20 – Shot By Both Sides

Roan watched Kevin’s TV for a bit, just to see what the local news had to say about the bombing. Not a lot, or at least not much that was substantive. Two pipe bombs went off, one didn’t, and the amount of injuries ascribed to the attack ranged from fourteen, twenty two, and twelve, depending on whether you were watching channel five, seven, or four. That one person was critical was the single constant.

If there was one or two particular suspects, they weren’t named. Perhaps because there was a plethora of suspects to choose from. It would be easier to name those not involved, or at least take less time. Kevin told him not to go to the crime scene, that he’d ask around and see what he could find out. Was it that obvious he wanted to check out the Church? Yeah, probably. He promised he wouldn’t.

He left early to pick up Dylan, ostensibly to stop by the store and pick up some Excedrin, which he used to take by the handfuls (taking so many painkillers basically killed his migraine cycle, which was a bonus of being a pill addict), but really he had remembered Cullen.

Roan had to cut through a party that had spilled out onto the stairs, and he got a variety of looks from the junior thugs holding their big plastic cups full of cheap beer, mostly of the dirty variety. The pot smoke that wreathed them made him sneeze.

There was no change of scents by Cullen’s apartment door, nor did he hear the hum of electricity when he pressed his ear against the apartment door. He hadn’t been home, had he? Had he done a runner? Did he hear of Hockney’s death, figured shit had gone south, and made a run for the border?

Maybe he was looking at this wrong. Maybe he knew of Hockney’s death before anyone else. Or maybe he was dead too.

Headed down the stairs, a big guy with a white do-rag asked, “Who you lookin’ for?”

“Joe. Don’t suppose you know him?”

“The squirrelly white dealer?” he asked, and snorted derisively. The man had linebacker’s shoulders and a matching thick neck, making Roan think that’s exactly what he was, at least for some high school or college team. He caught a very vague scent of steroids on him. “What’cha need? We know a guy.”

“Nothing from him. His supplier’s dead, I wanted to find out where he was at the time of his murder. I don’t suppose he’s come back today, has he?”

Nervous glances were exchanged between the linebacker and his slightly smaller friends (smaller in the sense that a Road Ranger is smaller than a bull elephant). “You a cop?” One of his friends casually dropped something on the ground beside the stairs. (Dumping drugs, on his behalf.)

“Just an investigator.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a business card, which he handed to the linebacker. “If you see him, tell him to call me, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said in a half-hearted way that meant he’d do no such thing. He glanced at the card and was still reading it as he cut through the remaining crowd, which parted for him with the general semi-hostile uneasiness that occurred when people breaking a variety of laws thought you were a cop.

Roan was walking out to the parking lot when the linebacker shouted, “What the hell kind of name you got?”

“A weird one,” he admitted, not looking back.

He stopped by a Safeway to pick up a bottle of Excedrin and some of Dylan’s favorite green tea, and picked himself up a type of candy bar he hadn’t seen before. He didn’t know why, but he ate it in the car as he drove to Silver. Was he even hungry?

Didn’t matter. As soon as he was done with it, he popped a couple of codeine, washing it down with the bottle of water in his glove box, and went in to pick up Dylan.

He was a little early, and it was a slow time – the restaurant was about to close – so he sat at the end of the bar and Dylan served him a virgin pineapple margarita (he didn’t need to say it was virgin, he just knew) while he waited for him to finish closing down the bar. One of the waiters came by to gossip – he seemed very much the classic twink, with dyed blond hair in a sculpted quiff and a single diamond stud earring (surely fake) – and he mentioned the explosion down at the church, making it sound much more Michael Bay that it actually was. From the news footage, the bombs had collapsed the front porch and broke some windows, but not much beyond that. The twink kept giving him the stink eye when Dylan wasn’t looking, which just made Roan smile at him. By now, contempt just amused him. Especially when the only reason was jealousy. He wanted Dylan, and he knew that Roan was The Partner and could only cockblock him.

Dylan seemed worried about him, but he assured him he was going to let the Church handle their own shit. For some reason, that still made Dylan nervous. He didn’t believe him? Or maybe he did, and it still bothered him.

He wasn’t the only one bothered. Roan found himself wondering what was bothering him about all of this, and decided it was the timing. The drug dealer at the Church winds up dead, between an attempted drive by and a more successful bombing. Sure, lots of people hated infecteds right now, hated the Church since its inception, but damn, that was some timing. He really didn’t like coincidences, and this was a huge one. But what was the connection? That was the maddening thing. A drug war would make sense, except no drug mafia ever used pipe bombs, or at least used them so shoddily. Unless that too was deliberate.

