Meantime, Part 10
10 – Sink Your Teeth In
The cat was panicked beyond reason, and roared back at him, and its haunches tensed as it prepared to pounce, but he roared once more and lowered his head, growling until the noise filled his world. Finally the cat wavered, cowered, and reluctantly submitted. It was hurt, angry, and confused, but it wasn’t so gone that it thought it could win a fight with him.
Roan pulled out the drug gun and shot the cat before he lost control and pounced on it. He was grinding his teeth together, tasting blood, and the pain in his jaw was radiant, angry, filling his vision with red. The lion really wanted to come out and play, but he couldn’t let it, not now.
His jaw felt hot and swollen, like it was three times the size of his head, and he wondered if he had any painkillers in his pocket, because the resulting ache was almost intolerable. His entire head was throbbing like an erratic heart, and he was fairly sure he wouldn’t be able to go on much longer without some kind of chemical anesthetic, otherwise the lion might just get out. He would just have to try and bull his way through it, at least until he could get outside.
It took a few minutes for the drug to really settle in and cause the cat to lose consciousness. Roan took that moment to try and swallow back the pain, resting his hands on his knees and focusing on pushing it back. It worked a bit, not a lot, but he thought he could hold it together until he could get outside and bug one of the paramedics.
The cat was out cold, so Roan picked it up and threw it over his shoulder. (It weighed about ninety eight pounds, so it must have been a small girl.) He then shouted, “All clear! The cat has been neutralized.” He then muttered to himself, “Would’ve said neutered, but I’m probably talking to myself.”
He was headed towards the stairwell when he heard a creaking hinge, and turned back see a door opening at the far end of the corridor. He had time to wipe the blood off his chin before anyone looked out. A woman poked her head out, a woman whose face appeared to be all eyes; her lips were a rumor, and she had no chin at all. It made Roan think of an eel. She stared him up and down before saying, “It’s neutralized? It sounded like there was two of them.”
“Nope. That was a recording.”
She stared at him in open disbelief as a couple of kids in black and white uniforms squirted past her into the hall. She clearly thought he was lying, but couldn’t prove it, and besides, what else could have made that noise? The kids were eager to go, but stopped short and looked at him warily. There were four of them, evenly split between boys and girls. “You’re a cop?” One of the boys asked skeptically. He was maybe fourteen, and so deeply nerdy that he probably had a permanent wedgie. Roan sympathized, as he was kind of a nerd himself as a kid, but a hard nerd, as there were only so many times that you could get the shit kicked out of you before you learned to either get really good at taking it or really good at fighting back. (Or some combination of the two.)
“I’m a liaison with the cops. I handle cats. You comin’ or not?” He didn’t wait for an answer, he simply headed for the stairwell door, and figured they’d come along eventually. He was headed down to the first floor when he heard them. “So why didn’t you use your cells to let the others know you were still upstairs?” he wondered.
“I don’t allow cell phones in my classroom,” the woman said, as if he’d affronted her somehow. Roan couldn’t believe she didn’t have one herself, but maybe she really was so strict she held herself to the same rules.
“Is it dead?” One of the girls asked, referring to the cat.
“No, she’s drugged. She’ll be fine.”
“What happened to her clothes?” The other girl asked.
“What’s Pansy Division?” The other boy asked.
He had nothing against kids, but Roan knew he was bad with them. He was glad he was focused on holding the pain back, as it distracted him from how annoying they were. “Her clothes are wherever she changed. They’re made for Humans, not cats or people in transitional forms, so they just get torn up and bloody. And Pansy Division is a gay rock band.” He opened the door of the first floor stairwell and propped it open, so they could follow without too much trouble. They were good now, but he could smell the fear on them like old piss, and figured they had just entered into that shell shocked stage where everything was just so weird even panic circuits got overloaded.
“There’s a gay rock band?” The boy replied.
His teacher began to scold him. “Robert, this isn’t -”
“There’s lots of gay rock bands,” Roan replied. “We have everything the hets have.”
“You’re gay?” The kid exclaimed, sounding both amused and horrified.
