Jack Daniels and Associates: Snake Wine (13 page)

The guard inside the security booth shot up from his stool and immediately began jabbering into his radio, calling for an all-units assist. Frank pressed himself against the corridor wall as the guard grabbed his long nightstick and came running out of the booth, heading directly for the interview room. There were more and more guards coming now, their shoes squeaking on the concrete floors louder than race car tires, dozens of them eager to get a piece of the prisoner they'd been forced to grovel in front of. Frank could hear Keenan Marvin curse bitterly and the guard yelling as he tried to pull him down from the table. Then the hallways filled with deep howls of pain, Keenan Marvin screaming about his wrist and arm and followed by the thumping sound of multiple nightsticks cracking him on the back and shoulders. Frank closed his eyes and took a moment just to listen, wanting only to stand there and remember that moment forever.

He reached down to his pocket and felt his phone there. There were other ways to remember too, he decided. 

13.

"Are you there?"

Herb hears the voice and lifts his head slowly and mutters something incomprehensible. His eyes are caked with layers of crust that he cannot blink away. It is more than that, he realizes. His eyes are losing their ability to see, like flashlights with dying batteries. When he was a boy, his father would take him to see an old man they called Uncle Jack, and Herb was never sure why. Jack was not related to them. They hardly ever bothered with Herb's real grandfather.

Uncle Jack would try and placate Herb with an old man's idea of what children like. Cheap candies like root beer barrels and cinnamon hearts. A Mickey Mouse button. Herb would take the gifts and say thank you, because he knew it was the polite thing to do and because his father would not have tolerated anything less. In reality, he did not like the visits because of the way Uncle Jack looked at him, and because he suspected the old man was actually an alien.

As an adult, Herb knew that Jack's eyes were covered by thick white cataracts as wide as doll house dinner plates, but back then, all he knew was the old man's eyes looked like something out of a science fiction movie. Herb secretly wondered if any adult could see what he saw. He wondered if it wasn't like a story where only children can see the aliens in their true forms, while all his father saw in Uncle was a tired, sickly old man. Herb saw the truth though. Uncle Jack was an alien and he was not alone. There were dozens of others with the same strange eyes on that floor, all of them with grasping, clawing hands that wanted to pull Herb into their rooms and conduct strange experiments on him.

"Are you there? Can you hear me?"

Herb shook his head violently, trying to clear his thoughts and said, "Who is that?"

"Is anyone there?" the voice cried out. It sounded very far away - coming through the glass and Herb had to stand as still as he could trying to listen, trying to make sure he wasn't hallucinating the sound. "Can you hear me?"

The sound stirred him to life like an electric shock. Someone had found him. Someone was looking for him. Herb raised his head as high as he could and shouted, "I'm here! I'm in here! Get me the hell out! Help! Help!"

There was no response. Herb's head drooped again and he sobbed with the last dregs of grief left to him, feeling it bubble out of his nose and gum up the goop covering his eyes. Whoever it had been was gone now.

As he swung there in the pool of wine, hanging by his cuffs, he heard the voice again, saying, "My…my name is Jason Wale."

Herb raised his voice toward the top of the jar and shouted, "My name is Herb Benedict!"

"I have a wife. I have two sons," the man said, his voice breaking. "They need me."

"Are you a prisoner in here too?" Herb cried. He searched the darkness beyond the foggy glass but saw nothing. "Where are you? What can you see?"

"I don't want to die in here. I think I might if no one finds me though."

"No!" Herb shouted. "No, no, no, you will not, Jason! Tell me what you see! Tell me where you are!"

"There's a snake that wants to eat me. The woman said so. It tried climbing into my cage last night, but she stopped it in time."

"Forget the god damn snake!" Herb commanded. "When we get out of here, we're going to turn it into a pair of boots!"

The voice was moaning now, pleading to be let out in a long line of "Please don't," and "I just want to go home" sputtering.

The sound filled Herb with anger. Anger at whoever had done this to them. Anger at Jason for being such a coward. Angry at himself for all of the same things he'd said and felt. But now, they were going to fight. They were going to find a way out of this, if only Jason Wale would stop blubbering like a baby and tell him what he saw! How far away they were. Maybe Jason wasn't handcuffed like this. Maybe Jason could move. Maybe he had eyes on the snake. Hope filled Herb from bottom to top and he roared, "Pull yourself together you son of a bitch! I'm not giving up and neither are you!"

