PsyCop 5: Camp Hell (28 page)

Vegas? Shit. Maybe the Joneses weren’t hiding in plain sight quite as well as they thought, after all.

Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin had one poor sap trying to keep tabs on all the Psychs spread over all those miles of rolling cornfields, not to mention Minneapolis-St. Paul, Milwaukee, and Des Moines. Missouri’s director was in the doghouse for the kidnapping debacle—the very same one that had put Roger, and me, in this piss-and-disinfectant-smelling meeting room in the MCC.

Burke gave me the names of each and every one. They were all men—no big surprise there. They were probably all white, too. And each and every one in the Midwest answered to Dreyfuss.

“Why’d you start off by giving me the name of the top guy?” I asked. I didn’t necessarily expect an honest answer, but I might get some insight into the way Roger Burke ticked.

“You think this is some kind of poker game? Every day I’m in this place is another day I could get shanked with a sharpened pen. Besides, if there’s a bigger mindfuck than Dreyfuss, I’ve never met him.”

Seeing as how Dreyfuss’ office was my very next stop, the confirmation of my suspicions about him made me feel oh so much better.

Then he started in on the addresses. He knew them all by heart, and he was able to spit them all out without any hesitation. Even the Chicago office. And that one checked out, as far as I knew. The street, the number, it all looked right to me.

“So what do you suggest I do with all these names, other than shove them up my ass?”

“You’d probably enjoy that.” His mean smile was back. “I gave you what I promised. If you can’t figure out what to do with it, that’s your problem, not mine.”

I’d suspected he would say something like that. The worst part about it was that it was true. Still, Burke had always thought he could run mental circles around me—and when you think about it, he could. But if he had a weakness, it was that he was in love with how smart he was. “So the FPMP is everywhere. What does that mean for me? What do they even do?” I considered baiting him, implying that maybe he’d always been too low on the ladder to know. But I figured that was laying it on a little thick.

“You’ve seen what they do. They watch.”

“Why? Why the hell should they care about what I’m doing?”

His nasty little smile widened. “What do you think would happen if foreign intelligence pinpointed you as the next Marie Saint Savon?”

I imagined myself having a long chat with Lenin inside his glass coffin. Through a translator, of course. “They would… try to hire me?”

Burke laughed. It was an ugly little bark, a perfect match to his smile. “Okay, Boy Scout. You go right on thinking that.”

Was that so farfetched? After all, the first thing Dreyfuss had me do once I’d returned his call was to clean up the board room. Roger gloated, and I stared him right in the eye. Finally, when he realized I wasn’t going to prompt him, he let me in on his little joke. “Why should they risk bringing a double agent into their inner sanctums? Much quicker to put a bullet through your head and be done with it.”

“But how would that…?”

“Where do you think all the remote viewers go? To the Bahamas?”

I swallowed hard, and did my best not to lose my corn flakes all over that graffiti-covered tabletop. “So all those creepy cops who aren’t really cops—and Dreyfuss, too—you’re saying that they’re actually looking out for me? That they’ve been protecting me this whole time?”

Burke’s smile reached his eyes. He really was enjoying our little talk.

“Give me the locations of Doctor Chance’s transmitters,” I said. I felt exhausted. My voice was small and dry, as if the volume had run out.

“Now why would I want to do that? I might need a favor from you someday. It wouldn’t be very smart of me to give away that information for free.”

I stood up. I had gotten my names and my addresses, and that was all I could expect to get from Roger Burke. Maybe Dreyfuss was the biggest mindfuck he knew. I guess it takes one to know one. I’d tell him to look in the mirror, but he’d probably take it as a compliment.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Detective.”

I was all out of witty replies. I made for the door.

“One more thing.”

I looked over at my shoulder at him. Maybe he’d tell me what it would take to get the locations of the GhosTVs from him. And maybe it would be a price I’d willing to pay. I had no doubt it would cost me dearly, but maybe it was something I could part with. “The transmitters?”

“You wish.” He gloated. “No. Of course not. But there was one name I neglected to give you.”

I wanted to wipe that smile off his face so bad that when I clenched my fist, it ached to punch him. “Watch it, asshole. There’s nothing stopping me from calling the FBI and saying that I was confused about being confused.”

