Hot Lights, Cold Steel Read online

  “Do you? Perhaps you know something we don’t.”

  “All I know is that you guys’ve been sticking your noses where they don’t belong.”

  “Why do you care?” I asked. “If this has nothing to do with you, what difference does it make?”

  “I’m a concerned citizen.”

  I laughed and glanced at T-Tommy. “He look like a concerned citizen?”

  “Not remotely.”

  Rocco thumbed a long ash into a thick green-glass ashtray and settled the cigar back into the corner of his mouth. He gave it a couple of puffs and smiled. “Since you guys are all big on missing persons, where’s Madison?”

  “Don’t know a Madison,” I said.

  “The one you followed out of here the other night. Haven’t seen her since.”

  “You know a Madison?” I asked T-Tommy. “Not lately.”

  Rocco pointed his cigar at me. “Maybe I should file a missing persons on her. See if the HPD can turn her up.”

  “Why not call your buddy Furyk? I’m sure he’d help.”

  His eyes narrowed, now cold, with a steely edge. “Maybe I can find her myself.”

  Me: “Wouldn’t suggest that.”

  T-Tommy: “Bad idea.”

  Me: “Something happens to her, and it’ll look bad for you.”

  T-Tommy: “Real bad.”

  Me: “Wouldn’t even want her to suffer a lightning strike.”

  T-Tommy: “If she did, we might have to come back out here.”

  Rocco shoved the cigar into his mouth and clamped down. “I’ll try to remember to worry about that.”

  “I was you I would,” T-Tommy said.

  Rocco propped an elbow on the edge of his desk. “Let’s get a few things clear. Don’t fuck with my people. Don’t fuck with me. My reach is far longer than you can imagine. So, why don’t you two Boy Scouts head on out of here before something really bad happens.”

  I looked at T-Tommy. “Sound like a threat to you?”

  “Sure does. Guess he don’t know he can’t threaten a police officer.”

  Rocco stood and leaned forward, palms flat on the desktop. “Call it a threat. Call it advice. Call it a lesson in how things work around here. Call it any fucking thing you want. But get in my way . . .” He shrugged.

  I was no stranger to violence. Never sought it out but never backed away, either. Started with football, a sport that lent a certain toughness that never faded. Then a little boxing, mostly learned from my father. His philosophy was simple: hit first, hit hard, and keep hitting until the other guy doesn’t move anymore. All in all a good strategy. Marine MP training solidified that.

  T-Tommy was a different story. Linebacker’s mentality. Loved contact. All kinds of contact. Not a big fan of the Queensberry rules, he’d fight you with everything and anything. His fists, his elbows, his head, a tire iron, a chair, even saw him rip a door off the hinges and waylay a couple of dudes. They shouldn’t have pulled knives on him. His philosophy wasn’t much different from my dad’s: in boxing, second place was last place. No point in losing. T-Tommy could easily slide into that stomp-on-your-own-accelerator-and-fuck-it mode. I could feel that swelling up inside him right now.

  T-Tommy stood. I did, too. If he was going to trash Rocco, I needed to cover his back. I could picture T-Tommy flipping the desk over on Rocco, then Lefty, Austin, and that door goon crashing in. I moved to the door and leaned against it. Not sure what that would do except maybe slow their charge. But if T-Tommy jumped into full rage that might be enough.

  T-Tommy grabbed a handful of Rocco’s shirt with one hand and snatched the cigar from his mouth with the other. He tossed the cigar into the trash can and pulled Rocco close. “Since we’re making things clear here, let’s try this one. You threaten me again, and I’ll take it personal. You wouldn’t like that. And don’t think your jerk-off buddy Furyk will save your sorry ass. I got more friends than he does. Some of them are way above his pay grade.”

  Rocco tried to lean back, break T-Tommy’s grip.

  T-Tommy yanked him forward, his face only inches from Rocco’s. “If you want, I can have the HPD crawl up your ass and bivouac.”

  A curl of smoke rose from the trash can as the cigar began to smolder the paper inside. Rocco glanced in that direction, but T-Tommy jerked his gaze back to him.

  “And Dub here” —he nodded in my direction—”is plugged into the FBI, DOJ, DEA, the whole goddamn alphabet soup. So we can bring a shit storm down on your little fiefdom.”

