One of Us (39 page)

We didn't talk much. Jamison sat impassively on the sofa, sipping from a glass of scotch. I lurked in a chair fashioned from peach-colored leather, wishing I could smoke. At eight-fifty the phone rang. Jamison jerked, his first real sign of nervousness. He put his drink down carefully, then picked up the phone.

"Yes," he said calmly. "This is he."

Then his face fell. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, turning to look at me. "There's no such person here."

He kept up the denials for a while, giving them his thespian best, but in the end he held the phone out to me. "I think your bottom-feeder's been playing both ends against the middle," he said. "Mr. Quat knows you're here."

I swore violently and grabbed the phone. "Hello, Quat," I snarled. "You not coming out to play?"

"Very fucking funny," Quat said.

"How did you know?"

"Romer told me. Just before he blew town. You really think you were going to be able to stitch me up that easily?"

"It was worth a try," I said. "Because I'm going to do it one way or the other, that's for sure. However long it takes, I'm going to make you unhappy."

"Look," he said, and his voice changed. "I'm sorry about hiding your money, and I'm sorry about putting your crime back on the 'base. Stratten made me, man. You of all people know what he's like."

"Yeah, I do. But that doesn't make any difference. I trusted you. You fucked me over."

"He had stuff on me, Hap. Bad stuff. I didn't have any choice."

"You seem to be under the misapprehension that you're talking to someone who gives a shit."

"I want to make a deal," he said hastily.

"What's the problem?" I asked, keeping the smile out of my voice as everything suddenly swung back into place. "Things getting shaky on the home team?"

"Let's just say I'd be real happy to see that bastard screwed." The words were half choked in his throat. There was no way he was going to admit what had happened to his site that morning— it's a point of honor among hackers that their domains can withstand anything that other wireheads can throw at them—but the tone of his voice said it all. The crabdaddy had done its work perfectly, wreaking sufficient damage to leave Quat furious and distraught, but leaving enough evidence for him to track where the virus appeared to have been sent from. An address that sent the clear message that Stratten had decided to hang Quat out in the wind.

"So come to Jamison's, as arranged," I said. "And we'll talk."

"Are you out of your fucking mind? I trust you just about as far as I could throw Texas. The fact you told Romer the cops don't know about Jamison doesn't mean that I'm going to believe you. Far as I know, they're lined up five deep in the bedrooms, waiting to blow me away."

"Yeah, right," I said. "Thanks to you, the cops want me for the Transvirtual job. Me and the LAPD aren't exactly hanging out at each other's houses, swapping cheesecake recipes."

"I'm not coming there," he said. "And that's final. Plus I've got a better idea."

"Which is?"

"You want Stratten. I want him, too. Let's find him and do him together."

"Quat—if I could predict where Stratten was and just go hit him, do you think I'd be dicking around, talking to you?"

"No, but I work with him. I can call him and get him to be someplace, tell him there's something he needs to know, something I can't tell him over the phone."

Bingo. Suddenly there was a route to the top, and Deck and I weren't even going to have to try to beat it out of anyone. I was so taken aback at having it dropped in my lap that I took a moment to look at it all ways. Quat could try screwing me around, but he didn't know I had Deck covering my back—and chances were he really did want to see Stratten punished for what he thought he'd done to his precious Web site. If he changed his mind at the last minute, I'd just deal with him. Quat had done more than enough to qualify as someone who deserved whatever he got. I made a mental note to thank God, if I ever saw him again, for the idea of driving a wedge between the bad guys.

"Okay," I said, and gave him Hammond's address on Avocado. "Arrange to meet him there in forty minutes."

"Shit," Quat said. "How did you know he hangs out there?"

"I'm well informed. Be there early: We're going to be a welcoming party. And don't try to double-cross me on this, my friend, or you'll find out just how pissed I am."

The phone went dead.

"Okay," I said to Jamison. "I want you out of this house. Go have dinner with somebody, or give Sleep Easy a call and get some exercise. Either way, you're gone for the evening. I don't know how far I can trust that guy, and I don't want him taking anything out on you." He nodded, and watched as I ran out the door.

