Strange Robby (20 page)

Tommy nodded. She was right. He would have liked to tell her she was wrong, but he knew it was true, because they felt the same way about him. The ones who weren't uncomfortable around him because he was Asian didn't like him because they knew he could kick their fat, fucking, out of shape, donut-eating asses.

"Yeah, if you brought charges whether you won or not you'd lose the respect of every other cop on the force. We have enough trouble getting backup as it is. Unless of course they all hate him as much as we do."

"Even if they hated him . . . Face it, he was out of line, but if I brought charges against him it wouldn't be because I felt that I had permanent emotional scars, but because I don't like him."

Spider grabbed the rear view mirror and repositioned it even as Tommy protested.

"Goddamn it, Spider . . . "

"Hey!" She repositioned it again. "Well, I'll be damned! The So-what-if guys have stopped following us."

"They were only following us in the first place because they think you know who the Fry Guy is. Which you do," Tommy said, readjusting the mirror so that he could actually see.

"Shush . . . shush . . . shush. Don't say shit like that when we're in the car. First off, I
don't
know who he is. Second, how do you know our fucking car isn't bugged?"

Tommy laughed. "Now you're just being paranoid. They wouldn't bug our car."

Spider knocked on Tommy's head. "Hello! Is anyone home?"

"Ow! Stop it!" Tommy pushed her hand away and rubbed his head. "That hurts!"

"Well, wake the fuck up, then. If they're going to follow our every fucking move for weeks, I don't think they are above bugging the car."

Tommy nodded. She had a point—and not just the one on the top of her head. "We'll go back to the garage and have the mechanic run a diagnostic. That should turn up any foreign objects in the car."

"That's not a bad idea," Spider said.

They turned around and went back to the station.

"What did you fuck up now?" Ricky the head mechanic asked.

"Nothing, butt head," Spider said. "We might have a bug in the car."

"So spray a little raid on it . . . "

"Not that kind of bug, ya fucking moron," Spider spat.

"Could you just run a diagnostic scan over the car?" Tommy asked.

"What good will that do?" Ricky asked, wiping his grease-covered hands on the hood of their car and glaring at Spider as if daring her to say something about it.

Spider didn't give a damn if the car was dirty, but she didn't like the fact that he was trying to push her buttons.

"Ricky, you goddamn weasel faced little creep . . . "

"Could you just run the diagnostic, Ricky? Then we can go," Tommy said.

Ricky nodded, popped the hood and started hooking the car up to the diagnostic.

"Don't know how this is going to help, but if it will get that bitch out of my hair . . . "

"Why you little . . . "

Tommy grabbed her arm and stopped her forward momentum.

"Did you ever hear the old saying, 'You get more flies with honey than you do with shit'?" Tommy asked in a whisper.

"He started it," Spider whispered back. "You'd think they were his fucking cars."

"Spider, the car you hit in the parking lot
was
his car," Tommy reminded her.

"That was five years ago. It was completely his fault, and his fucking insurance paid for the damage. Why can't he let it go?"

"Oh, I don't know, Spider, maybe because you keep calling him a moron?" Tommy suggested.

Spider smiled. "Like it's my fault his fucking parents were brother and sister."

Tommy laughed and shook his head.

"Except for trash and crap in the ashtray, under the seats and on the dash board it looks clean!" Ricky screamed from his place at the computer screen. "Lots of dirt in your carpets."

Spider and Tommy joined him at the computer screen.

"What's that?" Spider asked pointing.

"That's a tiny piece of dust in the overhead light, bright spot," Ricky laughed.

Spider went to the car with a screwdriver and pried the cover off the dome light. It took her several minutes of searching, but she found what she was looking for. She retrieved it and took it over to Tommy. It was no bigger than the head of a pin.

Tommy looked at it. "What the hell is it?"

"I think it's a bug," Spider said.

"Fuck me." Tommy breathed. "Ricky, you have a magnifying glass?"

"Why would I have a magnifying glass in a garage?" Ricky asked, looking over Tommy's shoulder.

"So you could see to pee," Spider answered.

"Oh, you're so funny, Webb," Ricky said without humor. "Why don't you get your own sitcom?"

"Good idea. I wonder if they could get me some fat, balding dickless fuck with thick glasses to play off of . . . Hey! What are you doing next week?"

"You call me a moron, meanwhile you think a piece of dust is a fucking bug," Ricky said.

"Shut up, both of you!" Tommy looked around, then he grabbed Ricky's glasses off his face.

"Hey!" Ricky protested.

"Just need them a second," Tommy said. He held the glasses over the speck of metal on Spider's finger, and he was looking at a bug. "Damn, we're fucked."

"You're a genius, Tommy," Spider said looking at the bug through the glasses.

Tommy handed Ricky his glasses back.

"What now?" he asked Spider.

"We throw the fucking thing into traffic so that they have to start following us again."

And she did.

"Goddamn it!"

Kirk Anderson slung the headphones across the van, as loud street noise filled her ears.

"They found the fucking bug."

Jason Baker rubbed his chin. "It's all right. We still have the others. Sooner or later she's gonna slip and give him up. When she does, we'll have both of them."

"One of those fucking things . . . " Tommy was still whispering as they were driving. They had thrown every spec of trash away and vacuumed the car, but he still didn't feel safe. "It could fucking be anywhere, in our clothes. Hell, there could be hundreds of them everywhere and a normal bug detector would never find them."

