The Killing Floor Blues (Daniel Faust #5)(82)

I’d met Gary Kemper when Harmony Black’s all-star task force set me in their sights. He was Agent Black’s local liaison, a superstar in the gang-crimes unit. He was also a member of the Redemption Choir, a pack of cambion terrorists. And he had been working for Lauren Carmichael.

They say a man can’t serve two masters, let alone three, so I simplified his life for him. Thanks to a little bit of blackmail, soon he only had one boss to worry about. Me.

“You son of a bitch,” he seethed. “You made me think Harmony and Lars were dead!”

“I needed you to get me close to my targets, and frankly, you aren’t that good of an actor. You had to believe it. If Sullivan smelled a lie on you, he would have killed us both.”

Kemper’s shoulders slumped. He kicked the door closed behind him, walked into the kitchen nook, and set his grocery bags down on the counter between us. I watched to see if he’d go for the gun on his hip. He didn’t even bother.

“Yeah, well, maybe. I spent a week in this crack den of a ‘safe house’ in Los Angeles. Word got back that Sullivan was dead, and everybody just…drifted off. The end of the Redemption Choir.”

“You wanted out of the Choir. I got you out. A little gratitude wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

He mustered a tired glare as he unpacked his groceries. Bananas, a six-pack of Sam Adams, a stack of microwave dinners, another six-pack.

“I heard you got sent to Eisenberg Correctional,” he said. “Then today I heard you were dead. Either of those true?”

The last of his groceries was a tiny chocolate cake under a plastic dome, dipped in fudge, sized for one.

“Both, sort of. Hey.” I nodded at the cake. “What’s with the fancy dessert? Are you…are you celebrating my death?”

He wrinkled his nose. “It’s my birthday tomorrow, smartass. I’m down for a twelve-hour shift, so maybe I’m gonna want a little cake and a beer afterward. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Twelve hours. Yeah, I can imagine, with all the gang violence now that Nicky’s gone.”

He twisted the cap off a bottle of beer and tossed back a swig.

“Clusterf*ck. Unmitigated clusterf*ck. We were supposed to take down Nicky and his entire organization in one big sweep. Sparkly clean Vegas streets and nice big headlines. Now? It’s total chaos out there. The task force is over, too. Lars went on disability leave from the DEA, and Harmony…hell, that’s just a pile of weird.”

“How do you mean?”

“She left.” He took a long pull from the bottle. “I figured back to the Seattle FBI office, right? But no, turns out she got reassigned to the ‘critical incident response group,’ whatever the hell that is. So I poke around, find out she’s supposedly running field investigations for a higher-up named Walburgh.”

He stepped around the counter and leaned against it, eyeing his bottle.

“I got a pal in the Bureau, and I asked him to get me in touch. Thinking hey, I never really got to say a proper goodbye before Harmony left town, and I’d like to give her a call. Well, wherever she is, she can’t be reached. And this Walburgh guy? As far as we can tell, he doesn’t exist. He’s a voicemail box in an empty office. There’s some shady shit going down in the Bureau, and Harmony’s neck-deep in it.”

I wished I could say I was surprised, but Agent Black had intimated that her connections in Washington ran deeper—and to far stranger corners—than anyone would have guessed. Whatever she was into, I just wanted to keep under her radar and out of her way.

And as long as Daniel Faust stayed dead and buried, I had a pretty good shot.

“Whatever it is you’re here for,” Gary told me, “say it and get out. You can’t blackmail me anymore. Sullivan and Lauren are both six feet under.”

“Technically he’s about fifteen feet under,” I said, “but that’s arguing semantics. I’m here to ask for your help.”

He blinked. “Help you? Why the hell would I do that?”

“Because,” I said, “you and me are gonna save some lives together.”





44.




“You’re seeing the violence in the streets,” I told Gary, “everyone fighting to fill the vacuum now that Nicky’s on the run, but you aren’t seeing the hand behind it all. And if you think it’s bad now, just wait a few more days.”

Gary’s frown dropped a couple more notches.

“The Chicago mob,” I said, “is about to make a move on Vegas. That murder that landed me behind bars and sent Nicky running? Frame job, from start to finish. They’ve got a shape-shifter on their payroll. He set the whole thing up.”

“Shape-shifter?” he snorted. “No such thing.”

I leaned back on his couch and tilted my head at him.

“Gary?” I said. “You’ve got demon blood. You know I’m a sorcerer and that magic is real. Are you really gonna take the ‘no such thing’ angle with me?”

He glanced down, biting his lip.

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “Fair point.”

“Their whole plan was to destabilize the Vegas underworld. As you’ve seen, mission accomplished. But that’s just the prelude. The Outfit’s gonna roll in here, guns blazing. In fact, I know they’re sending a delegation to hook up with some of the locals. The Cinco Calles are about to get ripped right down the middle.”