Swift Edge (18 page)

“The roof!” I exclaimed, halfway through my recitation. “Irena is up on the roof.” I wondered why she hadn’t called out once she saw the patrol cars arrive. Glancing out the window, I saw there were now four police cars in the parking lot. Officer Gradney radioed a compatriot, and in a surprisingly short time a man in painter’s overalls topped with a University of Colorado sweatshirt pulled up in a pickup and unloaded an extension ladder.

Gradney and I hurried down the stairs and out the open door in time to see a cop descending the ladder, shaking her head.

“Nothing up there but a pissed-off squirrel,” she reported.

Several sets of suspicious cop eyes swiveled to me. “She was up there,” I insisted. “Irena Fane, mother of Dmitri Fane, the man who rents this condo.”

“Not anymore he doesn’t,” the man in the sweatshirt piped up. I pegged him as the condo’s maintenance supervisor. “He moved out yesterday. Saw the U-Haul truck.”

“Did you actually see Dmitri?” I asked before the cops could get a word in. I had trouble believing Dmitri Fane, on the run from God-knows-who, had casually rented a U-Haul, packed up his belongings, and trundled off to … where?

“Wouldn’t know him if I did,” the man said simply. “Can I go now? I’ve got a toilet to unplug in 12C.”

Officer Gradney waved him away with a word of thanks and turned back to me. “Let’s go over your story again. You say you picked up this woman at the airport, came here for a chat about her missing son, and someone opened fire on you?” His tone was still polite, his demeanor calm, but his eyes were narrowed and watchful.

“On her,” I said, suddenly remembering that it was Irena who had opened the door and drawn the first bullet. I wondered whether she was the shooter’s target or if he was aiming for anyone at the condo. “Can we walk around the building while we talk?” I asked Gradney.

“I don’t see why not. You want to see if there’s someplace she could’ve come down?”

“Exactly,” I said, pleased with his quickness. Montgomery might have some competition in the detective ranks before long.

On the far side of the block of four units, a leafless oak tree extended limbs to within a foot of the roofline. “There,” I said triumphantly. “I’ll bet she climbed down the tree.”

Gradney shook his head doubtfully, examining the tree. “That limb’s not too sturdy looking,” he objected. “It wouldn’t hold her.”

“Irena’s about as big around as my pinkie,” I said, convinced the woman could have done it. What I wanted to know was
why
she had escaped from the roof and then run off. Maybe she’d gotten down before the police arrived and gone to get help? I looked around. No sign of her or any cavalry she might have summoned. No, I knew Mrs. Fane had followed in her son’s nimble footsteps and done a runner. Maybe because being shot at scared her—not entirely unreasonable—or maybe for some other reason.

*   *   *

I dragged myself back to the office once my frozen, cramped fingers thawed sufficiently to allow me to drive. Gigi was back from her outing in Old Colorado City, and Kendall was nowhere to be seen. Still at the Ice Hall, maybe. I made a mental note to ask her what the scuttlebutt among the skaters was about Dmitri’s disappearance. Gigi had tugged down the zipper on her quilted vest and was fanning herself with a back issue of a PI magazine. A red flush mottled her face.

“Are you okay?” I asked, headed for the fridge and a Diet Pepsi.

“Hot flash,” she moaned, fanning harder.

I hoped scientists invented a cure for menopause before I got there. “No sign of Kungfu, I take it?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m going to stake out the tattoo parlor tonight. Do you want to come?”

The hint of pleading in her voice made me grind my teeth. No, I did not want to come. I wanted to go home, cut out the vanity countertop from the length of plywood I’d bought two weeks ago, and then laze in my hot tub. We were only looking for Kungfu as a favor to Dan, and he was my buddy, not Gigi’s. “Oh, all right,” I said ungraciously.

She beamed. “Thanks, Charlie. I have a good feeling about this.”

*   *   *

At nine o’clock that night we sat scrunched down in the front seats of my rental car, facing Tattoo4U from a block away on the cross street. I’d vetoed taking Gigi’s Hummer since Kungfu might have spotted it last night. The temps hovered in the midthirties, but I refused to let Gigi keep the engine running, knowing the exhaust streaming from the tailpipe would draw attention to us. I’d worn dark layers of warm clothing, plus gloves and a knit cap pulled low on my forehead. Gigi had on a violet parka with a fur-trimmed hood and lace-up suede boots, also fur trimmed, that made her look like a plump blond Eskimo. She hadn’t worn gloves, so she sat on her hands in the passenger seat.