Roan glanced back at them over the body of the unconscious cat and tossed them a small smirk, finding a certain unsavory glee in their shock and horror. Oh, the kids were mostly baffled, but the teacher, she was the worst. She actually backed up a step, and he caught the flash of disgust through her eyes. That made him grin, despite the surge of pain it sent through his muscles. He waited until he was in the foyer to admit, “I’m infected too, and that wasn’t a recording. Think about that for a while.” He shoved open the door with one hand, and stepped out into the overcast afternoon, the air refreshing in spite of the heavy scent of exhaust.
People started applauding as he came out with the cat and the remaining people, and Seb came to meet him at the bottom of the steps. (Where was his partner?) “Any problems?”
Roan shook his head. “Textbook. Although this is an odd cat. Can I call in Doctor Rosenberg?”
Seb stepped closer and had a look at the cat. “What is it, some kind of cougar?”
“I think it’s a hybrid.”
“Hybrid?”
“Part leopard, part cougar.”
Seb gave him a dubious look. “That ain’t possible.”
“I know, that’s why I want to call Rosenberg in.”
Seb examined the cat one more time, and grimaced. “If she visits the station, I guess we can’t stop her from hijacking a blood sample.” Roan nodded, figuring it was the best he could get, and started to turn away, but Seb put a hand on his arm to stop him. “You okay? You look as pale as death.”
“I’m fine, just hurtin’ a little. You know how it is.”
He didn’t, that was clear on his face, but Seb let him go. Roan brought the cat to the awaiting containment van and let the cops there put restraining devices on the cat, although they were hardly necessary. (Still, it was a safety rule.)
Roan managed to get to his car and duck inside before wincing in pain and punching the seat, hard enough to feel something in it shift. He then reached into the glove compartment and hoped he had some pills left over. He lucked out, he did, so he cracked open a bottle of codeine and dry swallowed two tablets, trying to will them to work faster than they actually did.
He put his head down on the steering wheel and concentrated on breathing to control the pain, make it something manageable, but it was one of those things that worked better in theory than in fact. When he thought he could manage it, he called Rosenberg and got her assistant, so he told her to pass on the message that Roan needed her at the precinct right away, as he may have found a hybrid cat. The assistant didn’t act like that was an unusual message.
Roan was finally feeling the effects of the drugs, his hands were flooded with warmth (the codeine early warning system), and he relaxed back in his seat and sighed. Sometimes painkillers were a beautiful thing.
He was just getting comfortable when a knock on his driver’s side window jolted him out of his reverie. It was Seb, looking sheepish. Roan rolled down the window, and he said, “We gotta move, Roan. Just had a call of a big cat loose in a Burien trailer park. Follow us out.”
“What? Fucking hell. We’ll never get there in time.”
Seb shrugged. “We have to try.”
Yeah, he supposed they did. But couldn’t he give him a few minutes more for the pain meds to kick in?
No rest for the wicked. Or, in this instance, cursed.
****
In the end, it turned out to be not that easy.
Holden found himself seated at an outdoor cookout with Forbes, eating bad hamburgers and flirting in an unobtrusive way, so no one around noticed. Well, Badger did, but since he wasn’t straight, he didn’t count.
Finally, when he was at the end of his rope, he made up a dentist appointment and left, but not before slipping Forbes his cell number with a seductive smile. He let him know he could call him any time, especially if some “action” came up. He had no idea if it would work, but it would be great if it did.
Out in his car, he turned on his phone, and found a couple of messages waiting for him. Roan thought maybe he could pull back and he’d just tail Campanelli, but Holden felt he had committed too much time to this operation to give up now. Then second call was from Scott, telling him he was at the rink doing an optional skate until four, and he should drop by. He was promised a post workout lunch with the guys, but was that really all? He supposed it depended on the guys in question.
Curiosity made him drive to the rink, that and the knowledge that it couldn’t possibly be as boring as that whole Church thing.
There seemed to be no security at all. Holden just walked in, and found a couple of people in the seats, mainly girlfriends and friends, most of whom had broken up into their own groups and were paying no attention at all to the guys on the ice. Not that there were many – there were six in all, with another sitting beside the coach at one of the benches, taping up a skate. He recognized Grey immediately, mainly because he was the tallest guy on the ice by a damn sight, and of course Scott was easy to spot because he was one of the few that bothered to wear something with his name on the back. Ethan was an easy guess too, as he was the only goaltender on the ice, although he didn’t have the full outfit on, just some thin “practice” pads and a very lightly caged helmet. (This was how he knew he was getting too used to them – he actually knew the difference between game equipment and practice equipment.)
