Don shook his head back and forth, back and forth. “Oh, damn, this wasn’t supposed to happen. It was supposed to be easy, in and out, that was it, then home again and I’ve got enough money for a nice vacation in Aruba. But there was this big guy and he walked into the kitchen and shot me right through the shoulder, then he went after poor Clay, shot him dead. Perky called me a couple of hours ago, told me she was glad I made it out, that even though everything went south, we should be okay if I didn’t do anything stupid. I told her I was clean, no way they’d find out about me. I didn’t leave any ID in my wallet—no driver’s license, nothing. I had to tell her about Clay, that the big guy shot him dead. She told me to lay low, take care of my arm, that everything’d be all right.”
Sherlock asked, “Did you tell Perky about leaving all your blood on the kitchen floor?”
He shook his head, muttered, “Fuckin’ DNA.”
Savich grabbed his chin and squeezed. “Watch your mouth. I won’t tell you again.”
“Who was the fourth member of your team?” Sherlock asked.
“T-Rex—he’s down in Florida by now, runnin’ in the surf at Palm Beach.”
“And what would T-Rex’s real name be?”
“Marion Croop. You can see why he likes his nickname.”
“That’s good, Don. What’s Perky’s real name?”
“No one calls her anything but Perky. It’s the only name I know, honest. She always grins real wide and pokes out her tits, says they’re as perky today as they were ten years ago.”
“How old is Perky?” Savich asked.
“Maybe forty, in there somewhere. She’s a real pro, knows exactly what she’s doing. Got a big mess of blond hair, always wears it up with dangling curls, and she always wears opaque sunglasses. I’ve never seen her eyes.
“This job, dude, it was screwed up from the beginning. Perky bitched and moaned about how we couldn’t be sure of anything, and it frosted her but good to be sent out to this backwoods place with no clue where anything was or who was where. Then she said she started counting the money and that made her think about it some more. She said there were four of us, and chances were that this Rachael Janes would be by herself, maybe with one family member, that was it. It’d be easy. Overkill, that’s what we’d have. It wouldn’t be a problem, and we’d have all that money. Perky was really pissed.”
He looked at Sherlock, and tears trickled out of his eyes. “Nothing went the way it was supposed to. There must have been a half-dozen people there, and all of them knew how to shoot. They had more weapons than we did. We didn’t have a chance. How could that happen? Dude, I really hurt. Can I have one of my pills?”
“I’ll give you two pills, Don,” Savich said, “the minute you tell me who hired you to kill Rachael Janes.”
“Damn, I knew you’d want that. You won’t believe me, but it’s the truth: I don’t know, I don’t know who hired Perky, who gave Perky all that money. She’s always the lead, always, and she gets the contracts, briefs us, maps out the plan we’re going to follow, hands out our shares. And then we split up until the next time. Clay wasn’t one of our usual guys, but Gary’s in bed with the flu, so there were only the three of us we could really count on. I’ll bet you those were military people at that Slipper Hollow. It all went to hell.”
“Did Perky tell you anything about Rachael Janes?”
“Only that she wasn’t supposed to still be kicking around, said she should be lying at the bottom of Black Rock Lake, said those barbiturates were good. She laughed.” Everett shrugged, then moaned. “Perky said Rachael Janes was some artsycraftsy fluff head who arranged furniture and painted walls, and so she should be real easy to knock off. But look what happened. That Rachael Janes must have been another Hou dini, getting herself free like that. Perky was pissed again.”
“Keep it up, Don, you’re doing good,” Savich said.
“It was Clay who kept asking her questions since he hadn’t worked with her before. She finally let on that Lloyd Roderick—that dumb-ass rockweed who’s into teenagers—he’d got himself shot while trying to nail Rachael Janes in Parlow, Kentucky. Who ever heard of Parlow, Kentucky? He was in the hospital, Perky said, so now it was our turn. This girl was a civilian, hiding out, thinking she was safe from the big bad wolf. And then Perky growled.”
He sighed, the tears dry on his cheeks now, and itchy. “That damned girl, she wasn’t alone. Surprised the shi—crap out of everybody, all those shots coming from inside that house. It was close.”
He hung his head, scratched the fingers of his injured arm. “You’re just trying to do a job and look what happens.”
“What exactly happened?” Savich asked.