  More smoke. The odor of charring paper filled the room.

  “I know all about your lucky break,” T-Tommy went on. “You know? The witness that committed suicide?” He shook his head. “Popping witnesses always attracts attention.”

  The trash was now sending up smoke signals. Rocco looked at it and started to say something.

  T-Tommy cut him off. “Now, we’re going to find whoever did Noel and all those others. If the trail leads here, we’ll be back. If your goons get in our way . . . well, let’s just say it won’t be pleasant. I’m not big on rules and laws and all that shit. I’m sure you understand.” T-Tommy let go of Rocco’s shirt and gave him a push. He fell into his chair.

  Not bad. No blood. No broken bones. Rocco got off easy.

  T-Tommy nodded toward the trash can, now crowned with flames. “I was you I’d put that out.”

  I opened the door, coming face-to-face with Austin. I jerked my head toward Rocco. “Your boss needs you to piss on something.”

  CHAPTER 57

  SUNDAY 10:53 P.M.

  CLAIRE’S NIPPLES HARDENED AGAINST MY CHEST AS SHE SLID HER WET, warm body against me, the hot shower cascading over us. I lifted her chin and kissed her, her calf locking behind mine, as she pressed her body against me.

  She moaned, breaking the kiss. “Take me to bed, and let’s do this right.”

  No argument here. We quickly knocked off most of the water with a few swipes of a towel and moved to the bedroom, where she pushed me onto my back and straddled me. Neither of us lasted very long, and soon we were stretched out on the bed. She lay cradled in my arm, cheek against my chest.

  “You’re kind of fun,” she said.

  I laughed. “What wound you up?”

  “Champagne. You know that always revs my motor.”

  “Glad the media dinner was fun.”

  “Had to do something while you guys were out looking at strippers.”

  “Part of the job.”

  “How convenient. Anyway, I had a great steak and a bottle of Dom.”

  “Let’s see. That’s champagne, wine, spicy food, the full moon, hot showers, silk sheets, and anything from Victoria’s Secret.”

  Claire jabbed my ribs. “It’s you that gets turned on by the Victoria’s Secret catalog.”

  She had me there.

  We started again. This time more slowly. A kiss, a caress, a murmur, and soon we were locked together. Me on top. Her legs wrapped around me as she pulled me into her, and we fell into a slow, sensuous rhythm.

  Afterward, I stroked her hair as she drifted to sleep. Wish I could have, too, but sleep wasn’t my friend. I tried to grab it, but it kept slipping away. The sheets seemed to bind me, and my pillow continually wadded into uncomfortable knots. My pancaking kept waking Claire. I think she kicked me a couple of times. She denied it. I didn’t believe her.

  When I did manage to doze, my dreams revolved around a ghoulish mad scientist who pumped people full of electricity, cut them open, and removed their hearts and kidneys and parts I couldn’t recognize. There was a conveyer belt that carried the bodies to the mad surgeon, each one stopping in front of him so he could work. He wore a white surgical gown, sleeves bloody to the elbows. Shadowy assistants kept loading bodies on one end of the conveyer and taking the hacked-up corpses off the other. The victims were all alive and screaming, and the doctor howled fiendishly. He looked like Mr. Kirkland, my eighth grade math teacher. A mean SOB with a shock of wild white hair and a constantly foul
mood. I always knew he’d come to no good.

  I passed most of the night staring at the ceiling, the committee meeting in my head in full session. Each of the voices had an argument for who the killer was. None of the ideas made much sense, though. The only things we could all agree on were that neither Eddie nor Alejandro was the surgeon and that whoever was doing the cutting didn’t learn it from a book. This guy had been schooled in medicine. Perhaps veterinary medicine, or even mortuary techniques, but he had some form of medical training.

  Exhaustion finally won out, and I slid down the slope into sleep.

  CHAPTER 58

  MONDAY 8:40 A.M.

  I AWOKE FEELING FUZZY, FOGGY, STUPID, AND WITH A BUZZING IN MY head. A great start to the day. It seemed like I’d slept only ten minutes. I realized that the buzzing was my cell phone. Apparently I had silenced it, and it was now vibrating against the nightstand. I didn’t recognize the displayed number, so I pressed the answer button and brought the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

  “Dub Walker?” A woman’s voice.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Bobbie Hawkins at Memorial Medical Center ICU.”

