The Best Bad Dream (14 page)

“Hey,” Jack said. “How you doing there, Pop?”

“Just fine,” Wade said. “Everything's just as fine as Christmas here.”

“Kev's all right?”

“Sure is,” his dad said. “Couldn't be any better. Things are great. Only thing is I had no idea how much homework he got in high school. Really changed since my day.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked.

“Well, he's been really late the last couple of nights. Got these term papers he's gotta do. One for English and one for history and one for civics. I don't see how they can give ‘em that much writing to do in one semester. Heck, we had one paper for the whole year.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, “but he's getting back home in time to get plenty of sleep, right?”

“Oh, yeah. Latest he stayed out was ten o’ clock or maybe it was eleven one night.”

Jack ran his hand through his hair.

“Eleven. That's entirely too late, Pop. Gotta be in the house and in bed by ten thirty. He's only fifteen, for God's sake.”

“Yeah, but the library closes at ten. He stops to get a soda with a friend, and then he comes home.”

“Friend,” Jack said. “What friend?”

“The lady librarian,” his dad said.

“He gets a ride home with the librarian?” Jack asked. “Well, that's a relief. I thought you meant he was out riding around with hoodlums.”

“You're getting him mixed up with you, son. Kevin's a good boy. I know he had that little fling last year when he was cutting school, but he's all done with that. Yep, he said he and the lady librarian had lots of nice talks about ideas and books, stuff like that.”

Jack smiled and shook his head in wonder.

Maybe his son was finally growing up after all. He'd always had a good brain; maybe he was starting to use it. To that he said a
whispered, “Thank God. He's all right.” What was he thinking? Kevin wasn't going crazy. Neither was he. He was just tired, too much pressure for too long.

“Is Kevin there now?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, but he's in his room, asleep. Got back around ten and looked completely worn out. Gotta figure he had a long day. School, then lacrosse, then all that library time. Poor little guy looks all beat up. But I'll make him some pancakes in the morning and he'll be as good as new.”

Jack smiled. His dad had always been a great fry cook and pancakes were his specialty.

“Okay, Dad, just checking in. You okay?”

“Not bad for a guy who's lame and half-blind.”

Jack smiled again. He'd only been making that joke for forty years.

“You okay, son?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, “I'm fine. I might be down here a little longer, though. This is some case.”

“That's fine, Jackie. I know you'll get your man. I got things battened down here so don't you worry at all. Love you, Jackie.”

“Love you, Dad,” Jack said, and hung up the phone. Well, he thought as he let out a sigh of relief, at least things were okay back home. Thank God for old Wade. Dad was a lifesaver.

Now if he could just figure out what the hell was going on here in Santa Fe. What the hell was Zollie doing in that house with a hollowed-out pig?

Then he remembered the crying he'd heard. High-pitched. Yeah, he'd thought it was a woman, but it wasn't. It was Zollie. He had been in the bathroom weeping over his dead hog.

He also remembered Zollie worrying that Jack was going to steal the pig. So he'd been worrying about that before Jack got there.

But why would anyone want to steal Ole Big and operate on him? What possible reason could anyone have?

Unless a doctor was doing some kind of experiment on the animal. But why? For what purpose?

Exhausted, Jack fell back on his pillows and quickly fell asleep.

But not for long.

There was a knock on the door. Not so much a knock as a scraping.

He was sure he'd heard it.

He took his Glock out of his holster on the bedside chair and crept lightly across the room.

“Who's there?”

“Kim,” the voice said. Jack could barely hear her.

Still not sure if he was being tricked, Jack kept the gun out and opened the door a crack.

Kim Walker, the beautiful publicist from Blue Wolf. But she wasn't beautiful now. Her face was bruised and beaten, her left eye blackened, and her lower lip split.

“What the . . .”

She fell into his arms. Jack held her close and half dragged her across the room to his bed. She fell on her side, whimpering.

“Jack, help me.”

“What the hell happened?” Jack asked, as he went into the bathroom and ran cold water over a washrag. He got two ibuprofens from the bottle, then went back to Kim and held the rag to her swollen right eye.

