Zero Sum Game (18 page)

For the second time that day, we pulled over to let police cars scream past on their way into the park. I didn’t start to breathe normally until we were back in traffic on Los Feliz and headed toward the freeway.

Night was falling, and I flicked on the van’s headlights as we merged onto the 5. Beside me, Tresting made a quick call to leave a message for Leena Kingsley—he told her he didn’t think she was in danger, but the stakes were going up and maybe she should get gone just in case—and tapped out a couple of text messages before taking the batteries out of both his smartphone and the burner phone we had used to call Finch’s boss. Smart man. My phone was already in pieces in my pocket, even though only Tresting, Checker, and Rio had the number. Less trackable was always better.

“Did you really tell Checker about Finch?” I asked.

“Asked him to check on the name for me; that’s all.”

I laughed. “Good show back there, then.”

“I’ll make sure he’s up to speed. Good insurance policy, sounds like, and Checker’s thorough. Won’t be easy for them to get around him.” He paused, and his voice became weighted. “Course, I don’t have the full story.”

I felt a little bad about that. “I took Courtney back to her place to pick up some cash,” I explained. “A bunch of men in suits were there searching for something. Two of them were Finch and our friend Steve.”

“They find what they were looking for?”

“I don’t think so. But it’s how I knew he wasn’t a Fed—none of it exactly struck me as FBI procedure. Plus, one of the guys was British, and Finch had some other accent, too. He only started to sound American when we saw him at Kingsley’s.”

“Yeah, I got that he wasn’t American,” said Tresting. “Kept using the word ‘mobile’ for his cell phone. Knew you were on the money with him from that.”

I frowned. “Is that strange? I say ‘mobile’ sometimes.”

“I noticed that,” said Tresting. He didn’t elaborate, however, instead switching topics entirely. “And Dawna Polk?”

Cards on the table, I supposed. Dawna Polk…even the thought of her name was enough to make my throat close bitterly, and for my stupid headache to begin throbbing again. I swallowed. “She mojo’d me the last time we talked. I told her exactly where I was headed next and didn’t even notice.”

“But you sussed it out later.”

“Yeah. It took a lot. Rio knew me well enough to see it and prod until I connected that something was wrong.” I hesitated, then added, “She did a number. She had me utterly convinced she was harmless.”

“You didn’t mention this before.”

“Well, yeah; it was embarrassing. I thought she had drugged me. I didn’t start to put it together any more than that until we were talking to Kingsley.”

“But you did put it together. Seems our new friends think that’s a touch improbable.”

I frowned, watching the road. “If what they say is true, I don’t know why I was able to. Or how. All I know is that resisting her seems to come with a nice side effect of chronic headaches.” I paused. “And that I definitely wouldn’t want to talk to her again.”

Tresting sat back and digested that. I felt like brooding myself. This whole thing was far beyond anything I usually dealt with. We had another global organization after us now—another one with tremendous resources and no compunction against violence. Not to mention the whole “Dawna Polk, Functioning Psychic” thing…

The twilight had nearly turned to full dark while we inched forward in traffic before Tresting spoke again. “Where you headed?”

“I keep a few places around the city in case I need to get off the grid, but I figured we’d drive around and swap cars a few times first,” I answered. Go Cas, ever prepared.

“Russell,” said Tresting, “I don’t think I can work with you.”

Dammit. Not this again. Maybe I could make him understand. “Look, I know you don’t like Rio—”

“No.” He rubbed his forehead with one hand, like someone with a migraine coming on. “Well, yeah, that’s an issue. But it ain’t him, Russell. It’s you.”

Something constricted inside me. “What does that mean?”

He took a deep breath. “Life is cheap to you.”

I started to get angry. “Those snipers had rifles pointed at us. It was self-defense.”

“Yeah, and why was that? Your little trick with the hunk of wood? Violence ain’t always the best choice, you know. If you didn’t—”

“We don’t know he was going to tell them to let us go,” I countered, bristling. “Maybe he was going to give the order to shoot on sight instead. Did you ever think of that?”

“Maybe,” said Tresting, “and maybe we could’ve got out of there without anyone hurt at all if we just walked away. Without anyone else dying. And without another dozen eyewitnesses fingering us for a crime.”