  “ICU?” Not exactly what I was expecting. I remembered the nurse, though. She had helped care for Sammy after he was mugged by Brian Kurtz. If she was calling, it wouldn’t be good news.

  “Dr. Mackey wants to talk to you. Hold a sec and I’ll get her.”

  Liz came on the line. “Dub?”

  “What is it?”

  “I thought I should let you know about a patient we got in early this morning. I’m not the doc on the case, but he has wounds similar to the ones you described on those two girls.”

  “He’s alive?”

  “Mostly. For now, anyway. Doesn’t look good.”

  “Who is it?”

  “No ID yet. The police are working on it. Took fingerprints and photos.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Thirty minutes later, Claire and I entered the ICU. I had called T-Tommy as we left my house, and he came in right behind us. The nurses’ station, a long counter topped with monitors, faced a row of glassed-in patient cubicles. Within one of the enclosures, several nurses and a doctor worked on a man. CPR, electrical shocks, the whole deal. Things didn’t seem to be going well. I hoped it wasn’t our guy.

  “Mr. Walker, we have to quit meeting this way.” Bobbie Hawkins smiled. “Let me get Dr. Mackey.” She started to walk away but stopped. “Here she is now.”

  I followed her gaze. Liz came out of a cubicle and waved us to her.

  We walked to where she stood. “What’s the story?” I asked.

  “This is John Doe,” she said.

  Through the glass I saw a man stretched out on the bed. A ventilator tube protruded from his mouth, half a dozen IV lines fed into his arms, and his belly was wrapped with bandages and tape. I stepped into the cubicle and looked down at the man. Alejandro Diaz. No doubt.

  T-Tommy moved up beside me. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  I turned to Liz and said, “His name’s Alejandro Diaz. He’s involved in the case we’ve been working. Not sure exactly how but—”

  “Let’s go where we can talk,” Liz said.

  We left the ICU and went down the hall to the doctors’ lounge where we had met with Liz before. She poured a cup of coffee and sat. She pulled out several Polaroid pictures and handed them to me. “This is what he looked like when he came in.”

  I shuffled through the pictures, passing them to T-Tommy and Claire. Alejandro lay on a stretcher, unclothed except for a towel over his genitals, his belly coated with a large smear of dried blood. Six short, stapled wounds peeked through the crusty blood. Like those on Noel and Crystal.

  “Paul Sammons, one of our trauma surgeons, operated on him. I happened to be in the ER with another patient when the medics brought him in around six this morning. I had the nurses take the photos. Sammons said when he got inside he found the gallbladder and the appendix had been removed. Both fresh surgeries. Probably done at the same time. A day or two ago at the most.”

  “What made you think he could be part of our investigation?” I asked. “I mean, he could have simply been a patient with post-op bleeding, right?”

  “Sure.” Liz set her coffee cup on the table. “Except he was found lying in a plowed field about five this morning by the farmer who owned the property. He planned to start planting today. When he first saw him, he thought he was dead so he called the police. They found a pulse, called the paramedics, and here he is.” She bent over and began pulling fresh booties over her shoes. “I didn’t see the girls, but this guy’s procedures were done by the same technique. And with him running around in the middle of the night, I thought it was too much of a coincidence to let pass.”

  “Glad you didn’t,” T-Tommy said. “This could be the break we need.”

  “Where was he found?” I asked.

  “According to the police and medic reports, out off Farrow Road.”

  I glanced at T-Tommy. Farrow Road was on the periphery of the Cummings Research Park. Very near Talbert.

  “How’s he doing?” Claire asked.

  “He’d been in shock for quite a while before he got here. Kidneys and lungs are shot. Sammons pumped him full of blood and fluids and patched him up, but it doesn’t look good.”

  “Did he say anything?” I asked.

  “Been in a coma the entire time.”

  “Is he going to wake up?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “So how do you put this together?” T-Tommy asked.

  “Not sure, but if I had to guess, the surgery went well. Then for some reason he was out in that field, ripped open his wounds, lost a ton of blood, bled himself into shock, and crawled to or fell where he was found.” Liz stood. “I need to get to the OR. Got a patient on the table ready to go.”

