The Bone Triangle (5 page)

I turned down a side street and headed back toward the strip. Wandering in this bombed-out-looking neighborhood hadn’t gotten me any closer to my next payday. I was five thousand bucks richer, but that wasn’t even enough to pay the tax bill, much less all the others. I needed another break, and I needed it soon.

I kept walking for several blocks. In the meantime, the sun drifted down behind the mountains to the west and turned the sky red. Darkness began to fold around me.

I’d almost made it out of the area when a car rolled up behind me. It hummed for a second, but I didn’t bother glancing at it. I knew it was a cop’s cruiser. They had a special sound all their own when they stalked you. I could hear the air conditioner, the singing fans and belts, the indistinct chatter of the radio. I kept walking and ignored the cop, who was clearly checking me out. Staring at cops and waving at them in a friendly fashion, that was the sort of thing that got you harassed on a street like this.

After another ten seconds, the cop made his decision. He flicked on his flashers and bathed the street in swirling blues and reds. I made a sour face and turned around slowly. I kept my hands out in the open. There was a .32 in my right front pocket that was going to take some careful explaining.

The cruiser halted and I squinted at the flashing lights. No one got out of the car for several long seconds. I imagined he was radioing in his position, calling for backup, or maybe just finishing a snack. Cops always took their time when they had you pinned. I waited with my head tilted to one side. I was tempted to turn around and continue walking, but I knew he wouldn’t think it was funny.

Finally, the driver’s door squeaked open and crumped closed. A uniform approached. LVPD, metro division.

“What are you doing down here, sir?” asked the cop. He was shorter than I, but thicker, with broader shoulders. I could hardly see his face as he was silhouetted by the brilliant flashers.

“Taking a walk,” I said. “It’s a nice night.”

He flashed his teeth at me, giving me a tight little grin, but I could tell he wasn’t amused. “You’re Draith, aren’t you? You know about freaky shit, right? Do you know anything about that steamer back there?”

I frowned, noticing that his hand rested nonchalantly on the butt of his gun as he spoke.

“What?” I asked.

“The remains. On the street.”

I almost asked him
remains of what
, but stopped myself. He could mean only one thing. “Was it a derelict? A bum with a lot of tattoos all down his right side?”

The cop laughed without humor. “That’s funny. You’re hilarious. How the hell am I supposed to know that?”

I stared at him. “Why don’t you show me? I’ll help, if I can.”

“Fine. Get in the back. But if you can ID this mess, you’re better than me.”

Confused, I sat in the back of the squad car while we cruised a few blocks, backtracking through the streets to the
spot where I’d met the bum. Along the way, the cop talked to me.

“There’s been a lot of bullshit down here lately, and I don’t like it. I’ve got my beat, and I don’t complain. It’s the worst neighborhood in town, sure, but at least down here you know where you stand. Now things are different. I don’t like it at all.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, looking out through each window in turn. They were dirty and smeared with what looked like cheekprints. I wondered how many perps had sat in the back of this squad car and pressed their faces against the safety glass.

He pulled over and we both got out of the car. He led me to a spot in front of a partially burned-down building. It had once been a garage for repairing foreign cars, I gathered. Now, no one brought their business down here.

There was something on the sidewalk. The cruiser’s headlights shone on a tumbled heap of glistening, gray-white sticks. At first, I thought it was a mess of clay—but no. They were bones. I could tell that now as I stepped closer. Not a skeleton exactly, as the bones were in a heap. They weren’t connected in a perfectly organized fashion like an anatomy-class skeleton. They looked glossy, too, as if they were wet or freshly lacquered. There was a sour smell in the air.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “Are these really human? Did someone dump this here as a joke?”

The cop looked at me sharply. “They always test out as human. Well…almost always. There used to be a few dogs down here. They’re all gone now, as far as I can tell.”

I looked at him, then back toward the pile of glistening bones. I knelt slowly beside it and studied it, but didn’t touch anything. I didn’t want to disturb any evidence.

