Zero Sum Game Read online

I closed my eyes. I had no leads. Tresting wasn’t talking to me. Courtney was gone. Rio wouldn’t help me. I had no allies, and nothing to follow up on.

  “All right,” I said.

  Rio’s tone when he answered sounded awfully like relief, even though I knew that wasn’t possible. “Thank you, Cas. God bless you.”

  Chapter 19

  I hung up the phone with Rio and found myself with nothing to do. Giving up on investigating Pithica meant I had zero obligations. I still felt bad about dumping Courtney’s case, but between Dawna masquerading as her sister and Tresting’s evidence that she had killed Reginald Kingsley, it seemed clear she was as hopelessly snarled up in Pithica and its machinations as it was possible to be. Which meant I didn’t feel too bad.

  So I’d go with the obvious decision. I would lie low here for a week or two until the bruises and cuts on my face healed, which would help change my appearance from the composite, and then skip town. I wondered where I’d go; no city seemed more appealing than any other. Chicago? New York? Detroit? Maybe I should leave the country. Mexico was only a short hop away.

  I lay back on the mattress and stared at the ceiling, and the bigger problem hit me.

  I was off the job.

  I wasn’t working anymore. And I don’t do well when I’m not working.

  The numbers simmered around me. I tried to avoid acknowledging them, instead staring into space and yearning for some alcohol. How had I not thought it necessary to stock some hard liquor in my bolt holes? Or even something stronger? The prospect of being stuck here for days with no liquid medication, with only myself against my brain…

  I gave myself a mental slap. Idiot. You can last for a few days. It’s only a few days!

  The quiet room seemed to mock me.

  If I stayed here a week…one week was seven days—168 hours—10,080 minutes—604,800 seconds—

  I became hyper-aware of every breath, each one counting out another one of those seconds before everything would collapse, before I would fall—no, not counting another second, counting another 2.78 seconds. 2.569 seconds. 2.33402. 2.1077001. 1.890288224518154…

  I clenched tingling hands into fists and tried to slow my breathing, to curb the rising tide of panicky dread. Technically I was still on a job, I told myself: hide and then escape the city. Focus on that.

  For a few moments, I hoped I might fool myself.

  I tried to unfocus my gaze, to concentrate on nothing, but my eyes locked on a crack in the ceiling plaster where something had banged against the dingy paint job. Numbers started to crawl out and through the spiderweb of cracks, a teeming, boiling mass—forces, angles, the entropy time-lapsing into the future and the past…the mathematical outlines of the impact and fracture and deterioration refined themselves further and further, the corrective terms layering themselves over each other until the units were so small they had no physical meaning, and they filled my brain, overflowing it—

  I squeezed my eyes shut and flopped over onto one side.

  An instant of blessed darkness.

  A car horn sounded outside. The decibel level spiked in my head, the oscilloscope graph expanding and buzzing through my thoughts. My heartbeat thudded through me, each beat approximating periodicity—the waves broke apart, crashing and layering against each other, each amplitude spiking separately and adding another term to the Fourier series, sines and cosines repeating themselves and correcting in minute iterations. My skin stretched too tight, hypersensitive, every neuron registering forces and pressures, gravity and atmosphere crushing me between them, acting on my clothes against me and through the mattress below me where Hooke’s Law pushed back with a hundred tiny springs—

  I jumped up and moved restlessly around the room. Every step was a thousand different mathematical interactions. I tried to channel it, wear it out: I ran up walls, flipped over, then vaulted into a one-handed handstand on the worn carpet. The forces balanced themselves immediately and automatically, the vectors splaying out in all directions like countless invisible guy lines. I started moving, kicking my legs back and forth as fast as I could, spinning on the spot, switching from one hand to the other, leaning myself away from my center of mass as far as the physics would allow, the calculations a swirling maelstrom around me.

  Two hours later (two hours, seventeen minutes, forty-six seconds point eight seven five three nine two six zero nine eight two three one one one five seven…) I was at the counter of the nearest grocery store buying as many bottles as they had of the highest proof alcohol I could find.