So many possibilities. He continued mulling them over as he drove Dylan back to Kevin’s house, and while making Dylan a late dinner of scrambled eggs (he could do eggs; it was pretty much the limits of his cooking abilities). In fact, watching him cook, Dylan asked, amused, “What have you done that makes you feel so guilty that you’re cooking for me?”

“Nothing beyond the usual,” he replied. Which was true, but he wondered why Dylan put himself through the hell of being with him. He wasn’t infected; he didn’t need to do this. After all of this, if he was Dyl, he didn’t know if he’d stay. He supposed it said more about his character than anything else.

He was still trying to figure this out when they went to bed. Dylan slept peacefully while he laid awake, watching the gradations of light play across the ceiling as morning approached, and he tried to figure out why the timing of the church attacks bothered him so much.

Was that it? What if Hockney’s murder wasn’t drug related, but Church related? He wasn’t infected … but would it matter if some anti-cat extremist saw him coming and going from the Church all the time? They wouldn’t bother to investigate – they’d just assume he was an infected.

The fact that it was a weapon similar to those used in the drug hits? Coincidence, or a case of someone actually trying to make it look like a frame job? It seemed like a long shot, but his mind refused to calm down about it.

He got up and searched on his laptop for a while. Eventually he found a page where anti-cat extremists were posting photos of people seen entering and leaving the Church. There were lots, and it seems he was on there too, his name and address posted, along with the comment, “This fag is the worst of the lot.” Oh hey, was there an award? Maybe a plaque? He should collect it. He could put it on his office wall, beneath his framed “World’s Best Buttfucker” certificate.

By this time he heard Kevin up and about, getting ready for work, so he took his laptop downstairs and met him in the kitchen. “Can you find out anything for me about the owners of a website?” he asked.

Kevin, who’d been pouring himself a cup of coffee, said, “Yes. I am a geek.” He then turned, and almost did a double take. “Nice underwear.”

Oh yes. He was in his underwear. Well, frankly, he was so involved in this he forgot to get dressed. No help for it now. He turned the laptop screen towards him, and said, “I have a theory.”

“My god, those are famous last words from you,” he said. “You’re like a gay, mutant House.” He paused briefly. “Since when have you gotten all these tattoos? Jesus, I knew you had some ink, but man.”

“Just count it as lucky I never got that face tattoo.”

“Yeah, I think Mike Tyson took that off the market for everyone.” Kevin glanced at the screen, and almost choked on his coffee. “What the fuck ..? An infected hate site?”

“A hate site with photos. And look at number seventy two.”

Kevin dutifully took the laptop and scrolled down. He frowned at what he saw. “Who am I looking at?”

“Pierce Hockney.”

Roan saw the tumblers click behind his eyes. “The drug dealer who just got murdered?”

“Who else has such a shitty name? Besides me.”

“That was a drug related homicide.”

“Was it?”

He sighed explosively and put the laptop on his kitchen table. “Damn you, House, putting these thoughts in my head.”

“Can you find who owns this website? Beyond the anonymous Save Humanity Now.”

Kevin was still scrolling through the site, and he nodded absentmindedly. “Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem – holy fuck, this is you! They have your address and everything.”

“My house got vandalized, somebody attempted a drive by of the Church, Hockney was murdered, and now someone bombs the Church. The Church is having a bad time of it, aren’t they?”

Kevin gave him a deeply concerned look. “Where does the burn fit into this?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if it does at all. But I think there’s a pattern forming here independent of that, but someone is smart enough to vary it, just enough that we don’t consider this one continuing crime but many separate ones. And they’re escalating in violence.”

Another sigh, leading to Kevin saying, “Darinda and Seb are totally gonna kick your ass for givin’ ‘em more work.”

“I could be wrong.”

He snorted in disgust. “Don’t insult us both, Ro. You’re the best natural investigator I’ve ever met. If you think there’s something here we’re missing, there’s somethin’ here.”

That was a nice vote of confidence, one he honestly felt he needed, although he wasn’t sure why.

Sure he had passed off his hunch to the right person, he went back upstairs and called Rosenberg, leaving a message on her machine, requesting a therapist reference without any additional commentary. There was a message waiting for him, from Scott. The viewing party was at five tonight at a downtown address; he told him he was free to bring Dylan and to skip bringing the beer if he wanted. Since Dylan would be working tonight, there was no way he could make it, and he could be fair to Jeff and bring some beer. He was right, diets sucked, even if it was in support of his career choice.

