They Ate the Waitress Read online

  “Hey, come back here!” Eric pushed the cylinder back into place and, holding the gun in both hands, aimed carefully. The shot missed Nick’s head by three feet.

  Nick kicked open the door and leapt down the stairs. The weight on his back threw off his balance. He fell down the steps, landing on his stomach, his head bouncing off the pavement. He struggled to his feet, stars shooting through his eyes. Blinking away the dancing lights, he rushed to the other side of the lot.

  The large man was slow to reach the door. His shots blasted holes in the blacktop. Nick ran across the lot, through a patch of trees, and down a trash-strewn alleyway. He jogged for several blocks, ducking between two parking garages. He wriggled out of the ropes, the pieces of the broken chair clattering to the ground. The handcuffs still held his hands behind his back. He paused, listening. “No gunshots. I guess I must be safe. Fat boy probably doesn’t want to run this far.”

  After a few blocks, he saw a familiar-looking blue box: an emergency transmitter booth. Stepping inside, he was greeted by an overly-friendly, computer-generated voice: “Welcome, and thank you for choosing Prolix Communications! Name and city, please.”

  “I could call a security patrol, tell them what happened,” he thought, “but that would be pretty embarrassing. Even so, I still need some help.” To the transmitter booth, he said, “Business listings. Any locksmith, city of Vancouver.”

  “Please insert one dollar.”

  “Oh, hell.”

  He struggled and stretched to reach his money pouch. He dropped a coin into the booth’s slot, and then positioned his body so that the handcuffs wouldn’t be visible to the camera.

  A voice came from nowhere. “Hello?” Apparently the booth’s hologram projector was out of order.

  “I locked myself out of the house,” he lied. “Can you come to this transmitter booth?”

  “Be there in forty-five minutes,” the locksmith’s voice replied. “Maybe a couple less.” The booth beeped, ending the call.

  He leaned against the side of the booth and lowered himself to his feet. His head felt like a piece of meat on a skewer. “God, I hope the locksmith has a sense of humor.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The following morning, Nick had a rental car sent to his apartment. “Technically, my car was destroyed because of my last case, which I had already declared closed. Can I still charge the rest home folks for it? – God, I wish Fairbanks had murdered Renée. That would make my life so much easier.”

  Feeling stressed, he decided to have a long, relaxing breakfast at his favorite coffee house, a little place called Caffè Ebbro. A neon sign in the front window flashed their slogan: “Our Coffee Has Booze In It.”

  Picking at an apple bacon omelet, he tried to go over a copy of his case notes, but Sophia forced her way into his thoughts. “Why can’t I keep my mind on Renée? Sophie came to the hospital and I wouldn’t even speak to her. I told myself that I didn’t have the energy to maintain a conversation, but that was just an excuse. She cares about me so much; more than anybody else does, that’s for damn sure. Why can't I just talk to her? Why can't I talk to anybody? – God, these eggs are terrible. Breakfast here is like something out of H.P. Lovecraft.”

  A woman in a blue shawl stepped through the door, carrying a crying toddler over her shoulder. It was pulling at her hair and screaming like a teenager in a horror movie. “What would I do if Sophie wanted children?” he wondered. “Having a child is like losing a finger: you can deal with one or two, but three or more could ruin your life. Even if you baby-proof the house, sometimes babies still get in.” He finished the last few bites of egg and stubbed out his cigarette in the butter dish. “Even if Sophia never wants children, staying with any woman long enough will change your life forever. Sometimes even in a good way.”

  He was finally ready to see her. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he had to say something. It was early enough in the morning that her shift at work should have been just about over. He would try to catch her before she went home.

  The sign in the parking lot was supposed to say “Little Brothers – Always Open.” Someone with a socket wrench and too much free time had rearranged the letters. Now the sign read “two LOnely lips At her Breast.”

