Bad Radio (22 page)

She didn’t say anything. She just gave me a half-shrug and looked into my eyes.

“There’s this constant pressure inside of me to lash out, and anything to do with this whole Piotr situation makes it worse. It started after I was changed, back in Poland, but it seemed like it had gotten better for a long time. I felt like living on the farm all those years had let me get a handle on it. But now … It’s never been this bad before. And every time I give in, there’s this exultant feeling that comes with it. Like a reward. But even so, I swear to you that I’m not looking for opportunities to murder people. I still have that much control. I will not step over that line.”

Anne put a hand on my arm. “I guess I trust you enough to believe that. Don’t let me down.”

Releasing my secrets into Anne’s care was a liberating feeling. This was the first time I’d admitted to anyone that there was a pressure inside of me to kill, much less that I felt pleasure in it afterwards. She didn’t turn away from me and condemn me as a monster, but instead gave me a chance to prove that I could be trusted. I swore to myself that she wouldn’t regret it.

23

T
he rest of the offices in the hallway were the same as the first. A quick perusal of the paperwork on the desks and in the cabinets proved that actual work was being done here. Somebody really was selling commercial office space out of this suite. I had a hard time picturing any of the people from the hospital in blazers and nametags, though. Maybe Anne was right that this was just a regular office.

Pink light fell in strips across the receptionist’s desk as dawn entered through the blinds covering the glass entry door in the lobby. A candy dish and an oversized phone sat next to yet another beige computer and a dog-eared office directory.

I flipped through the directory, but I didn’t recognize any of the names. The lobby had three doors. One leading outside, one for the hallway we just came out of, and one more on the other side leading back into the other half of the office. That door was locked, and there was a black plastic square on the wall next to the handle. There was no keyhole in the door.

Anne walked to the reception desk. “Wait a second.” She pushed something and the door next to me clicked. “Okay, pull it.”

It swung open easily and she came around the desk. “Electronic lock. Usually the receptionist has a release at her desk so she can let visitors in without having to get up.”

“So you have a remotely controlled lock, but I still have to pull the door open myself?”

“Welcome to the future, Abe. There are no flying cars, either. Get used to it.”

The hallway on the other side of the door was completely different. Where the rest of the office was done in early commercial tacky, this area felt more like a private club. The hallway was elegant, but short.

Twenty feet in, it ended in another door. This one was locked the old-fashioned way, so I opened it the old-fashioned way, too. With my foot. The dark wooden frame split under the assault, raw white wood showing between the shattered pieces.

The room beyond was a very large lounge. There were leather seats and sofas scattered artfully around coffee tables, a wet bar on one wall, and a vast flat screen TV hanging on the other. Four doors led out of the room.

“See, this is what a secret criminal hideout should look like.”

Anne reached behind a chair and came up with a pair of red thong underwear pinched between the tips of her fingers like a dead rat. “Like a strip club?”

“That’s gentlemen’s club to you. Let’s find Dominic’s office.” She tossed the panties and headed towards the only door on the right wall. I went for the one opposite.

“Bathroom,” Anne called out.

I opened my chosen door and found an office with beautiful furniture and neatly organized work on the desk. I went through the papers and decided that this must be the bookie’s office. Lots of fight and race schedules.

The next office was similar, so I stepped out and went to the last door. Anne was already inside.

This one must have been Dominic’s. It was easily twice the size of the first two and sported a massive oak desk with a throne-sized chair behind it. Anne tugged on the drawers. “The desk is locked, and the computer is password protected.”

“Can you get around the password?”

“What? Not unless he’s written it down somewhere in here. I’m not exactly a hacker, you know.”

“What’s a hacker?”

“Just help me look for a password, okay? We need to get into the desk.”

“No problem.” I raised my baton over my head and aimed at the keyhole next to the drawers.

“Please don’t damage the desk. It’s an antique.” Dominic stood in the doorway with two armed men behind him.

I wanted to honor my promise to Anne and show some restraint, but I never had a chance to try. The sound of his voice startled me, and I looked up to see Dominic standing there in the doorway with his thugs, his hands in his pockets and smug all over his face. I’m not sure I registered anything more than “enemy” and “guns” before I was over the desk and across the room.

