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  McGlade turned on some incomprehensible rap, playing the music so loud my filling vibrated.

  I turned it off.

  “Just like old times, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “What is? The car? The town? The fact that we’re in our fifties and permanently injured? The pre-adolescent hip-hop?”

  “Not true. Lil BDub Xanie just turned thirteen. That’s post-adolescent.”

  “He’s terrible.”

  “Ze. Lil BDub Xanie doesn’t identify as either gender. Ze identifies as an alprazolam tablet covered in mango habanero sauce. It’s probably the naiveté of youth. Or drug-induced psychosis.”

  “You think?”

  “But I still respect ze’s lifestyle choices. And ze’s a great rapper.”

  “You can’t understand him.” I self-corrected. “Zim.”

  “It’s zir, not zim. And it’s mumble rap. You aren’t supposed to understand it.”

  “Ze sucks.”

  “That’s what I meant by old times. Me and you. In a car. Arguing about stupid shit you don’t understand. Driving to interview a vic.”

  He tried to turn on the music again, and I slapped his hand away.

  “Christ, Jackie? Why are your adult diapers in such a bunch?”

  “I’m not wearing diapers.”

  “Please don’t wet my leather seats.”

  “I have control over my bladder, McGlade.” Mostly.

  “So why so bitchy? Is it because Phin is probably going to get killed?”

  “He’s not going to get killed.”

  “Is it because he’s going balls deep in his ex because your sex life is awful?”

  “Our sex life is fine.”

  “I saw it on camera. It’s awful. It was so bad I didn’t even make a copy for personal use.”

  Harrison Harold McGlade. Eternally oblivious and consistently annoying and relentlessly upbeat. Even when times are tough.

  “How can you go on?” I asked him.

  “With the non-stop hysterical jokes? It’s how my mind works.”

  “I mean with life, Harry. You never take anything seriously. Even when things go bad for you. How do you keep going?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “I try to live every day like it is my last,” he said. “Not because of some bullshit philosophy. But because every day really might be my last.”

  “Because of Plastic? He’s not a killer.”

  “Because of congestive heart failure. That’s a killer.”

  He didn’t seem to be joking or trolling me.

  “Serious,” he said. “My ticker is doing a shit job circulating my blood. My doctors gave me about six months. A year, tops. I’m on three transplant lists.”

  This was definitely the last thing I expected. I didn’t know what to say.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because you didn’t ask. Whenever we talk, you don’t ask how I’m doing. I figured you didn’t care.”

  Ouch.

  The truth was, I never asked Harry about his life, because he lacked an internal censor and always volunteered everything. Then once he got going, he wouldn’t shut up.

  But seriously? Was I that much of a dick?

  “Six months?” I asked.

  “A year, tops.”

  “A transplant is the only cure?”

  “I have treatment options. The prognosis includes those. Ironic, isn’t it? I have such a big heart, and that’s what’s failing me.”

  “Shit, Harry. I’m sorry.” And I really was sorry. “Let me know if there is anything I can do.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “I want your heart. I can have it all set up by Thursday. Will that be enough time to say goodbye to your family?”

  This time I was pretty sure he was kidding. “I was thinking more along the lines of taking care of your Vette after you’re gone.”

  “I understand. You’re selfish. So my only hope is for one of the transplant lists to come through. Or for Harry Jr. to get big enough.”

  McGlade would never take his son’s heart. Probably.

  “Besides,” he continued, “I promised the Vette to a whore. And he’s really worked for it. Car cost me one hundred and forty K. How many blowjobs is that at ten bucks a pop?”

  I decided to change the subject. All of the subjects. “Where does the victim live?”

  “Echo Park, near Dodger Stadium. Only a few miles away.”

  “So that’s, what? A two hour drive?”

  “You can be funny when you’re around other people. When we’re together, I’m the funny one.”

  I let Harry listen to Lil OD@16 if he put it on low, while I tried to remember what it was like to interview a victim of violent crime.

