The wave of stink hit Dane so hard it nearly bowled him over. He immediately recognized the familiar scent of smoke, burnt meat, and singed hair, but the musty copper smell underneath, like an old forgotten jar of pennies, combined with urine and human feces, caused him to dry heave as soon as he entered the room. An unaffected Special Agent Velasquez stepped over the charred, lifeless body on the floor, careful to avoid the congealed and caking pools of blood and vomit as she yawned. She looked at her watch while she waited for Dane to acclimate.
The moment Dane saw Blackwell’s burned body, his assumption as to why August had called him in on the investigation was confirmed—murder by fire—but he still didn’t understand why they didn’t call in one of their own. He scanned the rest of the room before he took another step. He’d seen his share of death over the years. He knew what death felt like up close—to hold it in his hands—to be surrounded by it—covered in it, but even he’d never seen anything like this. And up until that moment, he’d thought he’d seen it all. Normally the victims of a fire died of asphyxiation long before the flame itself ever touched them, but that wasn’t the case here. His initial assessment had been wrong. Less than a minute after he’d entered room 1108 it became obvious that smoke and fire weren’t responsible for this horror show. The body on the floor had been gutted before it had been burned—sliced open from groin to sternum. Everything that made a person work—the gears of the human machine—was spilled out in a pile next to the charred corpse. The smaller bits—the pieces of him that weren’t still connected to him in some way—were strewn about and scattered all over the carpet. Blood was everywhere. It covered everything in huge arch-shaped patterns that seeped down the walls and dripped from the ceiling. The bed had been sprayed dark red. Even the small lampshade on the telescoping light fixture above the nightstand had been speckled with it. Everything in the room had been tainted in some way by the insides of the hollowed-out man on the floor. The fire that eventually ate away his hair and skin had only been a quick flashover.
Dane covered his nose and mouth and leaned down to look into the dead man’s eyes. They were open by default because his eyelids had burned away, but the white marbles resting in his sockets were bright and glossy. Dane reached down to touch the man’s jaw. It was completely broken loose from the rest of his skull. Only the ruined skin of his jowls kept it in place. Dane barely had to touch it for it to fall and gape wide open. Now the dead man looked like he was screaming. Dane imagined that’s exactly what he looked like before he died. He wondered if screams alone could cause enough force to break a man’s jaw like that. He bent down a little further in order to see down the man’s throat. It appeared intact. His tongue was still fleshy and pink, like a wad of bubble gum stuffed behind his yellowed teeth, and Dane couldn’t see any swelling or constriction in his throat. That meant he wasn’t breathing when the fire was lit. He’d been burned postmortem—dead before the first match was struck. Dane assumed the man who did this to him only used the fire to cover his tracks.
The man who did this? Dane repeated in his mind, and shook his head. No—a man didn’t do this. No man could ever do this to another person—not to another human being. Whoever—whatever did this—wasn’t any man at all.
Dane fought to keep looking. He’d seen this type of disembowelment done before, but to whitetail deer or wild boar after a hunt. He’d seen all kinds of animals strung up to trees and cut open like this to be bled out before being taken home and processed. Hell, back home, fathers taught their sons to disconnect from the horror of actually doing the killing, and considered it a rite of passage. But even then, the cuts were made with a practical purpose, and they almost always followed a quick and clean death. There was nothing quick or clean about what had happened in this room, and Dane was convinced by the expression of agony still on the ruined and peeling face of Arnold Blackwell that he had been alive to feel most of what had been done to him. Dane didn’t try to hide his own expression of shock and disgust as he straightened himself out. He finally had to look away. A fresh wave of stomach acid began to churn in the back of his throat and he gagged on it again.
“You gonna be okay?” Roselita asked, more out of obligation than concern.
“Jesus Christ, Velasquez.” Dane struggled to find a place to give his eyes a rest, his head in a constant swivel. “What the hell happened in here?”
“That’s what we were in the process of trying to find out when we were told to stand down and wait for you.”
Dane spoke through his hand. “What do you know so far?”
Roselita pulled out a small notebook from a pocket in her jacket and read aloud. Her voice was monotone. Her irritation was obvious. Dane knew she’d rather be working the scene and not playing catch-up for the new guy. “His name is Arnold Matthew Blackwell. Twenty-eight years old, according to his ID. We found his wallet on the counter over there in the bathroom.” Roselita pulled the ID from the pocket-sized notebook and held it out for Dane.