She jerked as the cold compress hit her flesh.

“Take it easy,” Jack said. “It's going to help. Can you tell me what happened?”

“I was taking a walk just outside the compound. There's a desert trail there. It was a gorgeous night, and I was trying to decompress from a busy day . . . and then . . .”

She began to cry pitifully and Jack held her.

“They came . . . they seemed to come right out of the desert. They beat me down, then they kicked me and hit me over and over. When I woke up they were gone. I wandered down to the highway and flagged a ride with a trucker.”

She sobbed and Jack used the washcloth to wipe her tears away.

“Did you see who it was?”

“No, they wore masks.”

“Masks? What kind?”

“Halloween masks. There were four of them. One was a demon of some kind and one was some kind of gargoyle. The other two were . . . I don't know. I can't remember.”

“Did they . . . ?”

She shook her head.

“No, not that. They didn't touch me. But the one with the demon mask said, ‘You should beware of the friends you make. The next time it won't be so much fun.’”

Jack shook his head. “The Jesters. They must have been watching us when we talked. Then when Oscar and I went out there . . .”

Kim nodded and put her arms around him.

“I thought I could help. But this could be either Lucky or the Jesters. He might have seen us and told them. They'll do anything to keep their business alive.”

Jack gently held her head up and made her swallow the two pain pills with sips of water.

“You never saw them?”

“No.”

“We should get you to the hospital,” he said.

“No,” she said. “I'd have to explain a lot of things and I might end up getting bad publicity for Blue Wolf. I'll be all right. Now that you're here.”

Jack nodded and pulled the covers up over her.

She was soon asleep and stayed that way for several hours. Late in the night she awoke and cried out and Jack held her and gently lulled her back to sleep.

In the morning Kim seemed much calmer, though her pain was much worse.

“Jack, thank you so much,” she said. “I don't know how I would have made it without you.”

Jack, who had slept next to her, smiled at her now and started to get out of bed. But she pulled him back.

“Can I convince you to give me a little massage first? I ache all over.”

“Why not?” Jack said.

She rolled over on her stomach and Jack straddled her, trying not to put pressure on her back.

He started lightly but she groaned and asked for more.

“You were lucky the sons of bitches didn't kill you.”

She turned her head, and Jack lay down beside her and held her in his arms.

“You've got quite a shiner,” he said, smiling.

“Maybe you can kiss it and make it better.”

Jack sighed and shook his head.

“I'd like to. But . . .”

“You're with somebody?”

“Yeah. At least I hope so,” Jack said.

“Bad luck for me,” Kim said. “Can I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“I think you're a pretty terrific guy, Mr. Morrison.”

“You, too, Miss Walker.”

They kissed but then Jack, surprising himself, got out of bed.

“There's something I want you to know,” she said. “If you ever do get free I think we would make a terrific couple. And trust me, Jack, I haven't said anything like that to anyone for a long, long time.”

Jack smiled and looked at her terrific body. He was suddenly struck with a deep regret. What was he doing falling for Michelle? Here was an unencumbered woman, the right age, and perfect for him.

But still, he thought, if it was ever going to work between himself and Michelle Wu, he had to play straight with her.

And hope against hope that she loved him and would do the same.

Kim refused to see the doctor, saying she felt much better. As she showered and got dressed, Jack called Oscar and told him what had happened.

“We must be getting close out there, bro,” Oscar said. “They're freaked out. If they have connections in Juarez, I want to know about it. Let me call some friends in my old city, hey?”

Jack agreed. If a Chinese girl had showed up in one of the whorehouses in the City of Death, Oscar would find out about it.

“I'm going to take Kim back to Blue Wolf,” Jack said. “And as long as I'm there I'm going to try and see one more thing. The medical building.”

“Good idea,” Oscar said. “You notice, bro, that everyone seems to want us to look at the Jackalope?”

“Exactly,” Jack said. “Which is why we're going to go the other way before we call in for backup.”