  Turned out it all came rushing back, like a drunk ex-boyfriend.

  Plastic’s seventh known victim lived in a well-to-do bungalow in a well-to-do neighborhood, his property landscaped and speckled with palm trees. I refused Harry’s help to extract myself from his car, managing to heave myself out of the deep seat after thirty seconds of sweaty effort and 6 out of 10 on the back pain scale.

  It took another forty seconds to gimp my way to the front door. McGlade, ever the empath, didn’t offer to help, and was instead playing a game on his phone.

  Not that I would have taken his help if he offered.

  “Who are we seeing?” I asked once I caught my breath.

  “Plastic’s seventh known vic. Donatello Ricci.”

  “Which one is he?”

  “Picasso hair face.”

  Oh. Right.

  McGlade rang the doorbell. I pushed my sweaty bangs off my forehead and steeled myself for the meeting.

  “Who’s there?” A male voice through the door.

  “Don? It’s Harry McGlade. I brought an associate with me. We have a few more questions.”

  “I don’t want to see anyone, Mr. McGlade. I didn’t… shave.”

  “That’s okay, Don. My associate is all crippled and pathetic. She’s not going to care because she looks worse than you.”

  Thanks, Harry.

  I heard the deadbolt snick back, and the door opened. Don had already turned away, walking up the hall.

  Over his shoulder he mumbled, “We can sit in the living room.”

  The house was dark, and smelled like a dorm. Stale beer, stale pot, old food, dirty socks. I walked past a stack of empty pizza boxes, then had to touch the wall, not just for balance, but because all the shades were drawn and not a single light was on.

  My hand brushed something. A wall mirror. A bedsheet draped over it, streaming with cobwebs.

  “Place is looking good, Don,” Harry said. “I see you took my advice and cleaned up.” McGlade whispered to me. “It was a lot worse before. He had possums nesting in his kitchen. Dead possums.”

  “Maybe they were playing dead. That’s what possums do.”

  “Didn’t smell like it.”

  The living room had fast food wrappers and soda cans covering the floor and furniture. We chose to stand.

  Donatello, head down, long bangs obscuring his face, had his hands stuck in his pockets.

  “Don, can you tell my associate, Ms.—uh—Ms. Snooperpants, everything you remember about your abduction.”

  He cleared his throat before speaking. “You know I was juicing deca.”

  Harry nodded. “That’s steroids, Ms. Snoopersnatch.”

  “Snooperpants,” I corrected. “You believe someone tampered with your vial of deca, Don?”

  He shrugged. “I dosed, passed out halfway into my workout, woke up at… at his place.”

  “I didn’t see deca in the police report,” I said to Harry.

  “When he let me go, and I called the cops, the deca vial I used was gone.”

  “Forced entry? Fingerprints?”

  McGlade shook his head. “Cops checked. Nada.”

  “Do you ever leave your doors open, Don?”
<
br />   “Naw.”

  “Windows?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “That day you were abducted, were your windows open?”

  “I dunno. Coulda been open. Nice weather, you know? Decent neighborhood.”

  I tabled it for later. “Do you have a workout room?”

  “Yeah.”

  I waited.

  “You wanna see it?”

  “Please. Do you mind if I turn some lights on? Old eyes, hard for me to see.”

  “Whatever.” He led us down a hallway and I flipped the wall switch. More junk food remnants littered the hardwood floors. I passed a Jay Z poster missing a tack and half-folded over, a wall hook with a jockstrap hanging from it, and a framed collage of printed digital photos, most of them high school kids, most of them featuring a boy with long hair that matched Don’s.

  I didn’t know for sure, because I hadn’t seen Don’s face yet. But it if was him, he was a good looking kid. Fit, symmetrical, well-groomed, looking equally good in a football jersey or in a tuxedo wearing a prom king crown.

  He could have been a model.

  I guessed that was no longer the case.

