Crooked Halos Page 2

  I stood there, mulling over the ridiculous situations life seemed to enjoy putting me in. Ellen came in and sat on the corner of my desk, a look of annoyance mingled with concern on her face.

  “So, what’s going on here with Crowder?” she asked. Miss Typewell was one of the few people in Arcadia who knew of my history with the man.

  “Apparently, he’s going to kill that woman in a couple of weeks,” I replied, clenching and unclenching my fists, “and I’m supposed to just sit back and watch it happen.”

  “That seems really stupid, even by our standards,” Miss Typewell said, not unkindly.

  “I know, but what the hell else can I do?” I asked.

  “Sir,” she said—she only ever called me that when she was seriously annoyed, relying on formality to prevent her from calling me the names she really wanted to use—“you’re the nominal head of an underworld syndicate with the broadest, most sophisticated information network in the city, if not the country. You’ve got a small army of ninja at your disposal. Crowder’s just one guy. I’m pretty sure you’ve got the resources to shut him down before he does anything illegal.”

  I sighed and collapsed back into my chair, which creaked in protest. “This is all going to end poorly, Ellen, mark my words,” I said. “I can feel it in my bones.”

  “No, that’s just old age, Eddie,” Miss Typewell replied with a wry grin.

  “Anyway,” I said, ignoring her jibe, “what’s next on the agenda?”

  Miss Typewell opened up a vid window and skimmed through her inbox. “Kimiko just sent over a message that one of her ninjas thinks they’ve found Tommy Timmons.”

  I sat up. “They found the Tuba? Where?”

  Miss Typewell gave me the details. “A few blocks south of Wodehouse Square, about twenty minutes ago.”

  I stood up and grabbed my coat and hat. “Get Kimiko and her best squad out there. We have to nab that goon while we’ve got the chance.” I strode to the door, all determination and fire. The impending murder of Genevieve Pratt was shoved deep in the back recesses of my mind, where it could stew in its own juices for a few hours before popping back up and reminding me the entire world was shit.

  In the meantime, I had a gangster to bring to justice.

  III.

  Ten minutes later, I was meeting with Kimiko and her ninja squad in Wodehouse Square. The place was nearly deserted, which was unusual, but I figured it had more to do with the presence of the ninja—who all radiated a quiet, brutal competence—than any sinister goings-on.

  “Do we have eyes on him?” I asked.

  Kimiko nodded. “He’s moving, though, headed toward Downtown.” That was a problem. The Tuba would stick out Downtown—hell, a guy as big as him would stick out anywhere he went—but there’d be more people around, and the possibility of greater collateral damage to property and life and limb.

  “Okay, you all know your roles. Catch this guy quick before he can hurt anyone or get away again. I’m tired of playing tag with this galoot.”

  Kimiko gave me a puzzled look. “What is a ‘galoot?’” she asked.

  I sighed. “How many times do we have to talk about context clues, Kim?” I asked. “He’s an oaf, a buffoon, a giant sack of useless.”

  Kimiko’s eyes darkened for a moment. “Oh, a ramukkusu,” she said.

  It was my turn to stare blankly. “Um, sure,” I said. “C’mon, we’ve got bigger things to do than play Babel Fish.”

  Kimiko and I piled into my car and headed off in the direction the Tuba had last been seen going. It seemed the guy was skirting around Wodehouse Square in his effort to reach Downtown. I didn’t know what he hoped to do there, but it didn’t really matter, if we caught him fast enough.

  “What did your new client want?” Kimiko asked as we drove.

  “She wants me to solve her murder,” I replied.

  Kimiko arched an eyebrow at me. “Isn’t she still alive?”

  “Yeah, but she’s expecting to be killed any day now, and she wants me to catch the guy who’s gonna do it.”

  “That does not make much sense,” Kimiko said. “Would she not want her would-be killer stopped before he commits the crime?”

  “You’re preachin’ to the choir, sister,” I replied with forced casualness. “She wants the murder to happen, for whatever reason. I’m just supposed to catch the guy afterward.”

  “Are you taking the case?” Kimiko asked.