  “Having a party?” said the long-haired, pimply kid at the register. I thrust cash at him desperately. He counted with agonizing slowness. I was having trouble focusing on him; the image of his lanky frame slid back and forth between wavelengths of visible light and an infinitely complicated imbroglio of movement and forces, a stick figure of vectors.

  “Keep the change,” I got out. He shouted after me, something about needing an ID, but I was already toppling out of the store and into the parking lot. I’d swallowed half the first bottle, the alcoholic burn lighting my esophagus on fire, before I became aware of the busy crowds surrounding me and the afternoon sun stabbing me in the eyes. My breath heaved in and out, but the alcohol was doing its work to take the edge off, its depressive effects calming the numbers until they were their usual manageable background hum.

  “Excuse me, miss? You can’t do that here.” A security guard in a reflective orange vest was approaching me, an older white man with a bristly haircut, his gut pushing over his belt.

  I took a deep breath. “I’m good,” I tried to brush him off. “I’m good.”

  “Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the premises,” he said, his superior tone already grating on my nerves. “Did you drive here?”

  “No. I walked. I’m good.” And Tresting thought my first response was always to punch people. See? I can behave. “I’m good. I’m leaving.”

  Another security guard strode quickly out of the store, a tall woman built like a brick. “Ma’am, the cashier says you didn’t show an ID for the alcohol.” She registered the half-empty bottle in my hand. “Ma’am, you can’t drink that here.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard,” I said grumpily. “I already told him, I’m leaving.”

  “Ma’am, could we see an ID, please?”

  I put down the bottles and felt around in my pockets, in my pants and then in my jacket. And felt around again.

  Shit.

  I always carry a few fake IDs; I never know when I might need one. But along with my Colt, the Colombians had taken everything in my pockets when they’d captured me three days ago, and replacing my ID had completely slipped my mind. My scrambling fingers found that over the past few days I had accumulated a knife, several spare magazines, some loose ammunition, a couple of grenades from the other night, and a bunch of cash, but no IDs.

  “I, uh, I forgot it,” I said. “Look, I’ll leave the booze, it’s fine.” I’d self-medicated enough already to stabilize my world for the moment. I could go back and check the Chinatown apartment to see if I had an ID in my stash in the drywall; I probably did. I raised my hands in a gesture of surrender and took a few steps back.

  The two security guards looked at my half-drunk bottle on the ground. Then they looked at me.

  “I swear I’m over twenty-one,” I said reasonably. “I’ll just go, okay?”

  “Ma’am, please stay there,” said the female security guard. She pulled out a walkie and started speaking into it.

  Okay, this wasn’t great. If the police showed up, I would have a lot of problems, starting with the illegal Ruger tucked in the back of my belt and the grenades in my pockets and ending with being accused of mass murder once someone noticed I matched their suspect. Of course, these morons wouldn’t be able to stop me from leaving; they weren’t even armed. But I wasn’t exactly succeeding at keeping a low profile. I sighed and started glancing around for the best avenue out.

  Someone screamed.
/>   I turned to see a dark-skinned, curly-haired woman with her hands over her mouth. “You caught her!” she shrieked at the security guards. “The psycho from the paper! You caught her!”

  A lot of people were suddenly staring at us. The security guards looked thrown, as if this was more than they’d bargained for when they’d had the gumption to detain me for suspected underage drinking.

  “Everybody stay calm,” declared the female guard.

  “Oh my God,” breathed her colleague, the blood draining from his face as he took in my features. “She does look like it.”

  “Look like who?” the female guard demanded tensely.

  “The—the woman who killed all those people—”

  The two guards began backing away from me, clearly deeming that their rent-a-cop duties weren’t worth risking their lives against a homicidal maniac. The woman had her walkie at her mouth again and was speaking very fast. It might have been a coincidence, but I heard sirens start up from not too far away.

