The Killing Kind

29

“Agent Garfield? You might wanna get over here. This guy’s got some information you’re gonna wanna hear.” The triage tent was bustling with activity, makeshift cots overflowing with the dying, injured, and just plain terrified-first responders flitting back and forth like flies among them. Garfield wended his way through it toward the woman who called to him-a cute twenty-something paramedic. A half an hour had passed since the SWAT team had declared the ballroom clear. Nearly an hour since Leon Leonwood was executed by Thompson’s so-called ghost- for she and Garfield were certain that’s who it was.

Thompson was rattled by her experience in the banquet hall, of course, as well she should’ve been, having faced down what she thought was certain death. Garfield didn’t need the phantom throb of his long-healed bullet wound- a parting present from the Mara chapter he’d worked so hard to infiltrate-to remind him what that was like. He saw it in the worry lines around his eyes every morning in the mirror. He felt it gnawing at his insides every time he went into the field.

The MS-13 Task Force he’d worked for had placed him with the LAPD, posing as a dirty cop with a taste for blow and Salvadoran women, since being useful and corruptible was the only way into Mara for those who weren’t full-blooded Salvadoran. Turns out he didn’t pose well enough. Even now, six months after the shooting- his wounds healed and the coke habit he’d developed in the line of duty kicked quietly on the Bureau’s dime-he felt empty, a hollowed-out version of the man he’d been before.

He had to hand it to his partner, Thompson-she might come across a ballbuster, but even facing down the barrel of a gun today, she kept her wits enough about her to render a full account of what was said, as well as a half-decent description of her ghost. Seemed he fancied himself a cowboy. Anyway, he wouldn’t be free to roam the prairie long-word was, SWAT had chased him into the ventilation system and had every access point covered. If he made a move, they’d nab him-and if he didn’t, they’d gas him unconscious and go in after him.

Problem was, he only half-believed it. It seemed too pat. Too easy. Not that he could put the feeling into words. But the way his guts were twisted up, it didn’t feel like anticipation of the collar. It felt like worry. Like watching the sky for a big-ass second shoe.

Garfield looked the paramedic up and down. Slight, small-boned, dark-skinned: Hispanic or Latina or whatever. Damn pretty, too-nice body, high cheekbones, doe eyes.

She coulda used a touch of makeup, maybe, but then again, she was on the job.

“Special,” he said, with as much charm as he could muster.

“Excuse me?” she said.

“The title’s Special Agent Garfield,” he said.

“Special. Right.” The look on her face suggested she found him anything but.

Garfield heaved a weary sigh and shifted into business mode. There was a time, before the shooting, when he had game-a cocksure swagger women tended to respond to. But ever since, it was like whatever it was they were responding to had atrophied. “All right, then, whaddaya got?”

“White male, forty-five. Illinois license under the name of Alan L’Engle. Claims he tangled with your perp.”

“Leonwood, you mean?”

She flashed him a stern look, as if to say, No, asshole-I know how to read a fucking memo. “Not him, the other one. The guy who got away.”

“Did he, now. So this fellow’s what-some kind of ninja? Because he’d have to be, to go toe-to-toe with a guy like that and just walk away. Unless, of course, he’s just some attention-craving whack-job intent on wasting our time.”

A long pause-the woman’s pretty face unsure. Her tone unsure as well: “Actually, he says he’s a librarian.” Then she mustered up a fresh helping of confidence and added: “But he didn’t just walk away. He got beat up pretty bad. His leg’s been splinted, and his face is a swollen mess. I can’t say for sure without a doctor checking him out-and some imaging to boot-but my guess is, his ACL is blown, and his orbital socket’s cracked, at least.”

“Jesus,” said Garfield.

“You’re not kidding. I spent the last ten minutes picking glass shards out of his cheek-he says your perp hit him with a cocktail glass. He’s lucky his eye is still intact-he could have lost it.”

“He say why the guy attacked him?”

“No. In fact, the picture he painted, I think it was the other way around.”

“Come again?”

“He claims he started it.”

Garfield shook his head in disbelief. “Okay, sweetheart, I’m sold-take me to him. No way I’m passing up a chance to meet a librarian who picked a fight with a goddamn assassin.”

The woman bristled at his chosen pet name. “My name’s Sofia. You’d do well to remember it.” Then she turned on one heel and set off through the teeming crowd.

“I don’t understand,” said Engelmann, all furrowed brow and tortured innocence, to the arrogant FBI agent he’d last laid eyes on back in Miami. Frankly, he was surprised to find the man here so soon-it meant they’d had some foreknowledge of today’s events. Perhaps he and his partner were more competent than he’d given them credit for, and they had tracked his quarry’s movements. Or perhaps that boorish oaf Leonwood had slipped up somewhere along the way, and it was he they’d followed. Either way, Engelmann was glad of this development. After all, he’d failed to complete his mission, and he suspected that despite the Bureau’s best efforts, the man might yet escape. Best to enact a backup plan immediately. “Have I done something wrong? I was only trying to help.”

“No, of course not, Mr. L’Engle-”

“Doctor,” Engelmann corrected for his own amusement. “But please, call me Alan.”