"The car scan did," Spider said thoughtfully.

"It's a diagnostic program set up to look for anything—even a piece of dust in a fuel line. It has a complete schematic of the car programmed into it. A normal detection device wouldn't have a chance. That thing wouldn't, couldn't emit enough energy. Who the fuck are these guys, Spider? Where did they get equipment like this, and why the hell are they after us?"

Spider stared out the window, obviously deep in thought.

"Well!" Tommy demanded.

"I don't know," Spider said after a moment's thought. "It's not just the Fry Guy thing. I'm sure of that."

Tommy glared at her. There was something she wasn't telling him.

"I swear, Tommy, I don't know any more than you do."

He glared at her again.

"Not about the So-what-if guys, anyway. They don't know any more than Toby does about what I know about the case—they couldn't. We certainly aren't suspect enough for them to tail us and bug us. So there has to be something else."

Tommy nodded. "But you do know who the Fry Guy is. I know that, and if they've been bugging us, you . . . then they might know, too."

Spider nodded. "I guess, but I don't think that's all of it."

"So what now?" Tommy asked.

Spider thought for a moment. "Well, I don't know about you, but after much consideration I have decided to take a personal day. Richards is down, and Carrie'll need me."

She punched up her comlink and in put the necessary data into the main computer. "Take me back to the station so I can get my car."

"Spider . . . ." He turned the car around. "What the hell are we going to do about this?"

"Well, I hate to answer a question with a question, but what the hell
can
we do?" Spider said. "If it's any consolation, I don't think they're after you. I think they're my problem. Since I have no idea who they are or what they want, I'm just going to have to wait for them to make their move and hope I can handle it when they do."

Spider found Carrie at the hospital with Richards' wife. Carrie ran to meet her and threw her arms around Spider's neck. Spider held her tight. Carrie'd obviously been crying.

"I was at work, but I thought you might want me here."

"I do," Carrie said. She dried her face on Spider's shirt and then drug her over to meet Mrs. Richards.

The woman was obviously anxious and upset. Spider felt the woman's pain, and was glad. She had often talked to wives or husbands in hospitals. Too many times there was nothing but relief and a hope that the person would die. Usually, if there was any anxiety, it was because of the bill. For most couples the love didn't last, it got torn apart by promises unkept, dreams unfulfilled, and resentment over lost time. They were trapped in a relationship they couldn't get out of without losing everything they'd worked for, or breaking vows they didn't want to keep. For them death was a welcome answer to their problems

Spider saw a world most people didn't. A world with the niceties and the bullshit striped away. Usually it was a real downer, but Mrs. Richards loved her husband and was hoping that he would come back to her healthy and whole. It made Spider feel good, and she had to work at not smiling.

She'd learned early on that you couldn't let your features show what you were getting from other people. For instance, if a man was telling a supposedly very heartfelt, touching story about his late wife, you couldn't snarl at him because the feelings you got from him were joy and a sense of freedom. You had to act as if you believed his bullshit story.

"So, how's he doing?" Spider asked Carrie when they walked down the hall to get coffee, leaving Mrs. Richards behind.

"I don't know. He's still in surgery. It doesn't look good; he's had a pretty massive heart attack. I don't really know what they're doing to him. Someone said something about an artificial valve. They're afraid he's had a stroke, but they really can't tell till he's conscious. I'd like to know what the fuck they do know. At any rate, he won't be coming back to work at any time in the near future. I don't know what's going to happen with the election. If he is able to work it's not likely that he'll be able to convince the voters that he's healthy enough to be DA. His work means so much to him. I don't know what he'll do if he can't work."

There was no triumph in Carrie. Maybe it hadn't even dawned on her yet that she might run for DA. Her only concern was that a man she liked and admired was horribly ill. Her only desire was that he make a complete recovery. Spider was glad. She forgot herself and smiled, which was, of course not what she should have done, and Carrie glared at her.

"What the hell are you so happy about!" Carrie was obviously mad. "It's not worth it to me for Richards to die because I'd like to be DA someday. Hell, I'm not even ready yet."

"I . . . I know that," Spider stammered. "That's why I was smiling. I was happy that you were so virtuous."

Carrie nodded. "I'm sorry, Honey. I forget sometimes that you're not always on the same page as the rest of us."

They had reached the coffee machine. Spider started getting the coffee as it had been ordered.

"I feel so guilty."

"You . . . Why?" Spider said.

"Because you told me he had heart trouble. I should have said something," Carrie said.

"First off, they would have thought you were crazy," Spider said, handing Carrie one cup of coffee. "That's for Mrs. Richards." She started the next cup. "Second, he knew he had heart trouble, or at least suspected, otherwise I couldn't have got it from him. I can't predict the future. He was worried about his heart . . . Worried that he was going to have an attack the day of the hostage situation in the bank."

"But his physical gave him a clean bill of health," Carrie reminded Spider.

"Doctors and tests don't catch everything. He knew he was sick." She handed a second cup to Carrie. "That's yours." She started getting her own coffee.

"So, is forewarned really forearmed?" Carrie asked.

Spider grabbed her coffee and they started back.

"Well?" Carrie prompted.

"I'm thinking," Spider answered. She thought only a second longer. "It's saved my life at least twice, and helped me save others. So I can't come right out and say no. But it has made it impossible to lead a so-called 'normal' life, who knows how many wrong turns I've made because I knew how someone felt, so I couldn't say yes, either."