20 – Warbrain

Holden hated lying to Ahmed. He hoped he never found out about it.

All the way to Seattle, Ahmed tried to talk him out of “seeking revenge” or “going off half-cocked” (oh, the fun you could have with that phrase), and after a bit Holden let him get his way, telling him to just drop him off at his apartment. He said he had a client to meet at the Sheridan in a couple of hours anyways. That sent Ahmed off on his usual lecture about how exploitative prostitution was, even if he didn’t feel exploited, blah blah blah. He’d heard it several times before. It wasn’t that Ahmed didn’t have a point, because of course he did, and all day (and night, sometimes both) he worked with broken people who often had such things in their past or present. Of course he was right.

But Holden knew he wasn’t broken. He’d decided long ago he was going to sell himself, sure, but he was going to exploit his clients, not the other way around. And if Ahmed thought they were broken, he hadn’t met their clients. Most of them were the sorriest son of a bitches he’d ever met. Sad, sad people.

But maybe it took one to know one.

Holden called Seattle Fitness from his home, and was able to wheedle Jessie’s number from someone with a bullshit story about having to cancel an appointment he made with him but he’d lost his business card. (He just guessed Jessie had a business card. It was a correct guess.) He then called Jessie and got his machine, and he left a very succinct message: “Hey, Jessie, I’m a friend of Colt Brixton’s, and he gave me this digital video file on a jump drive that I bet you’ll want to have. If you’re not interested, I’ll give Kyle a call.” He then recited his phone number and hung up.

He had time to pour himself a gin and juice for courage and turned on his stereo, giving himself some background music to distract him from his darker thoughts. Ironically – or maybe not – he still had his iPod plugged into the stereo, and it started playing that The National song, the one that started with the lyrics “They’re gonna send us to prison for jerks”. He always thought it was a funny song because its chorus was “They’ll find us here in the guest room/ Where we throw money at each other and cry”. Presumably the song was about a bad relationship, but he thought it had the hooker/client relationship down pretty well. Same thing, perhaps. He then made a call to someone he didn’t call very often, a guy named Phat.

He had time to change his shirt, to put on a skin tight black tank top that showed off his broad chest, and had stripped down to his underwear by the time the phone rang. It had taken Jessie twenty five minutes to call back.

“What the fuck do you want?” he snarled. Holden could almost hear the foam frothing at the corners of his mouth.

“Don’t be that way,” he replied, turning on the teasing, oozing charm he usually adopted when he was trying to calm his more nervous clients. Usually newbies or virgins. “I’m not so crass as to want to blackmail you. I have a much more … profitable proposition for the both of us.”

“Who is this?” he demanded, sounding suspicious.

“A businessman. Call me Marco. Can we meet? I’m on my way to Seattle right now.” Although in general a lie was easier to swallow when sprinkled in with some truth, sometimes Holden discovered there was a strange emotional symmetry when you did nothing but lie. People felt better, found it easier to swallow when the bullshit was so smooth and pretty and even.

“You’re lying,” he accused. He sounded unsure. “You don’t have a copy of the tape. This is bullshit.”

“That thing on your left butt cheek – was that a mole or a pimple? I couldn’t tell since the lighting was so poor.” It was a pimple – Jessie had a case of bacne, suggesting steroid abuse, but to tell him he knew of it would give the game away.

Jessie was quiet for a long time; all Holden could hear was his ragged breathing. Finally, he told him to meet him at an address in two hours. Holden agreed, hung up, and immediately Googled the address.

A private home in the well off part of the Madrona district. Jessie’s place? A good guess, and he was glad that his hunch that Jessie would want to meet in private was the correct one. He probably wouldn’t tell anyone of the meeting either, sealing his fate.

Holden pulled on vaguely out of fashion baggy jeans, baggy enough to hide what he was carrying, and was finished dressing when there was a knock at the door. Phan – known on the streets as Phat – was there, a rangy, short guy in a baggy canvas jacket and camo pants, emo boy shaggy hair squashed awkwardly under a dark knit cap and sticking out beneath it like warning spikes. He was an average looking Vietnamese guy who looked seventeen but was in actuality twenty five, a father twice over by two different women, and supposedly had a cousin who was some sort of Asian gangster, but if that was true, why was he simply a street corner dealer? Maybe he was trying to work his way up. Gangsters all had to start somewhere.