  A fair crowd of not-very-bright onlookers now surrounded me at a healthy radius. Some people pulled frantically at their children and hurried away; others stared blatantly. I saw at least two people surreptitiously pull out mobile phones.

  This situation was not going to get any better. Time to get out of here.

  I glanced around. The crowd—how had it grown so fast?—meant making a dash through the parking lot would be tricky. But my back was to the building, and that was child’s play. I spun and leapt. A display of potted plants rose against the wall right behind me; I ran up the shelves like they were stairs and launched myself toward the roof, clearing the eaves in a dive and rolling back to my feet on the flat rooftop. Shouts erupted behind me as I ran. Too easy!

  I launched myself off the back of the supermarket’s roof without slowing and landed in another roll in the alley behind it, where I sprang up into a fast jog. Where to now? That was a good question; the composite was clearly good enough for random people off the street to recognize me, whether or not they had any hard evidence from the office building—

  Evidence. Oh no.

  I’d left a half-drunk bottle of alcohol at the grocery store. One that had my fingerprints and DNA all over it.

  Idiot!

  They’d be able to put me in the system. I’d get linked with the deaths of the Korean kids at Tresting’s office and who knew how many other places where I’d left some remnant of forensic evidence without knowing it.

  Calm down. Will it really mean anything? They’d still have to find you.

  But I’d be in the system, my prints and DNA matching a face.

  How much would it matter? My information was probably in the system somewhere anyway, I reasoned, if from nothing else than the incident at Arthur’s office. Would it make such a difference that it would no longer be quite so anonymous? That it would now match my mug shot, that it might get linked to Rio’s massacre of the office workers?

  I had to go back, I decided. Just in case. After all, who knew what the consequences would be? I might regret it forever if I didn’t, and it would be simple enough to go back, grab the bottles, and dash away again.

  I wheeled around to dart back down the alley the way I had come. A quick sprint brought me back toward the rear wall of the supermarket—

  I stared in shock. The place was already swarming with cops. Since when did LA response times get so good?

  Lights flashed around the corner, and I slipped in between two dumpsters as three police cars screeched into the alley behind me, unexpectedly cutting off my escape route along the ground. Shit. Why did things have to get complicated?

  And then a low thrum started just on the edge of my hearing and began building, vibrating through the air louder and louder and louder.

  A helicopter.

  Seriously?

  Okay, this might be…bad.

  I might be in some real trouble here.

  Chapter 20

  My brain zigzagged through my options. Unlike most of the people I ended up on the wrong side of, law enforcement never seemed quite like fair game as targets. Well, unless they were dicks, but these people were just doing their jobs. See, Tresting? I don’t always go around killing people. And I had grenades, too! Set a few of those off and I’d have more than enough chaos to escape in.

  It was tempting, now that I’d thought of it.

  Okay, so Plan B was blasting and shooting my way out of here. I needed a Plan A.

  The uniforms were multiplying like the supermarket was a kicked anthill. I didn’t just need a Plan A, I needed a Plan A fast.

  A trickle of nervousness bled through me. This could be bad. Most violent situations I ended up in did not happen on busy downtown streets with lots of innocent bystanders, and as for police, I’d never done more than kick the odd uniform in the head while making an escape. The idea of a large number of law enforcement casualties made me…uncomfortable. Not to mention that it was the worst way ever to keep my head down; if I blew up this many cops they’d probably have Homeland Security out here after me.

  My mobile buzzed in my pocket.

  Only one person had this number right now. It had to be Rio. “Not the best time; I’ll call you back,” I answered in a whisper.

  There was a pause. Then a voice on the other end said, “It’s Checker.”

  “Wha—this is a new phone!” I hissed. “How—?”

  “Oh, I’m all-powerful,” he said. “Hey, so I—”

  I didn’t have time for this right now. I hung up on him.

  The phone buzzed immediately with a text message: NEED UR HELP

  What he needed was to learn to spell correctly. I moved my thumb to turn the damn phone off entirely.