Finally exhausted, he went to bed, cuddling up against Dylan’s warm body, and immediately fell into a deep, dark sleep. If he dreamed, he didn’t remember any of them.

When he woke up, it was the afternoon. Dylan was gone, and had left him a note. He was at the temple right now, but said if he was up to it he’d meet him for lunch at the Taj Mahal restaurant at two. Since it was just past one, Roan figured he could make it if he hurried.

After a quick shower and a change of clothes, he made it to the restaurant just in time. He checked his messages in the car, so he was able to tell Dylan Rosenberg had given him the name of a therapist, and he intended to make an appointment. This pleased him, like he thought it would. He also mentioned the viewing party, which got an ironic smile from Dylan. “You and Tank. I’m sorta glad he’s gone. You two could get into so much trouble together.” Which was a fair point. Hadn’t they already?

After lunch, he checked his phone and found a message from Murphy, chewing him out with a variety of cusswords that would have impressed the Falcons. But she also said the gun used in the Hockney murder was similar to the ones used in the DSM cases, but the ballistics were suggesting it wasn’t the same gun. She added that she fucking hated him, but she said it with love.

He called the therapist, a woman named Doctor Lillian Sanger (what an old fashioned name; he wondered if she was as old as Rosenberg), and made an appointment with her receptionist for next week. He still wasn’t sure he could do this – he had enough of therapy as a teenager – but he had to try, if only for Dylan’s sake.

According to Kevin, the owner of the Save Humanity Now site was a guy named  Dean McFadden, who had a record of hate crimes, and had been associated with the Aryan Brotherhood as a teen. Terrific. There was no extremist like a white supremacist. Was he smart enough to be behind any of these crimes? Maybe he was just an instigator. Bad enough.

He stopped by and bought beer before arriving at the place downtown, which turned out to be the apartment of the Falcons’ goalie coach, Stephane Plamondon (the guys called him “Stevie”). A little more than half the team and supporting staff were there, filling out every available seat in the house, including floor pillows and an end table. Fiona was also there, to root on her boyfriend, and Roan found himself sitting between her and Grey on the sofa. The Falcons’ back up (currently starting) goaltender was a good Canadian boy ( he didn’t appear old enough to vote) named Ethan Richards, who made a point of introducing himself and shaking his hand, because “Tank told me you were good luck”. After he walked away and sat back on the loveseat, Grey muttered, “Goalies are so superstitious.” Roan was pretty sure all hockey players were superstitious, but he decided not to point it out.

Watching the game turned out to be a lot of fun. Everybody laughed when the TV showed Tank as Theobald Beauvais, as he hated his first name, but the commentators pointed that out, saying he preferred to go by his nickname Tank, which he got from his propensity for running over opposing players in his crease. (Ah. He hadn’t known where Tank got his nickname. Finally, TV had taught him something.)

The commentators were going on about Tank being “untested” at NHL level, and wondering how he’d handle it, pointing out he’d had just one practice skate with the team. Roan wasn’t sure if they were just trying to build the tension, or if they were genuinely curious.

Then the game began, and they shut the hell up.

Scott knew his guys, or at least he knew Tank. He put on a show, making one spectacular save after another, almost getting an assist when he played the puck off the boards and got it to a defenseman in center ice during a power play, and brutally shoving opposing players out of his crease and generally getting away with it. After one spectacular save, he clearly said something to the opposing player standing right in front of him (of course none of them could hear it), and the opposing player all but dived on him, causing Bruins players to dogpile on him, and the player to get himself a penalty for “unsportsmanlike conduct”. “It’s a good thing Tank ain’t miked, ’cause he’s laughing,” Grey said.

Scott nodded a vigorous agreement. “Whenever he goads someone into doing something stupid, he laughs like Doctor Evil.”

“Okay, who did he insult?” Grey wondered. “The guy’s mother, his wife, or his hockey playing ability?”

“Mother,” Jeff said.

“Wife,” Richie said.

“Did you see the way he lunged at him? He was definitely telling that guy he couldn’t shoot for shit,” Scott said. “That was an ego hit.”

