Better off Dead

Chapter 19

I heard a sound. From farther up the street. A vehicle engine. I looked around and saw a car moving toward us. Not fast. Not slow. Just cruising around. Looking for trouble. It was a Dodge Charger. Its hood and fender were black. It had a bullbar on the front and a slimline lighting rig on the roof. Clearly the police. Probably local. Possibly state. Either way, their timing sucked.

I let go of the guy’s neck, dropped my arm into my lap, and made my hand into a fist. “Make any kind of a move…”

“Don’t worry.” The guy pulled a road atlas out of the gap next to his seat. He opened it wide and held it up so that it covered his face. “From fry pan to fire? I’m not stupid.”

The police car drew closer. It slowed down. Came alongside us. And stopped. Two cops were inside it. They weren’t looking at me. Or the guy with the bleeding mouth. Yet. They seemed more interested in the Chevy. They weren’t young. They might have had a vehicle like it, once. Maybe even that actual one. Cops used to say the Caprice was the best patrol car ever. Maybe they were nostalgic. Maybe they were bored. I just hoped they weren’t suspicious. They sat and stared for a minute. Two. Then the driver lit up their roof bar and sped away into the distance.

I reached for the guy’s neck. He closed the atlas. Raised it. He had both his hands behind it. The cover was shiny. It was slippery. My hand slid off its surface. I wound up grabbing his shoulder. He jabbed at my eye with the corner of the map, then wriggled free. He scrabbled for the handle. Got the door open. Dived out. Rolled over on the sidewalk then scrambled up and started to run.

I jumped out and followed him. The guy was fast. He was well motivated. I’d made sure of that. The gap between us was growing. He reached a cluster of buildings. Another courtyard arrangement. The windows facing the street were all boarded up. The guy should have kept on running. I would never have caught him. And I couldn’t have risked a shot. Not in a residential area. But he didn’t keep going. The lure of potential cover was too strong. He bolted through the archway. And disappeared.

I covered the remaining ground as fast as possible and stopped just before the entrance. I didn’t want to risk presenting a silhouette. He could have had a backup weapon. I crouched and peered around the corner. I saw a bunch of disparate buildings like the ones that had been made into Fenton’s hotel. Only these had two stories. They were joined together and boarded up with solid wooden panels, like a fence. There was a scaffold tower in each corner, leading to the roof. The process of conversion was under way. But there was no buzz of activity. No sound at all. The work had stalled. Maybe it had been abandoned altogether. Maybe the market had crashed. Maybe tastes had changed. I had no idea how the economics for that kind of development worked.

I craned my neck a little farther and I spotted the guy. He was standing alone in the center of the courtyard, just looking around. I guess the place was not what he had hoped for. There was no way out. And nowhere to hide. He moved a couple of feet to the left, then to the right, like he couldn’t decide which way to go. I straightened up and stepped through the arch. He heard me and turned around. His face was pale and the blood from his mouth was flowing faster. The price of exertion, I guess.

“Do what I tell you and you won’t get hurt.” I kept my voice calm and even.

The guy took one step toward me then stopped. His eyes were flicking from me to the arch, back and forth, over and over. He was figuring the distance. The angles. Weighing the odds of getting past me. Then he turned. He ran for the scaffold tower on the right. He started to climb. There was no way I was going to follow him up. He was lighter. Far more nimble. He would reach the top long before me. There was no doubt about that. So I would emerge with my head exposed and no way to defend myself. He could have a weapon already. He could find something to use as one. A scaffolding pole. A hunk of masonry. A roof tile. Or he could just keep things simple and kick me.

Following him up was definitely out of the question. But so was letting him get away.

I ran to the tower on the left. I started to climb. Quickly, but carefully. I had to keep an eye on the guy in case he turned and went back down. I saw him make it to the top. He scrambled off the tower and disappeared. I made myself go faster. I got to the roof. Stepped out onto it. And steadied myself. The surface was slippery. The terra-cotta tiles were old. They seemed brittle. I didn’t know if they could take my weight. The guy was almost at the far side. He must have been hoping there was another tower with access to the street. I doubted there would be one. I went after him. I tried to move smoothly. And I tried to be quiet. I didn’t want him to bolt back the way he came before I was in a position to block him. He made it to the edge of the roof and peered over. I drew level. He turned toward me. His face was paler still.

I said, “Come on. You’re out of options. It’s time to go down. Take me to the house. Then I’ll let you walk away.”

“Do you think I’m crazy?” The guy’s voice was shaking and shrill. “Do you have any idea what Dendoncker does to people who betray him?”

He seemed on the verge of panic. I figured I would have to knock him out and carry him down. I would have to calibrate the punch very carefully. That would be the critical part. I didn’t want to wait too long for him to come around afterward. I moved a yard closer. He turned away. And stepped off the roof. He didn’t hesitate. Just plunged straight off the edge.

I figured there must be a tower there after all. Or a ledge. Or a lower building. Then I heard a sound. It was like a wet hand slapping a table in a distant room. I got to the edge and looked over. The guy’s body was lying on the ground, directly below. One leg was twisted. One arm was bent. And a deep red halo was spreading around the remains of his head.

I crossed to the tower and hustled down to the courtyard. I went through the archway. Worked my way around the perimeter of the site. And finally found a route through to the far side of the buildings. The guy was lying there on the sidewalk, completely still. There was no point checking for a pulse. So I went straight to his pockets.

I found nothing with an address or an ID. But he did have a phone. It had survived the fall. He said he was supposed to send a text when he got me to The House. Which gave me an idea. If I could come up with a good enough reason, I could change the location of the rendezvous. To somewhere that gave me an advantage. And to somewhere I could find. I used the guy’s fingerprint to unlock the screen. But the phone was empty. There were no contacts. No saved numbers. No messages to reply to. Nothing I could use. And there was nothing else in his pockets. I was at a dead end. So I wiped the phone with my shirt. Dialed 911 through the material. Tapped the green phone icon. Dropped the phone on the guy’s chest. And made my way back to his car.

I started with the glove box. I found the insurance and registration right away. They were the only two pieces of paper in there. Both showed the name of a corporation. Moon Shadow Associates. It was based in Delaware. Presumably one of the shell companies Fenton had mentioned. But whether it was or not, it didn’t help me.

I found the page the town was on in the atlas. Nothing was circled. There were no marks. No addresses scrawled in the margins. No phone numbers written down. I tried the door pockets. The floor, front and back. The trunk. Under the carpet and around the spare wheel. There was nothing. No receipts from drugstores or gas stations. No carryout menus or to-go cups from a coffee shop. The car was completely sterile.

I climbed in behind the wheel, trying to figure out where to look next, and something hit my thigh. It was the guy’s keys. They were hanging down from the ignition. One was a mortise. It was scratched and worn. I compared it with the one on Mansour’s keyring. It was identical. I’d thought it might be for a garage, or a store. But now I had another theory as to what it would unlock. And, I realized, another person to worry about. Ever since the guy had dumped Fenton’s foot on my table at the Prairie Rose, I’d been completely focused on finding her. But the guy had known where to find me. That was clear. And there was only one way he could have found that out.