  Don’s workout room was a bedroom with an inclined weight bench, a tree of free weights, a tree of dumbbells, and a wall of mirrors that had been covered up with sheets. There was a window on the wall. I pushed back the drapes.

  The window latch was open.

  “What do you remember about the day you were abducted?” I asked Don.

  He shrugged. “Nothing. Last thing I remember was juicing. Then I woke up in the recovery room.”

  “Can you describe it?”

  “I thought it was a hospital. I was on one of those movable hospital beds. I had an IV. There was a TV. Only thing different than a hospital was the handcuffs. I was handcuffed to the bed.”

  “Windows?”

  “No windows. Walls were white. A closet, with bandages and stuff in it.”

  “Bathroom?”

  “Naw. He gave us a bedpan and toilet paper. Replaced it when he brought food twice a day.”

  “Us?”

  “I had a roommate. Tough to remember things. He kept us drugged up most of the time.”

  McGlade didn’t tagteam with the questioning like my ex-partner, Herb Benedict, used to do. Instead he just scratched himself in yucky places.

  “Did you try taking out the IV?”

  Don nodded, still not showing his face. “A few times. He warned me not to. Said there was medicine in there to help me heal. First day I was there I thought I was in some kind of accident. Sounds stupid, right? Denial. He didn’t let me use the phone. Plus the handcuffs. But I was drugged, you know? I thought it was legit. I pulled out the IV, to try to get my head clear. He waited until I fell asleep, drugged me, and always put it back in.”

  “Could you call him when he wasn’t there?”

  “I yelled. He never came.”

  “No call button? Like a nurse?”

  “Naw.”

  “And you never saw his face.”

  “He wore one of those surgical caps and masks, had magnifying goggles on. He was white. Had brown eyes. He treated me good. I mean, he was polite, I got fed, he gave me wet wipes to clean myself. I was only there for four days. It went by fast.”

  “What about the roommate?” I asked.

  McGlade finally spoke up. “Joline Parsimmons. The uniboob.”

  “Don’t remember her. She was only there for a day before he let me go.”

  “How did he do that?”

  “I was drugged. Woke up on the street. Cops picked me up. That’s when I first saw my face. You probably want to see it.”

  I didn’t want to see it. “If you don’t mind.”

  He lifted his head and swept his bangs to the side.

  Picasso hair face was a pretty apt description. Plastic had removed Don’s eyebrows, mustache, and patches of beard, and rearranged then crookedly on his cheeks and forehead. On his scarred chin were some scraggly hairs that were obviously pubic.

  “It’s not that bad,” McGlade said, wincing.

  “Have you spoken with any doctors, Don?”

  “A few. They said they could put stuff back, but it would never look like it was. I don’t have the money right now, you know? I quit my job. Couldn’t stand people staring.”

  “Have you talked to other doctors? Psychiatrists?”

  He nodded. “I’m on a bunch of pills. They don’t help. I don’t even work out anymore. What’s the point, you know?”

  I thanked him for his time and Harry and I made the long journey back to the deep seats of his Vette.

  “Plastic came in through a window, spiked Don’s steroid, and then waited for him to pass out and abducted him,” I said between labored breaths.

  “You’re just figuring that out now? I put that in my report.”

  “Your report was twenty-two words long, three of which were ‘Wicked pubic beard’.”

  “It’s kinda cool. I wonder what it smells like.”

  “What you didn’t put in your inadequately brief notes—”

  “I prefer the term succinct.”

  “—is how did Plastic know when Don took the meds and passed out, and how did he move a two hundred pound unconscious man without anyone seeing him? Did you pose those questions in your succinct notes?”

  “Think his beard smells like dick?”

  If I laughed it would encourage him, so I stayed on track. “Did you question the neighbors? See if anyone saw him leave?”

  “Pretty sure that was in the police report.”

  “I didn’t see a copy of the police report in that slight stack you gave me.”

  “Maybe I didn’t get the report on this one. I’ll make some calls.”

  “Or you can get off your ass and question them now.”