The voice whimpered, "My wife's name is Mary. Our little boys are just nine and ten years old. They need me. I don't want to die."

"What woman?" Herb called out. "You said there was a woman who said the snake wanted to eat you. Tell me about her."

"I should have never gone anywhere with that stupid bitch!" the man screamed. "I should have been home with my wife and sons instead of listening to that piece of shit!"

Jason was starting to lose it, Herb thought. His voice was cracking and so was he. Herb took a deep breath and steadied himself, trying to bring the man back down to his level. "Jason, listen to me very carefully," he said slowly, calmly. "Tell me about this woman. What does she look like? Where did you meet her?"

"I should've never, ever listened to her," Jason whispered.

"I know, and that's okay. The important thing is we get out of here now. I need you to focus, buddy. Can you do that for me?"

"No!" Jason growled.

"Why not?" Herb said, trying to force himself to be steady.

"No! No, you ugly son of a bitch, get back! Get back! Get away from me! No!"

Jason's shrieks filled the room, but there was another sound now, the sound of a low-pitched, growling hiss. Sharp smacking sounds filled Herb's ears like boxing gloves hitting an opponent's mid-section, and Jason screamed bloody murder. The smacking sounds continued and Jason's cries gradually withered away until they were silent, until finally, there was nothing but the echoing sound of something eating.

Footsteps came across the catwalk above him and Herb looked up, seeing the keeper. "You're next," the keeper said in that horrible, digital voice.

14.

Jack Daniels was falling asleep at the red lights as she drove home. Sure, she'd gotten some sleep the night before, but that account was so depleted no short deposits were going to cover it. She needed to be in a coma for a month to make up on the amounts she owed her body and mind. Maybe longer.

Gotta keep moving, she told herself. Stay awake, stay focused, find Herb. Call his wife, call Captain Miller, call Joel Roth. Chill them all out. Everything is fine. Herb is alive, Herb isn't AWOL, Herb will be there to testify. Everything is under control.

The lies and excuses were piling up on top of one another like snow on a flat-roofed building and any second now, the support beams were going to buckle.

She was bleary-eyed pulling onto her street and wasn't sure exactly how she managed to park without kissing the bumper of the car in front of her, but she did, and she sat there holding the steering wheel and closed her eyes. Just needing a few minutes. Just long enough to catch her second wind.

When Frank O'Ryan tapped on her driver's side window her head was down and her mouth was open. She knew that because there was a thin line of spittle dangling from her lip that she instantly swept away with her hand as she shifted quickly to grab her things and pretend that he hadn't caught her sleeping.

Frank checked his watch and frowned. It wasn't even five o'clock yet. He opened Jack's car door for her and asked, "You all right?"

"I'm fine," she said, pushing his hand away from helping her up. "Why, aren't you all right?"

He stepped back to give her space and said, "Listen, I've got something to tell you, and you aren't going to like it. Keenan Marvin isn't involved in your partner's disappearance. He turned informant for the FBI. He's trying to cut a deal that gets him transferred out of state prison into federal witness protection. Ratted out his whole damn crew."

Jack stared at him blankly, letting his words tumble around her skull like a clothes dryer, trying to sort them out and make sense of them. Because clearly she hadn't heard him right. Clearly she was now so tired she was losing her mind and hallucinating what he was saying. "How can you…what do mean? No way in hell that's true," she whispered.

"I'm sorry, but it is," Frank said. "I read his statements. I saw the FBI's agreement of cooperation signed by Marvin and his attorney."

She felt her jaw quiver and the shakes came back, making her hands tremor until her keys fell onto the street. Frank bent down to pick them up and said, "Come on. Let's go inside and sit down, and I'll tell you everything that's happened."

Jack moved like someone else was controlling her body. Her legs were numb as Frank guided her away from her car and toward the front door. "Right this way, Jack. One step at a time."

She let him walk next to her, let him hold her arm, but still said, "I'm not a child, Frank."

"I know," he said, even as he kept with her and held her upright while he jiggled her keys into the door.

"They won't really do that," Jack whispered. "I can't believe they would really make that deal with that monster … after what he … after they tried …"

"If I had any friends who were feds I'd be on the phone with them screaming for somebody's head, Jack, but if I was the kind of guy who had friends who were feds, well, I probably wouldn't be here now."