“So you recovered his wallet?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
Dane ignored the snarky remark and took the ID with his free hand. It was a Georgia issue. That answered another question about why he was there. He flipped it over and examined both sides. “Just a state ID? No license?”
“No, our boy likes to drink and drive. The state revoked his license in 2010.”
Dane looked back down at the plastic card. “Is the address current?”
“We’ve got local PD up in Cobb County sitting on it until our people can get out there. The GBI is heading that up. I figured you’d know that. And before you ask, that same wallet had nearly six hundred dollars in it—cash. It’s bagged and tagged already if you want to see it.”
“No, I don’t need to see it, but you’re assuming that means this wasn’t a robbery.”
“I never assume anything, Kirby. It just means that if he was robbed, all this had to be for something a lot more valuable than the fat wad of cash in his wallet.”
Dane handed the ID back to Roselita. “Is there a reason to think there was something more valuable in his possession?”
“The girl who works up front believes so.” Roselita checked the notebook again. “Abigail Boardman. She’s the one who called it in after the fire set off the smoke detector. She’s also the one who checked him in. She told the first officers on the scene that the deceased had a suitcase with him when he showed up this afternoon in the office. She said he seemed pretty protective of it. He didn’t even want to set it down when he paid for the room.”
“And I’m guessing there’s no suitcase to be found anywhere in here?”
“Nope.”
“Where is the girl now?”
“EMTs took her and another employee, a Cuban illegal named Mario Cruz, over to Northside Hospital.”
“Were they hurt as well?”
“Not like this.” She motioned to the body on the floor. “The girl was burned. She tried to put out the fire with that blanket you saw outside. She did a good job, too, but she took a few second-degree burns to her hands and wrists. Nothing too bad, but enough to get her checked out, and both kids were pretty shook up. The Mario kid especially.”
“How does he fit into this?”
“He claims to have seen one of the dirtbags who did this. Got a good look, too—up close. And yes, there’s a sketch artist at the hospital to get a description.”
“One of the dirt bags? As in plural killers?”
“Yeah, the kid said he was ninety-nine percent sure there was another man in the room, but he didn’t get a look at that one at all.”
“So how does he know?”
“The screaming.” Roselita stuck her notebook back into her jacket. “He heard the screaming. So unless Blackwell was in here doing this to himself, I think it’s safe to assume there was someone else in here carving him up while the kid was getting in some face time with the other one.”
“So what did the kid actually see?”
Roselita pulled in a deep breath, holding the air in her cheeks, and then slowly let it out.
“An Asian man, short, about five two, in his midthirties, with dark hair. The kid said, and I quote, ‘Dude’s hair was cut in one of those spiky punk-rock eighties dos.’”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it—oh, and he said the guy was wearing, and again I quote, ‘a butt-ugly homo-looking blue suit.’”
“Homo-looking?”
Roselita shrugged. “His words, not mine. Listen, the way the kid tells it, he was supposed to deliver some towels to the room for Blackwell and right before he could knock on the door, Long Duk Dong popped out. He said the guy looked right at him and took a towel out of his hands to wipe blood off his face. That’s when the kid heard the screaming inside. Oh, and get this, the guy even thanked him for the towel before the kid turned and hauled ass outta here.”
“So you are dealing with a polite Asian psychopath with a flair for the eighties?”
“Apparently. But that’s we.”
“Huh?”
“We are dealing with a polite Asian psychopath with a flair for the eighties. You’re in this, too, now.”
“Right.” Dane did not want any part of this. But Velasquez was right. He had to be here for a reason, so he stuck to what he knew and said, “But there were no signs of fire or smoke in the room before the kid took off?”
“No. He said he was positive about that. I think the fire was an afterthought just to cover up the mess.”
“So do I. That’s why they didn’t torch the whole room. Just the body.”
“How do you know they didn’t intend on burning the whole place?”
“Because they used an accelerant, and only used it on the body.” Dane pointed at the scorch marks on the carpet. “See those? See how the burns go all the way down to the carpet pad right next to the body but they taper off around it?”
Roselita bent over and leaned on her knees to get a better look at the carpet.
“That means whatever they poured on this guy burned fast and hot. Lighter fluid maybe, but you’re right. It was only insurance. If anything, they did it just to slow us down. It would have gotten out of control eventually, but look”—Dane pointed at the ceiling—“the sprinklers weren’t triggered, so this fire barely lasted a minute or so at the most before it was contained.”
