Dan’s connections with his sources were obscure almost to the point of being nonexistent. Sometimes the contact of a contact would phone or send him a message — for cash, of course. If there was news to be
had, there was a price tag to go with it. What you learned after paying your snitch fee was anybody’s guess, and where the tip came from was nobody’s business. That wasn’t Dan’s concern. Finding his client was. As long as the information put him in touch with the right person it was all the same to him. With some, you could never tell. A tip leading to an abandoned slaughterhouse might be just the ticket or it could be a blind lead.
The only way to know for sure was to follow it.
Dan waited in the darkness, conscious of the smell of burnt everything. Before entering the grounds he’d checked for guard dogs, tossing a few well-aimed rocks inside the fence. Nothing stirred, growled, or snarled. Nothing that he could see, at least. Burned-out building or not, he was technically trespassing, so better not to get caught by some rabid canine pulling your pants down around your ankles as you hoisted yourself over a fence.
Just inside the entrance, his nostrils curled at the smell of stale urine. Vagrants then, or at least a few ravers. Maybe even a couple of do-it-yourself journalist types. Cities abounded with the latter. Dan kept a couple on his payroll as occasional providers of obscure but useful information. Astonishing what someone living off the grid might turn up. There was nothing like a gung-ho would-be activist for sniffing out the dirt on your street that everyone else overlooked. One man’s garbage was another’s hot tip.
Darkness swallowed him again as he slid into a large open space. It was like being gradually submerged in different depths of water. As he moved farther into the room, his eyes grew accustomed to the negligible light. Here was where the meat would have been conveyed along assembly lines, waiting to be packaged and branded. He could just make out the curlicue of hooks overhead. Underfoot, the wire grills set in concrete would have kept the floor drained of blood and guts. He imagined freshly killed carcasses swinging from cutter to cutter, lurching down the line till what started out as a whole pig made the cut from pork loin through bacon on its way to becoming sliced baloney.
He stopped for a moment to consider the call that had sent him in search of his quarry. When he’d asked what his prey was hiding from, the voice had responded by turning it around on him: Don’t you know? Hard to say what was hidden behind that question in answer to his question. People disappeared for a lot of reasons. Often money was behind it,
but just as often you could find traces of fear, shame, desperation. It was hard to say.
The movie theme was running through his head now. That’s when he heard the pebble.
“Darryl Hillary?” he called out. “My name is Dan Sharp. I’m a missing persons investigator. I’ve been hired by your sister.”
Dan strained to see, but nothing distinguished itself in the blackness. He took another step and the ground gave way underfoot. He pitched backward. The misstep may have saved his life. Above him, the air parted with a swishing sound as though something hefty had been swung at his head, barely missing it. Senses heightened, Dan felt more than he saw the shadowy figure skipping nimbly away toward the entrance. Someone whose eyes were far better adjusted to the light.
The attack had come so quickly he barely registered the adrenaline surging in his veins. Now it set off panic alarms as he lay on the floor waiting to be sure he was alone and no longer in danger of having his head bashed in. Whoever it was wanted to get away more than finish him off.
“Darryl Hillary?” he called after the vanished figure.
There was no way of knowing whether his would-be attacker was Hillary, or even male, though he suspected it was. If it was Hillary then he’d probably thought whoever he was running from had finally caught up with him. Whatever horrors dwelled in his head waiting to spring out at any moment, he likely felt justified taking a swing at someone calling his name in a burned-out slaughterhouse.
Dan got to his feet and brushed himself off. It was plain stupid to be stumbling around without his flashlight. He’d been too busy congratulating himself on not being afraid of the dark, like some ten-year-old daring to walk through a haunted forest at midnight. Except in this case there’d be no one to brag to when he emerged, exhilarated, after not being eaten by goblins or ghouls or wicked stepmothers.
Steadying himself, he felt in his pocket for the Mini Mag that accompanied him everywhere he went, the way others were married to their Swiss Army knives. He twisted the knob and aimed it dead ahead. Obscure shapes sprang forward in a silvery gloom, as though he were underwater. Everything else stayed obstinately black just outside the range of the beam.
Something tickled his cheek. He put a hand up to brush it off, catching his fingers in the straying light.
Red.
Blood.
Not mine.
Dan swung the light overhead and a sense of revulsion overtook him. His stomach reeled. The body was trussed like a pig and hanging from a rusty meat hook.
A sound issued from his throat, half-gurgle and half-yell. Then silence rushed in to fill the vacuum that nature was said to abhor.
With his unbloodied hand he reached for his cellphone, keeping the flashlight trained on the monster dangling above. He punched in the three numbers. The alert voice on the other end seemed to have been awaiting his call: Ambulance, fire, or police?
Only for what it was worth, this tip wasn’t destined to be anonymous.
One
Tubular Bells
The sirens screamed long before Dan saw the stuttering lights and sleek cars arriving with their officers in fancy dress uniform. The first cruiser skidded to a stop just outside the fence — a little show of force, nothing too flashy. There wasn’t much of an audience, after all. It was followed by a fire engine with a full crew and, finally, an ambulance to complete the set. Not that there was any chance the victim was still alive, Dan knew, but until that fact had been officially established, there would be no concession even to Death.
The second and third cruisers careened to a halt ten feet from the first, lights flashing crazily. The old police vehicles, since retired, had always reminded Dan of sharks: sleek, predatory things waiting to attack. The new twenty-first century design with its gleaming white, red, and blue motifs made him think of Crest toothpaste tubes more than anything. Slick and lean, with cavity fighting fluoride. A new breed of cop for the new millennium.
Two officers came warily toward him. Who knew, but he could be a crazy man on a killing spree. One cop was average build, youngish, probably a family man resenting the impositions of a night shift that kept him away from home. The other was oversized and fleshy, a teddy bear with a wheeze and buggy eyes. A heart attack in the making. Badges were flashed, names tossed at him. In return, Dan identified himself as the 911 caller. The three of them headed inside.
The other officers stayed outside, taping off the yard, diligent as prospectors mapping out a claim. Dan knew the rule of thumb was to cast your net large. You could always close down on an area later, but once the scene was under inspection it was too late to widen the scope. A final officer sat in his cruiser, probably writing up a request for the warrant that would allow them to make a thorough search of the premises.
With their larger and more penetrating flashlights, Dan got a better look at the slaughterhouse interior. Clearly, he’d been taking his chances wandering about in the dark. He ducked under a collapsed arch and headed into the main room where the body waited. The cops followed silently, playing their beams on the ground and over the walls, looking for who knew what. On seeing the body strung up, one of the officers made a sound of disgust; the other kept his feelings to himself, if he had any.