"Okay," he said in a quiet voice. "I just wanted to know—"
"Don't even bother, man. It doesn't matter that you weren't really going to try any of this stuff. Or even if you were just doing a piece of research, which, by the way, is what Chase, told his buddy. You were just researching 'Intrusions of Privacy'—so stick to that. Anyway, the point being—you've lost your judgment and your professionalism. We just can't have it.
"Kincaid had to tell New York about the two incidents and they said you're gone. That's it." Metzger got an envelope out of his desk and handed it over. Trask felt ill, sloppy, blank, and embarrassed, all at once—if that were possible. There was some panic as he peered inside and saw an absence of many numerals.
"What's this?" Trask snarled ungratefully.
"That's your severance pay and I had to argue with them downstairs to get you that," Metzger explained. Trask just nodded. "I need your keys. I'm to tell you that you're persona non grata at KCM. If you show up after this—and you're to take your stuff, which we have all in one box in your office—you'll be reported to the police immediately. I'm sorry, man, but they are not amused I'm sure you'll be pissed off, but all I can say is—count your blessings. As bad as this ending is, considering your lack of judgment, it could have been much worse."
"Okay." They stood up and Babaloo offered his hand. Trask shook it and walked out. Took his key off his ring and came back and put it on the desk and left again. Went in his office. Got the box. Walked down the long chilly corridor to the elevator, not seeing anybody.
The last face he saw was the gorgeous puss of Monica Heartbreak, just as the doors slid closed.
Metzger was right, he supposed. It could have been worse. They'd never learned that he'd bugged the office of a Homicide guy. Wouldn't that be fun—say the lieutenant would find a hidden microphone among the volumes in his bookcase. Trask could imagine him talking about it to other detectives, and the vice guy adds two and two. It could keep on snowballing. Maybe the cops would decide he was the mass murderer. What a fucking nightmare!
Yet, as Metzger had said, it could have been worse. Think of the bright side: they'd never learned about that time he'd parked in VIP Sales Parking. Also…he was still clean on the Lindbergh kidnapping case.
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24
The hillside shooter, driving a rental, is loaded for bear. Polar. A nice fat polar. That fucking uncouth, stinking slob of a heavyweight, heart-gobbling, carnivorous, ursine motherfucker who was contaminating Price's ice—he had something for that big boy. A big, grave-digging antivehicle dumdum with Gangbang's name on it. After all, they were tank killers, right? And Bigfoot—shit, if he wasn't about as big as a tank. Gonna blow his fat mountain of blubbery lard to the sky.
A young girl walked by and Shooter opened his car door, winking at her. He carried his impotence around like a challenge, now, flashing it in the direction of every attractive woman he saw, metaphorically opening his trench coat and showing them his big gun.
She was right behind him. Screwed together and locked tight as young snatch. "To eliminate parallax…loosen her forward end…insert…into, female aperture L5…move the head in slight increments…" She waited in the back seat, waited for him to take her from beneath the covers.
"Hi."
"Howyadoon." A college-age boy. Shooter glanced around. He liked this hillside.
"SAVANT accessories include case cover, ammunition case, shooting gloves, entrenching and hide-excavation tools. Hole-digger, awl, spade, posthole tool, shovel, axe, pick, hatchet, lopper, saw, hammer, nails, wire pliers/grips, lumber, metal supports, sandbag, net, tarp with grommets, canvas sheet, paint, brushes, ladder, drainage tubing, auger, detection monitor, synced auto-pager, radio transceiver, auto-destruct…"
He was crazy as a fucking loon and he'd switched himself to auto-destruct.
"Hi," he said, friendly as hell. More passing trim.
"Hi." She smiled, and her pretty mouth made a phony curve. He would wipe that shit right off her face, he decided. Teach you to smile at me. This lady is a jealous bitch, he whispered to no one, reaching under the canvas cover for the weapon.
The second he touched her, that was all it took. He was instantly hot.
The smiling phony's back might as well have had a bull's-eye painted on it.
The master's touch. He glances around carefully—not that he really cares who sees him—out of long professional habit. He is alone with his lady and a primary target. He wonders if he should see if he could just graze the skull with that antivehicle round in his lady. Mercy!
Touch her. Feel her skin. Slick and hard. Smooth and where one's hand curves she curves, a tough familiar coolness that will grow warm with the pressure of flesh.
Rest the cheek just so. There is no doubt of her sexuality when one's face is pressed so close. She reeks of animal lust and controlled power. The cheek and jaw mold to her, and there is the pleasurable familiarity present with any pair of old lovers. Everything fits perfectly and feels so right to the touch.
She is without morals. She makes no judgments. Renders no decisions. Casts no jaundiced eye. She takes all comers without preconception, partiality, bigotry, bias, or subjective discrimination. She is, after all, the ultimate kind of whore, What she gives she offers to all equally. Her dark hole is always open.
Yet, conversely, the bitch is capable of the harshest, most deleterious, incapacitating, and destructive urges. She will lash out with incredible hostility, striking with nothing less than the most extreme prejudice.
He huddles close, warming her. Touching her in the most intimate ways.
Her unblinking gaze is stern and sharp. He sees as she sees, and her vision—as with everything else about her—is perfect. Nothing escapes her sight.
There is a special place underneath her where she begs to be touched. He cups her smoothness, the fingers resting near the spot that sets her loose. He does not trifle with her as she brooks no capriciousness or teasing. If his desires are genuine, however, she will know, and sensing his sincerity all it will take is a gentle, even pressure.
Without preamble she will explode at the touch, and she gets off with a bang. There is no feeling of raw power quite like it: the rush one feels as a mighty shudder blasts through her long, sleek body. The master's pleasing caress sets the beautiful bitch loose once again.
In the rearview mirror of the Buick, Daniel Edward Flowers Bunkowski sees the bleached hair of a former identity almost gone. He is on a sidestreet now, and turns down an unpaved access road beneath a hill. Just the sort of place that Shooter would enjoy killing from.
He slows. A movement or a sense of something makes him turn and he sees nothing, but the moment of intuitive feeling does not go ignored. He stops. Kills the engine. Freezes like stone; patient.
He began at the easternmost edge of the concentric circles of shooting sites, working his way to the west, basically, from Lee's Summit, various historic homes, centers, parks, landmarks, north to Sugar Creek, south to the freeway, angling back parallel to the Big Blue feature, and back south to the Sports Complex, circling the stadiums but never getting the vibes, heading west now on sidestreets abutting the Interstate, moving past Wabash…Euclid…Tracy…near the heart of the punk's comfort zone. At the corner of his vision, he'd seen something, felt a hidden presence, and it had drawn him to this unpaved road.
Finally a quail jumps, flying across the road in front of the Buick, but Chaingang's paranoia is not totally appeased. The flapping of wings and subsequent lack of vibes only infuriates him. After a long delay, he starts the engine again and slowly drives off.