The cop kept talking as I stared at the remains. “I know people over at the casinos are used to this kind of crap—but not me. The rest of the team will be here in a few minutes. They’ll question you. I know you don’t know shit, but they’ll question you anyway. They have to. It’s nothing personal. When something weird happens, they have to pretend it was a normal crime. Normal crimes require suspects.”

I nodded. On a hunch, I looked for the finger bones. I found one of the victim’s hands had strayed from the rest of the pile. It was splayed flatly on the stained concrete.

I stared at the finger bones for a long time. The index finger of the man’s right hand was missing. I realized with a chill this really was my derelict, the one I’d given a dollar to, the one who’d been missing a finger. I felt sure of it.

The cop was slightly more interested after I told him I thought I knew who it was. He didn’t seem to think I was guilty of anything. He just wanted me to talk to the investigative team that was on the way.

This was the first lead I’d had, so I was in a cooperative mood. My target had vanished in this area mysteriously. I could tell this wasn’t the first inexplicable pile of bones the cop had seen around here. With any luck, I’d find out where the rest of them were. Worst case, I could get a DNA match and give Karen Swanson the bad news. It wasn’t the way I’d hoped it would end, but at least it would give her some kind of closure. People with missing loved ones often were tortured for years, never knowing if their lost kid was out there somewhere, needing help. Just knowing what had happened for certain was a form of relief.

I showed the picture to the cop. “Have you seen this young woman around here?” I asked him.

For the first time, the cop’s eyes narrowed and he looked at me suspiciously. “What are you doing down here, anyway?”

I hesitated a moment, not wanting to tell him about being hired to find the girl. Cops didn’t always appreciate amateur competition.

“A friend,” I said. “She’s missing.”

He nodded. “No. I haven’t seen her or anyone like her. Rich kids don’t come down here—not unless they are trying to score something illegal.”

I thanked him and dropped the subject. Another squad car and an ambulance arrived. The cop shook his head when he saw the ambulance.

“A bit late for CPR,” he said.

I ignored him and watched the EMTs work. They put on gloves and masks before bagging the remains. They didn’t do more than glance at me. The paramedics asked the cop a few questions and filled out a form.

Finally, another party showed up. I knew his car and his confident walk. It wasn’t a swagger, but it was close. It was Detective Jay McKesson. He ignored the bones, which were now safely bagged in a vinyl zip-up sack, and approached me.

“Quentin Draith?” he asked. He didn’t sound glad to see me.

“Detective,” I answered, nodding to him.

“He’s the closest thing we have to a witness,” the cop said. “He’s all yours.”

McKesson gave me a predatory smile. “You hear that, Draith? You’re my witness.”

I showed him the picture. “I’m looking for her.”

McKesson made an appreciative sound. “Not bad. I admire your taste in women.”

“She’s missing from this area, about a week past.”

“I know all about it,” he said.

“Any leads?”

He made a face, then gestured toward the sack of bones. The paramedics had just heaved it up into the back of the ambulance.

“That’s the only kind of lead I’ve got.”

I stared after the paramedics as they closed up shop. There hadn’t been much of an investigation. A tech with a camera went through the motions, snapping shots of the stained concrete from multiple angles now that the bones had been removed. I got the impression they’d all been through this before without learning much. They hadn’t even put up any yellow tape.

The cop who’d picked me up approached McKesson as the investigation wound down. “Sir, I’d like to formally request to whoever might be in charge…” He broke off, frowning at me.

“Go ahead, officer,” McKesson said. “There’s no point in trying to keep Draith here in the dark. He’ll be ass-deep in this soon enough, if he isn’t already.”

“Yes, sir. Well, I’d like to ask that you move it out of this area. I mean, whatever it is that’s happening. We’ve had enough of it, sir.”

McKesson looked annoyed. “You think I can control these events? Well, I can’t. I don’t think anyone can.”

“Well, whoever’s in charge—”

“Listen to me:
no one
is in charge here.”

