22

JUST BEFORE NINE THAT NEXT MORNING, GARY DROVE INTO A NEIGHBORHOOD that looked like an unclaimed junkyard; pure urban blight. Paint peeled from the sides of dilapidated buildings in huge barklike strips. Gutters sagged off roofs. The streets were littered with trash and debris—yellowed newspapers, smashed soda cans, fast-food containers.

“They’ve really cleaned up the neighborhood, haven’t they?” Rod said.

Gary didn’t react to Rod’s comment. He stared straight ahead at the crumbling, rotting neighborhood around them. Most of the ramshackle buildings they passed had sheets of plywood nailed over doorways and windows, large Xs spray-painted on them. Houses that had been abandoned. Whole city blocks almost entirely filled with them, one right after another. The yards in front of these houses were nothing more than large plots of dirt strewn with litter.

“Where to, Rod?” Gary asked.

Rod looked at a sheet of paper—a list of tattoo shops Gary found on the Internet last night. There were nine of them. Tattoo shops seemed to be the only type of business that was thriving in the neighborhood.

“A place called Two Devils Tattoo looks closest,” Rod said. “Take a left at the next turn. Drive for another mile and we should see it.”

Gary drove on. A few homeless people pushing shopping carts and rummaging through trash cans were the only signs of life.

“We must stick out like a sore thumb here,” Gary said.

“Not gonna lie: I’m a little scared,” Rod said.

They passed more bombed-out buildings, cars on cement blocks. The scene reminded Gary of the setting for a postapocalyptic movie.

“Think anyone will help us?” Rod asked.

“Maybe. Your buddy said the tattoo community is a close one. Hopefully, someone recognizes him.”

Five minutes later, they arrived at Two Devils Tattoo. It was a stand-alone shop in a graffiti-tagged brick building with bars over the windows.

“We both going in?” Rod asked.

“One of us should stay in the car. Last thing I need is for the car to get stolen.”

“I’ll take this one. You stay here,” Rod said. He exited the car and disappeared inside the tattoo parlor.

Alone in the car, Gary pulled out his phone and texted Beth. Awake yet? How’s it going?

A moment later, her response: Just woke up. Slow period now. You coming in?

Gary looked out the window, at the crumbling neighborhood surrounding him.

Just got out of bed. Taking a shower soon. I’ll be at hospital in an hour.

K

See you soon. Love you.

Love you, too, came her response.

He put his phone back in his pocket and cleared his mind. Tried to, at least; it was difficult to ignore the questions floating around his head. What will the doctors find once they start testing? Has Beth’s condition worsened? Is Tyson okay?

Less than a minute later, Rod returned to the car. “The dude looked at me like I was crazy,” he said. “He’d never seen the guy in the picture before.”

“What about his tattoos? Did he recognize any of them?”

“Nope. I asked him, but he just shook his head.”

Rod took a pen and crossed off Two Devils Tattoo from their list.

•   •   •

IT DIDN’T SEEM POSSIBLE, BUT THE NEXT TATTOO SHOP WAS IN EVEN WORSE condition than Two Devils Tattoo. Graffiti tags everywhere. Even though the windows were behind iron bars, three of them were smashed out, with cardboard raggedly patched over them.

“I’ll take this one,” Gary said.

He grabbed the security-camera still frame from Rod and walked up to the entrance.

The only person inside was a tattooed Hispanic girl with a nose ring, standing behind the counter. A door to her left was covered over with a black curtain. The room was barely big enough for the two of them.

“I’m looking for the man in this picture,” Gary said, setting the picture in front of her. “I’m hoping you might recognize him.”

Nose Ring looked at the picture for a brief moment. She glanced back up at Gary. “Never seen him.”

“What about his tattoos? Do you recognize any of them? Do you know where he could’ve had them done?”

She glanced at the picture a second time. Again, no longer than a second.

“No idea.”

“Please. This is important.”

She pushed the picture across the counter. “Look, you interested in getting a tattoo or not? If not, get the hell outta here.”

•   •   •

THAT VISIT WAS MORE PRODUCTIVE THAN THE NEXT SIX SHOPS ON THE LIST. They visited each one in rapid succession. Two were closed; the buildings were so ruined that it was difficult to tell whether they were permanently closed or if it was just too early in the morning for them to be open. Of the remaining shops, Rod went into two and Gary went into the other two. Each interaction was brief. They showed the picture to whoever was working and asked if they knew the man in the photograph. No one recognized him. They asked about his tattoos. No one recognized those, either.

