Deadworld (6 page)

Chapter 9

After a fruitless twenty minutes’ worth of questioning that had Jackie ready to arrest the lot of them, she drove them back toward the city. Evening traffic had congested the roadways, but, thankfully, she and Laurel were going in the opposite direction. Some semblance of proper color had finally returned to Laurel’s face.

“You sure you’re okay?”

Laurel nodded again. “I’m fine, really. It just threw me for a loop, is all. Totally unexpected. I’m not even sure how to describe it.”

“You don’t have to,” she said. “The barfing spoke volumes.”

Laurel gave her a halfhearted laugh. “Sorry about that. Not good for the image, I know.”

“Screw the image. I was worried I’d have to call nine-one-one.”

“I’ll be okay, Jackie. A little sleep, and I’ll be good to go.”

“I’ll take you home.”

Laurel nodded, and they drove in silence for a few moments.

“So what does it mean? That it’s so overwhelming as to make you sick?”

“I honestly have no clue,” Laurel said. “Normally, when I try to contact the other side, it takes a lot of concentration and effort to just get a peep out of the spirit world. But when I touched Ms. Fontaine, it was like someone kicked open the door and bowled me over.”

“Then this whole ghost-hunting thing they claim? It’s not just a front or scam for something?”

She shrugged. “I wouldn’t go that far, but I would say there’s a whole truckload of psychic power in that office back there. If anyone could claim to be able to track down ghosts, that girl could do it.”

“What about Anderson?”

“Maybe. I tried to shake his hand before we left, but he avoided touching me like I had the plague.”

“Yeah, I noticed. Why would he want to avoid that?”

“Keep his power a secret? I don’t know. That kind of thing gets out to the public, and he’d have the tabloids all over him.”

Jackie nodded. “True enough. The bastard was avoiding everything though. He was doing his damnedest to appease us and get us the hell out.”

“Worked pretty well, too,” Laurel said with a chuckle. “We don’t have much more than what we came with. Very . . . persuasive man.”

Jackie jumped on the gas and sped around a slower-moving car before cutting back in and braking for a sharp turn onto the freeway ramp. “It’s those fucking eyes. I want to know what kind of trick he was pulling to do that.”

“I’d guess it has something to do with that power they have, or maybe it’s just because he was kinda hot.”

Jackie snorted. “Did you see the saddle above his desk? Damn cowboy wannabes. I can’t stand them. This case is heading right into the Twilight Zone, isn’t it?”

“I’m pretty sure they know something they aren’t telling us, and the cowboy schtick was real, guarantee it.”

“Ha! Pretty sure? I’ll bet you a box of Annabelle’s finest that they are hip deep in this shit. Anderson had some connection to that penny, I’m positive. Maybe Denny or Hauser can dig up something on that. I don’t like cowboys.”

Laurel sighed and sank back farther into the seat. “Maybe. We don’t have much to go on with them. The connection to that old murder case is flimsy. And you do too like cowboys. Haven’t you seen, like, every Eastwood Western ever made?”

“We work with flimsy all the time, Laur. Flimsy Bullshit Investigations. That’s us. I want to find out what he knows though. He knows something and doesn’t want to say. If there’s no direct involvement, why not tell us? Whom or what are they protecting?”

Her eyes were closed. “All good questions, grasshopper. You must meditate upon them and seek enlightenment.”

“Who’s Grasshopper?”

Laurel smiled. “Never mind. Just get me home. I really need to sleep this off, and admit it—you have a disturbing attraction to cowboys.”

She laughed. “Eastwood kicked ass and, like any good man, didn’t talk much.”

“Mr. Anderson didn’t say much either, smart-ass.”

After dropping Laurel off at her cute little bungalow house, Jackie headed back downtown and pulled into Marly’s, a local bar not far from headquarters, frequented by much of the building’s staff. A shot or two would chill her nerves and set her mind on track to see if any of the pieces were fitting together in a way she hadn’t noticed yet.

In her usual booth in the corner at one end of the bar, Jackie picked up the last fry from her basket and swirled it around in the dregs of the remaining ketchup. The crowd at Marly’s had hit the dinnertime peak. It was noisy, dim, and bustling, and she wished her timing had been better. She liked it far better when the place was half empty and you could hear the jukebox. Billie Holiday was singing, and only every third word could be heard.