  I shrugged. “Damned if I know.” We were reaching the gray area between Old Town and Downtown. Buildings were starting to look nicer, less rundown, and the people on the streets were more likely to be wearing designer brands than dirty rags. As we passed a cross street, I caught a glimpse of someone from straight out of my past.

  “Crowder?” I muttered, slamming on the brakes. The driver behind me laid into his horn and swerved to miss my rear bumper. I ignored him as he pulled up and around my car and sped off angrily.

  I was out of the car and chasing after my former partner before Kimiko could say a word to me. Unfortunately, Crowder was nowhere to be seen, if he’d been there at all.

  “It couldn’t have been him,” I mumbled to myself.

  “Couldn’t have been who?” Kimiko had appeared beside me as if by magic. She took me by the arm and guided me back to the car, pushing me gently but firmly into the passenger seat and taking the wheel herself. “Who do you think you saw, Detective Hazzard?”

  “I’d swear I just saw Dresden Crowder walking down the street,” I replied, “but that’s impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when I was a cop, I cause him to suffer severe spinal trauma,” I said, monotone. “Dresden Crowder can’t walk.”

  Kimiko sparred me a moment’s glance as she maneuvered through the increasingly-heavy traffic. “We have other matters to attend to, sir,” she said. She paused and held a hand up to her ear as if listening to someone talking. “The team just reported in. They have sighted Tuba three blocks ahead.”

  I shook myself out of my reverie and nodded. “Let’s get him.” Kimiko sped up and slipped through a yellow light.

  “There he is,” she said, slowing the car and pulling over to the curb. She pointed down the street. I followed her finger to see Tommy “The Tuba” Timmons, live in the sack-of-crap-he-called-flesh.

  “Um, after him,” I said, opening the car door and jumping out. Kimiko was already out on the other side of the car, speaking into a small comm unit she had secreted in her sleeve. I pulled the popgun and starting off at a brisk walk toward the gangster.

  Tuba must’ve seen us, though, because he immediately ducked down a dark alley.

  “Ugh,” I sighed. “Why do they always try to resist?” We’d spent the past several months rounding up anyone and everyone associated with the gangster; when Vera had closed down the Gambling and Disposal departments, Tuba’d tried to strike out on his own. He’d amassed a pretty sizeable following, though we’d whittled them down systematically until only the big guy himself was left.

  Kimiko shrugged. “Mr. Timmons never struck me as a logical individual,” she said.

  “Oh, he’s definitely not,” I replied. “But just once, it’d be nice if one of the bad guys said, ‘Hey, y’know what? You caught me fair and square, so I’ll come quietly.’”

  “That will never happen, sir,” Kimiko said.

  “I know, but a guy can dream.” We reached the mouth of the alley Tuba had hidden in. Kimiko communicated quietly with her team over a tactical channel, then nodded to me indicating they were in place and ready to take the porkchop out.

  “Let’s do it,” I said, stepping into the alley.

  I caught sight of Tuba almost immediately; he wasn’t trying to hide. He didn’t look good. I mean, he’d never looked good, mind you, but he looked worse than usual. His skin was sagging, sallow, and shiny with greasy sweat. Had he taken a shower in Crisco? He was still the same tub of crap he’d always been, though. The man’s jowls had jowls, and his mouth was a c
rusty, chapped line of anger and violent intent. There was tarnish or rust or something gross on the metal plate surrounding his cybernetic eye. His clothes were dirty and wrinkled.

  He snarled like a cornered animal as we approached him, the corners of his mouth flecked with little bits of foam. Had Tuba gone rabid? It wasn’t that odd a possibility. I mean, living on the actual streets of Arcadia put you in contact with all sorts of feral wildlife. It didn’t really matter, though. He was angry. If he’d had fur, it would’ve bristled.

  “C’mon, Tuba, the jig’s up,” I said. “I’ve got an army of ninja with me. You can’t escape.”

  The Tuba smiled, baring his teeth. His canines looked unnaturally sharp for a human being. I was starting to wonder if he’d been gen-modded.