Jack released her purse onto the nearest end table, missed it, heard it land on the floor with a thump and felt satisfied by it. She walked over to her living room couch and sat down, staring forward wide-eyed, folding her hands in her lap like a school girl. She watched Frank sit next to her and she said, "Those bureaucratic pencil-pushing needle dick government funded elitist sell-out scumbag Federal government flunkies, Frank!"

Frank laughed and lowered his head, "I couldn't have said it better if I tried. Are you hungry?"

"No," she said.

"All right. Did you find out anything in Chinatown?"

Jack clenched her eyes shut, trying to concentrate. She tried to remember what Tan had told her and said, "There's a woman who lives off of Hanley Harbor. Her name's Li Xiao, or something. She has a king cobra and makes venom powder."

"Good," Frank said. "That's a good lead, Lieutenant." He tried to sound encouraging but all Jack did was lean back against the couch and stare up at the ceiling without moving. Frank looked around her living room and saw a laptop computer on the kitchen counter. "Can you get into your work and look up driver's licenses and all that from here?"

"Yeah," Jack whispered.

"All right, perfect," Frank said. He got up and picked up her laptop and carried it over to the couch, then set it on the table in front of him. He reached down to Jack's feet and picked her legs up by the ankles and started to lift them.

"What are you doing?"

"You're laying down," Frank said. "I'm going to run this Li Xiao chick and come up with an ops plan for us to hit the house."

Jack watched Frank pull off her shoes and set them on the floor, too exhausted to argue. "Hit the house for what? Snake powder? It's a waste of time. This whole thing is a waste of time, Frank. He's gone. He's gone and Keenan Marvin is going to be a free man and none of it fucking matters any more anyway."

Frank pulled a warm fleece blanket down from the back of the couch and covered Jack with it, tucking it behind her back and under her feet. He moved her hair out of her face and gently tucked it behind her ear and said, "Close your eyes and just try to breathe. Don't worry about sleeping. Just focus on your breathing same as in yoga; concentrate on being comfortable and warm. I'll take care of this lead you cultivated."

He waited until she closed her eyes, and he shut off all of the lights except for the one over the dining room table so he could make notes as he used her laptop. There was only fifty percent battery life left, and damned if he could find the cord. "Jack, where's your laptop cable? I don't want this thing to die on me. Jack?" When she didn't answer, he looked more closely and saw her body twitch slightly, already asleep. "Don't worry, I'll find it," he whispered.

It was twenty minutes after seven and Phinneas Trout felt like vomiting. He couldn't tell if it was the cancer, the hangover, the morning sun so bright it could make an albino burst into flames, or a wretched combination of all three. He knocked on Jack Daniels' front door and scowled at Frank when he opened it. "It's one thing to call me at seven o'clock in the morning, but it's a whole other thing to make me bring coffee too."

Frank looked down at the tray in Phin's hand with the three large white cups and said, "What if I say I'm really, really grateful?"

"Just as long as you drink the one I had them make special for you, we'll be fine," Phin said. He handed Frank the tray and walked into Jack's home, finally brave enough to take off his sunglasses. "Where is she, anyway?"

"She's still sleeping," Frank said. He turned to put the tray down and nearly dropped all three drinks when Phin's hand shot out to grab him by the arm. Frank looked back at Phin's now-darkened face and said, "What's your problem?"

"You son of a bitch. You couldn't leave her alone, could you?"

"Excuse me?"

"All your bullshit about being married and not wanting to screw stuff up with your wife, and yet you just couldn't resist taking advantage of my friend when she's vulnerable. Cripple or not, I'm going to take you outside and beat you like you owe me money."

Frank's eyes narrowed, "Call me a cripple again and I'll forget that you're a cancer-ridden junkie loser who happens to be useful to somebody I care about."

"Oh, that
you
care about? What, after a few days? Or after you came out here to spring the guy who tried to get her raped and murdered? I guess screwing her in the court room just wasn't enough?"

Both of them stopped talking as Jack emerged from the living room, clutching her blanket around her neck, her hair bunched up on one side of her head and her right eye clenched shut as she shuffled toward the tray of coffee. "What are you two yelling about?" she croaked.

"Nothing," Frank said, trying to sound calm. "I called Phin over to get started on today's operation."