By the first period break, all the commentators seemed to be singing Tank’s praises, talking about his spectacular saves and his “aggressive” goaltending style. One of them said Tank was playing like he’d played in the NHL for years. “What did I tell you?” Scott said, finally opening a beer himself. “Tank’s fearless. He’s a fucking lunatic.”

“Well, duh,” Fiona said. “He gets pelted with frozen pieces of rubber for a living. Willingly. That’s not a job for the sane.”

Good point.

Tank was the highlight of the game. He was continuously fun to watch, and the Boston crowd seemed to take to him, cheering when he hit the ice, and when he waved his stick at them coming off the ice at the end of the second period, that got a round of noise. Scott shouted, “Attention whore!” and got a big laugh from the room.

The end result was the Leafs were only able to score on Tank once, and that was during a five on three power play. The Bruins won three to one, and Tank made forty  seven saves, which was apparently an impressive number for any goalie, not to mention a fresh up from the AHL one. Tank was named the number one star of the game, which was apparently some kind of honor, although Roan really didn’t get it. As a result, Tank was interviewed at the bench at the end of the game, and he had his facemask up, revealing his beaming, slightly crazed face, and he was so drenched in sweat it looked like he was fresh out of the shower; sweat was just sluicing down his face. His visible hair was plastered to his scalp.

During his interview, he did a shout out to the Falcons and Fiona, which elicited a cheer, and gave his Olympic hockey player sister credit as well as Stephane for all the drills they put him through. And just as the interviewer was throwing it back to the studio, Tank quietly mouthed something: ‘Hi Roan’. This elicited a roar from the room, mostly laughter, and Grey punched him on the arm. “See? Superstitious,” he said, but he was smiling.

It was oddly fun. And he learned that Scott really knew his guys, or at least he really knew Tank. As odd as he was, when the camera caught a shot of Tank, hidden behind his mask, staring at a face off with the same crazy intensity he brought to a potential fight, Roan realized that for all his (calculated?) insanity and definitely real eccentricity, Tank was an athlete at the top of his game. Yes, he was good enough to be pro; that insane focus was just part of the training, part of the strength he needed to have to get to the top. And that’s where he was – the top. He wasn’t going to come back down for a while. Scott was right; he was gone. And good for him, he worked hard, he deserved it. Maybe the craziness helped.

As they were leaving, Fi asked him when he wanted her back at the office, and he had to admit not anytime soon, not until the cat hate calmed down. She protested it might never be over since people were assholes, but he told her enough people had been hurt due to him, so it was going to wait. She didn’t look happy about it, but she didn’t have a veto power.

They were all leaving, spilling out onto the sidewalk and trying not to get in the way of pedestrians. Stevie lived in the direct center of downtown, the building exited right onto a sidewalk that threaded down towards some high end clubs and tourist-y bars. It was probably a decent neighborhood, but Roan knew from experience that traffic noise would drive him crazy.

They were still gabbing, earning the occasional dirty look from passers by, when they all heard a very loud, metallic thud, the sound of a car crash. It was on the next block, judging by the noise, but everyone still looked around as though they could see it.

Roan headed up the block, mostly to see if it was just a parked car impact or if he could help, when he heard the screaming. He sped up to a run, aware others were following, when he first heard the roar.

He rounded the corner to chaos, people shoving past him in a panic, as he saw a car skewed in the middle of the street, wedged up against a car parked on the side, and there were three cougars crawling all over the car.

One of those cougars was motherfucking huge; about the size of a male lion. The cats must have been attracted by the smell of blood coming through the cracked windshield, but luckily it wasn’t broken in. Yet. (That big fucker could probably break it just by stepping on it enough.) Roan decided to get their attention by roaring, loud enough to hurt his throat, and they did look, roaring in kind. They weren’t the only ones who looked. People across the street were staring at him, and behind him, he heard someone ask, “What the fuck?” Another guy asked, “Did that come from him?”

Without looking behind him, he shouted, “Get people off the street!” He didn’t know how they could, there were just too many, but they could try, and it would keep them busy while he tried to corral the cats.

The big cougar jumped off the hood of the car, and Roan walked out into the street, ignoring the honking, and the cats did something rather odd: they ran. One took off using the parked cars as a high escape, while the other two took to running down the sidewalk on the opposite side, making people scream and scatter. He hoped they didn’t run, because that would just encourage the cats to follow. “No you don’t,” he muttered, and jumped up onto the hood of the smashed car before jumping onto one of the parked cars and running after the cougars. He thought he heard someone yelling something after him, but he didn’t pay any attention. He was busy hunting.