“Y’know I usually don’t make house calls,” he sniffed, as he made like he was going to shake his hand, but slipped him the plastic wrapped package from his palm. Holden took it, shoving it in his pocket, where he also pulled out the folded money and hid it in his hand as he grabbed the front pocket of Phat’s camo pants and pulled him forward, as if threatening to give him a kiss. He snuck the money in his pocket. “Hey, no fag stuff,” he warned.

“Take it like a man, Phat,” he teased, leaving in a hard edge. “You never know who could be watching.”

That seemed to remind him how dangerous this was, and Phat, twitchy at the best of times, seemed to visibly fidget. “Yeah, yeah. But why d’ya want the bad stuff -”

“The less you know, the better off you are.”

He hardly needed to think about that. He just nodded, sniffing again. Either he had a constant cold that wouldn’t go away, major sinus problems, or he was a big fan of coke. “Got a new shipment of Viagra over the border.”

“I’m good, but I’ll let you know when I need some,” he said, and closed the door on him. Not that Phat cared, as he was already turning away. Phat may have been a street dealer, but he rarely dealt in your standard drugs; he dealt mostly in prescription and “club” drugs, and made better money than you’d think by both his wardrobe and his pedestrian tastes. Less violence that way too.

Holden prepared it and got it ready, putting the final result in a small velvet bag that he had no idea how he acquired. Just one of those things that occasionally seemed to breed and materialize in the chaotic darkness of junk drawers. He checked himself out one more time in the mirror, making sure there was no suspicious bulges, and put on his white leather motocross style leather jacket, which always made him feel like a whore. He wasn’t actually sure why, but he felt that something about the jacket screamed, “I’m a cheap hooker”. And that was fine by him. The more harmless Jessie thought he was, the better. The last thing he grabbed was the jump drive, which did have something pornographic on it, but it wasn’t Jessie’s sex tape.

He drove up to Seattle, listening to the indie station Roan loved so much, and wondered about the fear and weariness he heard in Dylan’s voice earlier. Was something wrong with Roan, no matter what he actually he said? That must have been it. Gruff old Roan liked men who wore their hearts on their sleeves, men who were the opposite of stoic, butch him. He felt bad for Dylan. Roan was a bit like a rickety carnival ride: you thought you were prepared for the trip you were about to go on, but no one ever really was. He wasn’t for the faint hearted.

Holden had lost all sense of time. He couldn’t remember when he started this day, and now it was night, the sky a black blanket, headlights blinding and taillights molten. When did he last sleep or eat? He was overdue for both, but he was wired right now. He had something to do first, miles to go before he could sleep.

He parked his car a block over from Jessie’s home, and walked the rest of the way on foot. It gave him time to do a little reconnaissance, stake out the place. The neighborhoods were supremely quiet, and he seemed to be the only person walking on either street. He pulled on his gloves before he was in view of the house.

Jessie had a modest – for the Newberrys – two story house with a peaked roof and a well landscaped front yard. He had a high fence around the backyard, blocking it from view, and Holden was willing to bet his left nut he had a pool back there, perhaps a hot tub, and even a pony wasn’t out of the question. If you assumed a Newberry had more money than sense, you were generally on firm ground.

Jessie was just as he looked in his Facebook photos: grotesque. Less handsome in person, which seemed impossible, Holden wasn’t sure if the steroid abuse was ravaging him or if he had his photos touched up first. His pores looked too big on his gaunt, angular face, which still had the counterintuitive puffiness that suggested HGH use. It didn’t help that the look on his face was so sour and aggressive, making him look even more hideous.

Jessie looked around before holding the door open, making sure he was alone, but he didn’t say anything until Holden was inside and he’d shut the door. “Where’s the fucking drive?” he snapped.