More importantly, you could run a tab with Marly, and he didn’t believe water had a place in his bar other than for washing dishes. The drinks were strong. Jackie washed down her last fry with the last of her beer, setting the pint glass next to the pair of empty shot glasses Shelly had brought earlier. Shelly was a smart waitress. She never let more than two empties sit on your table. After a while you tended to forget exactly how many you had drank. Jackie could not remember. Six shots? Or was it just four? If it had been six, she would have to wait a bit before leaving. Sadly, the warmth of the tequila had not worked its wonders in untangling the day’s events, leaving her muddled and annoyed.

Across the room—through the tangled web of eaters, those meandering with drinks from the bar to their table, and a light haze of smoke in the dim lighting—some of the FBI guys were gathered at a table. Jackie had watched them come in, and, fortunately, they had not noticed her. She had moved to the other side of her booth so her back was more to them. The last thing she wanted was to get called over and asked about the case or to sit and listen to them comment on the body parts of every woman walking to the bar. Besides, Pernetti had joined them, and she just could not stand the prick. How did his wife put up with him? He was a pig with a capital
P
.

Worse, the nagging feeling about this case was not getting burned away with the wave of alcohol. Ghosts, psychics, and twelve-year-olds getting drained of blood had her stomach crawling. They’d had one case five years earlier where Jackie had witnessed enough to make her believe Laurel’s psychic weirdness was not bullshit. The case would not have been solved without her, and nothing brought about feelings of ineffectualness like the supernatural. There were no rules, no structure, no FBI training on handling that kind of strange, and this one was strange enough to freak Laurel out. Jackie hoped to hell it was just a normal psycho siphoning off people’s blood.

The image of Archie would not go away. She could see the boy running away from his fighting and screaming parents, wanting something he could never have there. It struck far deeper than Jackie wanted to admit, and the tequila was failing to trickle down that far.

Where the hell was Shelly? She wanted one more for the road, and the girl had obviously decided she had had enough. The ticket lay facedown on the edge of the table. The bitch had slipped it in at some point in the last twenty minutes. Damn stealth waitress.

Jackie picked up the check and made her way to the bar. Definitely needed one more for the road. Maybe she would just walk back over to headquarters and go through that info on the cowboy again.

“Hey, Jack!” Marly said with a welcoming grin. His burly hands moved with deceptive grace as they dried one pint glass after another and put them under the bar counter. “’Bout time you came up and said hello. Why you hiding out in the corner over there?”

She shrugged. “New case. Ugly one. Just mulling over shit, you know how it is. It’s going to frustrate me, I can tell already.”
Fucking cowboy is going to be a pain in the ass.

“Christ, Jack. Frustrated already?” Pernetti’s voice cut in like a mouthful of castor oil.

Goddamn, Pernetti.
Did the guy ever know when to shut up? She turned toward his table, which sat off the other corner of the bar. “When’s the last time you weren’t frustrated, Pernetti?” The other three at the table chuckled at Pernetti, who gave her a “is that all you got?” look and looked at her for more. They knew there would be more from Jackie Rutledge. “Not counting Charlene down in shipping.”

That garnered a few outright laughs and good-natured heckling. Pernetti’s shiny crown of a forehead flushed a lovely shade of pink. His affair with the shipping clerk was common knowledge, except perhaps to his wife.

Pernetti then sat back in his chair, waving off the barb. “Have a couple more drinks, Jack. That should ease the frustration.”

Jackie stepped back from the bar and faced Pernetti. At that moment, Shelly walked by, a trayful of food in her hands.

“Careful, hon. Leave the prick alone.”

Jackie frowned at Shelly’s back as the waitress walked off into the crowd, tray held high.
Leave him alone? He’s the asshole who started it, and now the fucker is accusing me of drinking too much? I’ll carefully plant my steel-toed boot up his ass.
Jackie pushed through the bar crowd, ignoring the beer that spilled over her arm and the ensuing swearing from the girl she had bumped into.

At the guys’ table, Jackie stopped, staring at Pernetti’s dome of a head, glowing with perspiration under the overhanging lamp. He was a bowling ball on legs. “A dozen drinks wouldn’t drown out the frustration of your presence here, Pernetti. Is it just me in particular, or are you a shit head around everyone?”