The ice surface was as white as snow and radiating cold, which increased the closer you got to it. Normally stadium lights kept things surprisingly warm, but the lights were at half level and not that warm. Grey was the first to spot him, probably because he had the best vantage point, and shouted, “You don’t need to be in the stands, man, come on down.”
The surprisingly young, bespectacled coach looked up from his clipboard, noting him with some kind of bland wariness. “One of McKichan’s guys, right?”
What an odd way to put it. Before he could reply, Scott told him, “His only guy. He doesn’t have a lot of staff.”
“There’s Fiona,” Grey replied.
“That redhead Tank’s dating?” A guy that Holden didn’t recognize said. He shook his head. “I mean, she’s got great tits, but -”
Grey whacked a puck right into the guy’s ass, making him yelp in pain while everyone else laughed. Except Grey, who was giving him a slightly dead eyed look, a look that meant he was five seconds from arranging his face into a pile of raw beef. “If Tank were here, he’d chop your head off. Zip it, Walker.”
“Fuckin’ ay, man, that hurt,” Walker replied, rubbing his bruised ass cheek. He probably wasn’t going to be sitting comfortably for a while. “And Tank ain’t even here.”
Grey didn’t like to be challenged. His stare got worse. “That was my half speed shot. Want to feel full speed?”
“Grey,” the coach finally spoke up. “Don’t put him in the hospital, he’s on your team.”
Holden jumped down into the locker room aisle, and from there crossed over to the empty bench. He had to cross a bit of ice, so Scott dutifully skated over and gave him an arm to help. “Grey has a hundred mile per hour slapshot,” he told him.
Holden guessed that was impressive. He looked over at the aggrieved Walker, who must have been new if he had no idea you didn’t test Grey (also, he had a smattering of acne and looked fifteen, but Holden assumed he was at least eighteen). Holden also couldn’t help but note no one really paid any attention to him and Scott at all. No one thought there was anything untoward going on between them. One knew for sure, but he didn’t care.
“I talk to Tank all the time,” Grey told Walker. “You wanna see what happens if he finds out?”
Walker scoffed. “I just said -”
“Tyler, enough,” the coach said. He was a defiantly odd coach, as he really didn’t really raise his voice, and he spoke in a kind of weary monotone, like this job was just too much for him. “You owe me a lap.”
Walker scowled, shoulders slumping, and he looked like he wanted to roll his eyes or protest, but knew better. He skated off, probably muttering, but the sound wasn’t clear.
As soon as Holden was behind the empty bench and off the ice, Scott skated back to where he had been, and again, no one seemed to note anything suspicious in Scott’s concern for him. Then again, Scott was a surprisingly polite Canadian, and this just fit with his generally accepted personality. “C’mon big guy,” Scott said to Grey. “I’m gonna try and steal the puck from you.”
Grey snapped out of his deadly state and scoffed. “You wish.”
“Hey, try and go top left,” Ethan said, grabbing his big stick off the back of his net and taking up a goalie stance. “I’m still working on that.”
Mostly out of curiosity, Holden asked, “Hey, has Grey told you guys his news?”
Scott glanced over as Grey retrieved a puck and bounced it at the end of his stick. “That his agent’s negotiating with the Flyers? Yeah. I don’t know what we’re gonna do without him.”
“I’m not all the defense,” Grey said, batting the puck up high and catching it with his other hand. “You guys’ll do fine without me.”
“You owe me fifty bucks!” Ethan exclaimed. “I said you’d get grabbed up by the Flyers or the Ducks. They love their big, scary defensemen.”
“Everybody loves big, scary defensemen,” Grey replied. “As long as they can skate better than a water buffalo.”
Holden rested his arms on the boards, feeling the cold radiating from the ice, and the heat of the half lights above him. It was odd to be too warm and too cold all at once, but he supposed he saw a metaphor for Scott in that, somehow existing in two contradictory states at once. Schrödinger’s Human. “This mean you’re gonna play against Tank?”