“We talk business first,” he countered, still oozing friendly charm, giving him a toothy smile. “Then I’ll give you the drive if you’re not interested in what I have to say.” Sometimes his own ability to lie shocked the hell out of him. It was so easy, so natural to him that the truth was actually hard. Lying was second nature, and considering his preacher dad, he wondered if it ran in the family: a bullshit gene. Carried by all successful evangelists, politicians, and con men everywhere.

“I’m not interested,” he snarled, pale blue eyes narrowed to slits. Even as he growled, he jerked his head towards the living room. Jessie’s growl struck Holden as comical. It was a Human noise, pathetic, meant to be tough and scary but actually the exact opposite. After having heard Roan growl – really growl; not a Human noise, but a shit your pants lion wants to kill you and eat your entrails  growl – any attempt by anyone else made him want to laugh. They had no idea what a real growl was, and how scary it could be, especially when accompanied by the sounds of breaking bones and snapping joints. “Why the fuck you wearing gloves?”

“I’m a bit OCD, I’m afraid. Do you know you mostly get colds from shaking hands or touching doorknobs? It’s disgusting the amount of germs that are everywhere.” He’d deliberately talked in a higher octave, deliberately playing up a natural inclination to lisp. He wanted to sound the stereotypical interior decorator  fairy you could find on any sitcom, the harmless queen who screamed bloody murder if he saw a spider. Let Jessie believe he was harmless; let him believe he could never be any threat to a brawny he-man like him.

Jessie’s room looked like a Best Buy display. All the latest electronic toys that a boy could want was sparkling new and ready to go, from the big screen HD TV to the home theater system, the stereo with enough bass to rattle your fillings loose, a Wii and a Playstation of some sort (Holden just didn’t know video game systems) sitting side by side, a skeletal framed metal desk with a computer with its own wide flat screen monitor, perhaps in case he got bored of watching porn on the big screen. “Your name isn’t Marco,” Jessie said, his aggression naked in his voice.

So he knew who he was. That confirmed that either John told him about the detective he hired to look into Joel, or he found out in another way. Holden turned and fixed him with one of his seductive half smiles. “I said for you to call me that. It’s one of my names – I have three. Which one do you know me by?”

Jessie was wired. Sweat beaded on his broad forehead, even though he was only wearing a sleeveless red muscle shirt and navy jogging shorts, and his muscles in his arms and jaw seemed to tense and flex according to their own rhythms, a visible symphony of anxiety and barely suppressed rage. He wanted to rip his head off. Good thing he came prepared to take on an angry gorilla. “Holden somethin’. You’re the fag whore that used to get with Uncle Joel.”  He didn’t even try and hide his sneer of contempt. “You know Colt? Was this a set up or somethin’?”

“Hardly. All us fag whores know each other.” He said that with a certain amount of sarcasm, but he was sure it sailed far over his head. “After having seen you in action, I must admit, I thought you’d be perfect for this new venture I’m launching with a friend of mine. We’re getting into porno, web content only, and with your body, you’d be perfect for our muscle category. I’ve put out some feelers towards Kyle, he’d be more of a frat boy style guy, but he seems to insist on anonymity. If you have no objections about wearing a slave mask while fucking, I think we can swing anonymity for both of you. Now, it’s going to be a subscription only deal, so not everyone will be able to access it -”

“Are you fucking insane?!” Jessie roared, stomping towards him in a menacing way. Holden didn’t react – to back up was to show fear, and to show fear was to invite death, so he held his ground and met his gaze straight on. “I’m no faggot! And I certainly ain’t no fucking – get out of my house! Get out!”

“And take the drive with me? Sure.”

He glared at him, a muscle jumping in his jaw, his thin, cracked upper lip curled up as if caught by an invisible fishhook. God, what an ugly man. “I listened to your disgusting fucking pitch. Now give me the drive.”

“Have you actually seen the footage, Jessie? It’s interesting.”

Jessie’s eyes were so narrowed they were almost gone. His hair was slicked back, as if he’d just gotten out of a shower, but he still smelled like rank sweat, and combing his dull brown hair back so sharply only revealed his receding hairline, making his forehead look like it was creeping up his skull. “I wouldn’t watch that disgusting – I was drugged! Kyle did that, he … he’s sick! I ain’t no sissy fag!”

