Michael Prescott - In Dark Places

"Yeah, Doc, that's right." He raised his voice in a singsong falsetto. "I amp; can amp; see amp; you."

Wolper caught up with Brand a few yards outside the arcade. He grabbed the sergeant by the shoulder and spun him around.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Wolper shouted. "Why'd you cut and run when we saw you?"

"Guess I wasn't in the mood for company."

Wolper flung Brand backward onto the hood of somebody's Chevy. Brand put up an instinctive effort at resistance. Wolper slammed him down harder, denting the hood.

On the sidewalk a few people stopped to stare. Wolper threw open his jacket, revealing his 9mm. "Police business," he snapped.

That scattered the onlookers. Nobody wanted to get mixed up in any police action.

When he was satisfied that his audience was gone, Wolper opened the folds of Brand's windbreaker and withdrew the man's gun from its armpit holster.

"This your off-duty piece?" he asked.

"You know it is."

Wolper glanced at the gun in the ambient glow of street lamps and neon signs. Standard Berettathe registration number had not been filed off or erased with acid. The piece was street legal and traceable.

"Stand up," he ordered.

"Come on, Roy, what the fuck is this?"

"Just stand up, God damn it."

Brand dismounted the hood of the Chevy with whatever dignity he could summon. Wolper turned him around to face the side of the car.

"Spread 'em."

"You're patting me down, for Christ's sake?"

Without answering, Wolper shoved Brand up against the car and proceeded to do a body search.

There was no other weapon. Brand would have had to strap it to his leg in an ankle holster or tuck it into his belt, or conceal it in one of the windbreaker's pockets, possibly a secret pocket sewn into the lining. Nothing was there.

"You're clean," Wolper said finally, giving the Beretta back to Brand.

"I'm a good little boy," Brand mumbled as he reholstered the gun.

Wolper looked him over with a wary, skeptical eye. "I don't know about that, Al. I really don't. Now I'll tell you what. You and myself are going to have a talk, and when we're done, we're going inside so you can explain yourself to Robin Cameron."

"I've got nothing to say to her," Brand muttered with the stubborn, sullen frown of a disgruntled child.

"You'll have plenty to say to her and to me. As far as you're concerned, the doctor is in." Wolper leaned close, watching Brand's eyes and trying to catch any scent of alcohol on his breath. "Whatever you're up to, Al, I don't like it. We're already dealing with one pain-in-the-ass SOB who likes to play games. We don't need another one. You get what I'm saying?"

Brand faced Wolper's gaze for a long moment without blinking. "No games," he said in a beaten voice. "I get it."

"I hope you do," Wolper told him. "For your sake, I hope you do."

"You told me," Robin said slowly, "you weren't dumb enough to come back to Hollywood."

Gray's voice crackled over the line. "Guess I'm dumber than I thought. Didn't come in here to play no games, though. Had to take the lizard for a walk."

"Lizard?"

"Use the head, is what I'm saying. Caught them arcade noises on the phone and tumbled to where you were. Eye-balled you straight off. What are the odds we'd both show up at the same place? It's fuckin' kismet. We're meant to be a team."

She looked around her, trying to spot him. He could be anywhere in the shifting, shadowy crowd. Could be sneaking up to kill her from behind amp;

"Doc, you're way too antsy. If I was in for some silence 'n' violence, wouldn't I have executed the game plan by now?"

She took a breath. "You have to turn yourself in."

"Not gonna happen."

"I'm here with a police officer."

"You're alone. I'm looking right at you."

"He left for a second, but he'll be back. He could return at any time"

"Chill, Doc. Not that I don't enjoy hearing you pant into the telephone, but you're getting your dainties in a twist for no good reason. I got no hard-on for doing you harm. That's what I been trying to tell you. Hell, I'm on your side."

"How do you figure that?"

"I don't like being framed. And that's what went down today. Some asshole set me up. Hey, I'm willing to do the time for the crime, but it's gotta be my crime, not some other Joe's. I feel proprietary about my reputation."

There was a pause. "Justin, I want you to tell me again that you don't have my daughter."

"Doc, I sung that song already."

"I want to hear it again. No jokes, no wisecracks."

Slowly he said, "I ain't got her."

"You swear?"

"On a stack of Bibles and my mama's life."

"Your mother is dead."

"Figure of speech."

A moment passed as she considered everything she knew or thought she knew about Justin Gray.

"Okay," she said.

"You believe me?"

"Maybe."

"Well, it's a start. If you'd said yes, I'd've known you was lying. So what you gonna do now, Doc?"

"Find Meg."

"Sounds like a plan. Good luck with that."

"You said we could put our heads together. Maybe we can."

"You're bullshitting me again."

"If you were serious about what you said, prove it."

"How?"

"Let me see you."

"So you can throw a net on me. Put a spotlight on old Justin for your cop friend that's with you."

"If you want me to trust you, then you have to trust me ."

A beat of silence passed, and she thought she'd lost him.

"Deal," he said. "Turn around. You wanna see me, you're looking the wrong way."

She turned, peering toward the rear of the arcade.

"See the sign for the toilets? Pan down, zoom in."

She spotted him on a pay phone near the rest rooms. He'd changed out of the clothes he'd stolen. He was looking directly at her.

"Ta-da," said the voice on the phone.

"Let me talk to you, Justin."

"What do you think we're doing?"

"Face-to-face. Up close. Let me get near you."

"More of this trust business?"

"Yes."

He crooked the phone under his chin and spread his arms in a gesture of resignation. "What the hey. Come on over."

Holding the cell phone to her ear, she moved out of the alcove and into the press of the crowd. He was repeatedly eclipsed by shifting faces and bodies, and each time she thought he'd vanished for good, but always he reemerged, still standing by the phone, watching her with a wary, quizzical look.

Why was she doing this? Why risk getting closer to him? She knew the answer. It was the same thing she'd told him last night I don't do therapy over the phone .

To treat someone, she had to see him, watch his expression, his body language. She had to be close to his personal space.

"Don't get spooked, Justin," she said into the cell phone. "I'm almost there."

Over the crashing noise, she heard him snort. "I don't spook that easy."

The crowd thinned as she approached the hallway to the rest rooms. She could see Gray clearly now. Less than fifteen feet separated them.

"Whose blood was on the screwdriver?" she asked, speaking to him directly, not into the phone.

"Say what?"

"The screwdriver. It had blood on it. If you didn't kill the deputy, whose blood was it?"

"Mr. Cool's."

"You stabbed him?"

"Nicked him. In the arm. I told you we tussled."

"You didn't say anything about stabbing him."

"Wasn't hardly a stab. Shit, I got paper cuts worse 'n that."

She took another step toward him, narrowing the gap. "You understand why I have trouble believing you."

His shoulders lifted. "Yeah, I guess. But I could've iced you in your office. Shit, could've done it here, after I laid eyes on you. You're still breathing. That counts for something, don't it?"