“Well, when we found our way through the woods to this Slipper Hollow, we saw the girl the first thing, but there was this big guy with her. Perky said it’d be okay, the guy would bite the big one along with her. But before we could get close, a guy comes running outside, yelling for them to get into the house. He obviously knew something was up—I don’t know how he knew, but he did. Rachael Janes and this big guy made it through the front door just as we began shooting. Perky split us up. Clay and me slipped through the woods around to the back of the house to go in, get them in a cross fire. I decided it was best for Clay to stay back, since he was new to the team, to cover me, to shoot anyone who tried to get out the back.
“I come in the kitchen at the same time this big guy steps in. I thought I got him, he fell down, but he was only acting shot, the bastard. Then he clocked me in the shoulder. I’m down, then he’s out the back and I know Clay doesn’t have a chance, and he didn’t.
“You can’t believe how bad it hurt my shoulder to haul Clay back through the woods and out to our car, but I knew I couldn’t leave him there. I buried him in a tobacco field about fifteen miles down the road. I don’t know if I can find it, I really don’t.”
Everett started crying. He hiccupped. He looked up at Savich. “You promised me pills if I told you everything. I did. My pills, they’re in the medicine cabinet.”
Savich called out, “Dane, go into Mr. Everett’s bathroom and bring out his bottle of pain pills.”
They let him hiccup until Dane pressed the bottle into his hand, set a glass of water on the arm of the La-Z-Boy. Everett took two pills, drank the entire glass of water, some of it dribbling down his chin.
He wasn’t bad-looking, Sherlock thought dispassionately, staring down at him, maybe late thirties, lots of dirty blond hair, a good build, but he hadn’t shaved in too long, and didn’t smell like he’d bathed recently, either, understandable given his shoulder. He was wearing dirty gray sweats, dark green socks, a hole in the big toe. He looked, she thought, like a man who’d been ridden hard and put away wet too many times in his short years.
“And now, Don,” Savich said, “tell us where to find Perky.”
Everett chewed his lower lip. This was tough, Savich knew, this was betrayal of the killing kind.
“Think of your future,” Savich said, voice easy and smooth and scary.
“She lives a block over from that Barnes & Noble in Georgetown, off M Street, on Wisconsin, I think, in a little apartment over a boutique. I don’t know the name of the boutique.”
“Address?”
“Dude, I don’t know, I don’t—”
“Fine, I believe you. You’ll take us there.” Savich pulled him out of the La-Z-Boy, ignored his moans and groans, and handed him over to Dane and Ollie. “Our hotshot here is going to direct you to Perky’s apartment on Wisconsin. We’ll be right behind you with the other two agents following, to cover us.”
Savich turned to Sherlock, a black eyebrow hoisted. “Pathetic butt worm?”
TWENTY-EIGHT
T
en minutes later, Donley Everett pointed to a second-floor window above K-Martique, a specialized Goth shopping spot for the young fanged set. That, he said, was where Perky lived. Dane gave him another pill to keep him in the pain med twilight zone. It would have looked like a regular shop from outside except for the lacy black curtains and the black door.
Once through the black front door at K-Martique, Sherlock, all smiles, nodded to the few customers as she wove her way through racks of gauzy black skirts, black dresses, black tops, some really interesting red plastic spikes, black boots, and lacy black underwear hot enough to sizzle a guy’s eyes, to the counter in the far corner. It was stationed in front of a full-length mirror, doubtless to allow the sales clerk visual cover of the store. “Hey, I’m looking for Perky. Can you help me out?”
The young woman behind the counter had long straight black hair, a dead white face, and she was dressed all in Add ams family black—her nail polish and lipstick black, too. Sherlock wondered what she looked like without all the paraphernalia.
She looked Sherlock up and down with a sort of vague contempt. “Hey, I can replace those bourgeois clothes you’re wearing with something cool.”
“You don’t like my black leather jacket?”
“Well, it’s okay, but you need some long gashes in it, you know, like with a knife, make you look more dangerous. I’ve got some you won’t even need to slice up.”
Sherlock looked interested, then regretful. “Sorry, don’t have time to shop today.” She pulled out her creds. “Special Agent Sherlock, FBI. Where’s Perky?”
The young woman barely looked at her ID. She said, “Perky’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
The girl gave her a bored looked and shrugged; one of the gauzy black sleeves fell off her very white bony shoulder.
“And what’s your name?”
“Me? I’m Pearl Compton. What’s it to you? You really should let me help you—your clothes and hair are about as mind-numbing as it gets. You really could use some help, lady.”