Phin saw that Jack was dressed from the day before and then looked back at Frank. His face wrinkled into a kind of sheepish contortion and he said, "Oh."

"See?" Frank said.

"Yeah well, you're still an asshole," Phin said, moving around him to get his coffee.

"What did you do to my living room?" Jack called out. She rubbed her eyes as she looked down at the separate groups of paper and the satellite photographs taped to her arm chairs and side tables.

Frank smiled shyly at his handiwork and said, "Your printer is out of ink, by the way."

Jack thumbed through the papers closest to her, seeing color pictures, Google map images, and various sections headlined in large bold letters. "I can see that," she said.

Phin sat Indian-style on the floor and picked up the papers closest to him, rolling his eyes at the first thing he saw. "You really had to title this thing Operational Plan?"

"I just stuck with the format I'm used to, all right?" Frank said.

"Gay."

Jack sipped her coffee as she thumbed to the first page and looked at the printout of the warehouse on Hanley Harbor where Frank had drawn red X's at the front and rear. "What's this?" she asked.

"Well, since this isn't an official inquiry I figure we can play a little fast and loose with the rules," Frank said. "The first image is an overhead of the location, but if you look on the next page there are several street-view images where you can clearly see this place has several doors around the side and back. There are also windows that appear to be accessible and all sorts of empty crates in the yard to give someone a good vantage point. My thought is that you and I approach from the front and attempt to speak with this Li Xiao woman. We stall her while Phin makes entry to search for Herb."

Jack tapped the thin silver wires surrounding the property and said, "Is that a fence?"

"Yep," Frank said. "Those rolls over top of it are Constantine wire."

"So how the hell is Phin supposed to get in there?" Jack said.

"Oh come on, like he never got through a fence before?"

Phin frowned comically at Frank and said, "Pardon me, but isn't that breaking and entering, mister officer?"

"Only if you get caught. Why, are you scared?"

"You wish."

"I can always replace you with a more competent criminal if you want," Frank said. "I'm sure Jack knows a few."

"Wait a second," Jack said. "I'm not sure how I feel about this. It's a big risk. If she sees Phin, after I've identified myself as a cop, we're all going to jail."

Frank leaned forward and said, "Let me ask you a question. What are the chances that Herb ran off with this chick? That he tossed his phone and forgot his wife and job and friends and is holed up with her and her king cobra in this warehouse, giving her the old egg foo young?"

"No chance," Jack said softly.

"Turn the page," Frank said.

Jack turned the page to see a list of seven names bullet-pointed down the page, from the end of the previous year until just a few months prior. She looked at the last name and said, "Who is Jason Wale?"

"Jason Wale, like all the other men on that list, is a man reported missing within a ten block radius of where your partner was last seen during the past year. Now, when ordinary adults go missing nobody really cares. They figure the guy ran off with another woman or just got tired of his family and skedaddled for Alaska. Cops don't even enter them into any kind of missing person database. But, I pulled up driver's license photos of Jason Wale and all the other guys from that list that I want you to see. Turn the page."

Both Jack and Phin did and both of them froze at the images set side-by-side, going down the length of the page. "They're all big," Jack whispered.

"They're not big," Phin said. "They're chunky monkeys. Chubby hubbies. Fattie McFatties. Some of these guys make your boy Herb look downright svelte."

Jack stared at the images and said, "What about snake venom? Is there anything else to link them to Herb's case?"

"Of course not," Frank said. "Because nobody ever really looked for them the way you looked for Herb. It doesn't mean there's no connection. It just means that whenever Mrs. Jason Wale walked into her local Chicago PD precinct and said, 'My husband's missing,' the desk sergeant said, 'Sorry lady, we'll put it on file' and that was that."

They turned their pages again to see a Vietnamese passport photograph of a beautiful woman with smoldering, almond-shaped eyes and long black hair. Phin held the page closer to his face and let out a soft whistle and grinned.

"Li Xiao," Frank said. "I had to do some serious digging to come up with this picture, and Jack is probably going to be getting a very grumpy phone call from the boys at Immigration when they find out their system was hacked, but it was necessary. There's no record of her being in Chicago. No contacts with the police, she's not registered with the city for a car, a voter registration, nothing. She's totally under the radar. However," Frank said, pausing while he turned his page to a grainy image of a document written in Arabic. "I managed to dig up an import, export license in her name for rare and exotic animals along the African coastline."