“This may sound like pots and kettles coming from me, Daddy – but jeez, you look like death warmed over.”
“And only lightly warmed over, at that,” I said. I hung up my coat and went over to look in the fridge. “Oh, you got me some pineapple juice – thanks, sweetie.”
“No problem, she said. “Would you like me to make some coffee to go with it? We could hook up an IV drip and put the stuff directly into your bloodstream.”
“I’ve had more than enough coffee already,” I said. “Besides, I’m done fighting sleep. In a little while I’m getting into bed, and sleep and me, we’re gonna embrace like horny teenagers.”
“Fatigue seems to make you poetic,” she said. “Have you really been awake for two days straight?”
I sat down and had a big swallow of juice, closing my eyes in sheer pleasure as it slid down my throat. Getting my eyes back open took some effort. “Afraid so,” I said. “A couple of things I had going didn’t quite work out as planned.”
“Like what?”
Knowing there wasn’t much time until dawn, I ran it down for her as briefly as I could. Making myself focus was hard. It felt like my brain was swimming through a river of sludge.
When I’d finished, she said, “Holy shit,” and shook her head slowly. “Poor Karl. Poor you, for that matter.”
I lifted my shoulders in a shrug that took more effort than it should have. “It all worked out, eventually. Things are actually looking up, a little.”
“What Karl did with the cross, though – that’s just… fucking awesome. I can’t wait to talk to him about it.”
I gave her a crooked smile. “Guess you vampires aren’t the spawn of the devil, after all.”
“I never thought I was,” she said, smiling back as she shut down her laptop. “I’m the spawn of Detective Sergeant Stanley Markowski, who’s only devilish once in a while.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got the beginnings of an idea that might take ‘devilish’ to a whole new level.”
“Really? I’d love to hear all about it.” She stood up, glancing toward the window. “But now it’s time all good vampires to go off to bed – and I’d say the same about one Detective Sergeant as well.”
“No argument from me,” I told her. “I’ll fill you in on the rest at breakfast.”
“I can hardly wait,” she said, then bent over to give me a kiss on the cheek. “Goodnight, Daddy. Sleep well.”
“I think that’s pretty much a sure thing,” I said. “’Night.”
I set my alarm twice that day. The first time was for 11.00am so that I could put in a call to Ted Kowal in Philadelphia. Fortunately, I caught him at his desk in the Organized Crime Unit, and it didn’t take much persuasion for him to agree to what I wanted.
“Alright, Stan – I’ll send it to you as a Word doc attachment before I go off shift,” he said. “You sure you want me to use your personal email address for this?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Christine nagged me into upgrading our home computer setup, so I’ve got a pretty good printer here.”
“Uh-huh. And I suppose once I’ve sent it, you want me to delete the message from my ‘Sent Mail’ file, and then get amnesia about this whole conversation.”
“Exactly. You’re a pretty smart guy, Teddy,” I said. “Makes me glad the Pittston cops never found out about that time in high school when you–”
“Oh, go fuck yourself, Stan.”
“I tried that once – threw out my back something awful.”
I reset the alarm clock for half an hour before sunset and went back to sleep. If I’d known what was waiting for me, I would’ve just stayed awake, exhaustion be damned.
I was chasing Patton Wilson, who looked the same as the last time I’d seen him – iron-gray hair, tan, slim build. He ran pretty damn well, too, for somebody in his sixties. I pursued the bastard all over Scranton, but it was a Scranton without people except the two of us – deserted streets, abandoned cars, all the buildings silent and dark. There were storm clouds above us with big, dark thunderheads. I was kind of amazed at my ability to keep up with Wilson for so long, but also frustrated because I wasn’t gaining on him. He stayed about fifty feet ahead of me. He couldn’t seem to find the speed to pull away, but I wasn’t closing the gap, either. Fifty feet between us, all over town. Then Wilson started taunting me, throwing words back over his shoulder like mud balls.
“You’ll never catch me, Markowski! You’re too old, too slow, and too stupid!”
“I almost got your ass last time, in that warehouse!” I yelled. As devastating retorts go, it left a lot to be desired.
“Close only counts in horseshoes, you Polack cocksucker!”
I’d read that Wilson had gone to some fancy college years ago. Harvard, Dartmouth, one of those places. Apparently it hadn’t helped him develop a refined vocabulary.
“Know why you’ll lose, Markowski? Rules! You have to follow all those stupid cop rules, and I don’t. I do what I want, when I want, to whom I want.”
At least, he’d known enough to use “whom”. A point for the psychopath. It occurred to me that Wilson was starting to sound like a James Bond villain, and I wished Karl was here to see it – he gets a kick out of that stuff.
He was right about the rules, though – damn his rich, crazy ass. But I was finally starting to run out of steam, and my lungs were burning. I’d have to stop soon, and Wilson would get clean away and finish his plans to get control of my city. One of the rules cops have to follow is that you can’t shoot a fleeing suspect, if he’s unarmed. You’re supposed to catch and subdue him “using nonlethal means,” as the manual puts it.
Well, fuck the manual – and fuck the rules, too. I reached under my jacket to draw the Beretta from my hip holster. And the holster was empty.
Ahead, Wilson came to a sudden stop and whirled to face me. He was holding my gun. “This what you’re looking for?” he said with a smirk. “Then, by all means, let me return it to you – one bullet at a time.”
He cocked the weapon and aimed it right in the middle of my face. His expression said, “I win again, sucker. I always win.” Then he squeezed the trigger.
The alarm woke me up before I had the chance to die.
I sat on the edge of the bed for a few minutes, trying to shake what was left of that fucking dream out of my brain. Then I got up and checked my email. Teddy hadn’t let me down. The document attached to his message was exactly what I’d asked him for, and I started printing it – all ninety-four pages’ worth.
Over breakfast, I told Christine about the plan to pass on the news about Phil Slattery’s verbal indiscretion to the Times-Tribune.
“That ought to have him spitting blood over his morning paper,” she said.
“I hope so,” I said. “Karl really wants to be the one to do it – maybe I should let him.”
“Why’s he so eager?”
“He thinks if he leaks the story, he can get the paper to refer to him as ‘Deep Fang’.”
She chuckled, then took a sip from her cup of Type O. “Deep Fang – if that isn’t the name of some porno film, it should be.”
“What do you know about porno films?” Sometimes it’s hard to stop being a parent.
“Me?” She touched the fingertips of one hand to her chest, like some Southern belle in the movies. “I don’t know a blessed thing about such matters, Daddy. I’m as pure as the virgin snow.” She gave me a wicked grin. “Or I was – until I drifted.”
I decided this wasn’t a topic I wanted to explore with my daughter, so I said, “Well, Slattery drifted, too – with some help from Karl.”