Dead Ringer Read online

  “And if I fire, and miss . . . or if I fire and it can’t penetrate the guy’s clothing, he’ll be pretty PO’d.”

  “Yeah,” she said matter-of-factly. “That’s why you’re not going to miss. And that’s why . . .” She took up a shooter’s stance and took a deep breath. A small red dot appeared low on the target’s shape. Terry squeezed the trigger and fired. The Taser made an odd clicking sound as the probes shot out and pierced the alien. “You aim for where the clothes are tight.”

  The target shimmered and shook. Taser prongs shot right into the silver silhouette, right in the thigh.

  “I should shoot him in the leg?”

  “You should shoot him in the torso, right here,” she swept her hand from chest to groin. “The wider the spread the more effective the charge. But if he’s wearing a lot of layers on his upper body, you’ll have to hit him where you can get through. Like, say, his blue jeans.” She tapped her thigh. “But, remember this.” She held up a finger. “This is important. Just because the guy goes down doesn’t mean you’re in the clear. This pulse only lasts five seconds. That’s it. With no lingering effects. The instant the pulse stops, he’s going to jump to his feet and come after you.”

  I shook my head at the plastic gun. “So, this thing buys me five seconds.”

  “Five seconds per trigger pull. Keep pulling if you need to. In fact, I’d advise you to just hold the trigger back tight as you can. That sends a constant pulse—one that doesn’t quit until you release it.” She gave me a wry look. “Or till your batteries run down. Make sure you have fresh ones. They’re double-A, but they’re a special kind. I’ll get you some up front.”

  “Okay, I guess I’m ready.”

  “Not yet.” She crouched and pulled out two pair of safety goggles from the cabinet. “I like to be careful. Especially around a first-time handler.”

  Terry clicked a new cartridge into position for me. “Try shooting first, then I’ll have you practice changing cartridges under pressure.”

  I’d handled guns in the past, and I knew some basics. Still, when I aimed and fired—the clicking prongs stinging the target nice and wide across the silver man’s chest—I jerked in surprise. I’d expected a recoil. There was none.

  I let go of the trigger, and the clicking stopped.

  “Nice shot, but you should hold the trigger,” Terry said. “Here. Replace the cartridge.”

  As I squeezed the clips to release the front piece, she continued to teach.

  “Once the probes hit someone, they become a bio-hazard. That means you have to be super careful about not sticking yourself. They’ll have blood and tissue all over them.” I grimaced as she went on. “And if you find the need—I can’t imagine why you would—to touch the subject while he’s being pulsed, you have to avoid contact in the area between the two probes. If, say, your hand comes in contact with his chest between the prongs, it’s called ‘touching in the beam’ and you will be affected by the shock.”

  This was sounding like more fun every minute. “What if only one probe hits?”

  “It won’t,” she said. “Because we’re going to practice so much that you will not miss. But . . . if for some reason one of the probes does miss, or dislodge, you’ll have to drive forward and shove this up against the guy.” She gave me a pointed look. “While keeping the trigger pulled the whole time. Do not let up until help arrives or unless you’re prepared to run.”

  “Got it,” I said. But did I?

  “Okay,” she said, “let’s go again.”

  Ron Shade

  My cell phone had been vibrating in the Beater while I’d been waiting in the lobby of the police station for the sarge to get those copies of the reports for me. A better man might have had some reservations about circumventing the good old FOIA, but I didn’t. One hand washes the other sometimes, and the whole idea of the Act was to make it easier for citizens to cut through the red tape. When Sergeant Gillespe came out about fifteen minutes later with a manila envelope filled with sheets of paper, he shook my hand and thanked me again for my cooperation.

  I thanked him in return and he reassured me that he was going to address some issues with Officer Scott. I thought about leaving one of my cards for Mighty Mouse, inviting him to come workout at Chappie’s, but decided against it. It had been a roundabout route, but I’d ended up with most of what I’d come for.