  PLS VRY IMPORTANT

  I sighed. Checker was the most annoying person I’d ever met. Evading arrest. Will call back later, I texted, and pocketed my phone again, turning my attention back to the problem at hand.

  Grabbing the evidence I’d left would probably be too complicated now. Dammit. I could have gotten away clean if I’d just kept walking, and now that I was boxed in, even escape was looking difficult. My hiding place felt more transparent by the moment, and I couldn’t think of any way out that wouldn’t lead to some version of a shootout. Which I would win…but at what cost?

  Taking to a roof meant exposure to the helicopter—helicopters now; a second had joined the first—and trying to cut down the alley would make me the target of the three bajillion and counting cops on the ground. Seriously, you guys went to this much trouble just for me? I wondered if I should be flattered or frustrated that someone finally wasn’t underestimating me.

  My phone buzzed, distracting me again. Swearing colorful curses at certain computer hackers in my head, I pulled it out to turn it off.

  U NEED HELP?

  I stared at the words. It felt like the setup to a really bad joke, one in which the next text would read, “ha ha, just kidding, you’re so stupid.” The little computerized letters burned into my eyes.

  Cas! Stop it! No time! I chided myself.

  But was he serious? Why would a guy I’d had barely any interaction with want to help me?

  Maybe it wasn’t so unrealistic. After all, he seemed to need me for something. He could be trying to offer a quid pro quo, an “I’ll help you, and then you’re going to be obligated to help me.” Or he might assume he was charging me for it and that we would settle up after. Either of those explanations aligned much more reasonably with my expectations of human nature…but in a way it didn’t matter, because what could he possibly do to help me?

  Unless…

  Maybe he could forge something—some order, some directive, that would clear the police out of the area without anyone getting hurt. It was worth a try. I stabbed my phone with my thumb to dial.

  Checker picked up on the first ring. “Turn yourself in,” he said immediately.

  The world trembled. There, there was the punch line. First Tresting, now Checker. “What?” I breathed. />
  “Turn yourself in. It’s the easiest way. I’ll have you out as soon as I can push some paper.”

  It took me a moment to catch on, and when I did, the jerk back from the self-pity and resentment I’d been starting to build up almost gave me whiplash, leaving me confused and embarrassed and angry about having felt anything so maudlin as emotions at all. Not to mention that Checker’s plan just sucked.

  “That’s your solution?” Even though it was still hushed, my voice was more furious than I meant it to be. “Turn myself in and wait for you to fake a release order? No!”

  “You’re not in the system anywhere yet, right? Then I’m telling you, I’ve got this! Just don’t say anything to anyone while they’re questioning you. Not a word, okay?”

  “I am not getting myself arrested!”

  “I promise you, I will get you un-arrested! Now go!”

  “And let the authorities get a record of me?”

  “I’ll un-record you,” he insisted.

  “Not a chance!”

  “For the love of God, you are unbelievable!” he exclaimed. “Do you have any idea what kind of a situation you’re in? I’m tracking it in real time here, and I didn’t know LA had that many police resources. Either Tokyo called about an enormous lizard, or they think you’re a domestic terrorist who—”

  “Can’t you make them go away?” I demanded.

  “Sure, I’ll wave my magic wand and, oh, wait, no, we don’t live in a mystical fairyland. But fortunately for your pwned self, we do live in a mystical bureaucracy land, and I’m telling you, go surrender. I swear to you, I have it covered.”

  “Thanks but no thanks,” I said. “I’ll find another way.”

  “Another way? SWAT’s moving in! I already faked a 911 call from a few blocks away saying someone had seen you and they had enough people on the ground to cover it; some poor Pakistani girl got tackled by mistake and I would not have wanted to be her. You are in deep trouble! Are you seeing—”

  “I’m right in the middle of it, thanks,” I snapped in a whisper. “Look, can’t you just issue some fake orders or something? All I need is a distraction.”