And just like that, there was only one shop left on their list.

Slouched in the Corolla’s front seat, Gary dejectedly stared out at the battered, decaying buildings slowly passing by. The Edgewood neighborhood was small enough that it hadn’t even taken an hour to visit the first eight shops. Even though they hadn’t been in the car for long, Gary was worn down. He’d constantly felt tense and on edge as they’d driven through the neighborhood, certain that one wrong turn would bring them face-to-face with some strung-out maniac who’d rob them at gunpoint.

“What are we going to do if this last shop is a dead end?” Rod asked.

“If it is, it is,” Gary said. “We’ll figure out something.” His voice was dry and detached. The hope, the anticipation, that he’d felt at the start of the day was nearly gone. If they didn’t get any information from this next tattoo shop, he didn’t know what they’d do.

After driving in silence for five minutes, Gary stopped in front of Silverside Tattoos. The building had the same dilapidated, graffiti-tagged exterior as every other building in the neighborhood.

“You wanna head inside? Want me to?” Rod said.

“I’ll do it.”

“Good luck.”

Gary walked up to the tattoo shop’s front door and entered a small shop with a collection of posters on the walls, each depicting various tattoos. An unsmiling man stood behind the counter. He had tattoos everywhere—all over his arms, his neck, even some sort of intricate tattoo covering half his face. He wore a backward Tigers hat, slightly tilted to the side. His left hand was covered in a monstrous plaster cast that extended up to his elbow.

“I’m looking for the man in this photograph,” Gary said, setting down the photo. “I’m hoping you can help me.”

Face Tattoo glanced down at the photo, then looked up at Gary, his hard eyes locked on him. “You a cop?” he asked.

“No.”

“You gotta tell me if you’re a cop, you know. It’s a law.”

“I’m not a cop,” Gary said. “I just need to find this man.”

Face Tattoo slowly shook his head. “Never seen him,” he said.

“The tattoo on his arm—it says Edgewood. I’m hoping he lives in the neighborhood, is from here—something like that.”

“Lotsa people have Edgewood tattooed on them.”

“Do you recognize any of his other tattoos?”

“No.”

“Please,” Gary said. “Take a long look.”

“I did. Don’t know him. Never seen him. Don’t recognize his tattoos, neither.”

Gary picked up the sheet of paper. “Thanks for your time,” he said, and exited the shop.

The moment Gary stepped outside, the man behind the counter walked over to the door and locked it. With the hand not covered in a cast, he grabbed his phone and made a call.

“FEEL LIKE GETTING YOUR OTHER HAND BROKEN, YOU PIECE OF SHIT?” Otto answered his phone.

When he saw Scotty’s name pop up on-screen, he wanted to throw his phone across the room. Some nerve—the little bastard had some nerve, calling him up like nothing had gone on between them.

“Hold up—I come in peace,” Scotty said. “You’ll want to hear this.”

“What?”

“Some guy stopped by my shop, was asking about you. Trying to track you down. Figured you’d appreciate a little heads-up.”

Holding his phone to his ear with one hand, Otto barely paid attention to the statement. He looked out at the pawnshop floor.

“Who was it?” he said.

“I dunno. Some asshole.”

“That don’t narrow it down. Everyone I know is an asshole.”

“This guy, whoever he was,” Scotty said, “I think he was a cop.”

That got Otto’s attention. His grip tightened around the phone. “A cop?”

“Yeah. I think so, at least.”

“Did he have a badge? Driving a cop car?”

“Nah. He didn’t belong in this neighborhood, though. He was some white dude. Driving a shitty Corolla. I figure he was undercover.”

“He was driving a Corolla?”

“Yeah. A blue one.”

A blue Corolla. Otto thought about that for a moment. “This guy, did he have brown hair?” he asked. “About forty or so? Skinny?”

“Yeah, that’s the guy.”

Gary Foster. It had to be.

“Listen, if you got heat on you, I need to know,” Scotty said. “I told you I got two strikes on me. I can’t do another—”

“The guy ain’t a cop.”

“He looked like one.”

“He ain’t no motherfucking cop. He’s no one. Ain’t nothing to worry about.”

“All right. Just figured you’d wanna know that there’s some guy showing your picture around, asking about your tattoos, trying to find you.”

“Hold up—what picture?”

“This guy had a black-and-white photo of you. Looked like it was from a security camera or something. He showed it to me, asked if I recognized you.”

A security camera? Willow Park didn’t have any security cameras. That was the only time they’d met. That was the only—

The locker. The storage-rental place. There must’ve been a camera there.