  As I got back into the Beater and headed toward the I-294 ramp, I glanced down at my missed calls. One number I didn’t recognize, with a 312 area code, and George’s cell number. No doubt Doug had probably called him to mention that he’d received that call from the suburban PD. And naturally, George wanted to check up on me.

  George was more like a surrogate big brother than a friend, and sometimes he was borderline surrogate mother. Growing up, he’d been a big influence on me, having been in the military with my much older brother, Tom. There were nineteen years separating us, and since I was the product of our father’s second marriage, to a much younger woman after Tom’s mother had died, there had always been an unfortunate distance between my brother and me. His experience in Vietnam had shaken him, too. Left him emotionally brittle. When he’d come back I was just a little kid, and the distance increased. It had been George who’d filled the gap, becoming closer than kin, as the saying goes, watching out for me in my final teen years, giving me the youth of America lectures to try and keep me out of trouble, and providing guidance as I finished up high school. It had also been George who convinced me to go into the army after my life fell apart and my collegiate scholarship plans went down the tubes. “Be all you can be,” he’d said. “And go Airborne.” When I got out after participation in a couple of desert war games, he steered me toward the PD, where I excelled until I got fired.

  I grimaced as the rumination started to reflect an unflattering pattern in my life. I’d let George down, big-time. Still, I thought, you can’t change the past, so you gotta work on the future.

  I came to a stop light and pressed the button to check my messages. The unfamiliar number turned out to be a cool, feminine voice.

  “Hi, Mr. Shade,” the recording said. “It’s Alex St. James from Midwest Focus. I was wondering if you could give me a call at your earliest convenience.” She rattled off the number and thanked me in advance.

  Although I’d only met her once, and that was a brief introduction, I remembered that Alex St. James was a real babe. We’d almost bumped into each other, literally, at a gas station, and her boss had subsequently called me about buying the Firebird. He’d gotten a sweet deal and she probably wanted to call me and say thanks. Or maybe she had another reason . . . Maybe she just wanted an excuse to talk to me again. I pressed the buttons and let the phone do the dialing for me. Maybe this could be a good excuse to ask her out, or something.

  A feminine voice, sounding like a black girl’s, answered with a “Ms. St. James’ office.”

  “Hi, this is Ron Shade, returning Ms. St. James’ call.”

  Silence, then, “I’m sorry, sir, what was it in reference to?”

  “Don’t know exactly,” I said. “She called and left me a message.”

  “Well, she’s unavailable at the moment. If you want to leave a number I’ll see that she gets it.”

  Nicely worded, I thought. Very neutral. Noncommittal. I gave her my cell and answering service numbers.

  Have to wait and see what that’s all about, I thought as I turned onto the ramp of the tollway and pressed some more buttons to return George’s call. His cell phone rang twice.

  “Ron Shade’s information and reference service,” he answered. From the sound of his voice, I could tell he was driving, too.

  “What kind of a way is that to answer the damn phone?” I asked, making no attempt to curtail my amusement.

  “Just telling it like it is. What kind of mess have you gotten yourself into now?”

  “Everything’s cool.”

  “Yeah, right.” His voice evened out with concern. “Doug ca
lled me and said Oakton Hillside PD was checking up on you.”

  “A minor misunderstanding. All settled, right as rain, after I told them I was a friend of yours.”

  “Still lying for a living, huh?”

  “Hey, I want any shit out of you, I’ll squeeze your head.”

  I heard his chuckle, crackly with the buzz of interference. “That one’s not bad. I’ll have to use it sometime.”

  “Be my guest,” I said. “Say, how about we get together for breakfast tomorrow?”

  Silence.

  “You there?” I asked.

  “I’m here,” he said. The flat tone of mild irritation was back in his tone. “So what is it you want me to do for you this time?”

  Now it was my turn to chuckle. “Just figured I’d buy you breakfast, is all. Maybe clue you in about my upcoming fight.”

  “You got one coming up? Already?”