  Then the big man charged us. Kimiko slipped out of his path with a dancer’s grace, while I clumsily leapt clear like a lumbering dump truck. I felt the snap of the Tuba’s fingertips grasping at barely-empty air just inches from my face as I dodged. I landed awkwardly, stumbling a bit and pinwheeling my arms to maintain balance. Tuba turned to face me head-on, that feral look still plastered across his ugly mug. He roared, his bass voice rattling my ribcage, and charged.

  That was the opening Kimiko had been waiting for. She was positioned behind the Tuba now, and took advantage of that fact by hitting him with a half dozen poison-tipped darts. They were filled with some tranquilizer strong enough to put down an elephant.

  Apparently no one told Tommy Timmons that. The Tuba kept charging me with six of them in his back, snarling and raging all the way. Kimiko whistled, and a half dozen ninja dropped down and surrounded the Tuba. Each carried a small but powerful stun gun, which they unloaded on the big gangster in unison. He spasmed and shuddered, but kept coming at me, hands stretched out like a greedy toddler going for candy.

  I leveled the popgun at Timmons and pulled the trigger. It went off with its customary pop!, and the charging rhino of a man was encased in an impenetrable polymer bubble. Momentum is a harsh mistress, though, and Tuba kept barreling toward me like an unstoppable force. I tried to leap out of the way, but the bubble made the already-big Tuba even bigger and harder to avoid, so I ended up getting run over by a runaway gangster. It was not the shining moment of my career, I can tell you.

  Kimiko helped me back to my feet as the ninja team secured the bubble-bound Tuba. He was growling and spitting like a wild animal, clawing at the walls of his prison. We watched him for a moment, trying to figure out what was going on with the guy.

  “He’s like a beast,” Kimiko said. “What happened to him?”

  I lit a cigarette and took a drag. “No idea. It’s like a gen-mod gone wrong.” I dug in my coat pocket and pulled out a small syringe. “Thankfully, we can knock the guy out.” I placed the syringe against the wall of the bubble and pushed the plunger. The bubble was filled with a fine mist, an aerosolized anesthetic that would knock Tuba out. At least, that’s how it should have worked, especially with the tranq darts Kimiko had already hit him with. Between the two doses of knock out juice, Tuba should’ve been sleeping like a baby, but he was still throwing himself at the walls of the bubble and snarling like a rabid animal.

  “This is weird,” I said, frowning. “I’ve never seen someone still standing after I used this stuff.”

  “He is rather large,” Kimiko said.

  “Yeah, but he’s also got enough tranquilizers pumped into him to kill a regular person,” I said. I was worried that giving him more sedatives would kill him, and then I wouldn’t get the pleasure of hauling his tubby ass off to jail.

  “What should we do?” Kimiko asked.

  I shrugged, then dug out another syringe. “Let’s see if we can’t put this guy out,” I replied, pressing the needle against the bubble and pushing in the plunger. Again, the bubble was filled with a fine mist, and the Tuba, his flesh and blood eye darting around wildly, finally collapsed into unconsciousness.

  “That was harder than it should’ve been,” I said with a sigh of relief.

  “What now?” Kimiko asked. Our usual routine when we captured someone like the Tuba was to interrogate them, find out what we could about anyone else we might need to nab, and then leave them wrapped up outside of a police station with a bow and a polite note.

  Tuba was different, though. He knew a lot more than most of the street-level thugs we’d been taking care of. He knew, for instance, who the Boss had been, and who the Boss currently was; i.e., he knew all about me and my association with the Organization. If he told the cops what he knew, I’d be in prison pretty damn fast.

  Then there was the fact that he seemed to have gone feral. Interrogating him might not yield anything useful to me or the APD. Which wasn’t the end of the world, honestly, but I didn’t feel like saddling Captain O’Mally in the 4th Precinct with a wild animal capable of bending metal with his bare, meaty hands.

  “We’re gonna have to see if we can find out what’s going on with him,” I said, stubbing out my cigarette and immediately lighting up another one. My hands were still a bit shaky from the confrontation with the Tuba, especially with the adrenaline high wearing off, but I hid it as well as I could. It wouldn’t do for Kimiko or the other ninja to see me as weak. “Call in Dr. Korpanty. Maybe she can figure out what’s going on with this lunkhead.”

  IV.