Deck was standing in a hedge on the other side of the street. When he heard the door open, he pushed his way out and ran over, face a big question mark.

"The plan's changed," I told him. "Romer ratted me to Quat, but Quat's gone sour on Stratten all of a sudden. We're going to hit him together at Hammond's place, and we're going there now."

"How do you know Stratten's going to be there?"

"Quat's going to call him."

"You going to call Travis?"

"No," I said. "This gets settled by us, or not at all."

THE HAMMOND HOUSE looked exactly as it had the first time I'd gone there, just a dim light on in the living room. Deck and I sat in the car and watched it for a while, but saw no sign of someone walking toward it. Either Quat had already arrived, or he was late. I decided to wait for him inside, and opened the car door. Then I got an idea, and picked up the clock from where it was sitting on the dashboard. I told it to keep quiet unless I expressly requested otherwise, then slipped it in my shirt pocket.

"How am I going to know when you need me?" Deck asked.

"I don't know" I said. "Hang on—did Laura ever tell you what Quat looked like?"

"Yes. She went on about him for half an hour that afternoon before we were abducted: I think he made a pass at her or something, that evening she dumped the memory."

"I get the impression that most guys do. Well, let's just keep it simple. When you see someone who looks like that, come over to the house. You hear anything go off, come in."

"Hap," Deck said patiently, "that's a shit plan. I hear something go off, chances are your face has been on the receiving end."

"So what do you suggest?"

"How are you going inside?"

"Through the back door. My clock has a relationship with the lock."

"Okay. So leave the door open. This Quat guy's going to go in the front way. He's expected. Soon as I see him, I'll go right through the back and join up with you. He turns up with anyone else, or it looks like things are going weird, I'll come in making noise."

"Works for me," I said, getting out of the car. "One more thing: Try not to get yourself killed."

"Same to you." He grinned, leaning over to look up at me. "The last pair of assholes still standing win."

I ran quietly across the street, headed straight for the side of the property. The window locks peered at me as they had the last time, but again nothing appeared to go off. The clock said he could radio ahead to the lock, and sure enough, when we got there, the back door was cracked open an inch. I nudged it open a little farther, listened.

Nothing. I got my gun out and went in.

The back hallway was empty, and I could see through to the front door. Something about the house was different from last time. You know how it is with places: Sometimes they just feel warmer, more full. For some reason, I wondered if I wasn't alone in the place, if maybe Monica Hammond was home.

There was a way I could find out without revealing my presence. The appliances would know. I groped along the corridor to the kitchen and slipped into the room. A faint glow came from downlighters on the countertop, and everything was still. Including what lay on the table.

Romer was spread-eagle, hands and feet dangling off opposite ends. He'd taken a couple of rounds to the face, and someone had gone at his body with an electric carving knife, which still stuck upright in the messy remains of his chest.

I stared at him.

"Hi," said a quiet voice. I whirled around with my finger already half pressed on the trigger.

It was the food processor, sitting on the counter. "Sorry," it whispered. "Don't shoot."

"When did this happen?"

"A couple of hours ago. It was horrible."

I put it together from what the machines had overheard. Romer had decided it wasn't worth crossing Stratten by just skipping town. So, after he tipped Quat off, he'd arranged to see his big boss and tell him what he knew.

Mistake. Stratten had murdered him, because Romer let it slip that I had something on him and could use him, and maybe just because Stratten was a psychopath who was losing perspective on what he was doing. Either way, Romer had become a loose end, and he'd been tidied.

Suddenly I heard footsteps in another part of the house. I ran out of the kitchen and into the shadows, to see someone step out of the living room into the front hall.

"Stay right there," I said, pointing the gun at the shape. It didn't even jump, just turned slowly and looked at me.

"Who are you?" Monica Hammond asked, voice frosty and utterly calm.

"Public Health Inspector," I said, walking toward her. "You realize you've got a mangled corpse in a food-preparation area?"

She'd aged well, for a woman who must now be somewhere in her fifties. I guess a monstrous ego and psychotic gym-attendance will do that for you. The only differences between the person in front of me and the one I held in memory were a few lines around the eyes and the fact her hair had been cut into a seemly and expensive bob. She was still the woman who sneered at Laura that long-ago afternoon, and she looked like she'd been carved out of some cold, hard stone.

