Session 14

~JET~

I awoke in bed with a bit of a start. Something was wrong. Reaching out I found the other side of the bed vacant, the covers left a mess.

How had someone gotten in here and snatched him without my hearing! Immediately I rolled to face to the door. Closed, with the chain still in place. What? Then where the … ?

The sound of the toilet flushing turned my head. I noticed a sliver of light. It was a full minute before a bleary-eyed sniffling Spike shuffled his way across the floor, his hand against the wall for balance.

Heh, maybe I was a bit too jumpy. I sat up with relief and clicked on the light.

He tucked his head away from the light's glare and continued the slow awkward steps. He was upright, but his balance was still shot.

"Hey, you're lookin' a better."

Reaching the edge of the bed he dropped down onto it, catching his breath. "Oh yeah?" His voice was groggy, but at the very least he sounded less congested.

Coming around to his side I reached up, catching his line of sight in a deliberate motion toward his forehead.

He flinched and tried to duck away.

"It's ok, Spike. I'm not going to hit you, just a temperature check."

His withdrawal halted and he held still. Though he was warmer than he should be, he wasn't as feverish now. And then I noticed it. His mouth was closed, he was breathing through one nostril. "Haha, I knew that would work."

He blinked up at me, a bit out of focus. "What would work?"

Well now, that really had slammed him. "Never mind. Are you feeling any better?"

There was a slight delay before he lifted a shoulder in a vague shrug. He sneezed and brought his hand dragging the back of it under to collect the mess.

"Spike! Didn't anyone teach you not to do that!"

The sudden shocked cringe he failed to conceal as he looked away had the impact of a slap to my face. Too late I caught my tongue's foolishness. Grabbing a tissue I held it out to him. "That … I didn't mean it like that. I'm sorry. I forgot."

Crestfallen, he took the tissue from me, but his eyes wouldn't rise from the floor as he mopped up the mess. "Not the first time, won't be the last."

"It's just that I'm not used to any of this."

He pitched the soiled tissue into the overflowing basket by the bedside and shook his head very slowly. "Yeah well … it's cause you haven't had to think about it. You're not used to the short end of the stick."

I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck. "I guess life's just not fair."

Spike looked me square in the eyes. "Whatever gave you the delusion it was in the first place?"

Damn, that was conviction if I'd ever heard it. Before I could answer his stomach voiced its opinion. I seized the offered distraction. "You hungry for something solid?"

His arms tried to shamefully shield his belly, but it was too late. "I could eat," he muttered.

I pushed up from the bed and padded toward the stove. "Ok, this will take a bit. Meanwhile, stay bundled up nice and warm."

I expected an argument, but while the butter melted in the pan I glanced back out to find him lying down huddled under the covers. He still looked miserable, but less so than before. As I mixed up a batch of pancakes and cooked them on the small stove I heard him blowing his nose every so often, coughing a bit afterward. Eyeing the glass surrounded by the alcohol bottles I made up my mind. After a good meal I would offer him another round. He needed something to punch through all that and help him get some more sound sleep. That would do it.

Pouring a generous amount of syrup on the stacks I carried them out toward the coffee table and went back to fetch him a large glass of juice. He eyed me as I came back around the corner. "No syrup in bed," we'd left housekeeping with enough of a mess, I gestured to him, "but you can drag the blanket over here."

Without remark he stood up and shuffled across the room, wrapped in the blanket and dragging the remaining length behind him. He plunked down next to me and after a steadying moment reached out for the juice. He moved slowly, but I was less concerned about his coordination now than earlier. He was managing on his own.

After he finished the first pancake, minus his usual ravenous face stuffing, I asked him between bites, "Good?"

"Mmm hmm." There wasn't much vigor to his reply, but he was still upright in his blanket cocoon. That was a good start.

I had finished long before him, but still I waited patiently. He needed these calories desperately, especially after fetching the pocketbook from the church. As soon as he polished the last bit off the plate I offered to take it to the kitchen.

On my way back I opened a drawer and removed the pocketbook from the underside. Padding around the corner I dropped it on the coffee table.

Instantly he retreated into the blanket as if it would protect him. "About that … I can exp—"

"Not what I'm interested in." I tugged out the pages of my own writing and the code list and held them out to him.

His bloodshot eyes stared at the small amount I had managed to tease out of it. His hands emerged from the cocoon, grasping them and paging through. "Shit … so … that was what I thought!"

I grinned at him, sitting down so he wouldn't have to look up, although at the moment he was still engrossed in the short segment I had decoded. "I can see why that thug wanted this back so badly."

Still distracted, Spike shook his head. "It didn't belong to Nails in the first place."

"Nails?"

"Yeah."

"Colorful name. What, did he wear nail polish or something?" I tried to make light of it.

Something Spike totally missed as he remarked coldly, "Not those kind of nails, the ones you drive into things to hold them into place."

My eyebrow shot up. Something about his matter-of-fact tone didn't sit well. "Tch! Hold things? As in … people?"

"Parts of them. Heh, yeah this gives both dates and locations, course these ones are already done. Which page was this?"

It took a moment for me to shake off the grim tidbit he had just revealed. "Just the first one. I'd been up all night by the time I got the code that worked." Flicking the torn page I eyed him. "Fess up, did you write this?"

He snorted, reached over and grabbed a tissue to clean up the mess before continuing. "Nah, it was the angel." Plucking out the page he turned it around and pointed at the woodcut print with a wink.

