Chapter 38
Slipping into Stemp’s back yard, I approached a small rundown building nearly swallowed by a cluster of dark spruce trees. About eight feet square, it canted to the southwest on a crumbling foundation. One of the rain gutters hung half-detached, its sagging line contributing to the neglected appearance. Beside Stemp’s immaculately-kept brown bungalow, the shed looked as though nobody had entered it in years.
Once again my estimation of Stemp rose. What a brilliant psychological manipulator. Everything about the shed sighed, “Nothing interesting here.” Nobody would give it a second glance.
I pressed the red button, then flipped the fob over and pressed the green button in time to see two men topple off a plastic bench onto the floor. I gave them a few more seconds, and when neither moved I pressed the blue button.
While waiting the prescribed sixty seconds, I reflected that Stemp’s choice of décor was diabolically effective. The interior was barren except for a bucket in the corner and a single light bulb enclosed in a steel cage on the ceiling. The bench was long enough for a man to lie on, but not wide enough to accommodate him unless he lay on his side. And the floor sloped so that even if a prisoner did manage to fall asleep on the bench he couldn’t relax fully. Not to mention there were two prisoners and only one bench.
When I unbolted the door and stepped inside, the interior was damp and chilly but not cold enough to cause hypothermia. I had expected a stench from the commode bucket, but there was none. It must have some kind of flushing mechanism. The setup had obviously been calculated to fall just short of inhumane; but any occupant would certainly be miserable in short order.
Making a mental note to avoid pissing Stemp off, I bent to check the prisoners’ restraints. They were secure, and I propped myself in the corner beyond the reach of their leg chains.
A few seconds later I drew the ballistic trank pistol. After all, first impressions matter.
Pointing its muzzle at the floor so they wouldn’t notice the small aperture for the tranquilizer dart under the larger bore for the blood-coloured paint pellet and noise-making blank, I waited.
The bigger man groaned and stirred about five minutes later. After a couple of failed attempts, he dragged himself into a slumped position against the wall, sluggishly blinking eyes the colour of mud. A few seconds later he registered my presence.
His gaze locked onto my gun, his eyes widening. “What the…?” he croaked.
His skinny straw-haired counterpart dragged himself over onto his back, his groans drowning out the last of Mud-Eyes’s question.
I waited until Straw-Hair was sufficiently conscious to notice my weapon, too. He said nothing; just stared fearfully at the gun.
I snapped, “Why were you breaking into my house?”
“I never broke into no house,” Mud-Eyes grumbled. “You got the wrong guy.”
“Don’t fuck with me, dipshit,” I growled. “My guys picked you up, in my house.” I let the pistol drift up to aim at his crotch. “I want to know why.”
“I don’t know nothin’,” he protested. “I don’t even know who the hell you are.”
“Then it sucks to be as stupid as you,” I said, and pulled the trigger.
The report of the blank was deafening in the small space. Mud-Eyes screamed, the sound abruptly cut off as both he and Straw-Hair passed out from the aerosolized tranquilizer. Holding my breath, I slipped out and closed the door behind me, then pressed the blue button again.
Sixty seconds later I stepped back into the shed, my ears still ringing from the shot. Another key on the fob opened Mud-Eyes’s leg chain, and I unlocked it from the shacklebolt in the floor and hauled his inert body out, making sure the blood-coloured paint smeared artistically across the floor.
Thankful for the deep cover of the spruce trees and Stemp’s tall fence, I laboriously dragged Mud-Eyes behind the shed and relocked his leg chain around a tree just in case. He should be out for at least twenty minutes from the injected trank, but I wasn’t in the mood for surprises.
I plucked the spent tranquilizer dart out of his red-stained pants, then slumped against the back of the shed to catch my breath, sweating and glaring down at him.
Asshole.
I probably shouldn’t have shot so fast, though. Hard to ask questions afterward.
Anger management. Stay cool.
My hearing was still blunted when I returned to the shed, and I sank down on the bench and massaged my ears. How many more close-quarters gunshots could I experience before my hearing suffered major damage? And would I even notice the loss until the day somebody sneaked up behind me and slit my throat?
I groaned and scrubbed a hand over my damp forehead as another thought struck me. Was shooting a guy in the nuts with a trank dart and paint pellet considered unreasonable force?
Probably.