“The girl did a good job.”
“Yeah, but it’s hard to believe a receptionist risked her life to come in here and put it out.”
“Well, she didn’t know she was trying to put out a burning disemboweled body at the time. If she did, she might not have been so quick to jump in.”
“She didn’t know?”
“Not until the smoke cleared. That’s when she ran, too. That was her vomit we stepped over outside.”
Dane wanted to scratch his nose, but he stopped himself. He had blood on his gloves. The nitrile was beginning to make his hands sweat, too. He wanted to take the gloves off, but he couldn’t do that, either. This was the FBI. There were people watching. The rules weren’t as easy to bend as they were back home. He carefully stepped over something wet and black—something still connected to Arnie’s flayed abdomen. He walked the room with surgical precision. He didn’t want to be the one to upset anything that might be vital to the investigation, but it was practically impossible to take a step in any direction without coming into contact with something that used to be alive.
Dane looked around the room at the blank faces of the forensic techs as they worked. He thought about everyone he’d met since he’d gotten into that helicopter back at McFalls Memorial. No one—not one person—seemed to find any of this shocking. He wondered if all of these other people had just become accustomed to dealing with nightmares for a living. Not one of them looked horrified or sick about it. Was it possible to grow so callous that this kind of thing was just another day at work? Dane felt sorry for all of them. Especially that August guy. His flippant attitude and apparent numbness to this bloodshed wasn’t something Dane envied, and it definitely wasn’t what Dane signed on with the GBI to become. He was way outside his element here. Seeing dead people came with the job. He knew that. Hell, he’d just seen one earlier that morning, but this was an entirely different beast. He could never get used to this. He didn’t want to. He was ready to get the hell out of that room and let that August O’Barr asshole, with his cheap menthol cigarettes and shitty Oldsmobile, know he’d made a mistake bringing him there. Dahmer and Velasquez were right. Dane shouldn’t be there.
“Kirby? You okay? You need some air?”
“I’m fine,” Dane lied, and leaned down on his knees. “What else do we know about this guy?”
“Let me help you.” Roselita held out a hand to help Dane maneuver back toward the door without disturbing anything.
He felt like an idiot but took Roselita’s hand. “Thanks,” he said.
“No problem.” She let go of Dane’s hand and he stood up straight. “As far as what else we know about Blackwell, we know he’s a sack of shit, but that’s about it. He’s from your neck of the woods. He’s been in and out of Gwinnett and Cobb County lockup in Atlanta enough to have a private room at both. And up until right now, I thought you might know him. Maybe thought that was the reason you’re here.”
Dane thought about it. “No. Never heard of him. You said he’s been in lockup a lot. What’s his vice?”
“Gambling, mostly.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, stupid shit.”
“Has he done any time?”
“The longest stint he pulled was a year down in”—she had to look at her notebook again—“Augusta, Georgia, at a Phinizy Road Jail—something to do with illegal poker machines. He got arrested at a gas station that didn’t have a permit to pay out, and since his machine hit for over five hundred bucks, he caught a felony charge. The guy had zero luck. Even when he won, he lost.”
Some people were just built out of bad luck. It filled their bones instead of marrow. Dane knew folks like that back home, and this Arnold Blackwell fella was definitely one of those people. The guy wins a fat payday in some convenience store somewhere and before he even gets to spend a nickel of it, he spends a year in prison for it. That was telling. “Maybe this is just another payday gone sideways.”
“Maybe.” Roselita squatted down by the door and used a ballpoint pen to pick up a Dr Pepper can. She motioned for one of the techs to mark the spot with a placard and then bagged the can.
Another technician, an attractive female with white-blond hair pulled back into an ultratight ponytail, stopped examining Blackwell’s body, stood up, and tucked something else into an evidence bag. Dane couldn’t make out what it was. “Excuse me,” he said. “What is that? Part of a blade?”
“No, sir.” She held it up. “It appears to be a sliver of wood. Bamboo, maybe.”
Roselita slipped her pen back into her jacket. “Bamboo? You mean this guy was chopped up with a stick?” Roselita stared at the shard of wood in the bag.
“It’s hard to determine at this point, ma’am, especially with the body being burned, but the wounds on the victim don’t seem to be consistent with any sort of conventional blade, so it’s a possibility.”
“A fucking stick?” Roselita repeated, confused by the notion of it.