I glared at him, which had no effect. "You can read and write!"

"That surprises you?"

It shamed me, but … "Yeah, it does. If my math is correct you weren't old enough to have been taught by your parents. How did you learn?"

"Perceptive." He shrugged, shifting the blanket enough it fell off his shoulder. Swiftly he tugged it back into place. "It's really just part of surviving."

"Reading and writing? How?"

He reached forward and snatched the pocketbook off the table and started paging through it, skimming. "Joe made me fetch the bottles from the cellar to refill the bar. I learned to recognize the letters on the labels so he wouldn't beat my ass for bringing the wrong ones up. There's a difference between Bulleit and Jack Daniels, even though they're both whiskey. The task was much easier when I could make a list of the stuff."

That's why it was so small and tidy. He'd learned by copying the texts of the bottles. "You taught yourself?"

"Joe sure as fuck didn't. Honestly don't think he knew I was able to, which is why he left all sorts of stuff laying around in my view. Only thing he cared about was I could count cards. That math he did teach me."

"The codes?"

"The ciphers I picked up over time. People always overlooked me cause I was just a dumb kid. Guys traded info in the midst of a card game, they'd flash the sheet, I'd just pick their pockets when they weren't looking. Before long I'd pinched dozens of them from assorted gangs."

"Committed to memory?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Most of them aren't too tricky. Turns out this code was one of the simpler ones. If I'd had more time I would have gotten it sorted out. But by the time I'd written out the cheat sheet I heard Nails enter the church. I had to stash and dash."

I took a deep breath. Shortly after that I had found him. If not for the ruckus I might have passed by. "How did you get it in the first place?"

Spike closed his eyes, and sighed. His disappointment that we were there again clearly visible.

"Kid, I'm not upset about this. You might have snatched the key to unlocking all of this. Please, just tell me the truth."

He burrowed deeper into the blanket, shivering. "It had been some rough nights, and yeah, I wasn't feeling well, so I was trying to find something to eat. I happened to be in an alley digging through a trashcan when I heard someone coming my way. I hid and the next thing I knew, Nails chased the guy who tried to hold us up against the wall. The one with the scar? Well, they got into quite the fist fight as a result and in the midst of it that fell out of the thug's pocket. Nail's saw it and was about to grab it. I dashed out of cover and snatched it, only just managing to get up to a rooftop. I lost him for good, but when I got back to the church I collapsed for like a day or so. I dunno, when I woke up I realized I needed the ciphers. Unfortunately, I hadn't been as careful as I usually was, someone had seen me enter the church and snitched. That's how Nail's knew. It was bad timing, I didn't have enough to scrap with him. But you know that, I mean, since you found me."

I rubbed my chin. "This belonged to the thug, the drug mule."

"Yup. Funny how Dodge found out it had been taken from Nails so soon after you got me back. Given how few knew about its existence." Spike's eyes, even through his illness, betrayed his utter lack of surprise.

My fist tightened. "You think Nails told them you had nicked it."

"I'd go all in on a bet." Beneath the blanket, his arms crossed, I could tell.

Damn, it all lined up. Unless they'd arrested Nails and gotten that through an interrogation. Still, something told me that wasn't where that information came from. Rubbing the bridge of my nose I muttered, "Supposing that was the case, where does that put Nails?"

Spike leaned forward and grabbed a sheet of scratch paper. I watched as a series of charts started to form looking almost like family trees. He dropped the pencil and retreated back into the blanket cocoon.

The more I stared at them, the more I teased out what I was looking at. The point driven home when I spied at the top of one Red Dragon. "Spike … these are … don't tell me this is the distribution chains?"

"More or less." He nodded. "I can't say it's completely accurate. Some of those are my assumptions from shit talk around the pool table. But then again, a lot of morons don't pay attention to what they let slip. So it might be dead on. But the fact is there are several factions trying to call Deseado their turf. Been fighting over it for ages, which is why this place is falling to bits. Nails is associated with the Hell Tribe, follow them up and they answer to … "

I read where he pointed, Red Dragon. Shit. This wasn't good. They were bad news!

"Lately there's been others trying to wander into the territory. So that means that the mules who tried to flip their stash twice report to one of these other three factions, unless they're just Red Dragon pee ons trying to moonlight."

No wonder this was a wreck. If Spike was right, four syndicates intersected here trying to turn this place into their private way station. And we'd somehow stumbled into the clash of at least two.

With a loud yawn, Spike rubbed his eyes. Not really a surprise he was wearing out.

"This pocketbook is the key." I set my finger on it. "If we can find the next delivery, then we can intercept it."

There was that cheeky grin at me. "You're learning. At least you're not turning it over to the cops. That probably would've been the last thing you did."

I hated to admit it, but I suspected he might be right. For now I wasn't going to let anyone know about this. "Here's what we're going to do. You're gonna go back to bed and kick this cold in the ass, I'll mix another glass for you."

Spike slid a glance toward the kitchen, the expression hard to gauge. That might have been disgust, it certainly wasn't excitement. Maybe he did remember what happened.

"Meanwhile I'm gonna dig through this and find our next date for interception."

"Why is it important to you I get better?"

I winked. "Cause, I'm gonna need you to watch my six."

He blinked as I held out a hand and helped him up.

"Go, settle in."

"Jet, that stuff … you said it was your grandma's recipe?"

"Yeah."

"Wow, she was a real sadistic bitch."

I laughed. "And you never even met her."