“Of course not,” Holden agreed, all too aware he was lying. He was dying to ask if they gave him roofies laced with Viagra (the special kind that didn’t make your face flush) since he was so visibly hard and obviously came, but he wasn’t here to provoke a fight. He was here simply to dispense a little justice. “In fact, what I caught on the recording might be actionable.”

Big word, too big for a muscle head like him. He scowled, making a vein throb in his forehead. “What?”

“There’s a part where Kyle and Colt say something to each other, and you’re not visible. They’re whispering, but it does seem like Kyle is setting you up, from what I can hear.”

He was counting on ‘roid rage’s bastard cousin, paranoia, to step in here, and it did. The expression on his face was as naked as any child’s; he was buying it. “Setting me up for what? What did he say?”

“Advance to time code 18:23 and see for yourself,” Holden replied, pulling the jump drive out of his pocket.

Jessie glanced at it briefly before ripping it out of his hand violently and stalking over to his computer, plugging it into the USB port and waiting for his computer to acknowledge it. He was muttering to himself angrily, “Fucking Kyle, I fucking knew he was up to something. He’s always fucking me over, egotistical bastard -”

While he ranted, Holden pulled the hypodermic needle out of the velvet bag, and since it seemed Jessie was left handed, he adjusted his target to his right arm.

Jessie had pulled up the file and was advancing to the time code. “I see what you mean about poor lighting.” A brief pause. The living room had hardwood floors, but the center of the room was taken up by a large fluffy white carpet that Holden couldn’t imagine owning because it would have been hell to clean. But since Jessie probably cleaned up none of his own messes, he could probably afford it. It muffled footsteps very nicely. “Hey, this isn’t us.”

The good thing about a muscle head? Veins were visible at all times. Holden jammed the needle in one in his right upper arm and depressed the plunger. Jessie reacted, a yelp and a smack that sent Holden flying across the room until he hit the brown leather sofa, but it was too late. “What the fuck?!” he roared, getting out of his chair so fast it tilted and hit the floor. “What’d you do to me, you fucking faggot?!”

He was coming for him, but Holden was barely dazed. He used to be a street kid. He’d been beaten by bigger guys than him, and in greater numbers too. He reached behind him and pulled out his gun, leveling it at him. “One more step and we go for violent suicide, Jessie.”

He stopped, clearly trying to figure out if he had a chance of taking him before he could fire, and he realized the needle was still in his arm. He pulled it out, helpfully getting his prints on the needle, and the drugs must have been starting to take effect, as he got this funny look on his face. “What – what is this? Did Kyle -”

“You know when the penny dropped for me? Today I was looking into both Kyle and you, and I came across an article that mentioned Kyle was living at the family estate – you know, dad’s house. Joel’s house. The buy out had nothing to do with any of this, did it? It was personal. You meant to kill Kyle, but somehow Joel ended up taking the hit. I assume you drugged some juice, water, booze? Something you thought only Kyle would drink, but Joel ended up drinking it instead.”

He was starting to breathe harder now, and he was shaking his head as sweat left slime trails down his face. “I don’t – no, no -”

“I have friends in the drug trade, Jessie. I also have friends amongst the gym rats, and they always have the best drugs, as well as the best questionable nutritional supplements. You know, the kind never approved by the FDA, the kind that might be toxic in certain doses. Such as ones really high in potassium. And I’m sure you know some people who can get a hold of some really bitchin’ elephant tranquilizers.”

“I don’t – you’re making this up. I don’t -” Jessie dropped to his knees and grabbed his head. “What the fuck did you give to me?”

“You wanna live? You’d better start confessing now. You’re running out of time.”

“Kyle’s a motherfucking asshole!” he suddenly shouted, falling back onto his butt. He looked really dazed now. Holden probably could have put the gun away now, but he decided not to. Let Jessie still think he had a chance. “He – it was his idea. I was just a kid … I didn’t know what we were doing …”

“He molested you?”