“Alan. Sure. As I was saying, Alan, you’ve done nothing wrong as far as I’m aware-we’re simply trying to construct a fuller picture of the day’s events. So if you wouldn’t mind walking me through what happened…”

“But I already told my tale to the lovely young woman who patched me up,” he protested weakly. Engelmann knew this man would be more apt to believe his story if he was forced to work for it.

“And now I’d like you to tell it to me,” Garfield insisted.

Engelmann raised his hands in acquiescence. The hook was set. “As you wish.”

As Garfield listened rapt, Engelmann wove the tale of Alan L’Engle, reluctant hero-an elaborate braid of half-truths and outright lies. Alan L’Engle, it seems, was in town on business-what business, he never said-and had stopped in at the casino for some gaming and a bite to eat. He’d been handed a free ticket to the Palomera fellow’s check presentation, and not having ever seen so large a sum-or so physically large a check-he’d elected to attend. Okay, yes, he admitted sheepishly, perhaps the possibility of winning something for himself at the balloon drop had been part of the event’s appeal, but he was loath to admit it, since it seemed an unflatteringly selfish notion. “And anyway,” he said-gesturing to his swollen, bandaged face; his mangled, splinted knee-“you can see how well such greed served me.”

He’d been nursing a drink-gin and tonic, and a damn fine one at that; it’s rare on his librarian’s salary he treats himself to Bombay Sapphire-and waiting for the presentation to begin, when he spotted something amiss. An angry-looking man, angling determinedly through the crowd toward the stage, knife in hand. At first, he tried to signal to security, but their attentions were elsewhere, so-foolishly, he realizes now-he attempted to accost the man himself. He cut through the crowd as quickly as he could manage, coming up behind the man and grabbing him by the shoulder. It was clear he startled his attacker, though his startlement sadly did not last long. To this very moment, Engelmann said, he hasn’t the faintest notion of what he intended to do once he reached him, but the man rendered any decision moot by attacking him. The man kicked his leg out from beneath him-“breaking something in the process, I fear”-and smashed a glass into his face.

“And I think he would have killed me, too,” Engelmann concluded, “had that other fellow not started shooting. Then the balloons fell, and he fled. Shortly after, I lost consciousness. When I came to, he was gone.”

“Do you think you could describe this man to a sketch artist, Alan?”

“I think so,” he said, “although I may be able to do you one better.”

“How’s that?” Garfield asked.

“When I came to, I spotted these.” He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Garfield. It rattled as Garfield took it.

“Careful,” Engelmann said.

Garfield unwrapped the kerchief. In it were three curved triangles of glass. “I don’t understand,” he said. “What exactly am I looking at?”

Engelmann smiled and puffed his chest out with pride. “Those are pieces of the glass he hit me with,” he said. “I collected them off the floor before the paramedics brought me out here, because I thought there might be prints or DNA on them, like in the movies, and I worried they might be trampled. I hope it’s all right that I moved them-I didn’t handle them directly.”

He more than thought there might be prints on them; he’d inspected the shards carefully, and-given that the prints were made in blood-he knew damn well they were his quarry’s. He didn’t worry about them pulling his own prints or DNA from the glass-they wouldn’t find either in any database. But his intel on his quarry-and his firsthand assessment of his fighting style-indicated the man was former military, which meant he likely was on file. He hoped he was right in that regard, because that assumption represented his last chance to take down his quarry before the Council elected to do the same to him.

“Huh,” Garfield said. “Gimme a minute, would you?”

Garfield stepped away from Engelmann’s cot, but not so far away that Engelmann could not hear. Into his radio, Garfield barked, “I got a line on ID’ing our guy. Some evidence in need of processing. This could be the break that we’ve been waiting for-I need a crime scene tech here on the double.”

That done, Garfield talked to the pretty young paramedic, and to two uniformed police officers as well. Then he returned to Engelmann’s bedside.

“Listen, Alan, you’ve been a big help. If you don’t mind, I’d like to send you along to the hospital now to get you patched up. Ms. Alvarez and these two officers are going to ride with you.”

“Of course,” Engelmann said. “I’m not in any danger, am I?”

“No, no, no,” said Garfield, not entirely convincingly. “Nothing like that. But you’ve had one heck of a day, and your testimony may prove just the break we need-I’d like to repay you by ensuring you’re well taken care of.”

“That’s very kind of you, Special Agent Garfield. Honestly, I’m not sure what I’ve stumbled into here, but I’m not ashamed to say I think it’s more excitement than I care for.”

Though Garfield knew the man had simply read off his ID, which was at present on a lanyard around his neck, he smiled at the use of his proper title. Engelmann smiled as well. He knew the seed he’d sown had taken root. All that was left to do was give it time to grow, and then he’d reap his reward.

As they hoisted him onto a rolling stretcher and wheeled him toward the waiting vehicle, he unfastened the buttons on his filthy periwinkle-checked shirt and reached his right hand inside, as though massaging a knot, or checking his ribs for bruises.

“Are you all right, sir?” asked the pretty paramedic, Alvarez. “Something you’d like me to look at?”

“I’m fine, dear,” he replied, fingering the Ruger LC9 hidden in his concealment holster. “In fact,” he said, as she and the two officers loaded him into the ambulance beneath lights flashing red, slamming shut the doors as they climbed inside behind him, “I believe my day is finally looking up.”