“Do you think he’ll show up again?” she asked, practically pressing her nose up against the window glass.

“No idea,” I yawned. We’d been here an hour already and had watched a man Gigi identified as Graham lock up the store and walk west. Most of the lights on the block were out, including the streetlights, which the city had turned off to save on electricity costs. I don’t know how many streetlights remained lit, but it seemed like only one in every eight or ten. Darkness pooled around Tattoo4U, and none of the diminishing trickle of passersby, all of them headed to or from the liquor store, showed any interest in the business.

“Irena Fane must be worried sick about Dmitri,” Gigi said out of nowhere. “I know how I’d feel if Dexter up and disappeared.”

Relieved is how she ought to feel. Dexter was an arrogant, selfish ass who made Kendall look like Child of the Year. “She’s got reason to worry,” I said, arching my back against the stiffness of long immobility. “She knows he was involved with credit card fraud and who knows what other criminal activities. People he was close to are getting beaten and shot, and someone took potshots at us in his condo. That adds up to a lot worth worrying about, in my book.”

“I don’t know how you keep kids from ruining their lives by doing stupid things,” Gigi sighed. “There are so many traps out there for kids these days—drugs, pregnancy, body piercings that get infected—”

Ow and ick.

“—cyberbullying, eating disorders, misfits spraying automatic weapons around school cafeterias. I’ve tried to help them understand…” She trailed off as if thinking about all the things a parent needed to cover with teens exhausted her.

“At least you’re there for your kids,” I said, thinking about my missionary parents, who serially abandoned me, first with my grandparents and then with my Aunt Pam and Uncle Dennis. “You’re trying. They’re probably absorbing more from your talks than you realize.”

“That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Charlie,” she said. Her amazed and gratified tone made me feel slightly guilty. “Do you really think the kids listen to me?”

No, but it sounded good. My experience with teens, limited though it was, suggested they installed a V-chip equivalent that filtered out all parent noises. “It’s not like Dmitri is a teenager,” I pointed out. “The man’s twenty-six. It’s not his mommy’s job to keep him out of trouble anymore.” A flicker near the tattoo parlor caught my eye. Was it tree limbs swayed by the chilly breeze? I leaned forward to peer out the windshield. No, there was definitely something moving on the east side of the building. It might be nothing more than a stray cat, but …

“Come on,” I told Gigi, opening the door. My hand went to the H&K 9 mm snuggled in its holster at the small of my back. I didn’t expect to need it, but after coming under fire today, I liked the security blanket feeling of having it with me.

“Did you see something?” she asked, pulling her hands out from under her and reaching for the door handle.

“Don’t slam the—”

Wham.
Gigi turned with a guilty wince as the door slammed closed, alerting everyone in a three-block radius to our presence.

“I’ll follow him around back. You wait in the front in case he makes a run for it.”

“Got it,” Gigi said, trotting at my side as I strode quickly toward the tattoo parlor. We passed a couple arguing about beer brands by the liquor store, and I slipped into the narrow gap between the tattoo parlor and its neighbor. Shards of broken glass glinted underfoot, and clumps of brittle weeds trapped newspaper pages, plastic bags, and other debris it was too dark to identify. I paused for a moment, halfway back, and listened. I heard nothing at first except the ambient evening noises, but as I tuned those out I picked up a funny scraping sound coming from the rear of the building. Stepping carefully to avoid crunching down on a discarded beer can or something equally noisy, I made my way to the back of the tattoo parlor and peered around the corner.

I could barely make out a hunched shadow, darker than the surrounding night, scraping at Tattoo4U’s back door. It took me a moment to realize he was trying to pick the lock, a shiny padlock. A muffled “Shit” drifted to me, and I surmised he hadn’t had much training in basic breaking and entering. I sidled silently around the corner, hoping to get close enough to tackle Kungfu before he noticed I was there. I rated my chances as pretty good because he hadn’t once looked up from the doorknob since I’d arrived. I didn’t want to have to draw my gun, not even as a threat, because bad things happen when guns come into play.