  He stepped inside and headed for the back of the store, hoping to find Sophia in the employee locker room. The store was very busy for so early in the morning. A salesman was demonstrating an advanced lie detector that could also identify fibs, exaggeration, and hyperbole. Across the aisle, another salesman was showing a customer how to properly hide a spy camera inside another, slightly larger spy camera. Over by the office supplies, a new poster advertised "Pen Ultimate: Almost the Last Writing Instrument You'll Ever Need."

  Ignoring the “Employees Only” sign, he pulled open the door to the locker room. Empty. Sophia’s voice drifted to him from across the store. “I think I have something like that in stock. Over here, next to the salt and pepper spray.” He weaved his way through the crowd, finally close enough to see her customer. Sophia was standing behind the gun counter, talking to a leggy redhead in a tight sweater: Jessica Campbell.

  He ducked behind a mannequin and, peering through its armpit, watched the women lean over the counter. Sophia was idly rolling a long, black tube under her fingertips. The tube had a couple of large buttons on the side, one of which was protected by a latched safety cover. "It can deliver quite a nasty shock," she said, "at just the right frequency to stop the heart muscles."

  "How exciting!" Jessica breathed. "That’s fatal, right?"

  Sophia rolled her eyes. “Well, I suppose you could bounce up and down and hope some blood reached your brain…”

  "And that button's the power control..?"

  "Yes. It has a relatively gentle buzz, for when you want to drag things out for a while, a stronger jolt, for when you want screaming and gasping for air, or a painful blast to finish you in seconds."

  Jessica covered her mouth and stared at the floor. "Good, good. Sometimes you just want to get it over with quickly, you know? Just get on with the rest of your life."

  Nick stepped out from behind the mannequin in what he hoped was a dramatic fashion. "Just who are you planning to ‘finish’, Miss Campbell? My money is on Todd Sweeney."

  Jessica grabbed the tube from the counter and pointed it at his head. "Maybe I'll finish you first!" She pressed the largest button. The tube emitted a low, humming sound, a burst of blue light, and then... nothing. “Bang! Bang!” she laughed, twirling the tube on her fingers like a baton.

  Sophia groaned, exasperated. "Nick, you ass, she’s not going to kill anybody… You can get up off the floor now."

  Brushing off his pants, he ignored the stares of the startled customers. “Then what’s she going to do with it?”

  “She came in to look at our cameras,” Sophia explained. “We got to talking, and she mentioned that she hadn’t had a date in a while, so I told her to get the X43. You see, only the highest voltage is lethal. The lowest voltage just feels kind of nice…”

  Tossing some coins on the counter, Jessica shoved the gun in her pocket. “What can I say? Danger is sexy. If I could, I would date a bobcat."

  For once, Nick was at a loss for words. Ignoring Sophia’s attempt at a goodbye, he returned to his car. “I’ve never been this embarrassed in my life,” he thought. “At least, not since I was eight, when Mom explained human reproduction in graphic detail. The worst part was, I had actually asked her ‘where do rabies came from’.”

  ◊

  He drove out to Renée’s building, careful to see that he wasn’t being followed. He slipped in through the laundry room again, this time not bothering with a disguise.

  He knocked on one of Renée’s neighbor’s doors and waited. There were sounds of movement and someone stubbing their toe and swearing. Eventually, the door was opened by a barefoot woman in a pink bathrobe. “Hello, ma’am,” he said, showing her a printed photo of Donald Canard. “I’m Detective Wergild,
and I’m investigating the murder of one of your neighbors. Do you recognize this man?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said thoughtfully, squinting at the photograph. “No, wait, I think so. That’s the guy I saw a few weeks ago. It was late at night, and I heard the girl next door screaming. I stepped into the hall to see what was wrong, and that guy in the picture ran out of her apartment. I guess you never caught him, huh?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “Do you remember what night this was?”

  “I think… six weeks ago? Yeah, that’s when it was, because that was the day after rent was due.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yes, I’m positive. Landlord reminded me about it eight times. Guess I should think about paying…”

  “Alright. Thank you for your time.”