  Actually, Chappie had been dragging his feet committing to a new one, wanting to field the best offer and also let my eyebrow completely heal. But since George had won big on my last one, I figured it was only appropriate that I keep him on the string a bit. For his own good, of course.

  “Could be,” I said.

  “Hell, I figured you wanted me to run somebody for you, or something.”

  “Hence, Ron Shade’s information service, right?”

  His laugh was lost in a sea of crackling interference once more.

  “Look, I’m on the Ryan,” he said. “I can barely hear you. Call me later on or come over to the house. I’ll have Ellen set an extra place at dinner if you can make it.”

  He terminated the connection, and I was driving along listening to dead-air nothingness. Too many dead spots on that expressway. But at least I’d laid the groundwork for what I needed to do. Eventually, I probably would need his help on this one.

  After coasting through my second tollbooth, dutifully holding up the transponder so I didn’t have to stop and pay, I set it back on the dash and grabbed the Bayless file. Luckily, the Beater had once been a luxury muscle car, and the steering wheel had three different adjustable heights. I brought it up to the uppermost position and set the file on the base of the wheel. As I drove, I turned pages, alternating quick glances at the string of cars ahead of me, and found what I was looking for.

  Being a successful PI in Chicago meant being able to work out of the box sometimes. I wasn’t handcuffed by the Bill of Rights, like George was, and people hired me with the understanding that I’d find things out, one way or another. George often joked with me about it. “The difference between you and me,” he’d often say, “is that in the private sector, they expect results.”

  And I needed some quick results if I was going to move on this thing. After all, the company was depending on me. I smirked as I used my thumb to press the button going through my phone contacts on my cell phone. How did we ever get through the day without them? Although more than once, I’d made people wish they had.

  Francis Griggas answered with his customary tentative hello. He hated doing business over the phone, which, considering the business he was in, was understandable.

  “Francis, it’s Ron Shade. I need you to run down some phone records for me.”

  “Okay, Ron.” I could hear his fingers typing on a keyboard. “Give me your code word, please.”

  Ultra-paranoid, Francis always assigned people an identifier, which you had to say back to him before he’d take your order. It had always struck me as a bit much, but I played along because he was good at delivering the impossible without a lot of red tape.

  “Rosebud,” I said, gasping and giving my best imitation of Orson Welles.

  “Okay,” he said. “What you need?”

  I read off Bayless’s cell phone, home, and office numbers from the MWO file. “I need records for those going back the last year and a half.”

  Unperturbed as always, Francis repeated the numbers back to me.

  “You got ’em,” I said. “Can you put a rush on it?”

  “Do my best,” he said. “Call you when I got something.”

  He hung up. Traffic had slowed to a turtle crawl in front of me, but as far as the investigation was going, I figured things were moving along well enough that Big Dick and the company would be satisfied. I’d still bill him for the mileage, the phone calls, and special services, of course. Hopefully, once I had enough information, things would start coming together. Right now, I had zip, but all things considered, it hadn’t been too bad of a first day. Plus, I had the added pleasurable speculation of wondering what Ms. Alex St. James wanted with me.

  Chapter 6

  Alex St. James

  As I settled my bill and arranged for handgun lessons, I realized I had a missed call on my cell phone. Nicky Farnsworth had left me a voice mail inviting me to visit the homeless shelter where he volunteered his time.

  I called him back immediately. Good fortune smiled on me when I found out that he had no pressing commitments for the rest of the afternoon and that he’d be happy to escort me to the shelter and introduce me to Father Morales. That meant I’d get going on my story, and I could avoid heading back to the office where William was probably winding up amid a slew of tearful good-byes. I’d said more than was necessary to my former colleague. Now it was time to move on.

  An hour later I pulled up to Sunset Manor. The place was nice—as funeral parlors go—and I’d visited enough of them to consider myself a fair judge. This was one of the two-story models—where the mortician lives above the parlors. Expansive was the operative word. The building occupied the full city block on a busy street, with a grocery store to its immediate north and a video rental shop to the south. I parked up front, and made my way under the covered entrance to the double doors. I debated ringing the bell, but decided to just walk in.