That startled chuckles out of nearly everyone, even the coach, but Grey just smirked. “He’s already called me. We have a standing bet. If I shoot on him and score, I get a hundred bucks. If I shoot and he stops it, I pay him a hundred bucks.” He paused briefly, dropping the puck on the ice just above the blue line. “But you watch, I’m gonna score on him. Five hole. He gets too fancy.”
Scott skated down towards Ethan, taking up a position in front of him, facing Grey further down the ice. “And you get too cocky. You’ll probably cancel each other out.”
Grey gave him a fierce grin, somehow sincere and sarcastic all at once. “So says fancy pants. We ever meet in a game, I’m so checking your pretty face.”
Scott gave him that same type of grin in return. Macho men and their posturing. “Bring it, Mongo.”
There was a hiss of blades on ice as Grey started skating towards him, and Scott started skating towards him, the two meeting in the middle of the ice as Grey tried to get around Scott without fouling him and Scott tried to steal the puck without fouling him, all while Ethan looked on, ready to make a save against whichever one of them threw it at the net. Holden shifted on the wooden bench, aware he was never going to be comfortable – it was like sitting on a split rail fence – and watched as the two friends tried to out muscle and out finesse each other. For some reason, it was oddly charming, and it made him smile just to watch it. In fact, it was a lot more entertaining than most games.
Holden idly wondered if this made him a puck bunny, and it was such a bizarre thought he couldn’t help but laugh.
****
Roan felt psychic, but it was a sad realization. Like that guy in the Dead Zone, seeing the future did nothing to stop it.
By the time he and Seb reached the trailer park in Burien, it was all over. The cat was dead, its guts a fetid steaming pile splattered a foot away from the rest of the lion’s body. One of the residents had taken it out with a shotgun, a guy who looked like a classic redneck and smelled like chewing tobacco and body odor. The sight of the dead cat made Roan sad and furious in equal measure, and he wondered if he could punch his way through a skull. He was willing to find out.
The guy was arrested, but not for killing the cat, which was technically within his rights. No, he was arrested for having a sawed off shotgun, which he used to kill the cat. He complained very loudly and crowed that they were violating his second amendment rights, but of course they weren’t. As long as he wasn’t legally stopped from owning a gun, he could have all the shotguns his double wide could hold, but he couldn’t saw the barrel down to within an inch of its life. That kind of weapon modification was illegal, and if he knew the law as well as he claimed, he should have picked a non-modified weapon to kill the cat and no one ever would have known about the other.
No one recognized him, but a couple of residents did yell at them they should do something about those damn cats, with the number one suggestion being “kill them all”. Roan felt like roaring at them, like ripping off a car door and hitting them with it until they were pulp, but that would be super counterproductive. Also, the codeine took the edge off his rage, so maybe that was for the best. Going Hulk on these people would only prove the haters were right.
Roan headed home … well, to the borrowed home he and Dylan were currently staying in, and Roan realized he desperately missed his own house. No, it probably wasn’t safe, but damn, it was his. It wasn’t right that they could run him out of his house. Damn it, he was going to have to do something he never wanted to do. Build a high fence, not unlike a prison, and keep these people away from him. Maybe Braunbeck’s contractor could give him a discount.
He came home to the wonderful smell of tomato based soup cooking, as Dylan had decided to make his “leftover soup”, where he just threw everything that was leftover and vaguely compatible into a soup. Although sometimes the ingredients were questionable, Dylan used a base of vegetable broth, tomato paste, and pureed red peppers that made everything taste great.
During dinner, he told Dylan about his idea about a fence, and he thought it was a great idea. He suggested black wrought iron, as it was classy, and it might look like a cemetery gate, which Roan felt was a huge plus. Dylan also suggested putting barberry and blackberry bushes around the inside of the fence, so that anyone who climbed over would be guaranteed an unpleasant landing. Roan really liked that, mainly because the thorns would scrape the shit out of someone and draw blood, and he could track anyone by the scent of their blood, anywhere, no matter the length of time between scent and discovery. But he didn’t mention that.