  He checked with all the apartments on the floor. All the residents who had heard or seen anything said it had been six weeks since the incident. Riding down in the elevator, he reevaluated his case. “Six weeks ago. That doesn’t make any sense. If it was six weeks ago, not four, then Renée was alive after the break-in. When Donald left her apartment, Renée was still alive! What’s going on here?”

  His transmitter buzzed. He yanked it from his pocket, and Margery Sweeney’s tiny head appeared above his palm. “Hello, Mr. Wergild. I’m calling to check on your progress.” He reviewed everything that had happened since they had last spoken, skipping over the part about being attacked with a sex toy. “So, despite our agreement, you’ve done absolutely nothing to investigate my husband. This does not make me happy, Mr. Wergild.” She spat his name like an obscenity.

  “That’s not where my instincts have led me.”

  “I don’t give a damn about your instincts! I paid you a great deal of money, Mr. Wergild. I demand that you investigate my husband immediately or I will take you to court for breach of contract!”

  He flipped off his transmitter and headed for the parking lot. “Great, another damn distraction. Looks like I’ll be in a rest home before this case is finished…” Glumly, he pointed his car towards Hand to Mouth.

  There were no other cars in the lot. A notice on the front door said “Closed for renovations. Catering still available!” Some of the debris from the fire had been carried away, but there was still a giant hole where the front of Todd Sweeney’s office used to be.

  He picked up a piece of broken glass from the shattered bathroom window and sliced a flap in the firefighters’ plastic sheeting. Stepping inside, he immediately noticed something odd. “There are overhead sprinklers in here… Why didn’t the bomb set them off?” He dragged a garbage can in from the parking lot, turned it upside-down, and climbed on top. When he pulled on one of the sprinkler heads, it broke off in his hand. “They’re just glued to the ceiling, not connected to anything! He did just enough work to get discounted fire insurance. I wonder if…”

  He forced open Todd’s office door and stepped into the restaurant, where he found the security camera above the entrance to the butcher shop. Stretching, he grabbed the camera’s wire and tugged gently. The wire slid free from the wall. “Another fake! Probably all the cameras in the building are. So, that’s why Sweeney didn’t have video of Renée’s killer. Renée probably knew about the cameras, since she was practically the manager... And if she knew, she might have told–”

  His thoughts were interrupted by his transmitter. It was a man he didn’t recognize. Early thirties, slicked back hair, and a rather ill-advised soul patch. “Hello, Mr. Wergild. I am Clayton West. You paid me a visit the other night.”

  “That’s funny. I don’t remember talking to you.” For legal reasons, Nick never admitted to doing anything. He wouldn’t even reminisce with old friends without using the word “allegedly.”

  “I wasn’t home at the time, but I know you were here. You see, I have hidden security cameras covering every inch of my house. I have footage of you breaking in, looking through my things, criticizing my decorating. Had you arrived a few hours earlier, you would have seen those photos being planted here.”

  “You have video? Who did it?”

  “I didn’t recognize the person, but I have a feeling you might. Come by and look at the footage for yourself. I’ll explain everything when you get here. And bring my leather jacket with you!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Nick rang Clayton’s doorbell and waited. No answer. He rang again and knocked on the door, just in case the bell was out of order and the ringing sound was only in his head. Still, nothing. He put his ear to the door and listened.

  A man’s voice shouted, “Men! Men! Men!”

  “Men?” More screaming. He tried to kick in the door. It didn’t budge, but he managed to bend the steel plate in the toe of his boot. He grabbed his Halligan bar from the car. It was a forced entry tool used by firefighters and security patrols, a kind of combination pickaxe/hammer/crowbar. It could easily hack apart a door frame or pry open a window. In an emergency, it could also open beer bottles. He slipped the spiked end into the keyhole and pried the lock apart. He shouldered open the door and, drawing his laser stunner, cautiously peered inside. Nothing. Stepping through the door, he found a pool of blood on the kitchen tile.

  A voice came from outside. “Anderson Security Incorporated! Prepare to die!”

  “That’s not proper procedure!” he called. “You’re supposed to say ‘come out with your hands up’ or ‘surrender peacefully,’ something like that!”