“Yes! And he … I didn’t … he just tossed me aside like I was nothing. He’s my brother, y’know? The closest thing I have to a brother, and he treats me like that. He’s a fucking pig. He deserves to die.”

Oh god – did this crime spree boil down to a jilted lover? “Do you love him?”

“Yeah. But not like that! Not in some sick, perverted -” he fell on his back, making little choking noises, his arms spasming slightly like he was trying to get up but couldn’t control his limbs.

“Gay way? No, I’m sure it’s more of a family way, since you are family, and that’s what makes it truly icky. You thought the gay thing was what was wrong with it? Please.” Holden tucked the gun back into his jeans and stood up. “Just so you know, this wasn’t about Joel. He was a client, a client who tipped really well, but he didn’t mean anything to me. It was business, nothing more. This is about Roan. See, if he was here, he’d tell you that people only get one shot to kill him, but he’s not here, not because you killed him, but because there’s something wrong with him. Which is fine, because it gave me the chance to even the score. You had your shot, you failed. And ultimately, you tried to kill the wrong man. Roan would have turned you over to the authorities; he would have let your cadre of lawyers fight it out with the state’s lawyers. But I don’t trust the justice system; I don’t trust cops. I just knew I wasn’t going to give you the chance to hurt him again.” He retrieved the jump drive from the computer and shut it down, pulling the chair back upright. He went over to his stereo system and turned it on. “If you killed yourself, you’d be listening to music, right? I would be, I think. Did you know steroid abusers are statistically more likely to commit suicide? Too much of that shit alters your brain chemistry. Drugs are bad, Jessie. But then again, that’s your preferred method of murder, so you know that.”

He picked up the needle and moved closer to Jessie. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, but it wasn’t clear if he was dead yet. “But drugs have their good points. For instance, I’m going straight home, and I’m dosing myself with roofies, so when I wake up tomorrow I’ll have no memory of killing you. I will pass every lie detector test in the world, because I will genuinely not know what the hell I did. You won’t even be on my conscience, Jessie. But don’t worry about Kyle. I’m sure his fall from grace will be spectacular when the sex tape hits YouTube in, oh, about five minutes ago. The world we live in, huh? Well, I live in. I think you’re gone.” He closed Jessie’s eyelids and then put the needle in his left hand, curling his sausage like fingers around it like it was the last thing he held on this Earth. Which it was.

Holden gave the room a visual once over, just making sure there were no signs of a struggle or anyone else being here. There wasn’t. His lower lip was mashed from Jessie’s hit, but the only bleeding seemed to be inside the lip where it hit his teeth. He licked the blood away, the copper taste of it lingering in his mouth as he left the house. He was glad he hadn’t eaten for a while, because he was pretty sure he’d have puked if he had. He had a cold, hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.

The night air was cool and refreshing, and he took in lungfuls of it, ridding himself of the horrible shit smell of death. So he added murderer to his list of sins now. He honestly wished it bothered him more than it actually did.

Not that he had long to worry about it – he hadn’t been lying about the roofies. He had a client who was a war vet, an amputee with a leg missing below the knee and extensive scarring on his intact leg, and he liked to do roofies and Ecstasy because otherwise he couldn’t get it up; he felt so ugly sober, so mutilated, he couldn’t even take off his clothes. Nothing Holden told him helped, only the drugs helped.

And now they were going to help him forget how violent he actually was. He wondered what he’d think happen to him tomorrow afternoon, and realized he didn’t actually care.

The case was closed.

19 – Between The Bars

As Dylan suspected, what to do with Grant was a more troublesome issue.

Roan hated to turn a fellow infected over to the police, but he didn’t have much choice. Grant needed help, and probably needed to be locked away for his own good right now. Roan instructed him to call Seb and arrange for him to come and quietly take Grant in. Seb knew this had to be handled delicately, and whatever they did, the press couldn’t be tipped off, otherwise it would be a madhouse. And Seb wouldn’t mistreat an infected, unlike some other cops. It was the safest course. Roan still hated doing it, but he didn’t see another way.