  “It happened over a year ago, Jack. They might not even be the same neighbors.”

  I made a face. Harry sighed and got off his ass.

  While he spoke to the neighbors, I checked my phone.

  Next flight to Chicago was in twenty minutes. Phin was probably on it.

  I didn’t want to think about all the implications of that. Instead, I called my friend, Herb, my burner phone to his burner phone.

  “Hey, Jack.” It was good to hear my old partner’s voice. “I just heard from Phin. He’s on his way. Tequila’s coming, too.”

  “Did you find her?”

  “Not yet. Did you see the footage of the escape? Broke in with a goddamn tank.”

  “I didn’t see it.”

  “They tracked the vehicle to a lake, then it disappeared. Feebies are on it. They think maybe everyone drowned.”

  I doubted that. “Phin is travelling unarmed.”

  “Tequila’s bringing some guns.”

  “Thanks for doing this, Herb.”

  “Of course. You guys are family. How’s the walking?”

  “Slow and painful. How’s the bodybuilding?”

  “I’ve got more definition than Webster’s.”

  Herb, once overweight, had become a health freak, eating better and working out nonstop. He’d also bought a new house, and was living under a fake name like I’d been doing. Tom’s Chicago cop hacker friend, Firoz, made sure Herb’s pension checks were made out to cash, and Herb’s wife, Bernice, continued to file her taxes as single, which she’d been doing since thinking he was dead.

  All in case the Cowboy tried to find him. Herb’s life was almost as convoluted as mine.

  We small-talked for a bit about family, which comforted me a little, and then I saw Harry heading back to the car.

  “Gotta run. Jackass is coming.”

  “How is working with that offensive, unbearable fat bastard?”

  Harry and Herb had a frenemy thing going back more than twenty years.

  “Offensive and unbearable. And he’s fatter than before.”

  When I said it, I realized what it was. Not fat. CHF and edema. His heart couldn’t pump
well enough to get rid of all the fluid.

  Shit. For some reason, it felt like a gut punch.

  “I miss him. And you. When this is over, let’s get together.”

  “We definitely should.”

  “You always say that. Promise me.”

  I didn’t like making promises. “Herb…”

  “You know I haven’t seen your daughter in over a year?”

  “I send you pictures.”

  “Pictures aren’t the same. Phone calls aren’t the same. Promise me, when all this shit is done with, we’ll get together.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “Goddammit, Jack. Promise me.”

  “I promise,” I said, the words thick to my tongue.

  It tasted like a lie.

  I said a hollow goodbye to Herb as McGlade climbed down into his incredibly deep car seat. He looked exhausted, and perplexed.

  “What did the neighbor say?” I asked.

  “She remembers the day Don was abducted.” Harry met my eyes. “I think we have a lead.”

  TOM

  I think we have a lead,” Firoz said.

  Tom waited. Some good news would be nice. He hadn’t slept at all, lying awake on the bed next to Joan, staring at the stateroom door, Stallone curled up at their feet, his gun within easy reach.

  Tom was too tired to even yawn.

  An hour earlier, Tom, Joan, and their dog had left the boat and gotten breakfast at one of the many food carts that swarmed around the marina like ants. Breakfast burritos, Tex-Mex style. Extra spicy for Joan, mild for him.

  Then her bodyguards showed up, she went off to the studio, and Tom hung around the boat, feeling sullen and exhausted and wary, waiting for Roy to pick him up so they could follow some leads. Firoz’s phone call was a welcome reprieve, and a welcome surprise.

  “Darknet is full of message boards. Pedophiles swapping Southeast Asian child sex tour tips, assassins seeking clients, weapons brokers, drug dealers, degenerates comparing notes. Lots of sickos into torture and murder porn, and they can do it unafraid and unrestrained by any netiquette, terms of service, or moderators. But on the good old searchable Internet, there are some who take it too far. I figured if Cissick was a newbie, maybe he would have left a Google trail.”