“You don’t know that,” I argued. “Any of it could have gone either way. And I did just save both our lives—
again
—so a little gratitude might be in order!”

“Gratitude?” He shifted in his seat to face me. “You caused the whole damn situation in the first place! And shooting off a bunch of rounds in a crowded park—what if you’d hit an innocent?”

“I knew I wouldn’t,” I tried to defend myself. “I’m really good at what I do—”

“Which is what?” challenged Tresting. “Killing people? Threatening people with guns? Punching them when they insult you? That what you so good at?”

I fumed in silence for a minute, revving the engine hard and then slamming on the brakes every time traffic moved a few inches.

“You got some good in you,” Tresting said quietly. “You do. But you also scare the shit out of me.”

Usually I enjoy scaring people, but for some reason, hearing Tresting say that gave me a crumpled feeling inside. I didn’t like it.

“And you’re a smart kid, shit, maybe brilliant, but for some reason your first solution is always to pull the trigger,” Tresting continued after a moment. “And I can’t work with that. I can’t.”

“I don’t go around killing innocent people,” I said stiffly.

“That guy just now, in the park,” said Tresting. “You went to shoot him.”

“Piece of crap gun misfired,” I said. “Look, he was trying to grab us or kill us, one of the two—”

“Yeah, and that’s another good reason to avoid that sort of fubared situation in the first place: what if you got a jam in the middle of capping those snipers? Or if there was more than four? But that ain’t my point. First you tried to shoot him, and then…I don’t know where you learned to fight, but you kicked him so hard…” He swallowed. “Shit. I was almost sick on the street right there.”

I thought back. I’d been in the throes of adrenaline at the time, but now I could remember the feeling of his face collapsing against my boot—I cut off that line of thought. “He was a threat,” I insisted stubbornly.

“And now he’s dead, ain’t he?” said Tresting. I didn’t answer. “What about our buddy Finch and his boss? They dead too?”

“No,” I said. “It would’ve been too hard to get the leverage from that distance.”

“Listen to yourself,” Tresting said, his voice cracking.

They’re enemies,
I told myself.
Taking out an enemy is not wrong.

“How about me, back in that motel bathroom?” Tresting said. “Just couldn’t get the leverage then neither?”

I didn’t answer.

“Too small a space, I guess,” he filled in for me after a moment. “Lucky me.”

“You were threatening me with a gun,” I pointed out angrily.

“The rate you do that yourself, it should count as a hobby.”

I accelerated and slammed on the brakes a couple more times.

“Drop me in East LA somewhere,” said Tresting.

“Pithica’s after you,” I reminded him, trying to keep my tone neutral. “And the police. And now these guys—without me around and whatever they want from me, they’ll just kill you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Right.

I pulled off the freeway and found the seediest-looking neighborhood I could to park the van in. We both got out, Tresting giving his door handle and seatbelt a quick wipe down with a napkin as he did so.

“I guess this is good-bye, then,” I said.

We stood awkwardly.

Then Tresting spoke, with an obvious effort. “Thanks again for saving my life, back at my office.”

I shrugged a little too harshly. “We’re even.”

“Russell.”

“Yeah?”

“Think about what I said, okay? You’re a good kid. You ain’t gotta be like this.”

“I like how I am just fine,” I said.

“Take care of yourself.”

I shrugged again.

He turned and walked away, leaving me on a graffitied street corner that smelled vaguely of human urine. My adrenaline had faded into listless fatigue.

Well, I supposed it was time to steal another car and head to one of my bolt holes. Cas Russell, ever prepared.

I sighed.

Why did people have to be so complicated? I thought of Dawna Polk’s superpowered human relations ability, and a spark of jealousy twinged. Dawna Polk would have known how to say exactly the right thing so that Arthur
understood
her. He’d have been eating out of her hand.

I, on the other hand—well, I could have killed him in less than half a second, but that didn’t help at all. In fact, a niggling voice in the back of my head reminded me that attitude was what he had such issue with in the first place.

Why am I even upset?
I wondered. I was used to being on my own. I’d never concerned myself with what anyone else thought of me before. Why now?

Fuck, I thought, I’d started to care. Somewhere in this whole mess, I’d started to care about Arthur—whether he lived or died, what he thought—Jesus, I was even feeling
friendly
toward him.