  “Alright, fine!” the voice replied. “Come out peacefully, and surrender to our hail of bullets!”

  “If you shoot me, you’ll have to fill out a lot of paperwork afterwards!”

  “No, we won’t! We have a girl from the secretarial pool! Her name’s Becky!”

  A small, green object crashed through the kitchen window and rolled across the floor, stopping at his feet. “What the hell is that?” He nudged it with his boot. “I’ve seen those before. They used to make them here, when we had a government… You pull that pin out and throw it… Oh, holy hell. Grenade!”

  His mind flashed back to something his grandfather used to say. “If a hand grenade falls at your feet early in the morning, nothing worse can happen to you for the rest of the day. Or, in most cases, the rest of your life.”

  Suddenly, he remembered the Halligan in his hands. Swinging it like a golf club, he knocked the grenade out the front door. “Fore!”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The next morning, Nick scanned the local newsfeeds. Amazingly, it looked like no one had been hurt by the grenade. According to one article, the security guards had ducked, the grenade flying over their heads and landing at the feet of a dog walker. She was unharmed, but had a hell of a time explaining what happened to the poodles.

  The article quoted one of the security guards as saying “We never saw the guy who threw the grenade, but he knew us! Right before he threw it, he shouted ‘Forth!’ Sergeant Forth has gone into hiding until further notice. If his wife needs him, he’ll be at The Highway Hotel, room 43.”

  “This means the security patrols aren’t after me,” Nick thought. “At least, not for the grenade. They’re still trying to find the guy who keeps stealing pins from the bowling alley…”

  A transmission from Margery Sweeney interrupted his reading. “Look, I’ve been chasing other leads,” he said. “I’ll get to investigating your husband in –”

  “Come to the restaurant immediately,” she said, her voice tense with fear. “My husband has murdered Clayton West.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Although glad that the case was coming to an end, he couldn’t help but feel disappointed that he hadn’t been the one to discover the killer. Dark doubts began to surface. He had been at this for years and, other than seeing his name in the newsfeeds, he hadn’t really gotten anywhere. Other manhunters had secretaries, assistants, health insurance. What if he just wasn’t meant to be a manhunter? What if he was meant to be an arbitrator? Or a lawyer? Or a periodontist?
/>   His transmitter buzzed again. Sophia. “Nick, are you busy?”

  “Actually, I was on my way to arrest a murd–”

  “Oh, good. We really need to talk. There’s this distance between us, and I can’t stand it anymore. We’ve been friends for years, but I can’t say that I really know you.”

  “Do we really have to deal with this now?” he growled.

  “Nick, I need more of you. You can’t expect me to give and give without getting anything in return. How many times do I have to say ‘I love you’ before you’ll believe me?”

  “I can’t handle this right now. I’m about to wrap up the case, and I need to focus. Our relationship will still be there tomorrow.” As Nick entered the darkness of a tunnel, Sophia flickered and faded away.

  ◊

  Margery met Nick in the restaurant lobby. She led the way to the butcher shop, wringing her hands nervously. She gestured to a huge machine in the corner, a five-foot high, stainless steel bowl with a narrow step ladder bolted to its side. The rim of the bowl was coated with a layer of rusty blood. “I think Todd was trying to pulverize the bones.”

  Reluctantly, he climbed the ladder and peered inside. The blood had turned the mass of lumpy dough a dark, reddish brown. Bits of bone and intestines were spread throughout the sticky mess. The muscles and tissue had been reduced to something like ground beef. In the center of the dough, visible under a layer of blood and muck, was Clayton West’s skull. His face had been torn by the mixer’s blades, but it was still clearly him. Nick’s stomach lurched. “Whatever you do, don’t sell this bread. At least, not at full price.”

  As they returned to the lobby to escape the smell, he wondered how many pills he would have to take to get the image of Clayton West’s shredded skin out of his head. “Does Mr. Sweeney know what you’ve found here?”

  “No, he’s at the contractor’s. Apparently they’re overcharging us for the repairs to the office.”