Karl with me when I talked to Pettigrew would be fun, in some ways. Pettigrew would hate having Karl there, but the badge meant he'd have to be civil – just like in that old movie In the Bright of the Day, about a vampire cop from Philly stranded in the Bible belt. Rod Steiger was great in that, but Jonathan Frid should've won the Oscar.

  But that conversation with Pettigrew, fun though it might be for me and Karl, probably wouldn't produce any worthwhile information. Talking to the guy alone increased the odds that I might actually learn something useful.

  Pettigrew runs a motorcycle repair shop called Born to Be Wilding at the edge of town. A lot of HSR types hang out there, which isn't too surprising. Don't get me wrong – not all bikers are human racist assholes. But a lot of the local racist assholes do seem to be bikers.

  As I walked into the main repair bay I saw Pettigrew kneeling on the cracked cement floor with the engine from a beat-up Harley spread out on the floor all around him. He was alone, which was my good luck. I don't think any of these HSR clowns would ever make a move on me, but Pettigrew's an even bigger asshole when his posse's around – it's like he has to show the others what a tough guy he is.

  He heard my footsteps and pivoted his head toward me at once, like an animal does when it hears a twig snap in the forest. Seeing who I was, he got slowly to his feet, the tool he'd been holding still in his right hand. I walked a few yards closer, then stopped, my eyes pointedly on what he was holding, which looked like a Number Seven flare nut wrench. After a second, Pettigrew got the idea and tossed the wrench on the floor, as if that was what he'd intended to do all along.

  "Sergeant Markowski – to what do I owe the pleasure, if that's what it is?"

  Unlike the rest of him, Pettigrew's voice was restrained and fairly cultured – at least when his homies weren't around. Not many people knew that he has a degree in economics from Penn State – or he would have, if they hadn't kicked him out three weeks before graduation for starting a species riot.

  Physically, he was what you'd expect: weightlifter's build, shaved head, the grease-stained sleeveless sweatshirt displaying the tats that ran the length of both muscular arms.

  "You mean, apart from the delight I always experience in your company?" I can talk fancy, too, if I want.

  Pettigrew's mean-looking mouth turned up briefly at the corners. "Yeah, besides that."

  "I wanted to ask you about a couple of things. You hear about stuff that I wouldn't, since there's people who'll talk to you that won't talk to me."

  "Hard to imagine, isn't it?" Then the playful note left his voice. "Why should I do anything for the porkers? All you bastards do is help the supie-loving government oppress real warm Americans."

  "I don't suppose saying 'the goodness of your heart' is enough of a reason," I said.

  "Not fuckin' hardly."

  I gave him a shrug. "So, what do you want?"

  Pettigrew walked slowly over to a nearby workbench, picked up a rag, and started carefully wiping his hands. From the looks of the rag, I didn't think he was gaining much ground in the cleanliness department.

  Without looking up from what he was doing he said, "Jackie Marcus."

  It took me a moment to place the name. Then I remembered that John Robert Marcus had been busted a month ago on six charges of child molestation involving a couple of kids who lived in the same trailer park he did. The girl was seven, I think. The boy was five. I knew Marcus's name because he had been a longtime member of HSR, even editing their so-called newspaper for a couple of years.

  "You want him sprung?" I asked Pettigrew. "You can't seriously expect me to say yes to that."

  "I don't." He finally looked up, his expression grimmer than usual. "He's in County, awaiting trial. They've got him in the protection wing, along with the snitches, welchers, and faggots. I want you to get him released into population."

  "You want him in the yard, with the rest of the inmates? What the hell for?"

  "So a couple of our guys who are already inside can get to him. Fucker betrayed the movement, made us all look bad with his little hobby."

  The last word had some snap to it, and I remembered that Pettigrew had kids of his own. Going against type, he was said to be a pretty good husband and father.

  "You want your people to shank him," I said.

  "Shank?" He gave me a crooked grin. "Don't believe I'm familiar with that word, Officer."

  Now that I had Marcus's name rattling around in my memory bank, something else popped up.

  "The DA's trying to make him a deal, isn't she? A lighter sentence in return for everything he knows about the HSR and all of your little hobbies. He hasn't made up his mind yet, has he?"

  The grin was gone now. "All the reasons don't matter. What's important is that the son of a bitch has got to go down before his case goes to trial."

  "And if I promise to talk to the warden over at County and see if I can get Marcus sent out in the yard to play, you'll answer some questions for me?"

  "Yeah, something like that."

  I shook my head slowly. "No can do, hombre – even if I was so inclined, and I might just be. The warden at County's new, only been on the job about four months. I've never met him, and he sure as hell doesn't owe me any favors."

  "Maybe he owes a favor to one of your buddies. One hand washes the other, or so I hear."

  "It's not real likely. Like I said, the guy's only been in place four months – not long enough to run up too many IOUs." I paused to let that sink in. "That mean we can't do business?"

  Pettigrew looked at me. "You could've just said, 'Sure, I'll take care of it', knowing all the while that you couldn't."

  "Yeah, I guess. But I don't work that way."

  "So I hear," Pettigrew said. "So I hear."

  He dropped the rag in a trash can and leaned his butt against the workbench, his still-dirty hands gripping the edge for support. "Ask your questions," he said. "I'll either answer, or I won't. But I won't lie to you – I don't do that."