The cop twisted his lips as if he didn’t believe McKesson, but he nodded and climbed back into his cruiser. He turned off his flashers and left. The streets had been quiet before, but now that it was dark and there had been a crime scene, they were positively deserted.

A few moments later, everyone was gone. I found myself standing with McKesson at my side. I wasn’t sure that I appreciated the company.

“Now that you know the score,” he said, “maybe you can help me out with whatever it is you’ve pieced together?”

I shook my head. “What do I know? I just got here. This is clearly your investigation. Why don’t you talk to me for a change? In return, when I do get something, I’ll bring it straight to you.”

“No press? No blogging?”

“I just want to find out what happened to the girl.”

McKesson sighed. “I would take you in, or ditch you, but I know you’ll just keep digging, Draith. Okay, I’m going to cut you a break in exchange for future information. First of all, this area has always had a bad rep.”

“I know all about that.”

“Naturally. But over recent years, there have been a number of disappearances. About a year back, the first pile of bones appeared in that building over there.”

I glanced in the direction he indicated. It looked like an abandoned industrial site. “What was it?”

“Just a warehouse. They imported special goods for special people.”

“Go on.”

McKesson shrugged. “The disappearances have slowly grown in number and the area they encompass has expanded. Bones aren’t always left behind, but they often are. That’s about it.”

I couldn’t help looking around myself in concern. Was there some kind of invisible monster stalking this region, eating people? The concept seemed bizarre, and I would never have taken it seriously if I hadn’t witnessed even stranger things in this town.

“What about your watch?” I asked. “I noticed you didn’t beat the rest of the uniforms to the scene of the crime this time.”

McKesson frowned at me. He hated talking about his wristwatch. It was an artifact, like my sunglasses. Its power was very different, however. It had the ability to indicate the location of a new rip in space. Strange things tended to come out of those rips, and McKesson often knew where they were going to come and could lie in wait for whatever stepped out. The watch was a secret, and he liked to keep it that way. I suspected it was because it was the key to his success. He was the best at investigating strange occurrences around Las Vegas, and he owed a lot of that to the wristwatch.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, glaring. “But I will say my normal instincts aren’t working in this case.”

I snorted. “Nothing? No rips are involved here?”

McKesson shrugged.

“If you want information from me, you are going to have to open up a little.”

“All right. I think there
are
rips, but they are of short duration. I get a twitch, then nothing. There’s never enough time to locate the rip or even get a good fix on it. I guess if I was hanging around in this neighborhood when one opened I could find it, but so far it hasn’t worked out that way.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “So, maybe something is stepping through, grabbing people, and then vanishing again?”

He threw up his hands. “Maybe. Can I drop you somewhere?”

“Yeah, who has a domain in this area?”

McKesson stared at me for a second. “No one.”

“Ah, come on. The Lucky Seven is a couple of miles away. There must be someone who has laid claim to this part of town.”

He shook his head. “Not really. It’s not prime real estate. The only one who might be involved would be the gutter man—Gutter Jim.”

“The gutter man?”

“Yeah. He rules the canals and sewers, so his domain goes all over. I’ve never actually met him. He stays underground most of the time.”

I grimaced. “The sewers, huh? Great. In that case, I could use a ride to the Lucky Seven.”

“Going to see Rostok? Do you think he still likes you? You’ve caused him a lot of trouble.”

“That’s my business.”

Seeing that I was done providing information, McKesson did an about-face and walked off. “Okay, see you around,” he said, moving to his car.

I followed him, frowning. “Hey, I thought you were going to give me a ride.”

“Too busy,” he said, climbing into his car and starting it up quickly. “I’ve got my own problems, Draith. You’re not the center of the universe, you know.”

I glared at his taillights and cursed for a while. Apparently, he’d offered me a ride only to find out where I was going next. I guess I hadn’t been useful enough to warrant a free trip downtown.

I took the next cross street and headed toward the Strip on foot. On the way there, things got weird.