Gamble laughed, slapping Pernetti on the shoulder. “Think it’s you, Jack. Must be love.”

Jackie pointed a finger at him. “Shut up, Gamble. I wasn’t talking to you.” Something in her tone made him wisely clam up. She continued before Pernetti could get his comeback out. “You think nobody heard you fucking Charlene in the storage room? I think the security guys passed the tape around, or maybe that was the one of her sucking you off in the delivery van down at the loading dock. You and the wife should get some popcorn and have a movie night, Pernetti.”

The laughter at the table had gone quiet with her diatribe. The venom in her voice told them she was far past the joking-around stage. Pernetti’s head had gone from pink to a rosy red.

“Okay, fuck you, Rutledge. You want to tell the whole bar?”

“Sure, P,” she said, turning to face the room. “That’s a fabulous idea. You can tell them about how much I drink, and I’ll tell them about how you’re a philandering office slut who will fuck anything—”

Pernetti’s hand whipped across the table, faster than she would have figured he could move his lumbering body, and shoved her back. “Watch it, Jack. I’m not going to put up with your bullshit.”

“Or what, P? You going to take it out on a woman?” Jackie laughed. She felt on a roll now, nice and pissed. Five years she had been putting up with this pig. She suspected he was one of those types who took everything home and dumped it on his wife. The fucker had pictures of his kids on his desk, but not the wife. She had heard him call her a bitch to the other guys.
Yeah,
Jackie thought.
Bring it on, numbnut.
“According to Charlene, you ain’t got enough dick to take it out on me anyway.”

Pernetti scrambled to his feet, his face a wonderful rose red. Jackie grinned at him and shifted her right foot back just a bit for balance. She knew his type. Set them off, and it was all blind, dumb rage. There were actually a few similarities between him and a stepfather who only crept out of the hole in her mind while she slept. Her thought trailed off at Pernetti’s retort.

He leaned over the table at her, hands slapping hard down on the surface, mouth twisting into a spiteful sneer. “What you need dick for, Jack? You got the dykey little witch to lick your boot heels for—”

Jackie’s hand flashed out and slapped Pernetti across the face. He didn’t deserve anything more than a good bitch slap. If he pressed it though, Jackie was prepared to bust his crooked, oft-busted nose. At that moment, however, the ring and buzz of her cell went off in her pocket. Pernetti appeared too flummoxed to respond, holding one hand to his face in disbelief.

“Nice one, Jack,” Gamble said, pushing away from the table. He was smart enough to see some shit was about to hit the fan. “Maybe we should just get everyone outside so we can cool our heads.”

Jackie gave him an icy look and pulled out her phone while Pernetti tried to scramble out from behind the table. Everyone else had wisely picked up their drink but Pernetti, who sent his spilling across the table when he hit it trying to move around to Jackie. She flipped open the phone, noticing Laurel’s number on the screen, and keyed the TALK button, all the while enjoying his clumsy attempt to get around to her. What was he going to do, throw a punch?

“Rutledge,” she said into the cell just as, to her surprise, Pernetti did indeed throw a punch. Jackie instinctively leaned back, bringing her hand across to block, and his fist connected rather solidly with her phone, snapping the lid off and sending it to the floor. “You stupid fucker!”

Jackie returned fire, her small hands flashing out with blinding speed, even if they did not pack much punch. Pernetti’s mouth erupted with blood, and he quickly lost his balance in the puddle of beer he found himself standing in. There was no time to celebrate the glorious image, as a long arm snaked out from Pernetti and he grabbed her shirt. Jackie found herself tumbling down to the floor along with him.

“Damnit, Jackie!” It was Marly’s voice screaming at her from the bar.

“Fucking bitch,” Pernetti hissed at her through his split lip.

She scrambled to her feet, turning to smile at Marly. “Sorry, Mar. He had it coming though. You heard him, didn’t you?”

“Then take it outside, for Christ’s sake. You going to clean up that mess?”

Pernetti was getting slowly to his feet, one hand gingerly touching his lower lip. The crowd, which had been swarming in, began to dissipate back to their normal places just as quickly. What could she do? Jackie shrugged, a pained smile on her face. “Sorry. Really. He just . . . you know . . .” She sighed and bent down to pick up her busted phone, hoping Laurel wasn’t trying to reach her about anything important.