Neither did Dylan. But at least Grant would get help, and you couldn’t be convicted of first degree murder in your cat form, as with one or two exceptions (one of them right next to him), no one had ever been seen to have any sort of Human consciousness in cat form. You were just a big angry cat.

But people did have a hard time accepting that, and it wasn’t difficult to empathize with them. When your boyfriend/girlfriend/family member was eaten or mauled to death by a cat, it was hard to swallow the reason that boiled down to “shit happens” or “wrong place, wrong time”. You wanted it to be more, to have some greater meaning or intent. The problem with life – with a lot of things – was randomness was responsible for so many things. Karma may or may not have come into it, depending on your belief system, but it was hard to believe someone could have done something so bad that it would end in them being eaten by a leopard. It was easy to understand why so many people were so angry. Dylan couldn’t help but think how angry he was after Jason died, and that basically boiled down to “wrong place, wrong time, wrong intersection, wrong side of the car”.

After a long moment of silence, Roan said, “If you don’t wanna move in with me, I totally understand. In fact, I’d support you not doing it.”

“What? What the hell are you talking about?”

Roan looked really tired. He had deep set eyes anyways, so when he got tired, it seemed like his eyes started to submerge into his face, dark crescents beneath the sockets only intensifying the effect. The meds he was on gave his eyes a glassy sheen. “I think I’ve fucked up your life enough, Dylan. I’m really sorry about that.”

Dylan leaned back slightly, if only to glare at him. Yes, he was serious. “Are you insane? Do you have any fucking idea how boring my life was before you? Okay, there are times I miss the peace, but I think I was going quietly nuts. De’Andra warned me about you right off the bat, she said you were a macho drama queen and I would be very sorry if I hooked up with you on a serious basis, but -”

“Macho drama queen?” he interrupted, puzzled. “Is that a contradiction, or a new category?”

“Oh, hell if I know. And she’s wrong, because you don’t really fit the queen mode. Macho and drama are other stories.”

“Cute.”

“Look, I’m gonna get all soppy and weepy on you if you keep pressing. So shut up and consider yourself lucky to have me, or I’m gonna cry all over you.”

“You bastard. You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.”

Roan sighed heavily. “I’d make a “Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?” reference, but that’s too gay even for me.”

“Oh, so we’ve found a level?”

“You’re cruising for a bruising, smart ass,” he growled in an affectionate manner. If anything could ever be said to be growled in affectionate manner, but this was all teasing. Listeners who didn’t know them would be horrified, but Dylan knew Roan would never hurt him, just like he knew he’d never hurt him. Although Dylan sort of hoped he’d never hurt anybody at any time, ever. It kind of went with being a Buddhist.

Roan was finally succumbing to the drugs, he was dozing off, and Dylan was kind of tired too. His arm was half asleep, but oh hell, he hated to move it and wake him. But there was a brief rap on the door, and Velez stuck his head in. “Gotta clear out. They’ll be doing rounds in a couple of minutes.”

Dylan nodded, and only then noticed as the door shut that the inside of it was covered with metal. This was indeed the cat room.

Dylan slipped his half numb arm out from beneath Roan and slid off the bed, almost falling because he was very clumsy at avoiding machines. Roan was asleep, though, so he couldn’t make a smart ass comment about it.

He pulled the thin blanket over him, and kissed him on the forehead. His skin still seemed cooler than normal, although not quite as cool as before. It was still troublesome.

Dylan was so lost in his own thoughts, he hadn’t realized he was being followed until he made it to the elevator, and he became aware there was an elderly woman right beside him who had been beside him almost since he’d left the room. “You’re Dylan, aren’t you?” she asked, her voice slightly husky from years of smoking.

He had to look down at her, as she was perhaps five feet, and he guessed her age to be somewhere in the mid-sixties. She wasn’t bad looking for her age, her hair was dark and curly, neatly styled, and she had a round face that was probably too round when she was younger, but now seemed just right. Her hazel eyes were just bright enough to suggest that she was probably something of a looker back in the day. “Umm, yes?”

“I’m Petra Rosenberg,” she said in her smoky voice, and held out a dainty hand. He shook it, careful not to crush her hand.

