guise of something else—just a sincere respect for law enforcement, the boys in blue, thanks for your service. But he knew what they wanted to hear. And he knew what this kid was trying to ask.
“It’s an awful feeling,” Hazard said. “Sometimes. And sometimes, I don’t feel anything except that they deserved it. It depends on a lot of things.”
“That feels good, right? When they deserve it? When they get what’s coming to them? You’re like, the hero. And they deserve it.”
Yes, Hazard wanted to say. With some of them, the ones who deserved it, the satisfaction was so deep and visceral that, if he were honest, it was hard to distinguish it from feeling good. But he sure as fuck wasn’t going to tell this little ghoul that.
“That story about the hotel is bullshit,” Hazard said. “It was an apartment building. And it was one guy. And he fell, he didn’t get shot.”
Disappointment painted the kid’s face, and then, as Hazard had expected, it hardened into disbelief. Ghouls, young or old, already knew what they wanted to hear; if they didn’t hear it, it’s because you were a cocksucker or a pussy or a liar.
The kid stepped off the last stair, his whole body communicating that Hazard had ceased to exist. Hazard grabbed the little shit by the throat. He swung the kid into the wall of the stairwell, and the kid squawked as the bucket hit the floor and clanged.
“Ok,” Hazard said. “You wanted me to talk about it, so I talked about it. Now I’m going to tell you something, and then I’m going to ask you about the security footage again. Here’s the first part: if you ever get a little boner when you think about shooting someone, if you ever get a little wood when you’re playing with your guns, remember that I know you and I know your face and if you do anything like that, I will find you and make the last hours of your life so fucking miserable you’ll pray for death. Is that clear?”
The kid was spitting and gurgling, and Hazard realized his grip was a little too tight, but he decided consistency was probably the most important virtue of the moment.
“Now, I want that security footage.” He gave the kid a shake and then released him.
For almost a full minute, the kid moaned and wheezed and massaged his throat. One of his legs was shaking so badly that he had to lean against the wall to keep himself upright.
“Five seconds,” Hazard said.
The kid mumbled something, still palpating his throat.
“Louder,” Hazard said.
“We don’t have security cameras.”
“You’re fucking joking.”
“None. Inside or outside. We don’t have any.”
“For the love of fuck.”
The kid pulled up the Versace tee to wipe his face. “I’m going to tell the cops that you—”
“Go!”
With the sound of metal scraping concrete, the kid grabbed his bucket and took off into the basement.
Hazard went back up to the lobby. He spent a few minutes looking around the main floor, checking for cameras. Then he went outside and checked the building, the parking lot, the whole perimeter. This was a nice area, relatively close to Wroxall’s campus. A safe area. And not a fucking camera anywhere in sight.
The clock was ticking, so Hazard got in the minivan and pulled out of the lot just as a pair of uniformed men emerged from the apartment building—young guys, ones he recognized as the fresh assholes Riggle had brought in. They were scouting the parking lot; both of them glanced at the minivan and moved on. Dumb, dumb, dumb fucks. Hazard drove past them, merged into traffic, and tried to ignore the pounding in his chest. Dumb fucks, sure, but dumb fucks who could still throw him in the back of a cruiser if they wanted to.
He parked four blocks down, in the shade of a weeping willow. The swampy heat made his shirt stick to the seat, and he wiped his face and tried to think. No security cameras. Because this was a decent part of town. Eventually, something bad would happen—a rape, a mugging—and the owners would be afraid of a lawsuit and they’d put in a few cameras. But not yet. And that meant Hazard had hit his first dead end.
He ran through everything again, trying to see if he’d made an error. He had wanted to see how Dulac left the building; his car was still in the lot, so if Dulac had rented a car or borrowed a