  Kimiko had built a makeshift jail cell and interrogation room in a warehouse on Montague Bay. It was out of the way and far more fortified than appearance would suggest. The place looked like a dump, but inside it was all reinforced steel beams and fancy alloys for support and stability.

  We hauled the Tuba into the place under a tarp and left him chained up in the interrogation cell. The room was the most-fortified part of the warehouse. Nothing short of an RPG would put a dent in the door, and only Kimiko and I had keys to the place. Miss Typewell and Maya didn’t know about this place; there were some things it was better they had plausible deniability about in case things ever went south.

  Dr. Korpanty—a biochemical researcher and friend of the office—came by within the hour with a bag full of science equipment slung over her shoulder. She immediately set up a miniature laboratory on my desk and drew some blood from the still-unconscious Tuba.

  While Dr. Korpanty spun up the centrifuge, I gave her a brief rundown of what we’d experienced when trying to capture the Tuba. “I’ve never seen him act that way,” I concluded, leaning back in my chair. “I mean, the guy was always a mook, and he always had a violent temper, but this was a whole ‘nother thing.”

  “Well, it could have been a gen-mod gone wrong, certainly,” Dr. Korpanty said. She had her blonde hair pulled back in a bun and wore a pristine white lab coat. The doctor was a handsome woman in her early fifties, and she was much, much smarter than me. I’m man enough to admit when I’m out of my depth, and anything involving genetic alternations and the manipulation of DNA definitely qualified as waters that were far too deep for me.

  The centrifuge beeped and slowed down, the blurred circle of red becoming a single vial of Tommy Timmons’s blood. She removed it from the centrifuge, uncorked it, and began applying various chemicals to the sample. Then she took an eyedropper and squeezed a few beads of blood onto a slide and inserted it into a microscope she had standing by.

  Dr. Korpanty spent a few minutes examining Tuba’s blood under the microscope, occasionally pausing to jot down notes in an open vid window she kept floating to her left. When she was done, she straightened up from the microscope and opened another vid window. In it, she displayed an enlarged image of the blood sample.

  “Here is Mr. Timmons’s blood,” she said, gesturing at the vid window. “It contains the usual markers indicating a gen-mod has been applied.” She tapped a button in the window and highlighted several bits that were—to a layman like myself—completely indistinguishable from the rest of the image. I just nodded and motioned for her to continue. “What’s unusual is the shape of the markers,” she said, zooming in on one of t
he highlighted bits. It looked all crinkly and weird, like a tube of pasta that had been half-chewed. Of course, I wouldn’t have known that wasn’t how it was supposed to look if Dr. Korpanty hadn’t said something. “You can see here, we have deterioration indicative of cellular breakdown, which would indicate the body is rejecting the gen-mod in a fairly hostile manner.”

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  Dr. Korpanty shrugged. “There could be any number of reasons. Maybe the mod wasn’t done properly, or they used a bad batch of DNA, or…well, gen-modding is as much an art as a science, and not every artist is careful or particular about their materials.” She zoomed back out to the previous image of the blood sample, then highlighted a new set of tiny bits. “Now, none of that actually explains what is happening to Mr. Timmons. He has a very particular virus.” She zoomed in on one of the viruses. It looked like a miniature polygon with legs. “I can’t know for sure yet, but I’m reasonably certain I recognize this virus. Shurburg Chemicals was developing something like it a few years back.”

  “Wait, Shurburg was working on a bioweapon?” I asked, suddenly concerned I’d been breathing the same air as this guy.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Dr. Korpanty said with as much reassurance as she could muster. “These viruses are inert. Unless you expose them to the proper catalyst, they’ll remain dormant forever. Plus, they only spread through body fluid contact.”

  “The guy did spit on me,” I said.

  “Well, unless you swallowed it or it ended up in an open wound, you’ll be fine,” Dr. Korpanty said. “The virus is dormant in Mr. Timmons, but that wasn’t the case even just a week ago. He shows signs of exposure to the catalyst—namely the odd deterioration in his markers. Someone performed a gen-mod on Mr. Timmons, but slipped some of the virus into his system when they did it.”

  “So, what does this virus do? And should I be worried about an army of rabid gen-modders running around the city?”