Afterwards, he and Dylan sat on the sofa and watched TV, with Dylan’s head on his thigh as Roan stroked his silky hair, and it occurred to him this was the sort of every day mundanity that normal people indulged in: sitting in front of the TV with a loved one, unwinding after a day of work. Of course, normal people didn’t track down cats in high schools, or see their guts splattered all over trailer parks. But he could only have a little slice of normal, and he supposed he should be happy with it.
Dylan finally broke the news that he had quit Silver and gotten his old job back at Panic. It was then he learned that Dylan had never told him that some asshole recognized him as his boyfriend and tried to hurt him, only to be scared to death and humiliated in turn by Tank. Roan couldn’t believe Dylan had never told him about this, but he said he didn’t want him to worry, and Roan read between the lines that he hadn’t wanted him to track the guy down either. In a strange way, it heartened him to know Dylan did keep things from him too.
Only after Dylan left for his first night back at Panic did Roan check his phone. He knew Dylan didn’t want to be coddled, that he was his own man and didn’t like the feeling that Roan had to protect him, so Roan let him go on his own. But he was going to be paying a visit to Panic before the night was over, that was for damn sure.
Doctor Rosenberg had called and left a single sentence message: “The shit you get me into.” So she wasn’t happy about the hybrid cat case right now, but maybe tomorrow she’d feel differently.
Holden had left a longer, more troubling message. First of all, the Falcons wanted him to play DJ (program the music) during their opening night game. Also, he had been looking into the murder of Rico, a male prostitute who was an acquaintance of his, but had hit a dead end. Holden told him he’d emailed him what little he had on the case, but felt he’d gone as far as he could. In the background, Roan could hear Scott talking to Grey, and wondered how serious Holden’s relationship was becoming. It had a natural, fatal flaw in it: Scott would never come out in such a macho sport, and Holden would probably never quit being an escort until he absolutely had to, so they were doomed to failure. That was probably comforting, to know things would never work out right off the bat. That way you could enjoy the moment and not concern yourself with the long term. He had to salute their genius.
Roan took off, using Dylan’s car to drive to the Church, where he parked down the street and kept an eye on Campanelli’s fancy car. He swapped cars with Dylan for the night, because his homely blue Honda was a more anonymous car. If anyone saw a hot muscle car, they’d know it was him right away.
While sitting there, watching the Church, wondering when he’d fall asleep and fuck up the stake out, he phoned Jay Bhaskar, his coroner friend and would be stand up comedian. Jay answered on the third ring, and must have had some caller ID, as he answered with a hearty, “Batman, I thought you were dead! Is this one of those retcon things?”
Roan sighed, looking out at the Lexus that Campanelli must have loved, as it gleamed under the streetlights like it had a chassis made of diamonds. He had his laptop out, but kept it mostly folded up so the light in the car didn‘t garner attention. “Yes, I’m now being played by George Clooney.”
“Awesome. I’d totally go gay for you. No offense to Roan, but he just wasn’t my type. But you’re dreamy.” There was a sound in the background like something metal squeaking. Was he working late? It was quite possible. The city had let some of the coroners go to save money, and his workload had probably doubled.
“Are you done?”
“Hell no. Did you keep that Batnipple bat suit? If so, could you wear it when you pick me up? Oh, and could you call Alicia Silverstone? I bet she hasn’t aged well, but neither have I, and as long as she ain’t bald I’d hit that. We could have a bat three way.”
Roan let the silence drag on before he asked, “Now?”
Jay sighed dramatically. “Fine. But just ‘cause I can’t remember the other joke I was gonna make. So what is it I can do for you, George?”
“I was wondering if you did the autopsy of a David O’Brien, found bludgeoned to death in Tukwila nearly a week ago?”
“O‘Brien?” He paused to think it over, and then exclaimed, “You mean the man whore? Oh yeah, I did him. I mean, his autopsy.”
“I’ve been hired to trace his last known whereabouts, and I was wondering if there was anything I missed in the autopsy report.” That was a lie, but it wasn’t a harmful one.
“This is a police investigation, right? Shouldn’t be sticking your manly nose in, Mr. Clooney.”
“I won’t tell them where I got the info.”