“Nice to meet you. How’d you know who I was?”

“Doctor Singh told me. Too hot to be straight, chocolate eyes to die for. Of course I could’ve guessed the first part on my own. All of Roan’s boyfriends have been absurdly gorgeous. He has great taste, in spite of what his wardrobe might lead you to believe. Goddamn, where were you boys forty years ago? I’d have gladly married one of you and been a beard as long as you agreed to sit around the house shirtless.”

Dylan wasn’t sure what to say about that, so he didn’t say anything. He did smirk, though, as it was now quite obvious why Roan liked her. She was probably one of the few women in the world who would find the descriptive “tough old bird” flattering.

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open, and they had to step aside as a nurse came out, pushing a patient in a wheelchair. Dylan had no idea what had happened to the guy in the chair, but he had a leg in a cast, an arm in a sling, a black eye, and from the way his paper gown seemed absurdly thick around the upper part, his ribs wrapped. He was tempted to ask, “Skydiving accident?” but some people didn’t take jokes about serious injuries very well. In fact, most people. Roan could probably have a spear sticking out of his chest, and he’d probably say something like, “The dismount is always the hardest part.” His smart ass ways were rubbing off on him.

As soon as they were gone, Doctor Rosenberg stepped into the elevator and gestured for him to join her. Dylan reflected that only older women and female politicians who didn’t want to appear sexy ever wore pantsuits anymore. Rosenberg’s was a dark forest green, offset slightly by a dark navy blue blouse. “I need a smoke. Why don’t you come with me?”

The look she was giving him was deadly serious, and he knew this had nothing to do with grabbing a smoke. His stomach twisted at the thought that she was going to give him bad news about Roan, but he obeyed, mainly because it was reflex.

After the death of his parents, he was raised by his Aunt, but also most of his mother’s family – those who were in the States – chipped in as well. (He never really saw his father’s family, and after several years, he’d forgotten their names or where they lived. He probably looked more white than Hispanic, but the racially  mixed side of his family were the ones that chipped in and held together – what that meant he had no idea, but even in spite of his new, Caucasian sounding last name, he was continually startled when anyone just assumed he was white.) What this led to was a lot of time spent with his (maternal) grandmother and even for a little bit his great-grandmother, both incredibly feisty women who didn’t let a variety of physical frailties keep them from being bossy and a feared ruler with an iron fist. As a result, he now found himself unconsciously deferring to older women in general, especially if they had a strong personality. He already knew Rosenberg was a strong woman, and he was going to have to fight his own natural tendencies here.

“I don’t smoke,” he told her, as the doors slid shut, even though he knew it had nothing to do with cigarettes.

She shrugged. “Didn’t think you did. And good for you, it’s a horrible habit.”

“So why don’t you quit?”

“I have, five times.” Again, another shrug. “Nicotine is a bitch goddess.” Dylan grimaced, holding back a laugh. “Look, I’m sure you’re a smart guy, so I’ll just cut to the chase: do you love Roan?”

Wow, this came out of nowhere. He felt like he might have gotten whiplash from this conversational shift. “Uh, um, yes, I do. Why?”

“’Cause there’s probably gonna be some tough times ahead, so if you don’t, now’s the time to bail.”

He swallowed hard. Oh shit, it was bad. “I’m not leaving.”

“Good, ’cause Roan’s gonna want you to. He doesn’t like looking weak in front of anyone. He hates being vulnerable. It’s why he’s such a prickly bastard. He prefers hatred and fear over pity. Who wouldn’t?”

“You know what’s wrong with him.” It wasn’t a question, and tears threatened, making his eyes feel dry and hot.

“No, I’m not a diagnostician. I can only guess, and I wouldn’t put much stock in me there.” The elevator doors opened on the ground floor, and they needed to get out before everyone else came in, including at least one person on crutches. Dylan followed her, but he didn’t know why, as he was now kind of afraid of discovering the truth. Still, he did.