Alarms went off in the wake of his running across the cars, and the cougar ahead of him was occasionally setting them off as well. He was trying to keep the sidewalk cougars in his peripheral vision, ready to pounce should any of them pursue any of the pedestrians, but so far they seemed too interested in running. He didn’t know why, but he was glad.

He felt himself changing, the pains and sounds of his jaw cracking, blood flooding his mouth, his legs starting to ache as he ran and leaped from car to car, gaining ground on the cougar. Blood pounded in his ears, and his Human side began to recede; he could feel it ebbing away, his focus narrowing and his senses sharpening as his sense of self fall away.

One of the cougars on the sidewalk, for no obvious reason, suddenly lunged on a pedestrian who was either too scared, too drunk, or just too oblivious to move. Roan had no choice, he jumped, the recessive Human part of his mind noted it was too far, he’d never make such a jump, he was going to faceplant on the sidewalk, but that didn’t happen. Somehow he made the jump, the muscles flexing and stretching in his body as he covered the distance and came down hard on the attacking cat, sinking his teeth into its shoulder as he ripped it off the man and rolled away, the cat squalling and squirming as they tumbled across the asphalt. The cougar dug its claws in his arm, flailing like a landed shark, as blood filled Roan’s mouth. He tasted the taint of the burn, and ripped his mouth away, tearing out a chunk of the cat’s shoulder.

The cat screamed and one of its friends pounced on Roan’s back, digging its claws in and sinking its teeth into the back of his shoulder. The injured cougar squirmed out of his arms as Roan threw himself backwards, slamming the pavement, letting the cat on his back take the brunt of the hit. The cougar held on, so he threw himself down again, with force, and this time he felt something shift inside the cougar’s body, a bone breaking or an organ squishing, and the cougar let go as Roan rolled up to his feet. He felt the pain of the injury, of the warm blood crawling down his back, but it only made him angrier.

He was barely on his feet as the third cougar came back and lunged for his throat, but not fast enough. Roan got his arm up, and as it sunk its teeth into his forearm, he turned and slammed the cougar into its injured mate, which had rallied and was coming back at him. Both cats went sprawling, as the third sunk its teeth into his calf, and he kicked it off his leg, sending it flying into a parked car. It hit with a huge thud, leaving a sizable dent in the door and shattering the driver’s side window. Another went for him, but he punched it in mid air, sending it twisting through the air and right into traffic. A car attempted to stop, he heard the screech of brakes, but he subsequently heard the crunch of bones under tires as the SUV skidded straight over the cougar. Now he only had two to deal with, the big motherfucker and a female cougar, but they were both wounded, angry, and drugged.

The big fucker roared, and he roared back, taking a step towards it, making it charge him, its huge paw swiping the air as it tried to keep him back. He ignored the scratches on his leg as he kicked it, catching it right under the chin, and he heard something snap as it all but somersaulted through the air, sprawling down on the sidewalk.

The female went for his throat again, but he caught her by the throat and slammed her into the wall behind him, the brick facade of some kind of candle store. He had just done this when he heard a man shout, “Step away from the cat!”

He smelled fear, gun oil, bad cologne, and turned to a stabbing flashlight beam, and he knew this was a cop by smell alone. It was a beat cop, though, his prowler was parked at an awkward angle in the street, his rotating lights throwing flashes of red and blue in the gloom.

The big cat moved, shaking its head as it tried to regain its feet, and Roan tossed the female aside, going for the big cat before it could get the cop.

That’s when he heard the pops, little explosive noises with a gritty smell like metal and fire, and felt something invisible punch him in the chest and leg. Blood exploded from the big cat’s back, and it slumped back to the pavement, not dead but not well.

Roan realized that he felt hot liquid pouring down his leg with the strength of a river, and cold seemed to be flowing into him, filling up the space where the heat had been. He looked down to find himself standing in a comically large puddle of blood, that seemed to be growing by the second. The cougars just didn’t hurt him that badly, so he couldn’t understand it, until the Human side reasserted itself, and he saw the blood was spurting from the thigh of his left leg, where there was a good sized hole.

The cop had shot him. Not only that, but he had nicked his femoral artery. He was bleeding out.

Weakness and pain finally caught up with him and he collapsed to the sidewalk, laughing to himself.

He always thought the virus would kill him. But to die because he got shot by a cop? Sure, it was tragic, but he couldn’t help but think it was also kind of fucking hilarious.