“Not just any stick,” August said over Dane’s shoulder from the doorway. Dane swung his head around hard enough for the bones in his neck to pop. Roselita looked back, too, but didn’t look surprised to see her boss standing there. She was still trying to wrap her head around the idea of a bamboo stick doing this kind of damage to a man.
“I thought you were flying somewhere,” Dane said.
“I said I was going to the airport. I didn’t say I was getting on a plane.” August held out a white paper sack. “I went to Checkers, too. Anybody hungry? I got a sack full of Big Bufords with cheese.”
Everyone just stared at him. August shook the sack. “No takers?” He shrugged and rolled up the top of the bag. “Suit yourselves.”
Dane felt his stomach churning again. He pointed to a small glob of mustard O’Barr had on the corner of his mouth, dangling from the edge of his mustache. “You’ve got a little something on your face.” O’Barr touched at it, and then used his arm to wipe it away, leaving a smear of yellow down the sleeve of his brown suit jacket.
“Thanks.”
“No problem. So about the airport?”
“Right, the airport. I met with the airport manager and a few folks from Delta to find out where our boy was coming from. I mean, he had checked into an airport motel, so I figured he had to be either coming or going.”
“Well, which was it?”
“Coming. It appears our boy just flew in from Atlanta on a round-trip ticket and was headed back the day after tomorrow.”
“So that’s why I’m here?”
“That’s part of it, Kirby.” O’Barr leaned on the doorjamb with a wry smile on his face.
“Was he traveling alone?” Roselita asked.
“According to the flight manifest he was, but we ran the credit card you found in his wallet and saw that he made two more transactions to the same travel site, cheapflights.com, for two one-way tickets from Atlanta back to here three days from now. So I’m thinking his plan was to fly here, handle some business, go back, pick someone else up, and fly back. Both purchases were for the same amount at the same time—for the same flight from Atlanta back here, like I said, one way. Both in his name, but he opted for transferable tickets.”
“So he bought two tickets?”
“It appears so.”
“So he was planning on taking someone with him on his next flight.”
“You are quite the detective, Agent Kirby.”
Again, Dane ignored Velasquez’s insult. “Okay, but why would he do it like that? Why not just put the name of the other passenger on the second ticket?”
“Because he was protecting someone,” Velasquez said.
“Maybe,” August said, and shrugged.
“Why not just stay here and let the other person fly out here to meet him. I mean, why go back?”
Another shrug from August. Dane stepped outside onto the breezeway, next to Assistant Director O’Barr. He spoke softly. “August, listen, man. Whatever this is, whatever you think this is, I promise you, I’m not the guy for it. I’m not doing anything here that Velasquez or even that guy Dahmer couldn’t do better. This is outside my skill set.”
“I agree,” Roselita said, coming up behind them.
“See?” Dane made room for Velasquez in the doorway. “I’m just going to get in the way here. I know that. She knows that. The fire-related activity in this case isn’t something you need me for. It’s barely relevant. Velasquez had already put that together before I even got here.”
Roselita nodded. “He’s right, August. No offense, Kirby.”
“None taken. I don’t mind telling you both that I’m way out of my depth on this. Urban homicide is not something I have a long history with and I’ll be honest”—Dane peeled off the light blue nitrile gloves and finally let his sweaty hands breathe—“I’m worried I may even fuck this case up for everyone.”
August fumbled with the sack of hamburgers for a second before he tipped his chin at the blond tech holding the recovered sliver of bamboo. “Can I see that, hon?”
Dane and Roselita turned to look at her as she stepped to the door and handed the bag to Assistant Director O’Barr. “You’re not here because of the fire, Kirby. You’re here because of this.” He handed Dane the evidence bag.
“What is it?” Dane and Roselita said in unison.
“My girlfriend here was spot on.” O’Barr winked at the young forensic technician. It clearly made her uncomfortable and she excused herself to walk back into the room.
August stared at her backside all the way through the door. “Damn, boys, if I was thirty years younger.”
Roselita had reached her limit. “No disrespect,” she said, “but can we please stay on task here?”
August’s face tightened and he gave Roselita his full attention. He never broke his smile, but something hot flickered behind his dark brown eyes that made everyone uneasy. Dane had been wrong. O’Barr wasn’t flippant. He was just good at keeping the horror show hidden behind that carefree persona of his, and Roselita had just scraped back enough of that top layer to let some of that ugliness bleed through. It made the hair on the back of Dane’s neck prickle. He wanted to go home.