“Yeah,” Oscar said. “After all, that's what Sherlock Holmes would do.”

“Right,” said Jack. “And we're at least as smart as him.”

With Kim in the passenger seat Jack had no trouble getting by the guard at Blue Wolf. But after he had dropped her safely at her condo, he still had to figure out a way to get into the medical building.

What he needed was a clever diversion and he thought of one right away. One he had used ten years ago but, what the hell, there was no reason why it shouldn't work again.

Just to the right of the loading platform at the back of the medical center was a wooden guard shack with a uniformed guard inside. And about twenty feet away from the building was a fairly dense stand of bristlecone pine trees. Jack situated himself in the middle of the stand. In his hands were the matches he'd found in Jennifer Wu's apartment.

He pulled down two low-hanging pine branches and struck a match. In a few seconds they were sending up glorious spirals of smoke.

He hid behind the trees and watched as the skinny, long-nosed guard in the shack stared out at the grounds.

Any second now he would see the smoke and come out to inspect it. Jack, meanwhile, would be at the other end of the stand and be able to sneak into the building without the guard seeing him.

Jack waited for the guard to notice the gathering smoke. But the guard simply stared, without moving.

What the hell? He
seemed
to be looking right at the fire. So why wasn't he racing out to see what the hell was going down?

Then Jack realized what the problem was. The guard wasn't really staring out the window at all. He was staring down at his cell phone, no doubt playing a video game of some kind, or texting his girlfriend. Goddamn it. You couldn't use old-fashioned diversions anymore. Though there were video cameras everywhere, no one was actually watching the outer world. Instead, people were hypnotized by the latest app on their latest high-tech gizmo. It made Jack feel depressed and old.

The dependable old fire trick was now as useless as smoke signals.

Which, by the way, didn't stop the fire from burning higher and higher. Soon some of the trees would actually catch fire and his clever little diversion would be a blazing furnace that really
would
catch onto the building and burn the whole fucking place down. That would be perfect. If by some miracle Jennifer Wu was being held prisoner inside she could be charred beyond recognition by the very man who meant to save her.

Not to mention the doctors and patients.

Meanwhile, Jack would be caught and imprisoned for life as a mental patient.

He looked back at the guard, who was now looking out the window and scratching his head.

Finally! Jack saw him stick his goddamned phone in his pocket and actually open the door to the shack.

Needle-nose shouted, “Hey, fire!” in a weak voice, like the whole thing was kind of an embarrassment, then ran toward the half-incinerated tree.

Jack crept to the other side of the copse of trees and headed along a retainer wall toward the back entrance.

As he slipped inside he looked back and saw the guard running around the fire like an Indian doing a Hopi spirit dance. The guy had taken out his gun, as if he might try to shoot the fire to death.

A few minutes after he had entered the medical wing, Jack found the laundry room and borrowed some doctor's whites. Then, surgeon's mask in place, he moved along the floor, looking into every room in the place. Nurses and doctors walked by him and nodded, apparently suspecting nothing.

There were patients in practically every room, but none of them were Jennifer Wu. At the end of one hall was a meeting room. Thinking that this looked promising, Jack tried the door, found it unlocked, and went inside.

The space was decorated like a club room, with a wet bar, decent-looking leather furniture, and walls painted a pleasant shade of green with large blue wolves baying at an orange moon.

Jack looked everywhere, tried every closet door—there were three—but found nothing unusual.

Back out in the hall he came to a circular stairway that led up to the second floor. As he went upstairs he looked out the window and saw four firemen running around out back. The guard was still pointing his gun at the burned tree, like he was personally offended by it.

On the second floor, Jack walked down the hall, looking in every doorway. Most of the patients were sleeping. Many of them were heavily bandaged but it was obvious from their physiques, hair coloring, and skin tone that none of them were Jennifer Wu.

He was near the end of the hall and about to give up his search when he heard someone behind him. Jack turned and saw an old woman peering out of her room. She had wrinkles on her wrinkles, but her eyes were lively and sparkling.

“Dr. Carlson?” she asked.