I hit Dominic hard with both hands in the chest. Shock broke out across his face in an almost comical expression as he slammed into the men behind him, bowling them over. It was the look of a zookeeper realizing that he was on the wrong side of the door, and that his whole understanding of his place in the cage hierarchy was fatally flawed.

Goon Number One started getting up, so I collapsed his ribcage with a vicious backhand from my baton. Blood sprayed from his lips and he went down.

Number Two had gotten up on one knee and was swinging his gun forward. I shattered his arm with a contemptuous flick of my wrist. The gun tumbled away. Then I shoved him to the ground with one foot, and out of pure malice, cracked his pelvis with a quick downward stab of my baton. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was ashamed of that, but right now it just felt good. I spat out a sound that could have been laughter.

Dominic was on the floor, leaning against one of those nice leather couches. He seemed to be having trouble catching his breath. I squatted over him and grabbed his left shoulder in my right hand. I was trying to pin him in place, but I must have grabbed him too hard. Something in his shoulder popped and shifted under my hand. He tried to scream, but all that came out was a hoarse wheezing. I drew back my other hand in a fist. I could see myself reflected in his wide eyes, looming over him like fate.

“Stop!” I felt a small hand covering my fist. “Abraham. Stop.” Anne’s presence pushed its way into my awareness.

I regained enough control to feel how contorted my face was, to feel my lips skinned back from my teeth in a rictus, and I knew that right then I looked like my portrait in Georgia’s house. That I was unknowingly wearing my secret face. The uncomfortable shame helped me back to myself. My anger turned back into something human, something that I could control.

Dominic glanced away from me to look at Anne. “Thank you.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I did it for him, not you. If I had my gun, you’d have died in your office thirty seconds ago and to hell with what you know.” Her voice was icy. Frightening.

I let go of Dominic and dropped my fist, but I continued to stand over him as he knelt on the floor. “Tell me where you delivered the pieces.”

He put a hand up, fingers outspread. “Give me a moment.”

“We are not negotiating. You don’t get requests. If I have to ask you again, I will remove your left arm at the shoulder.” I don’t think I would have. I hope not, but I always try to be honest with myself. It was hard to forget that this man had tried to murder the only people in the whole world that I had left to care about.

“Wyoming. Belmont. It’s a little town not far from the Colorado border.”

“Where in town?”

“I don’t know. He met me at a gas station on the border last night. Him and about twenty of his … men.” His eyes went opaque for a moment as he remembered. I knew that look; Dominic had encountered the real world last night. “You have to understand, it was too late for me to back out. I wanted to when I got there. It was like I had driven into hell. They’re not men.”

“I know. Worms under their skin, right?”

“Bursting out of their skin! Hanging out of their mouths and eyes and falling onto the ground. Some of them, I don’t know how they’re still alive. But Peter was the worst. No worms. He looked normal on the outside. But whatever is inside of him is worse. When he walked up to me to take delivery, I would have given anything if it would have been one of those monsters instead. Even they seemed to be afraid of him.”

Anne frowned. “And he just let you go?”

“He said that he needed men like me, and that he would be in touch. But I’m not going to be here. I’m leaving and I’m not coming back.”

24

D
ominic stood up gingerly, his left arm dangling grotesquely from his dislocated shoulder. “There really was no need for all of this. When the silent alarm went off, I came here to offer to help you, maybe atone a little for helping Peter. Anything he wants, I don’t want, you know?”

“How did you know it was me? Maybe it was a regular burglar.”

He grinned tightly. “Son, I can promise you no burglar is going to set foot anywhere near here unless it’s to ask me for work. No, I knew it was you because of something Peter said. He said that you couldn’t help but be drawn to him, like you didn’t have a choice. Since I’m the only person you know that has Peter’s location, and you’re the only person I know that’s dumb enough to actually break into my office, it wasn’t exactly rocket science to figure it out.” He shifted his weight and sucked in a breath as his arm moved. “Do you mind?”

I leaned in and grabbed his arm and his good shoulder. He clenched his teeth and looked away. When I shoved his shoulder back into the socket, bits and pieces of a scream escaped his control, but he recovered his composure surprisingly quickly.

“Son of a bitch, that hurts.” He sat down on the couch and wiped away the sweat that had beaded across his forehead and upper lip. “You had me pretty worried when you attacked me. I could see in your face that you have some of the same crazy in you that Peter has. It’s pretty obvious that the two of you are connected by more than just circumstance.”