“I’m sorry, Rosey,” August said in a tone that was all business. “Allow me to skip right to it then. It’s a piece of a stick, like the young lady said, but not just any stick. This is a splinter from a baston.”
“And what is a baston?”
“It’s a weapon—a deadly one when used by someone trained with it. They are normally part of a set, and made from bamboo. More importantly, bastons are traditionally used by martial artists and overall bad motherfuckers mainly from the Philippines.”
“So you’re saying this guy was gutted by a Filipino martial artist?”
“Gold star for Kirby. He’s beginning to get it.”
“No, August, I’m not.” Dane shook his head and took in a big chestful of the warm late afternoon air. He was getting tired. August dug into the paper bag and pulled out a burger wrapped in greasy wax paper as a 747 passenger jet pushed off the tarmac at the airport and roared into the distance. Dane stood and watched the plane lift into the sky as they all waited for the noise to subside. He really wanted to go home. Roselita stood with her hands in her pockets and watched August stuff the burger into his mouth with the same disgust Dane was feeling. At least they were on the same page about something. Dane stood on the curb, focused on the airplane lifting itself higher and higher into the tangerine sky until it was too small to make out and eventually it disappeared into the clouds. He pulled at the loose thread on the pocket of his T-shirt and wheels in his head began to spin. “The Philippines,” he said to no one in particular.
“What?” Roselita said, and sidestepped Dane onto the parking lot.
Dane laughed. “Goddamnit.”
“He is getting it,” August said. “Finally.”
“That guy in there.” Dane pointed at room 1108. “He’s got a Cobb County address.”
“Yup.”
“And he just flew in from Atlanta.”
“Yup.”
“And he was killed by a couple of Filipinos who just flew into the country a few days ago, right?”
“Four days ago, to be specific.”
Dane looked back at the door of room 1108. “That guy is a cockfighter, isn’t he?”
“Another gold star,” August said in an enthusiastic tone.
“And he just hit it big at the Slasher, didn’t he?”
August grinned. “And that makes three. That should also inform you, Special Agent Kirby of the GBI, as to why you are here.” O’Barr stepped off the curb and chewed at a second bite of the greasy burger. He spoke with his mouth full. “Sorry for being so vague, but I had to be sure, and I wasn’t until just now.”
“He did, didn’t he?” Dane pressed, but he already knew the answer.
“Yes, he did. I may not look like it, but I follow these things. Call it a hobby. His name was all over the Internet, but I had to make sure it was the same guy. It’s a common name. It was, and not only was he there, but he won.”
“How much?”
“All of it. He took the whole damn thing.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Not anymore.”
“What’s a Slasher?” Roselita asked. Neither Dane nor August bothered to answer her. Dane just kept shaking his head and gnawed at his lip.
“And the Slasher was hosted this year in McFalls County. My home. Run by a guy you think I might know. So you had me flown down here to school your boys in how to survive in outlaw country.”
“Yes I did,” August said and chewed his burger.
Dane shook his head. “Son of a bitch.”
August stuffed the wax-paper wrapper back into the paper bag and rolled it up tight. “Kirby, when I first got a hunch about who Blackwell was, I immediately called my man in the Georgia office, Charles Finnegan. He told me about a guy he had wasting away behind a desk who knew the area like no one else did, who would be thrilled to help me close this horrible murder. That guy was you. So here you are—a highly recommended detective with ties and deep connections to the notorious Farm. The same Farm that two Filipino high rollers just flew into for the biggest game in town. Filipino high rollers with a reputation for using bamboo bastons to get their point across if shit doesn’t go their way—no pun intended.”
“What the hell is a Slasher?” Roselita asked again. She was getting angry enough for the small V-shaped vein in her forehead to protrude between her neatly trimmed eyebrows. August and Dane might as well have been speaking Greek and Roselita might as well have been invisible. “Somebody needs to tell me what is happening here,” Roselita said. “I’m serious.”
Dane ignored her a second time—to his detriment. She lowered her head and scuffed one foot across the asphalt like a bull about to charge a flag. Dane tipped his hat back on his head and stuck his hands down deep in his pockets. For the first time in years, and despite his recent news, he wanted a cigarette. Roselita, at full tilt, pushed her way in between him and August and waved her arms in the air. “Hello? Is somebody going to fill me in here?”
“Just calm down a second, Rose.”
