Chemical Burn (26 page)

“Nice!” the driver hollered through the window. “You got them.”

“Piece of cake,” Al said as the group finally came around the far corner of the building. The two men holding my friends walked along the van as Al and the driver exchanged a few words.

Xen and Rachel scanned the alley, fear in their eyes. They stopped at the back of the van, and then Al came around and opened the doors for them. “Get in,” Al said.

The two men shoved Xen and Rachel into the van, and they tumbled onto the hard, steel floor. Once they were locked inside, I could make my move.

I heard a car come around the corner behind me. I turned quickly and identified the shape of a black Audi as it pulled completely into the alley and stopped with the motor running, blinding us all with its headlights. I barely saw my own outline illuminated in the bright glare.

“What’s this happy horseshit?” Al asked as he stepped away from the back of the van. He walked along the dumpsters with his arm raised to shield his eyes. “Go on, get the fuck outa here,” he shouted at the car. “Keep those two covered,” he ordered over his shoulder. He turned back to the car in front of him. “Motherfucker,” Al said under his breath as he stepped up even with the end of the dumpster where I hid. The car door opened, and a shadowy figure stood there looking down the alley towards us.

“I suggest you go about your business, asshole! You don’t want a piece of this. You have no fucking idea who I am!”

The shadow moved, and we both saw the silhouette of a rifle come up in the driver’s hands. Al’s hand went inside his pocket, and I heard the thump of a silenced shot come from the Audi. The man guarding Rachel tumbled to the ground. Al yanked his gun out just as a second shot went through the head of the man guarding Xen.

I moved in a flash, swinging the vlain through Al’s arm as leveled in front of him. He got a confused look on his face as he watched his arm fall away, severed between shoulder and elbow, the pistol still in hand. “I know who you are,” I whispered in his ear.

Al inhaled ready to scream as he turned a horrified face towards me. The stiletto blade of the vlain entered his throat, cutting off the scream … and Al’s life.

“What the fuck!” the van driver yelled and flung open the door. He stepped out of the van and aimed his pistol at my shape, shimmering in the Audi’s headlights. I saw a flash from the bushes across the parking lot. The driver’s face blossomed into a red rose as the bullet passed through his head from behind. He crumpled silently in a heap. I pulled the vlain out of Al’s throat and let him drop to the ground.

I turned to face the Audi, motionless. Highlighted in the headlights as I was, if the driver wanted to drop me, there wasn’t much I could do about it. I tried zooming in with my goggles to get a look at the person holding the rifle, but the glare made it impossible. The best I could make out was a like a tall, well-built man.

The driver stared at me for several seconds, lowered the rifle, and got back into the car. He put it in reverse and backed out of the alley, turning down the street and slowly driving away. I turned back to the van and walked up to my friends. They both had blood-spatters on their faces, and the inside of the van had the same crimson patterns of goombah blood, bone, and gray matter. Rachel and Xen sat motionless in the back of the van, surprised looks on their faces, staring at my outline.

I pulled the hood back and lifted the goggles off my eyes as I stared at them for a few seconds. “You two alright?” I finally asked.

They blinked a few times and slowly got out of the van.

“Are you alright?” I repeated.

“
Who was that?
” Rachel shouted.

“That,” and I turned my head down the alley, “was our friend Mister Zajac. And he wasn’t alone.”

“What?” Xen asked, finally breaking his silence.

“Look,” I said, pointing around the corner of the van at the dead driver.

They did. “Oh my god!” they said in tandem. “So, who got him? I only saw the one guy.”

“I don’t know. It came from across the parking lot. Could be anybody.…” I got a thoughtful look on my face. “Well, not any of us, obviously. That would be metaphysically absurd, unless time travel were possible, which I happen to know for a fact is not. But it could be anyone else, and they sure do know how to shoot.” I flicked a glance at Rachel to see if she’d put it together.

Rachel got a funny look on her face, smiling knowingly. She looked at Xen and gently put her hand out on his shoulder. “They sure do,” she added as she looked at me. I winked at her and then shook my head slightly.

“Come on, help me load these guys up,” I said as I turned to grab Al. “Get the driver.” I tucked Al’s arm inside his coat, dragged the body back to the van, and quite un-gently threw his body inside. We stacked the rest of the bodies on top.

Rachel and Xen retrieved the guns from two of the bodies before closing the doors. I started wiping blood off the side and roof of the van. It couldn’t be seen in the dark, but if a cop pulled me over and brushed up against it, it could be a problem.

“You kept your cool,” I whispered in Rachel’s ear. “I’m really proud of you.”

“I knew you’d come for me.” She smiled and kissed me on the cheek, which got my insides doing flip-flops. I suddenly realized just what I was getting into with her. My work would be putting her at risk, and a pang of
guilt? Worry? Fear?
ran through me. This wasn’t a game anymore, I couldn’t help wonder if having Rachel in the mix might compromise my composure.

Clearing my head of doubt, I said to them both, “Head back to my van. There’s a jug of water in the upper right-hand cabinet all the way in. Clean up, lose the gloves in a sewer and get moving. I want you to meet me a block west of Natalia’s place. You know the way, right Xen?”

“Yeah,” Xen said quietly, a slight look of pain flickering across his face.

I put my arm on Xen’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, man.”

“It’s alright. I’ll be fine.”

Rachel put her hand on Xen’s arm again and gave him a comforting squeeze. She shot a questioning look at me again, and I shook my head again almost imperceptibly but firmly.