But then again, I was supposed to be a badass arms dealer. Arlene Widdenback didn’t acquire her reputation by being mild and gentle. Maybe I wouldn’t be in too much trouble…
Another groan refocused my attention on the situation at hand. Straw-Hair was waking up, flopping and twitching in an attempt to get farther away from me even before his eyes were fully open.
“Don’ shoo’…” he slurred. “Tell you… ‘nything… y’wanna know…”
“See, you’re a smart guy,” I said encouragingly. “Lucky for you, too, ‘cause otherwise I was going to chuck your buddy back in here and see how many days it took before you got hungry enough to eat him.” Straw-Hair whimpered, and I added, “Just a word of advice: If that ever happens, start eating right away. They get stinky pretty fast.”
“I’ll-tell-you-I’ll-tell-you!” He scrambled backward in an attempt to cram himself into the farthest corner. Flattened against the wall, he quavered, “Wh-What d’you wanna know?”
“Why were you breaking into my house?”
“We were s’posed to look for some bottle.” He stared up at me, eyes wide. “Some white bottle with a silver bottom. Or… the guy said it might not look ‘zactly like that but it’d be heavy glass. I dunno how we were s’posed to find it when we didn’t know what it looked like, but the guy paid good so what the hell.”
“Do you know who I am?” I gave the words my best menacing intonation.
Straw-Hair shook his head, looking as though he might burst into tears.
“And you never thought that there might be a reason why the guy was paying so well for such an easy job?” I aimed the trank pistol at him. “Maybe you’re not as smart as I thought.”
“Don’t shoot!” His voice pitched higher as my pistol drifted below his belt, his words running together in a squeal of fear. “…I-can-tell-you-about-the-guy!”
“Ah.” I lowered my gun. “You are smart after all.”
Straw-hair swallowed hard, his gaze locked on the weapon. “Tall guy, fancy suit, brown hair, brown eyes, an’ he talked like some guy on the radio.”
Labelle.
Ha.
“Good job,” I said.
Straw-hair gulped again, still staring at the pistol as if afraid it would jump up and shoot him if he stopped watching it. “You can trust me,” he babbled. “I never saw nothin’, I never heard nothin’, I don’t know you, I never even saw you or nothin’…”
“Oh, it’s okay,” I assured him with a feral grin. “I’m Arlene Widdenback, and you’re definitely going to remember you saw me.”
Straw-Hair closed his eyes with a moan, and I went on, “But don’t worry, I’m going to let you go so you can spread the word that nobody fucks with me.”
His eyes popped open, fear and hope mingling on his face.
“So here’s the deal,” I informed him. “I don’t care who you tell about what happened here, because I can make a body disappear and nobody will ask questions. But I don’t ever want to see you again. I’m giving you three hours to get out of town and never come back. If I or any of my guys see you after…” I consulted my watch. “…eight o’clock tonight…” I glared at him and hefted my pistol. “…We’ll be the last thing you ever see. Got it?”
Straw-Hair nodded vigorously, gaze still glued to the weapon. “Okay. No problem. I’m gone. Gone an’ never comin’ back. I’m so gone, I’m already halfway to Vancouver.”
“Good.” I pulled out my phone one-handed and punched Stemp’s speed dial, still watching Straw-Hair over the gunsights. When Stemp answered I said, “One of our guests is leaving now. I’ve given him safe passage out of the city until eight o’clock tonight so don’t kill him unless you see him after that.”
“Very well.” Stemp’s tone was dry.
I hung up and pointed the pistol at Straw-Hair while I unlocked his leg chain. Then I backed out of the shed and jerked my chin at him, still keeping him covered. “Go.”
“B-but what about…” He tugged against the handcuffs. “C-can you take off the cuffs? An’ I dunno where I am, or where my car is…”
“You’ll figure something out.” I shrugged. “Or I could just shoot you and end your troubles.” He shook his head frantically, sidling past with his gaze locked on the gun. “Fine,” I growled. “Get lost before I change my mind.”
He ran for the gate, then stopped short. When he turned back to me, his face was a study in terror. “I c-can’t…” He twitched his hands behind him, indicating the gate latch well above his reach. “P-please…”
“Oh, fine,” I snarled as though it was the pinnacle of inconvenience, and opened the gate for him.
He fled without a backward glance.
When I was sure he was out of earshot I dialled Stemp again.
“I take it you got what you wanted,” he said instead of a greeting.