He did a
que sera sera
shrug. “You keep on tarnishing your reputation, eventually you won’t have anything left to polish. But that’s up to you. See, the reason I can’t give you that final name is that I don’t know it.”

I stared. Because I knew he hated it when I stared at him.

“The assassin,” he said, once he’d gotten sick of my staring. “No one knows who he is.” He raised one hand to his forehead and mimicked shooting a bullet—straight into the spot where Chance had gotten plugged. The other hand, shackled, came with it. But even that didn’t ruin the effect. “The FPMP, Detective Bayne, is like a mean, crazy dog. He’ll make the crackheads think twice about pissing in your front yard. But keep your eye on him, or the second your back is turned, he’ll maul you.”

-TWENTY SEVEN-

My phone rang while I was on my way to the Chicago branch of the FPMP, whose official address was recorded in a little book that I’d locked in my glovebox once I’d taken my gun out. I checked the number to decide whether or not I should answer. It was Zigler’s cell.

“Hello?”

“Where are you? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all morning.”

“I called in,” I said. I decided not to tell him that my phone had been in a locker at Metropolitan Correctional when he’d left his message.

“I know you’re dealing with that therapist and whatnot,” he said. Whatnot. What a bizarre way of telling me he was doing his best not to pry. “But I got Gillmore to agree to keep the cold-spot partition clear for the morning so you could look at it.” He lowered his voice. “And she’s pretty pissed that you’re not here.”

Well, crap. I’d wanted some exorcism practice away from Dreyfuss’ prying eyes, and there it was. I tried to remember if I’d promised Dreyfuss one way or the other that I’d be in today. He must’ve know that I’d called in to the Fifth. “Okay Zig, I’ll, uh….” What equipment did I need for an exorcism? “I’ll be there.”

I could stop by Crash’s store, but between getting on and off the expressway, explaining to him what I was trying to do, looking around for Miss Mattie, and fending off his friskiness, it would add another half hour to my trip. At least.

Instead, I swung by a convenience store that was between the exit ramp and the hospital. Their selection of herbs and spices was lousy. Then again, what did I expect them to have in stock? Rue? Mugwort? I thought back to the botched exam where I’d recommended scattering flour for protection. Black pepper—that was supposed to be good stuff. And salt. They had both of those, in a couple of cardboard tubes printed with onions, tomatoes and lettuce, one with an S and another a P, shrinkwrapped together. I was about to leave with my salt and pepper when I spotted a shaker of cinnamon sugar. Plain cinnamon would have been better. But I doubted that a little extra sugar would stop it from working.

I got to LaSalle before eleven. Patients inside two of the emergency partitions were trying to hack up their own lungs, but I suppose that gut-wrenching coughing is par for the course for snowy, damp Chicago springtime. I spotted Zigler before I saw Gillmore. Good. I thought that Gillmore liked me, more or less, even though I was a fifth level psych—but it freaked her out a little, too. And also, I was nosing around her emergency room and probably getting in the way, even though I supposedly knew what I was doing.

Zig he had been writing on his notepad. Or at least pretending to, so that he looked like he had something to do while he waited for me to show up. Probably actually writing. Maybe. “Good, you came.”

I scratched the back of my neck, which I realized was some kind of tell that advertised that I was nervous. I stuffed my hand in my pocket. “Yeah, sorry. I kind of have a lot going on.”

“What do you need me to do?”

Zigler’s role in this whole thing had never occurred to me. What did I need him to do? And more importantly, what could he do? He was a Stiff, just like Jacob—but did that mean he had the ability to put the kibosh on psychic phenomena, or was he just perfectly, absolutely average?

And if he was like Jacob, would he think I was nuts if I asked him to picture a remote viewer spying on me, and to change that bastard’s mental channel? I don’t think so. Zig took psychic stuff very seriously.

“Why don’t you run interference? That will buy me some time.”

Zigler nodded and planted himself beside the partition opening. I went in. The enclosure spooked me, but not because of the cold spot. It was the stainless steel table, the defibrillator in the corner, the rolling cart with drawers full of tongue depressors and syringes and latex gloves. I hated that shit. I would always hate that shit.