Well, there was an easy solution to that, clear and simple: stop caring.

And I’d better make a mental note never to make such a stupid mistake again.

Chapter 18

I decided
to walk for a little while to clear my head; the night air felt good—and, I’m not going to lie, I sort of hoped someone would try to mug me, but nobody did. Eventually I ended up near a metro station, and on a whim I elected to travel legally for once. I tended to forget LA had a metro system.

I took the line up to Union Station, where I stopped at a tourist stand to buy a large and obnoxious “I ♥ LA” T-shirt, a baseball cap, sunglasses, and a tote bag, and then found a toilet to change in. The sunglasses covered half my face, including most of the bruising that made me look like I had raccoon eyes, and with the baseball cap and loud T-shirt and sans tall black guy next to me I was sure I wouldn’t catch anyone’s eye as matching certain witness reports. The T-shirt was thin, so I rolled most of my hardware up in my jacket and stuck it in the tote bag, leaving only one of the Glocks tucked in my belt underneath my clothes.

I rode the subway for a while after that, zigzagging the city and letting my mind go blank. I didn’t want to think about Arthur, or Leena Kingsley, or Dawna Polk and what she might be capable of doing. I didn’t have much I could do about any of it anyway.

Courtney Polk was probably dead. Maybe I should drop the case and disappear into the woodwork—I didn’t precisely live on the grid anyway; I could get a new set of IDs and head off to a new city, and just let Pithica or anybody else try to track me down. I could leave Steve and his people chasing Dawna Polk, and the police chasing their tails, and Arthur and Checker doing whatever the hell they wanted, and Pithica could keep playing its merry game—I didn’t really care. And screw Courtney. Dawna had hired me to rescue her under false pretenses anyway and hadn’t even paid me.

The thought of abandoning Courtney gave me a squirmier feeling than anything else. I’d never broken a contract before. My priorities probably proved Tresting’s point about me being a bad person.

I tried not to think about that either, or what Tresting had said to me.
Your first solution is always to pull the trigger…
That wasn’t a bad thing, I insisted to myself. It meant I survived, and would keep surviving. I needed to keep reminding myself of that, because Arthur’s words kept echoing in my head, tedious and ugly and irritating.
Life is cheap to you…

I rested my head against the dark train window, exhausted. My trail was clear as far as I could tell; some sleep might finally be in order. Maybe everything would look better in the morning.
Fat chance of that.
More likely everything would be far more apocalyptic in the morning when I wasn’t strung out on fatigue. Too drained to bother stealing another car and driving a long distance, I switched trains to head back toward Chinatown—I had a little hole of an apartment paid up a few blocks outside of it. I fell into a doze on the way there and almost missed the stop.

It was the middle of the night when I finally reached my bolt hole, and I was almost afraid I wouldn’t remember where it was. But no, I found the ugly, rundown building and the outside door that led into the room I kept there. I studied the address and concentrated; I had an algorithm for where I hid keys that used the house number and the letter count of the street as inputs. I measured with my eyes and leveraged up the appropriate brick—ah, there it was.

I barely got inside the room before I collapsed on the thin mattress in one corner and fell asleep. At least I didn’t dream.

I woke up in the middle of the next morning. The room was still dim; heavy curtains hung over the one small window that was too grimy to see through anyway, but I could hear traffic out on the street and someone yelling in Chinese, and my watch told me it was after ten. Fuck. I’d slept for a long time.

I sat on the thin mattress and ate some cold breakfast out of a can while I tried to think. I had a lot of people after me right now. Fortunately, none of them knew who I was, and I was as prepared as a paranoid crazy person could be for needing to stay out of sight, hence places like this that I kept paid up and stocked with food and basic medical supplies. I had a box of other necessities here, too, hidden in a nook carved out of the drywall: a bundle of cash and another firearm at the very least. My bolt holes varied with what supplies I’d stashed in them, but they all had the basics.

So potentially I could do what I’d thought about last night and disappear. The easiest way out would be to lie low here indefinitely, then stuff a bunch of cash in my pockets and get the hell out of LA. Switching my base of operations to another big city would make no difference at all to me. I had no reason on earth not to get out, and every reason to run as far as possible from a place where a lot of people seemed to want either to kill me or to scramble my brains into an omelet.