“Yeah, Labelle sent them. But I don’t want to arrest the guy I just released. If he’s handcuffed and focused on getting out of town in a hurry he’ll have enough to worry about and won’t cause any more problems; and I don’t want him to run into his supposedly-dead buddy in jail later.”
“Indeed. And what of the supposedly-dead buddy with the unattractively stained crotch?”
“He should be knocked out for another five minutes at least, so I’ll unlock him and leave him here. When he wakes up and gets out of the yard we can go with the original plan to have him arrested.”
“Very well. Secure the shed and return immediately for briefing.”
Obeying the spirit of Stemp’s command if not the letter, I detoured to the secured weapons lab after signing in again at Sirius.
When I strode in, Reggie and Murray looked up from their work with interest and eagerness respectively.
“You didn’t punch Holt, did you?” Murray asked before I could speak.
“No.” I marched over to Reggie and socked him on the arm, not very hard. “But I’ll punch this asshole.”
Reggie let out a yelp of protest. “Ow! What was that for?”
“For not telling me that this thing…” I slapped the ultrasound pen down on the table in front of him. “…doesn’t work on unconscious people.”
“Of course it doesn’t. The vestibular nervous system is pretty much irrelevant when you’re out cold.” He scowled. “Why the fuck would you use it on somebody who was unconscious anyway?”
“Because…” I blinked. “Um… well, it sounds kind of stupid when you say it like that; but… shit.” I hung my head. “Sorry. It was a high-stress situation and I thought it made sense at the time.” I held out my arm. “You can punch me back if you want.”
“I’ll let you get away with it if you’ll tell me what happened,” Reggie replied, his good eye bright with interest. “I never thought to test it on somebody who was unconscious.” He grimaced. “Scientific bias; there’s nothing worse than being ‘absolutely certain’…” He made a one-handed air quote with his good hand. “…of what you know.”
Hiding my gratitude for his unexpected tact, I grinned. “Well, it did actually work, just not until the inhaled trank wore off and the guy woke up. He puked his guts out as soon as he opened his eyes about five minutes later.”
“Ah.” Reggie’s expression went thoughtful. “But I wonder if it would still have been effective if he’d been down for twenty minutes? The vestibular disruption dissipates after ten minutes; so would recovery take place while he was unconscious, allowing him to wake up with no ill effects? Or would it kick in for the full ten minutes after he woke up?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t stick around to find out. I was on a pretty tight timeline.”
“Hm. Well, that was an interesting test anyway. Worth a punch in the arm.” He gave me his distorted grin. “Besides, now I’ve got something to guilt you out with, punching a poor defenceless cripple. You’ll have to have my baby out of pity now.”
“Defenceless cripple, my ass! You could run circles around me and still have enough energy to kick the shit out of me. You’ll have to come up with something better than that.”
He frowned. “Actually, you did hurt me quite a bit. I just had a skin graft taken from that arm for some more repair work on my scalp.”
Horror clenched my stomach. “Ohmigod, I’m so sorry! I didn’t-” I broke off at the sight of his evil grin. “You just made that shit up, didn’t you?”
“Maybe,” he said with satisfaction. “Now will you have my baby?”
“No, you prick. I can’t have children. I had a hysterectomy years ago, and it’s really insensitive of you to keep harping on it when I’ve been deprived of the joy of motherhood; my heart broken again every time I see someone else’s baby…” I summoned up a convincing sniffle.
He paled. “Jesus, Aydan, I’m sorry, I didn’t know…” I let a small smile sneak through and he stopped, eyeing me worriedly. “Please tell me you were joking.”
“Of course I was joking. I hate kids. Horrible little disease-bearing vermin. They’re not even human; they’re just small vicious aliens.”
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” he said quietly.
Uncomfortable, I waved away his seriousness. “No, I was just exaggerating for dramatic effect. I don’t actually hate children, but I’m not sorry I never had any.” I grimaced. “They probably would have grown up to be axe-murderers if I had. So I hate to break it to you, but your baby is a no-go. A pity fuck would be the best I could do.”
The wicked sparkle reappeared in his eye. “How many times do you have to punch me before I get a pity fuck?”
“Far too many times for it to be worth the pain.”
We grinned at each other, the balance of the universe restored.
Then I sighed and took my leave to plod upstairs for what would undoubtedly be more bad news.