“There you go, the magic words.” Roan listened to Jay sigh and shift some stuff around as he watched people drifting in and out of the Church. There was something going on tonight, but it was low key, with no loud music or abundance of school aged teens. Some kind of meeting perhaps. Holden wasn’t taking part in it, or if he was he hadn’t told him. “Okay, O‘Brien, David … yeah, here he is. Guess you know he had his head caved in?”
“By a blunt object, right?”
“Absotively. My guess is somethin’ club like, like maybe a crow bar. Wasn’t wood; wood would’ve left splinters.”
“Is there any sign he had sex before death?”
“Inconclusive. It’s most likely, but there were no traces of semen.”
It wasn’t particularly relevant, but semen was something that could be traced, and if had been there the cops would have been on it already. “What about toxicology? Is that back yet?”
That made him chuckle. “Yeah. He was drunk as hell. Blood came out as point eleven, and it looks like he may have had some anti-depressants on top of it all, some pot too.”
“He was in no position to defend himself.”
“Yeah, unless he was an angry drunk. But you’d think the anti-depressants would help with that.”
Roan knew you weren’t supposed to combine those with alcohol either, but a lot of people ignored that. “Is there anything you could tell me that might point me away from an investigative dead end, Quincy? ‘Cause right now I’ve kinda bottomed out.”
“Really? I always figured you for a top.” Jay then laughed at his own joke.
Roan sat quietly, running through possible retorts. The problem was straight sex seemed so boring and rote, how did you insult it? It was like it was doing the job all by itself. As soon as Jay stopped laughing, Roan asked, “Is your sex life so dull you have to think about mine?”
That made him hesitate. “Well … yeah, kinda. Look what you’ve done, George, you’ve depressed the fuck outta me.”
“How about sticking with the case then?”
“Right. I don’t know if there’s anything helpful here … he was dead about twelve hours before he was found, his fingernails were filthy but there was no tissue beneath them, his last meal was a burger … oh, there was dog hair on his clothes.”
“Dog hair?”
“Just a little bit, caught in the cuff of his jeans. According to his wife, lady friend, whatever she is, they don’t own pets, so the dog hair’s a mystery.”
“So wherever he was killed, there was a dog?”
“That’s my guess. Help you at all, George?”
“Not in the least. I can’t question dogs.”
“What? I thought that was one of your superpowers. Talking to animals, sniffing out evildoers … or was that Manimal?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit! You do so recognize that as a short lived ‘80’s TV show. You’re just pretending you don’t so you don’t feel old, but you’re old, mister! Don’t pretend you ain’t.”
Roan smirked, briefly wondering why all his friends were insane, but then he figured it really did take one to know one. “You’re still older than me. And balder.”
Jay lowered his voice to a mock growl that almost made Roan laugh. “You bastard. I thought you were on my side, Batman.”
Roan then noticed a man approaching Campanelli’s car. Was that him? It was hard to tell in the low lighting. It occurred to him that if he initiated a partial change, he could force his vision to shift to something better able to see in low light from far away, but it didn’t seem worth it. Besides, his skin still occasionally prickled, an odd pain and pleasure sensation that sometimes came after a partial transition. He wasn’t sure why it happened, except it usually meant he had pushed it farther than he should have. That shouldn’t have been the case, his jaw barely broke, but he was fresh out of a coma and brain surgery. Maybe he was more fragile than he thought. “Not when you make fun of my bat nipples. Gotta go, Jay. Thanks.”
“Oh, so that’s the way it is, huh? Wham-bam-thank-you-Jay? You gay guys are all alike.”
“I didn’t realize you dated gay guys. Later.” Folding his phone shut, he thought he heard Jay protesting, “What? You bastard -” Considering that was their usual term of endearment, that was a good phone call.
Roan watched as Campanelli’s lights came on, and the car pulled out slowly, even though there was nothing in the way of traffic right now. Roan started his car, but waited until Campanelli turned the corner before pulling out. It was unlikely he would notice he was being followed, but he had to make sure.
It was also unlikely that Campanelli was headed out towards the cat fight club, but it wasn’t like he had a choice in the matter. Two different cases with two different dead ends was just unbearable for his ego.