“Don’t call me Rose,” she snapped. “And forgive me, Kirby, but I’m not going to calm down. This is total bullshit. I’m the one working this case, and before I can even begin to do my job, my partner is sidelined, your hillbilly ass gets brought in with zero experience in the field—in a state you have no jurisdiction in—and now the two of you are talking about fucking chickens, for God’s sake. You both are clearly keeping me in the dark about something while whoever sliced open that guy in there and set him on fire gets farther and farther away. So no, I’m not going to calm down, but what I will do is go above this whole boys’ club thing you two have going on and report the way this is being handled.”
Dane let the moment sit a little longer before speaking. The breeze was salty. He wasn’t sure if that was just how Florida smelled or because of all the blood in the air. “Okay, Roselita,” he said. “I’m out here because your dead guy in there just got back from something called the Slasher. It’s the biggest cockfighting tournament in the US. The name is stolen from the big tournament held annually in the Philippines, where it’s legal. It’s bigger than the Super Bowl over there. Here, it’s held in secret, in different parts of Georgia, Tennessee, and sometimes North Carolina depending on who puts in the lowest bid. This year it was held in McFalls County, up in North Georgia, where I’m from.”
“And it’s illegal.”
“Yes.”
“Yet you not only know about it, but when and where it happens.”
“Yes.”
“And you—both of you—allow it?”
“It’s complicated,” Dane said. August pulled a swig of Sprite through a pinstriped straw. Roselita waited for a real answer, decided she wasn’t going to get one, and moved on. “So. Cockfighting?”
“Yes,” Dane said, and took a deep breath. He knew how it must sound to a cop like Velasquez in a city like Jacksonville, and her reaction was typical and anticipated.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she said. “This is why you’re here? That’s why Geoff got sidelined? Because you’re the GBI’s resident cockfighting expert?”
“I wouldn’t say I’m an expert.”
Roselita turned away and ran her hands through her hair. It fell right back into place as if it hadn’t been touched. “This cannot really be happening.”
“Calm down, Velasquez.” Dane could understand her frustration, so he tried to soften the blow. “Look at it this way. The good news is you and your partner shouldn’t be insulted that O’Barr called me in to help out on this. It’s definitely not because of my skill as an investigator.”
August faked a frown. “Now, that’s not entirely true, Kirby. I think you’re a fine investigator.”
“Just stop the bullshit, sir.” Dane turned to Roselita. “We were right about what happened in there. This is another payday gone sideways. And that’s why you Feds are here taking over in the first place. Because the Slasher’s payout is federal-sized money, right?”
August nodded. “We do love a big pile of tax-free cash.”
Roselita stopped pacing. “So, okay, hold on. I want to try and get my head around this. Let’s imagine that this guy was gambling like you say—on chickens no less—and scored big. It’s ridiculous, but let’s go with it. What could possibly be so big in the world of cockfighting that it warranted what they did to him?”
“He didn’t just score big,” August said. “He won the whole thing—all of it—the whole enchilada, every fight, every round.”
Dane could’ve sworn August almost sounded impressed as he said that. Velasquez still didn’t understand. “And still I say—so?”
“And so.” Dane took his hat off and rubbed his head. “It’s impossible. Or at least it was until now.”
“You’re saying no one has ever won this Slasher thing before?”
“Never a single man—not once. It isn’t a winner-take-all sport.”
Roselita’s frustration was back. “I can’t even believe I’m standing out here talking about cockfighting with a redneck who actually refers to it as a sport. This is insane.”
“I’m going to keep ignoring your insults, Velasquez, for the sake of getting me home sooner, but please just shut up and listen for a minute.”
Roselita stopped pacing, crossed her arms, cocked a hip, and waited to be enlightened.
“Without overloading your brain with the rules and regulations of how cockfighting works,” Dane said, “if what August is saying is true, and Blackwell won the entire tournament—then he cheated. It shouldn’t even be possible.” He rolled his hat in his hands like a magazine. “It would be like walking into the MGM Grand in Vegas and clearing out the house of every dollar in one night, sitting at the same table. It just can’t be done. It’s logistically impossible.”
“And so what kind of money are we talking about, then?”
Dane and Roselita both looked at August.
“He took them for a million two in cash, all clean, tax-exempt US dollars.”
Dane watched that number hit Roselita in just the right place. This wasn’t a joke or a hillbilly circus like she originally thought. This was big. That was the kind of money that could explain what attracted the wolves to room 1108 of the Days Inn in Jacksonville. “That’s what was in the missing suitcase,” Dane said. “That’s why they didn’t think twice about leaving the six hundred bucks in his wallet.” Dane pinched at the bridge of his nose. “Jesus Christ, how did Blackwell think those guys wouldn’t kill him for doing something like this?”