Sherlock said, “Listen up, Pearl. Tell me Perky’s real name and where to find her or I’ll get a big bucket of cold water and scrub your face in it.”
The three other patrons, all teenage girls who’d obviously been listening, couldn’t hightail it out of there fast enough. Savich held the door open for them and said, as they flew out the door, “Wise decision.”
Pearl slammed a very white hand down on the counter. “Look what you’ve done! Three customers, and you ran them off!”
Sherlock leaned in, said, “Yeah, yeah, what’s Perky’s real name?”
Pearl shrugged. “Oh, who cares? Maude Couple. She’s from Montana, says she grew up tending lambs.”
“How old is she?”
“I don’t know—old. Maybe forty, around there.”
“How long has she lived upstairs, Pearl?”
“Since I came to the store to manage it.”
“Where’s she gone?”
“I don’t know, honest. She gives me her key, tells me to water her ivy, then she just up and leaves.”
“Okay. Good. I want you to come upstairs with us, let us into Perky’s apartment.” Sherlock turned and waved to Savich, who was standing in the doorway.
“Oh no, I can’t do that. She’s private, and I know Perky would be real angry if I took anyone up there. She and the owner, you know, they sort of sleep together when he can get away from his wife.”
Savich walked right up to Pearl and towered over her, said absolutely nothing.
Pearl drummed her black fingernails on the counter, shrugged.
She pulled a key ring from beneath the counter, walked to the front door of the shop, flipped down the CLOSED sign inside, then locked the door.
“This way.” She looked over her shoulder at Savich. “You’d look pretty hot with a nice set of fangs, maybe some light powder to get that tan off your face.”
“Thanks,” Savich said.
“Maybe a dribble of blood down the side of your mouth.”
They followed her up the narrow back stairway, the wooden steps nine inches deep all the way to the top. They followed Pearl into a narrow, dim hallway, with a door at the end that had a sheet of black paper thumbtacked to it that said PERKY. “Here we go. This is her digs.”
She unlocked the door, shoved it open. Savich quickly pushed her behind them. “Stay put,” he said.
He and Sherlock, SIGs drawn, slowly walked in, Savich high, Sherlock low, careful to keep Pearl behind them. They were all the way in the small, shadowy space when the door slammed shut behind them and they heard the key turn in the lock, then the wild, fast flap of boots back down the stairs. Savich kicked the door open and, bending low, eased out into the small hallway. If he hadn’t been nearly bent double, he would have been shot in the chest. The bullet whizzed over his head, barely missing him. He fell flat on the hallway floor and fired. Two more bullets slammed into the wall above his head, then he heard the sound of running. Sherlock came down beside him. “You’re okay, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, just humiliated.”
“Well,” she said, “I think we just met Perky. I gotta say, she’s not bad. I didn’t doubt her once.”
Savich pulled out his cell. “Dane, a girl—all Goth black—just did us in. It’s got to be Perky. No, no, we’re okay. She should be running out of the K-Martique any second now. She’s got a gun and she’s good. One of you go around back, just in case. If she already came out, go after her. Like I said, all Goth—long black hair, black clothes, black boots, real young, maybe early twenties. Be careful. I mean it, she’s dangerous.”
He listened for a moment. “Excellent, yeah, that’s her. Came right out the front door, did she? Pretty confident, our girl. Bring her down. Her real name is Pearl Compton. Maybe.”
Savich heard running footsteps, heard Dane shout, “Stop, Pearl! FBI, stop right there!”
There was a shot fired and Savich thought he’d swallow his tongue. He gripped his cell. “What happened? What’s going on?”
Three more gunshots. People shouting, screaming.
Savich and Sherlock dashed out of the shop to see Ollie and Dane running a block away, ducking into a Barnes & Noble.
“Not good,” Savich said.
They ran down the block and slowed only when they stepped into Barnes & Noble. They both knew the bookstore well, all three floors, the first floor a big open space, the clerks behind a counter extending along the left side, the books to the right. At that moment, the place was fast becoming a mad-house, clerks and customers shouting and yelling, some on the floor, a couple of bookshelves overturned, books tossed everywhere, and a man’s voice—Steve Olson, the manager—yelling for everyone to get down. Dane and Ollie and the two surveillance agents were weaving their way in and out of the aisles, following the screams and yells, looking for Perky.