“Okay, go on,” I ordered. “Turn signals and speed limit only, and don’t forget to wipe the blood off your faces.” They walked off towards my van as I got into the black one. I pulled onto the highway in a matter of minutes. As soon as I hit fifty-five, I set the cruise control. The clock on the dashboard said it was one a.m. I pulled out my cell phone and hit an all-too-familiar speed-dial. I was not looking forward to this phone call.

“Hello,” a tired but familiar voice said in a whisper.

“Did I wake you?”

“No, Case,” O’Neil whispered into the phone. “I always stay up till the wee hours of the morning waiting for the phone to ring. Hang on a minute.” I heard O’Neil get out of bed, go to another room, and close the door behind him. “What do you want?”

“Well, I have a gift and a favor. Which do you want first?”

“Don’t fuck with me Case. I have a gun and a badge. I’ll shoot you and make it look like self-defense. There won’t even be much paperwork.”

“I hear you.…” I said, knowing that tone all too well. “Here’s the deal. I’ve got that chemical data we were talking about last week, and I’m having someone really good dig through it. I’ll send you all the data in the morning.…” I paused for a reaction. “You forgive me for waking you up?”

“Barely,” but O’Neil didn’t sound tired anymore. “I did some digging myself. If it will help your guy, I found out what’s in T-Rex.”

“What?”

“It’s a mix of coke, meth and tetra … tetra …” O’Neil paused and then yawned.

“Tetrachloroethylene?” I asked with surprised disbelief.

“Yeah! That’s it … tetrachloroethylene. How’d you know?”

My voice remained calm, but that was a big missing piece. “Because it’s what they use for dry cleaning. I’ll be damned. That’s what KING stands for.”

“What?” O’Neil asked, confused.

“King,” I said clearly. “It’s the name of the folder where we found the data. And Rex means king in Latin.”

“Where’d you find this folder?” O’Neil sounded suspicious. “And, now that I’m thinking about it, what’s the favor?”

“Oh … yeah … about that.” I tried to sound completely innocent of wrongdoing and not evasive, but I failed, and O’Neil knew it.

“Oh shit,” he said.

“No … it’s nothing bad … well … mostly nothing bad.”

I pictured O’Neil holding his forehead in his hand. “What happened?”

“Well, we broke into VeniCorp tonight.”

“You did what?”

“We broke in to VeniCorp.” I might just as well have said we went shopping.

“Who is
we
?”

“Me, Rachel, and Xen.”

“Xen’s alive?”

“Yeah.”

“Justin, you gotta stop calling me in the middle of the night. You’re killing me, man.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.” I even sounded appropriately apologetic. “The thing is we sort of got caught.”

A weighty silence stretched out on the other end as O’Neil went through all the possibilities in his head, each one worse that the last.

“O’Neil?”

“I’m here. Keep talking.” His voice was surly. He knew this wasn’t going to be good.

“Well, when we came out, there were three guys waiting. They sort of ended up … dead.”

O’Neil sounded suddenly terrified. “Please tell me these weren’t rent-a-cops. If they were rent-a-cops, you’re going to jail for fucking ever.”

“No-no-no … there were these three goombahs. They were going to take Xen and Rachel off to bury them in the desert.” I paused for a moment and realized something I wanted to clarify. “And besides,
I
didn’t kill them!” I said defensively. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I killed one of them. But somebody else killed the other three.”

“You said there were three guys. That’s
four
!” I think O’Neil really would have shot me if I was in front of him. In the leg or something, but there would have been gunfire.

“Three goombahs and a driver. I killed one, this guy who’s been following me killed two, and somebody else killed the driver.”

O’Neil was just about at his limit. “Justin?” he asked calmly.

“Yeah?”

“Are you on any medication?”

A thoughtful pause later, “Not that I know of.”

“Maybe you should be. You’re making about as much sense as crack head at a political debate. I want to go back to bed and forget this conversation till morning. Get to the point and tell me what you want?”

“You know that house where those six Italians got it a few days ago?”

“Yeah. By the way, that definitely looked like your work.”

“It was,” I confirmed easily. “So, anyway,” I continued without missing a beat, “these four will be in the alley behind that house in about twenty minutes. Can you keep them on ice for me?”

“You want me to store bodies for you?” O’Neil was stupefied.

“Yeah.”

“What the fuck for? I should just charge you with murder and sleep for a week.”

“You don’t mean that,” I said.

“The hell I don’t!” O’Neil paused and then asked the obvious question. “Why keep them? You could have just dumped them.”

“Well, the people who killed the other three, I still don’t know whose side they’re on, or what they’re after. I’m pretty sure they’re good guys, but you know I like to keep my options open. If it comes down to it, these guys are evidence.”

“Is there anything else?”

“No, that should just about do it,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Then goodnight,” he said, and I could almost hear the headache forming inside his skull.

“Goodnight, O’Neil. And thanks.”

“Oh, and Case?”

“Yeah?”

“I hate you.”

“I know.”

We both hung up.

When we got back to the loft, I’d logged on and used my system to hack VeniCorp and replace the lobby images of us walking in and getting captured. Then I erased our User entry in the logs. If Al hadn’t been lying, then all anybody would know is that the three goombahs disappeared in the middle of the night. I had to hope that was the case, although it was unlikely DiMarco’s organization would ever call the cops.

I escorted Xen and Rachel to Costa Rica, explaining that my father had taught me it was customary to kick back after a night on the town. Xen was grateful for the opportunity to get out.

My loft was, as he put it, “Fucking hot in here.”

As we left, I handed him a laptop with the VeniCorp data, and told him to start going through it. I needed to know how the whole thing worked as quickly as possible now that things were heating up.

Rachel and I undressed, crawled into bed, and were asleep before we could even kiss. It had been a long day.

***

Part Three