“There’s a word for it,” August said. They all knew what that word was, but no one said it out of respect for the dead.
Roselita shuffled the pieces of information around in her head. She still wasn’t satisfied. “Okay, so Blackwell goes to the backwoods of Georgia and wins some chicken contest.”
“That’s a little bit of an oversimplification,” Dane said, but Roselita held out a slim finger and kept talking.
“Whatever you people call it, I don’t care. He cheated and the people who lost the chicken fight followed him back here, killed him, and took their money back.”
“That appears to be the theory.”
“Okay, so we ground every flight out of the States headed back to the Philippines and we nab these fuckers. If they aren’t already gone.”
“That’s already in the works,” August said.
Dane shook his head. “But I still don’t understand why they did this guy the way they did him. I mean, why go through all the trouble of torturing the guy like that if they got back what they wanted? Even if he did cheat them and they wanted to make an example of him, a quiet bullet in the back of the head would’ve done the trick. This seems excessive, to say the least, doesn’t it?”
“Unless they didn’t get what they wanted,” August said. He snapped his fingers at a patrol man and the uniformed cop lit one of O’Barr’s cigarettes for him. He pulled in the smoke and let it drift up over his mustache. “I’m guessing they tortured him because he didn’t have everything they wanted. We know he was working with someone because of the two plane tickets, so maybe only half the cash was in the suitcase and the rest went off with whoever his partner is. Maybe our killers are still searching for it.”
“That means we’ve still got a chance to catch these bastards on the ground,” Roselita said.
August pulled in another drag. “There’s something else.”
“What?”
August wiped at the sweaty fold of skin under his chin. “Kirby just laid it out a minute ago. Blackwell did something at the Slasher that had never been done before—ever. So think about it. What else could they want from him?”
Roselita looked back at the door to the motel and than beamed her dark, impatient eyes at August.
He asked the question another way. “What would a bunch of vicious pricks, who never lose, want from a guy who clearly cheated them out of all their money, other than their money back? What could be even more valuable than the money?”
Roselita quit pacing and stopped cold in front of August’s car as the light in her brain popped on. “They want to know how he did it.”
“Exactly,” August said. “Blackwell had a system, and by the looks of what they did to him, he didn’t want to give that information up. Now both of you pay attention, because this part is important. No one, and I repeat, no one who fits the description of the man the Cuban kid saw, or anyone of Filipino descent period, is scheduled to fly out of that airport anytime soon.” August looked toward the airport. “I’ve also got every field agent I can afford scouring private airfields all over both states, so if that changes, I’ll know it. If it doesn’t, it means I’m right, and these animals aren’t going home until they find what they’re looking for. And until they do, I can almost guarantee there will be more of these.” August pointed at the motel room. Roselita’s phone buzzed in her pocket and she excused herself to take the call.
“Dane, you know what I’m asking from you, right?”
“Yeah, August. I know. You need a tour guide. I got it.”
O’Barr didn’t even try to deny it. “I appreciate your help with this. The Bureau will be in your debt. You might even find yourself looking at a future on a federal level.”
Dane thought about the paperwork in his pocket from his doctor. The paperwork he’d kept on his person for over a week so his girlfriend back at the house wouldn’t see it. The same paperwork that promised him a future far different from one of a celebrated FBI agent. He felt like pulling it out to give August a more detailed look at what his future really looked like, but he left the papers where they were and nodded his head. He felt tired again—exhausted, really.
O’Barr tossed the greasy paper bag into the Oldsmobile and Roselita rejoined them just as August was sliding behind the wheel.
Dane squeezed at his sore neck. “Listen, I know you guys are raring to go on this, but I need to go home for a few hours. My girlfriend just moved in with me and thinks I’m knee-deep in a creek an hour away from home right now.”
“Fine. I’ll have a chopper ready to bring you back to McFalls.”
“I’ll get myself there,” Roselita said. “I’ve got some things to follow up on myself.”
“Fine, the two of you do whatever you have to do, but track these bastards down before they find anyone else to shred into pieces.” August slammed the long door on the Oldsmobile and cranked the engine. He rolled the window down. “Oh, and find the money, too.” He gave an animated wink as the glass slid back up.