  "So I hear," I said. "All right, then. There's some people with a Scranton connection making and selling snuff films."

  "I thought all that stuff was some bullshit urban legend," Pettigrew said.

  "This stuff isn't," I told him. "I've seen one, and it's the real deal. There's four different ones that we know about, and they all follow the same pattern. Two guys are chained up inside a pentagram. A demon is summoned, and it possesses one of the guys. Then he's set free, and the demon makes him torture and kill the other guy. It's the nastiest shit I've ever seen – and I've seen a lot."

  "Jesus," Pettigrew said. "That is beyond sick."

  "No argument from me," I said.

  "Demons, huh? Well, that's supies for you – fuckin' perverts, every damn one."

  "Let's not generalize," I said. "So I take it all of this is news to you?"

  "Yeah, it's the first I've heard of it," he said, and I believed him.

  "If you come across anything that smells like this, I'd appreciate a call."

  He shrugged those big shoulders, not committing himself. "What else you got?"

  "Somebody's been burning witches," I said. "Two, so far. We don't know why, and we sure as hell don't know who."

  "Yeah, I saw something on the news about one of them," he said.

  "Is that all you know about it – what was on TV?"

  Pettigrew was silent, looking at the floor in front of him, as if he'd found a crack that made an interesting pattern in the concrete. "I hear things, all kinds of shit," he said finally. "It's hard to know how much of it's true, and what's connected to what, you know?"

  "Yeah," I said. "So?"

  "I get a feeling it's not going to stop with the witches," he said. "Pretty soon, other supies are going to turn up as members of the true dead, and you know what I call that?"

  "What?"

  "A good start." He frowned at the floor. "But this is some crazy shit, if the whisper stream has it right. These motherfuckers are looking to start the Big Party." He looked up at me then, and I saw something in his face that was a mix of eagerness and fear. "Helter Skelter, man. Helter fucking Skelter."

  Helter Skelter. Years ago, a crew of Charlie Manson's bloodthirsty wackos had written that in blood on the interior walls of a house, out in the Hollywood Hills. The blood came from the bodies of four women who'd been having a social evening when the killers broke in. One of the women was the wife of the famous were actor, Larry Talbot.

  The next night, a different bunch of crazies, also sent by Manson, had invaded an elegant house in LA, not far from the La Brea tar pits. Armed with holy water, wooden stakes, and an Uzi that sprayed silver bullets, they'd left behind three dead vamps and "Helter Skelter" written all over the place in vampire blood.

  The Talbot-La Brea murders had scared the shit out of undead Southern California, but it wasn't long before the police, acting on a tip, busted Charlie and his bunch of misfits at some ranch they had out there in the desert. It was at their trial that the prosecution explained to the jury in detail what Manson's conception of Helter Skelter really was.

  The name came from an innocent little song on the Beatles' White Magic album, but there was nothing innocent about what Crazy Charlie had in mind for America: race war.

  Out of Manson's deranged mind had come the notion that the Bible predicted a final showdown between humans and supes, or what Charlie called the "Children of Light" and the "Children of Darkness." When it became clear to the supes that humans were targeting them, courtesy of Charlie and his troops, they would strike back indiscriminately. This would bring a swift response from humans, prompting a struggle that would eventually result in the annihilation of every supe on the planet.

  Or something like that.

  Charlie was currently serving ninety-nine years to forever, and the rest of his tribe also went down for long stretches. A few of them were released eventually, and one of the women actually tried to assassinate President Ford. But somebody in the crowd grabbed the gun away before Betty could take a bullet.

  In any case, the visions of Helter Skelter were locked up with the madman who had dreamed them, and that particular brand of craziness wasn't going to trouble the world again.

  Or so everybody thought.

  I looked at Pettigrew. "If you really believe that, you oughta be happy as a pig eating garbage," I said.

  His mouth tightened at my insulting metaphor, but what he said was, "I don't know, man. I just don't know. It's a cool idea to rap about over a few beers or some weed, but making it really happen…" He let his voice trail off.

  "You afraid you might get killed, is that it?"

  He shook his head. "No, within the context of the struggle, my life is nothing."

  I just looked at him. After ten seconds or so, his somber expression broke and he snorted with laughter.

  "Guess you still know bullshit when you hear it, huh?"

  "I encounter so much, you might say it's pretty familiar," I said.

  "Yeah, well, sure, I'm afraid I might die, if the capital 'S' shit hits the capital 'F' fan. I've got a wife and kids that I love the hell out of, most days. And I'm pretty damn fond of myself, too. But that's not the real reason why this Helter Skelter stuff scares me."

  "What, then?"

  "I'm afraid we just might lose."

It was time for me to go to work for real. When I got to the squad room, I saw that Karl had already arrived. He was alone in the place, apart from Lieutenant McGuire, who was in his glass-enclosed office at the far end.

  Karl looked up, said, "Hey," and went back to work on his computer. I wanted to let him know about my conversation with Pettigrew, even though he might be pissed that I went there without him. I walked around to his side, grabbed an empty chair from somebody's desk, and wheeled it over to where Karl was sitting. As I plopped down he turned and looked at me curiously. "What's up, Stan?"