Shit.

“This guy, he sets foot in your shop again, you let me know,” Otto said.

“Yeah, sure. This mean we’re cool, O? Now that I helped you out, gave you a heads-up?”

Otto ended the call without responding. He tossed the phone onto the countertop. Son of a bitch. Silverside Tattoos wasn’t more than a half mile away from Solid Gold Pawn. Right neighborhood and everything. And the photograph Gary had—Otto didn’t like that at all.

He knew what he had to do. He picked up his phone and made a call.

“Yo,” came Champ’s deep baritone voice.

“Got a problem I need your help with.”

“Start talkin’.”

“Some guy is looking into me. I want you to follow him around. Tell me what he’s up to.”

Otto gave Champ Gary’s name, address, and car description.

“I get a chance, you want me to rough him up, send a message?” Champ asked.

Otto gave it a moment’s thought. “Nah, just follow him around—for now,” Otto said. “Tell me where he goes. I wanna see what he’s up to.”

“Piece of cake,” Champ said.

“MAYBE WE MISSED A TATTOO SHOP,” ROD SAID AS THEY DROVE BACK through the Edgewood neighborhood, headed to the interstate.

“Yeah,” Gary said. “Maybe.”

“Like an underground place that doesn’t have a storefront. If we drive around more, maybe we’ll find a place not listed online. And those two places that weren’t open—maybe if we come back at another time, later in the day, they could be open then.”

“Right,” Gary said. “There’s a chance. We can head back here tomorrow. I have to get back to the hospital now.”

They left Edgewood and Gary pulled back onto the interstate, motoring at an even sixty miles an hour. As frustrating as the trip had been, there was a part of him that was relieved to be out of the neighborhood.

“We’re not just gonna give up,” Rod said. “We’ll keep plugging away.”

“Of course,” Gary said.

“Edgewood isn’t that big. We keep driving around, we’re bound to find the guy, find someone who knows him, find some sort of clue.”

“As long as we don’t get robbed first,” Gary said. “Or shot.” He forced himself to chuckle.

“We got this, Gary,” Rod said. “We’re gonna find this guy.”

BACK TO THE HOSPITAL. ANOTHER LONG DAY OF TESTING. GARY HELD Beth’s hand as they walked through the hospital hallways, off to various departments for different tests. He waited outside the room as Beth had head scans done, and sat next to her as she performed some balance and coordination testing—standing on one foot, squeezing small foam balls.

More waiting. They played another game of Scrabble and grabbed lunch in the cafeteria.

Later in the afternoon, Dr. Narita entered the room, carrying a manila folder. He greeted them and sat down on a stool. He asked questions for a few minutes, then began talking about the test results.

“The first tests we performed today measured Beth’s strength and reaction time,” he said. “These are the same tests she’s performed every week over the past month.”

He pulled a sheet of paper from the folder and handed it to Beth. Gary leaned over and looked at the assortment of numbers and other figures on the sheet.

“This sheet compares the results of today’s testing with the previous results,” Dr. Narita said. “You’ll see that today’s results were lower in everything—strength, reaction time, balance.”

Beth asked, “What does that mean?”

“It means the disease is progressing at a faster rate than we’d anticipated. We didn’t expect to see a noticeable decline in your motor skills for at least another month. Instead, it’s happened much sooner.”

Gary stared at Dr. Narita, fully focused on him. The murder, Shamrock, everything else going on—it all vanished from his mind. “So what now?” he asked.

“We’ll release Beth to go home. There’s not much we can do for her here. But I want to stress how serious this is. At this rate of decline, it may only be a month before Beth starts having difficulty performing everyday activities—gripping a spoon, typing, simple actions like those. Earlier, I estimated her expectancy at eight to twelve months. If her condition continues to decline at this rate, she might only have half that. I don’t want to alarm you. I just want to set realistic expectations.”

Gary and Beth were silent, speechless.

“How are things progressing with the GOSKA trial?” Dr. Narita asked.

“We’re trying to raise the money,” Gary said.

They’d looked at the fund-raising site earlier. Twenty-two thousand dollars raised. Combined with the donation from Rod and Sarah, they were still nowhere close to what they needed.

Dr. Narita began talking to Beth about symptoms to be on the lookout for over the next week—temporary loss of smell, drowsiness, short-term memory loss. Gary listened but nothing registered. All he could think about was the time bomb inside Beth’s skull, the ticking time bomb that could go off at any moment.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.