I pulled three bottles of spices out of my overcoat pocket. I set them on the exam table. Salt, pepper, cinnamon-sugar. I was glad Zigler was outside. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could look at my pathetic ritual supplies and not laugh, even Zigler.

I had no idea what to do, but I figured I wouldn’t make anything worse if I winged it. I took off my overcoat. There was nowhere to hang it, so I rolled it up and placed it on the exam table. I held out my hands and walked slowly up one side of the table, then back, then up the other. I thought I had felt a cold spot in back. I lingered there. Maybe—hard to tell.

My spices sat there next to my coat, and now even I thought they’d been a stupid idea. If I bought pepper in Sticks and Stones, it probably would have been harvested with all the rest of the pepper, but at least the people who purchased it, imported and shipped it would have done so with an intent. And that intent, if it was tangible at all, would affect the vibration. This pepper? A dollar ninety-nine and a little cardboard shaker jar? It was made for picnics, not exorcisms.

And then I looked at the cinnamon-sugar. Cripes—what was I thinking? And I wasn’t even high.

I couldn’t tell anymore if my hand was cold from the paranormal cold spot, or if it had just gotten that way because I’d been holding it out in front of me so long. I looked at my stupid spices again. Salt for protection, cinnamon to enhance psychic ability, and pepper to drive away evil. I figured I should start with the cinnamon.

My first impulse was to snort it. I’m guessing I picked that up prior to my Camp Hell training, and that it wasn’t my most effective course of action. I took some into my hand, and I sniffed it—but not too close. Yet. Smelled like cinnamon. Come on, I told myself. Think.

Or rather, visualize. White light. Third eye. Internal faucet. Okay, I could do that much. I smelled the cinnamon, and I imagined myself full of white light. I think I felt something. Something more than the desire for a piece of toast—though that was there, too. My eyes were closed. I’m not sure when that happened. I opened them. The cramped enclosure that stunk of germicide and gleamed with stainless steel had a soft glow. It did. It wasn’t just wishful thinking on my part.

I wondered what I was supposed to do with the spoonful of cinnamon-sugar now. I didn’t see a garbage can. It didn’t seem right to drop it on the floor. I stuck my hand in my pocket and shook it off.

The palm of my hand felt sticky, and cinnamon darkened the creases. I wiped my hand against the side of my jacket and hoped the material was dark enough to hide it. Still sticky. I wiped it again. I felt a little tug, kind of like when you walk through a spiderweb, and I realized I had been busy fooling around with the sugar on my hand while my psychic faucet was turned on high. I looked up, and staggered back. Something was visible where the cold spot had been. Something moving.

Not moving like a person, though. And ghosts like that, who moved wrong, really creeped me out. I backed toward the door, toward Zig—who might even be able to help me fend off the creepy crawlies if he was anything like Jacob. I watched the thing move, floating, undulating, and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Or any other feature, for that matter. It looked like something that might grow up from the floor of the ocean. Were we in a low spot, someplace that used to be underwater? And if so, what the hell used to live there that would leave a ghost behind it that looked like that?

Several minutes passed while I stood there and stared at the thing. All the exorcism texts I’d read the night before blended together in my mind, shuffled like a deck of cards, a phrase here, a phrase there, but nothing that made any sense with the phrases before or after it. It was all just a bunch of meaningless static now.

I called Jacob. He had read more than I had. He probably even remembered what it all meant. But his phone went right to voice mail, and I figured he was probably in court, which meant he could be hours. My phone was sticky with sugar. I snapped it shut and tucked it into my breast pocket.

The ghostly sea creature grew fainter. I focused on it, and it grew brighter again. At least it seemed to be stuck in one place. Something that can’t chase you isn’t quite as scary as the stuff that can. I took a couple of steps forward and tried to figure out what I was looking at. My shoe brushed against the convenience store bag, and I remembered my salt and pepper. I didn’t actually remember what I had meant to do with them, not now that I was actually staring at a supernatural being, but I remembered that they were there.

I peeled a plastic safety seal from the pepper, screwed off the top, and sniffed it. I coughed, and my eyes teared. I wiped the tears away with my sticky cinnamon hand. Not yet, something told me—some tiny part of my brain that remembered my focus groups at Camp Hell. Always begin with salt.