The conversation continued once they were outside in the parking lot. Rosenberg walked around the corner of the building, which he assumed was the smoking area, and started rummaging in her small black purse. The wind came up, cold and ragged, and blew cigarette butts and assorted other detritus across the asphalt with a scraping sound like skeletal fingers. “So you’re an expert on infecteds?” Dylan asked, wanting to say something.

She shrugged again. “Who’s an expert on this virus? It’s a fucking nightmare of impossibilities. No one should be able to transform into another species, not even a facsimile of another species, but there that fucker is, doing it. We can’t even agree on how it came to be. The fucking thing is still a big mystery.” She found her pack of cigarettes and pulled them out, a crumpled pack of Marlboro Reds that seemed to only have a couple of cigarettes left in it. She must have seen him looking at it, because she said, “I only allow myself two cigarettes a day, three if it’s a fucking crappy day. This is gonna be a six cigarette day, I just know it.”

He had no idea that she was so profane. But, again, it made sense that Roan would consider her a friend. “So what’s your speculation on Roan’s problem?”

She shook her head as she stuck a cigarette in the corner of her mouth. “I can’t tell you even if I wanted to. A patient should hear it first, family second. But I will tell you this, although if you repeat it I’ll have to deny it, ’cause I’ll be drummed out of the medical profession. But I don’t think you need to worry about Roan. I don’t think the virus is going to let him die just yet.”

He momentarily thought that was a sick joke, but as she lit her cigarette and took what was obviously a satisfying drag, he realized she was perfectly serious.

What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

                                             

Holden was glad to hear that Roan was okay. But he knew Dylan was lying to him about something.

It’s because he heard a sort of thickening in his voice, like he’d been crying (or possibly just eating a whole buttload of cheese, but somehow he didn’t think that was a possibility). He insisted that Roan was fine, though, conscious and awake, and that he thought Holden had the wrong end of the stick. Roan thought the answers to all of this laid with Kyle or Jessie.

For the record, Ahmed agreed with Roan. “Killin’ someone with potassium is just weird,” he said, as they crossed the Oregon border. “You need a weird person to do something like that. John doesn’t sound weird enough. He sounds kinda pathetic.”

That did have a ring of truth to it, which irritated Holden no end. Being an asshole wasn’t enough? What was the world coming to when being a major grade A asshole wasn’t enough to get you accused of murder?

They made a pit stop at a Starbucks, and they had wi-fi, so Holden did some surfing. Jessie Newberry was a bit hard to find, but eventually he tracked him down to his Facebook page, where his handle was Jessie369. Holden recognized him even with his clothes on.

Kyle was better looking in the face, although Jessie had a harder, gym toned body. A little too gym toned, actually; he’d crossed that subtle line between hot and gross. Veins stood out on muscles that had lumpen shapes, and Holden could imagine the track marks even if he didn’t seem them. Was he more of a steroid guy or a HGH guy? Maybe both.

While paging through his personal photo gallery, he came away with the idea that this was a man so in love with himself that calling him a narcissist would actually be an understatement. There he was pumping iron; there he was striking a pose in a Speedo (and having seen the sex tape, he knew he was padding it, ’cause his dick just wasn’t that big); there he was supposedly impressing a bleach blonde with huge fake tits with the bulbous muscles in his arms; there he was in his gym tank top in front of the juice bar -

Wait a fucking second.

Holden scoured his page carefully. Jessie worked in a gym? He did. He claimed he was a personal trainer, which included not just exercise but a nutritional regime of his own design. (Jessie had his whole sale pitch in the “bio” section.)

Oh shit. This was it.

As Ahmed came back to the table with his second green tea frappuchino, Holden asked, “Do you know where the Seattle Fitness Center is?”

He took a sip of his drink, then said, “Seattle?”

Holden scowled at his poor joke. “We need to get back on the road and get there now. I think I just found a huge clue.”

Ahmed sighed and shoved himself out of his chair. “Yippee skippee. You know, I’m kind of wondering what you get out of being Hawk to his Spencer.”

Holden stared up at him blankly, and asked, “What?”

Ahmed shook his head and walked away.

Actually, he knew the reference he was making. He just felt like being a jackass.