She understood that I knew about her. And she didn't care.

She looked at me like I was a son-in-law she'd always tried to pretend didn't exist. "Who are you?" she asked again.

"Just someone your boyfriend has fucked over," I replied. "One of a very great many, including Ray. Did you know that Stratten had Ray killed?"

Her eyes looked like pools of dead blood. "Of course," she said. "It was my idea."

"And you would have let your own daughter go down for it?"

"I don't have a daughter," she said.

At that moment I nearly lost it; I almost emptied my gun into her there and then. Shaking, not trusting myself to be in the same space with her, I gestured toward the living room door with the gun.

"Go back in there," I said. "And shut the door. I didn't come here for you, but if you get in the way, I'm not going to hold my fire. Go sit and look at all the things you've got, and stay out of the fucking way."

She held her ground for a moment, one of those people who's going to wring a small victory wherever they can. Then she slowly walked into the living room and closed the door without looking back. I stood there for a moment, still holding the gun out, waiting for my mind to clear.

Then things started happening very quickly.

There was a sound at the back door, and I whirled around to see Deck running in. "Quat's on his way," he hissed. "I've just seen him get out of a car."

"You're sure it's him?"

"Oh, yeah. Just as Laura described."

"Hide in there," I whispered, pointing Deck toward the dining room. "Soon as I've got his attention, come up behind him."

He darted away and I stepped rapidly back into the shadows underneath the staircase. Trained the gun on the door and held my breath:

Nothing for a couple of moments, and then the sound of footsteps coming up the path.

The click of a key turning in the lock.

Big flashing light:
How the hell has Quat got a key?

The door opened and a man stepped into the house. He didn't close the door, but just stood in the center of the hallway.

"I know you're here, Hap," a voice said. "And I don't think you're just going to shoot me. I think you're going to want to rub my face in it first."

"Stratten," I said. I felt like I was drowning in cold water. "What the hell are you doing here?" I took a step forward so I could see him more clearly.

He smiled. "But this is what you arranged, isn't it?"

"I arranged to meet Quat. Not you."

"That is Quat," Deck said from the darkness behind Stratten. "I'm telling you, Hap, that's him."

"It's Stratten," I said.

"Actually, you're both right," the man said. "And also both extremely stupid." The living room door opened, and three men came out. Deck tried to make a run for the front door, but two of them were after him immediately and within seconds he was squashed underneath them. I hurriedly stepped backward but tripped over something and fell flat on my back. Next thing I knew, I was staring down the barrel of a gun with a foot on my chest.

The big Hap-and-Deck offensive was over that quickly.

STRATTEN WAS QUAT, and Quat was Stratten with a voice modulator. It made sense, in retrospect. Stratten's willingness to trust me with memory work, because "Quat" already knew about the crime I had wiped, making me eminently malleable—a fall guy in hand, ready to deploy whenever required; Stratten's continual ability to be one step ahead of where I expected, before I stopped using Quat's call-forwarding service; Quat's unavailability when I was on the way back from Mexico, at exactly the time Stratten had been on the plane to LA from Florida. Stratten lived at the center of a web of secrets, and through the persona of Quat, he'd had access to all of mine.

Guess the fake sending code on the crabdaddy hadn't fooled anyone after all. I'd misunderstood what God had been getting at, but then as usual his message had been somewhat oblique.

Stratten's men dragged us into the living room, where Monica stood by the fireplace. I got the impression she probably hung out there a lot, as if posing for a photo. I thought about suggesting "Bitch from Hell" as a title, but I was probably in enough trouble. Deck was yanked to the middle of the room and pushed to his knees. A gun was shoved execution-style into the back of his head, hard enough to almost knock him on his face. I was pulled by the throat over to the sofa and shoved into a seated position, the barrel of a nine-millimeter fit snugly behind my ear. Stratten's goons were big guys, and our own weapons were long gone—along with any hopes of making it to a ripe old age. It was dark in the room apart from a few well-placed lamps. At least I was going to die nicely lit.