  The place was quiet as a tomb. When I’d gone Taser-ing, I’d changed from heels to athletic shoes, and now I was conscious of the squeak-squeak of my rubber soles against the polished tile floor. My voice echoed when I called out, “Nick?”

  No sound, no movement. The lobby had a large crystal chandelier, but the four corridors stretching out from the building’s center were unlit. Their dim recesses made me want to keep close to the exit. “Nick?” I called again, louder this time.

  A door slammed from deep in the building, to my left.

  Hard shoes clipped against distant tile. “Alex? Is that you?” A moment later he turned the corner and broke into a smile as he closed the space between us, hesitated, then hugged me. “You made good time.”

  I stepped back, surprised by the gesture. The hug had given me a noseful of his cologne. Somebody ought to tell him that it was to be splashed on, not showered with.

  He broke away, blinked a couple of times, thrust his hands into his pockets and stared at nothing in particular. I waited for him to say something, but all I could think was that it was too quiet. I couldn’t even hear the rush of traffic outside.

  “A lot of new construction in the neighborhood, isn’t there?” I asked, just to start conversation. “Is the shelter nearby?”

  “The shelter? Oh. Yeah.” His hands came out of his pockets. He clasped them together, affecting a very funeral-director-like pose, and then dropped them to his sides.

  This guy needed a jumpstart. If he was this awkward in casual conversation with a female he knew since childhood, I couldn’t imagine how he’d be with women in the throes of grief. “Should I follow you in my car?”

  “No.” It came out too loud. The chandelier’s prisms tinkled.

  “Okay . . . then what?” If Larry thought that his son would make a good on-air interview, he was sadly mistaken. It took effort to keep this scintillating banter going, and my patience was wearing thin.

  Nick’s lips tightened as though he was trying hard to remember something.

  I tried again. “How about you give me directions and I’ll just go there myself, then?”

  “No,” he said. “I mean . . . I thought you
’d like to look around here a little.” He licked his lips. “First. Before we go.”

  I understood now. As though Larry stood between us, whispering in Nick’s ear, I could hear Daddy’s suggestion—“Take your time, Nicky-boy. Let her get to know you.”

  With a pointed look at my watch I asked, “I don’t want to miss Father Morales. How late does he stay?”

  “He’ll be there. He’s always there.”

  There didn’t seem to be much point in arguing. And, to be honest, I didn’t want to pass up a chance to tour the funeral home’s back rooms.

  I shrugged. “Okay then, show me around.”

  On first glance, I decided that funeral home embalming rooms are both similar and completely different than autopsy laboratories. Autopsy rooms have a lot more people running around, and a lot more people not running around. This embalming room was designed for one client at a time. It was a bit more stark than the autopsy labs I’d been in—it had less personality. The Medical Examiners’ staffs tended to treat autopsy labs like their offices with little reaffirmations of life—postcards, travel magnets, even utensils stored in snack cans—despite the undeniable evidence of mortality. But both settings were the same in one respect. They both carried death’s pall. I could feel it pressing down on me, even as the room’s chill forced my hands up to rub warmth into my arms.

  “We have three more embalming rooms,” he said. “There’s another through that door,” he swung his pointed finger to his left, “and two in the building’s north wing.”

  “You need that many?”

  “Not only do we do a brisk business here on our own, but the indigent population keeps us hopping.”

  “Us?”

  “My staff. I have a twenty-four-hour answering service, of course, but I also have a receptionist, and several assistants. When we handle funerals, we need ushers, men to direct traffic, others to oversee the ceremonies, and I need to keep enough people on call in the event that we have more than two funerals going at once.” He gave a sad smile. “In the case of the homeless, too, we need strong men to transport the remains. People from the street don’t usually have their own pallbearers.”