August pulled the car out of the lot and Dane waited until he was completely gone before saying another word. When the Oldsmobile had left his line of sight, he headed back toward the motel room. “Roselita, come with me.” He crossed the lot, leaned down under the yellow tape, and stepped back up on the curb. He stood in front of room 1108 but didn’t go in. Roselita had taken out her phone and began to tap in a text message. Dane wasn’t a fan of that method of communication. Texting lacked inflection and it was easy to be misconstrued. He preferred talking. He guessed that made him old. He eased the door open and pointed down to the threshold. “Put your phone away, Velasquez, and look at that.”
Roselita tapped her phone off and looked down at a dark smudge on the carpet just inside the door. She pulled at the legs of her pants and crouched down to get a better look. Dane didn’t need one. He knew what it was.
“So what about it, Kirby? An ember drifted over here from the body.”
Dane shook his head. “No. That’s not from the same fire.”
“I don’t follow.”
“You don’t have to follow me, Velasquez. But you might want to follow the weed.”
“Follow the what?”
Dane leaned against the wall, balanced himself, and squatted down to the threshold. He lightly rubbed his finger into the small scorch mark that Arnold Blackwell’s joint had left on the carpet just before he was ambushed. Dane held his finger to Roselita’s nose. “Follow the weed,” he repeated. “No one could smell that over the stink in there, not even me, but you can smell it now, can’t you? Blackwell must’ve been getting high in here when he was interrupted, and I know it may sound like a weak lead, maybe he has it on him all the time, but maybe, just maybe, he picked it up in Atlanta before he boarded the flight. Maybe you can trace it back to whoever he was working with or whoever the second ticket is for before our killers do.”
Roselita agreed that it was indeed a weak lead. “He could’ve gotten it from anywhere.”
“Look, Blackwell didn’t have a pot to piss in, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Well, I know for a fact that you need ten grand in cash to buy in to the Slasher. That’s what builds the pot. Where did he get the money? And once he had more, maybe he bought some weed with it. It’s just a hunch.”
“You’re telling me Blackwell made a pit stop somewhere between this Slasher tournament and the Atlanta airport to pick up some pot and smuggled it via airplane across the state line with a suitcase stuffed full of cash?”
“Well, we’ve already established that this guy wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, and besides, where else can we start looking?”
Roselita rubbed at the mark on the carpet herself. She smelled her own fingers. “Maybe this burn was already here before he checked in.”
“No. Trust me. This is fresh.”
“And you think the men who did this are hunting the dealer right now?”
“They are hunting someone. And the interesting thing is that they took the joint. Why? It’s not here, is it? Is there any evidence of drug use in the room?”
“No.”
“Because they didn’t want us to know it was there. Because they are following the weed. It’s as good a place to start as any.”
Roselita stood up and brushed the wrinkles from her pants. “Or you’re completely full of shit.”
“Maybe, but regardless, this is a piece of the puzzle, and maybe it’s where you need to be on this case. Just see where it takes you.”
Roselita sniffed her fingers again, and looked down at Dane. “How did you even see that, Kirby? And why didn’t you tell August any of this?”
“Listen, Velasquez, you’re good at what you do, I can tell. But I’m good at what I do. I’ve been investigating fires my whole adult life. That mark was one of the first things I noticed when I got here. I figured someone would’ve gotten around to telling me about it, or showed me the joint that made the mark, but no one ever did. That means someone took it—someone who didn’t want us to know about it. I didn’t tell August, because I don’t want anything to do with this. I’m not the guy for this. You are, the girl, I mean, the woman—”
“I get the drift, Kirby, just keep going.”
“Right. Well, this”—Dane rubbed the ash between his fingertips—“will prove it, so I’m telling you, follow the weed, beat those monsters to wherever it came from. Find the money. Find the killers. And maybe you crack this case wide open. You take the bust and I’ll fade quietly back into the basement I crawled out of. Everyone goes home happy.”
Dane could tell Roselita was still skeptical by the way she chewed at the corner of her bottom lip, but he could also see she was ready to make that deal a reality. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll keep you in the loop.” She hopped off the curb, crossed back over the parking lot without a word of goodbye, and had her phone to her ear before Dane could even manage to pull himself upright.
“Hold up, sir,” Tweedledee said. The stout young agent from the helicopter appeared as if he’d never left. He bent over and helped Dane to his feet.
“Thanks.”
“No problem. The helicopter is ready, sir.”
Dane sighed. “Great. Can’t wait.”