  CHAPTER 59

  MONDAY 9:03 A.M.

  CLAIRE, T-TOMMY, AND I STOOD IN THE HALL NEAR THE ICU entrance.

  “Farrow Road,” T-Tommy said.

  “Seems like wherever we go we end up back at Talbert.”

  “Sure does.”

  “The question is, how did the garbageman become a victim?” I asked T-Tommy.

  “Because garbagemen are expendable.”

  “This clears Alejandro as the cutter,” Claire said. “He couldn’t operate on himself.”

  T-Tommy nodded and then looked at me. “Makes what you said earlier seem more reasonable. That someone at Talbert could be involved.”

  “Or a friend of someone at Talbert. Someone who could get his tools from there and his victims from Eddie and Alejandro.” I glanced at the ICU doors as they whooshed open.

  A nurse came out. She smiled and walked down to the elevators.

  “Let me carry it a step farther,” I went on. “I haven’t completely thought it through. Just came to me. What if these surgeries were done at Talbert?”

  “Why would you think that?” Claire asked.

  “Because Alejandro turned up bleeding and near death in the neighborhood. From what Liz said, he couldn’t have gone very far from where he was cut on.”

  “Talbert’s a manufacturing company,” Claire said. “Not a hospital.”

  “We don’t know that. We haven’t been inside.” Behind me I heard the elevator ding and the doors hiss open. I turned and saw Sergeant Furyk step out. His walk, his attitude, and the anger I saw in his face said it all. “Here comes trouble,” I said.

  T-Tommy whispered, “Great.” He nodded in Furyk’s direction. “Sergeant.”

  Furyk definitely had a mean-on. “What the hell is going on?” He glared at T-Tommy and then me. “I thought I told you to stay out of this.”

  “Did I do something wrong?” I asked.

  Furyk’s jaw barely moved when he spoke. “You know goddamn well what’s going on.”

  “Maybe you could tell me. I’m confused.”

  “You’ve interfered with a homicide investigation. Stomped all ove
r a couple of crime scenes. Interrogated my witnesses. Harassed one of our most influential citizens.”

  “You can’t mean Rocco Scarcella,” I said.

  “Mr. Scarcella pays his taxes. Keeps his nose clean.”

  I doubted anyone would ever accuse Rocco of being clean. Except Furyk. Which meant that Rocco’s reach did indeed extend right into the brass of the HPD. Political ambition was always corrupting. LA, New York, here, it didn’t matter where. Once you got shit in your shoes, you were done. I also figured playing nice wasn’t going to work. It was obvious Furyk wanted to lock horns, so what the hell.

  “You must mean a different Rocco. That doesn’t fit the one I know. He a friend of yours?”

  Furyk ground his teeth.

  I was in it now. No way to back out. Not that I really wanted to. “You running for office or something? Rocco a donor?”

  Furyk’s face reddened. His neck veins looked like two ropes. I loved this stuff.

  “I want you out of here,” he said. “Now.”

  “I was invited,” I said.

  “Now you’re uninvited.”

  “By whom?”

  “By me. I’m in charge here.”

  “Actually, you’re second in command. I was invited by the person in charge.”

  His lips stretched tightly across his clenched teeth. “I’m afraid you’re very mistaken.”

  “I guess you can cuff Mr. Diaz and drag his ass off to jail anytime you want.”

  “That’s right. As soon as the doc says so.”

  “Like I said. Second in command.” I honestly thought he was going to pull his gun and shoot me. Did I say I love this shit?

  Instead he turned to T-Tommy. “Inside. Now.” He spun on his heels and stalked into the ICU.

  “That was fun,” T-Tommy said.

  “He was asking for it.”

  T-Tommy smiled. “Wanted to do that myself for a long time.” He headed through the doors.

  CHAPTER 60

  MONDAY 9:26 A.M.

  “DO YOU HAVE TO PISS EVERYONE OFF?” CLAIRE ASKED AS SHE, T-Tommy, and I walked out into the sunlight. Claire and I had hung around outside the ICU, while T-Tommy endured an ass chewing from Furyk. Said this one wasn’t too bad as Furyk’s tirades go. Probably didn’t want to go over the top in a hospital.