I had cut the distance between us to barely fifteen feet when he suddenly looked up, alerted by some tiny noise I’d made, or clued in by a subliminal sense of danger. The pale oval of his face turned toward me and he sprang to his feet, dropping whatever instrument he’d been using to pick the door. It clattered to the ground.

“Kungfu, wait!” I called as he whirled and began to run. I lunged at him, catching the tail of his jacket as he reached the corner. I tugged, breaking his stride, and flung myself forward just far enough to get my arms around his thighs and bring him to the ground.

“Charlie! Are you okay?” Gigi called out. I could hear her crunching over dried leaves and broken bottles as she hurried toward us.

Kungfu heard her, too, and struggled to his feet, kicking at my hands, which had slid down to his ankle and gripped it tightly. The youth was slipperier than a greased eel. He tried hopping away on his unencumbered foot, but my weight attached to his ankle slowed his progress considerably. He’d hop, dragging me about six inches, then pause to catch his breath. Hop, drag, pause.

“Father Dan wants to talk—” I gasped in between his hops.

The pause this time was longer. “Father Dan?” he asked, looking down at me where I played limpet.

Suddenly, Gigi appeared in front of us, violet parka visible even in the low light, bent knee, straight-arm stance like something out of a cop show’s credits. What was she holding? I knew she didn’t have a gun because I’d locked hers away “for safekeeping” and only took it out when we went to the shooting range for practice.

“Don’t worry, Charlie,” she yelled. “I’ve got him.”

“Don’t—” I started, “don’t” being my default word of choice when dealing with Gigi, but before another sound could leave my lips, pain jolted through me, making every muscle spasm. My hands clenched reflexively around Kungfu’s ankle, and everything grayed out as he toppled.

21

I’m not sure I was completely unconscious, but I might as well have been. Grogginess and pain immobilized me for several minutes. The ability to think and analyze my surroundings slowly returned, and I realized I was lying on the gravelly ground behind Tattoo4U, with Gigi kneeling beside me, chafing my wrists as if I were the fainting heroine in some period romance. I tried to bat her away, but my hand flopped spasmodically.

“Oh, Charlie, thank goodness you’re alive,” she said, fear and relief pitching her voice higher.

I became aware of a heavy weight on my legs and tried to heave it off without success. I lifted my head and peered toward my feet. There seemed to be a body sprawled across my legs. Kungfu.

“What—?”

“I didn’t know it would shock you, too,” Gigi said. She put her face inches from mine, apparently trying to examine my eyes. “Do you have a headache? I hope you didn’t get another concussion when you fell. How many fingers am I holding up?”

Since the fingers in question were a half inch in front of my nose, I couldn’t focus on them. “Did you tase me?” I asked.

“No, oh no!” she gasped, rocking back on her heels. “I tased Kungfu, to stop him from getting away.”

I rolled my eyes. “Since I was holding on to Kungfu at the time, you tased me, too,” I said. “Don’t you know anything about electricity and conductivity?”

My tone brought tears to her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Did it hurt?”

“Try sticking your finger in an electrical outlet and then ask me if it hurt,” I bit out, shoving myself up on one elbow. At least my muscle function was coming back. So was Kungfu’s; he rolled off my legs and lay staring up at the sky.

“Damn, that smarts,” he said in impeccable, accentless English. “Shit!”

Even in my befuddled state, it occurred to me that he sounded like the product of the American public school system, not a scared immigrant from mainland China.

“Give me the Taser,” I said to Gigi, holding out my hand. “Where did you get it?”

“The Internet,” she said, handing over the weapon.

I stuck it in my pocket and clambered to my feet, brushing aside Gigi’s helping hand. I reached down to grab Kungfu by the upper arm. “Come on, Kungfu, or whatever your name is. Probably something like Bill or Jason.”

He got to his feet willingly enough, slapping gravel bits and dirt off his jeans. Standing, he was about three inches taller than me. The muscles in his arm tensed under my hand. “Did you say something about Father Dan?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, cheered that he didn’t seem inclined to make a run for it. I wasn’t up to chasing him after my near electrocution. “He’s worried about you. He asked me to find you.”

“Why you?” Kungfu asked, walking beside me as I headed for the street. Gigi trailed us, leaning forward to hear the conversation.

“I’m a PI.” I stuck out my hand. “Charlie Swift.” We had reached the street by now, and the light from the liquor store windows showed me a slim young man with black hair, smooth almond skin, and an Asian cast to his eyes.