Page 38 of Better off Dead

I didn’t know what else I could say.

Sonia disentangled herself from the curtain and spun around to face me. “If you knew Michael was dead, why didn’t you tell me right away?” Her eyes were damp and red. “Why string me along? Why all that bullshit about wanting help finding him?”

“I didn’t know what your deal was then.” I held up my hands. “I might not be able to help Michael. But I can still help his sister. Maybe. If I can find her.”

“You still bullshitted me.” Sonia shuffled back to the chair and slumped down. “I just can’t deal with this. What should I do now?”

“Leave town would be my advice. Now I have to get going. But first I need to ask you a question. It’s going to sound insensitive. The timing’s awful. But it could be important.”

“What is it?”

“In the message Michael sent his sister, along with the card from the Red Roan there was something else. A condom. That seems weird to me. Does it mean anything to you?”

“No. Michael wouldn’t have a condom. We didn’t use them. And he would never send one to his sister. That’s gross.”

“It got in there somehow.”

“Someone else must have put it in.”

“I don’t think so.”

Sonia shrugged. “Maybe Michael was trying to tell her something. Like, to be careful. To take precautions. He did love cryptic messages. He was always leaving them for me. I generally didn’t understand them, to be honest. I had to ask him to explain.”

A condom as a warning to take precautions? It was possible. In the sense that it couldn’t be positively ruled out. But it didn’t seem likely. And as an explanation it didn’t feel right. The voice at the back of my brain still wasn’t satisfied.

Chapter28

I guess the guy withthe worn-out boots wasn’t as heavy a sleeper as he’d made himself out to be.

His feet were no longer up on the reception counter when I got to the foyer. He was no longer lounging back in his chair. There was no sign of him at all. But two other guys were hanging around. Two of the guys from the previous night. The only two still able to walk.Theywere waiting formethis time. That was clear. They both puffed up a little when they saw me. Then they moved. The guy who’d been driving stepped in front of the double exit doors, which were closed. And locked, presumably. The guy I’d hit with the ax handle slunk around in the opposite direction. He wound up blocking the way back to the corridor. He needn’t have bothered. I had no intention of going that way.

The men were wearing the same kind of clothes as before. Black T-shirts. Black jeans. Black combat boots. But now the driver’s left arm was in a sling. And they each had a small backpack slung over one shoulder. Both packs were made out of ballistic nylon. Desert sand color, scuffed and stained and well used. And weighed down with something bulky.

The driver said, “Down on the floor. On your front. Hands behind you.”

“Again?” I said. “Really?”

“Get down. Do it now.”

I didn’t move. “Were you dropped on your head when you were a baby? Was your boss? Because honestly, I’m worried. Virtually every creature on the planet has the ability to learn from experience. But not you, apparently. What happened last time you tried this? When you had three buddies to help out. Not just one.”

“Oh, we learn.” The driver nodded. The other guy swung his pack off his shoulder. He pulled back its flap and took out its contents. A full-face respirator. It was black with a butyl rubber coating; drooping, doleful triangular eyepieces; and a round filter case mounted on the left side. It looked like an M40 field protective mask. The kind that had been used by the US Army and the Marine Corps since the 1990s. Not the newest design in the world. Not the most comfortable. But effective. The guy pulled it over his head and tugged on one of the straps.

The driver held his pack between his knees, opened it, and took out an identical mask. He fumbled to put it on with one hand then stood still for a moment. It made him look like a depressed insect. Then he took out another item. A silver canister. It was about the size of a can of baked beans, and it had a ring and a lever sticking out of the top.

“Ever heard of CS gas?” The guy’s words sounded muffled and tinny through the voice emitter at the front of the mask.

I’d more than heard of CS gas. I’d experienced it. Years ago, on the final day of a training module. A dozen of us were locked in a room with an instructor. The instructor placed a CS canister on a metal table in the center of the space. He pulled the pin and tossed it in the air. He was already wearing his mask. An older model. An M17, which was the standard in those days. We had to wait until the pin hit the ground. Then we had twenty seconds to get our masks on. We all made it. That part of the exercise was fine. The next part wasn’t. We had to remove our mask and shout out our name, rank, and number. One at a time. And we could only put our mask back on when the instructor nodded. That was bad. Really bad. But it was even worse if the instructor didn’t like you. If he pretended he couldn’t hear you. If he made you repeat your information. He made one guy repeat his three times. Between each attempt he left a pause. Each one felt like an hour. To us. They must have felt like a year to the poor guy. The front of his smock was soaked with tears and snot and drool by the time we staggered out into the fresh air. He quit the program about ten minutes later.

“Well, we call thisDS gas.” The guy held the canister up higher. “Dendoncker Special. It’s like CS on steroids. It burns your eyes so bad you go blind if you don’t get saline in time. And your nose? Your throat? Your lungs? Pain like you will not believe. I promise you.”

I said nothing.

“Last chance,” he said. “Get down on the floor. Do yourself a favor. Because if I have to use this, the game changes. You’re going to have to crawl across to me. Lie at my feet. Beg me to save your eyesight.”

I stayed still. “That’s never going to happen.”

“Come on, man.” The other guy’s voice sounded like a robot’s. “This is science we’re talking about. You can’t fight it. You’ve got to respect the chemistry.”

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