Page 80 of Fish in a Barrel
Jackson’s pocket buzzed. “And it’s K-Ski.” He pulled out his phone and answered the call. “What do we have?”
“Well, for starters, I can see you assholes on top of the old medical building using Christie’s scope through the bullet hole. He carries it around so he’s fun at parties, I guess.”
“It’s why we invite him,” Jackson responded. “Do you have a—”
At that moment, Henry stood up, and a small red dot appeared immediately on his chest.
“Bwah!” Henry squawked as Jackson said, “Laser pointer? And yes, you do.”
“Sorry, Henry!” Sean said over Jackson’s phone. “It’s just the laser sight—no gun attached. We wouldn’t do that to you!”
“Glad to hear it,” Henry said sourly. “Excuse me, I need to go piss.”
Jackson wrinkled his nose at him. “You’re made of stern stuff, padawan. I’ll never wear these shorts again.”
Henry rolled his eyes. “You’re just saying that so I’ll keep working for peanuts.”
Jackson laughed and then spoke into the phone. “Okay, now that we’ve established where the shot came from, we need Christie to get hold of traffic cams in the area. You have a three-hour window, but I’ve driven around here in the fuck-you a.m.’s, and it’s practically deserted. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a guy in a vehicle that makes a half-hour stop to do some B and E so he can kill a guy.”
“Christie and de Souza are going to do some interviews near you and see if they can’t narrow down the time frame a little,” Sean added. “So far they haven’t been able to get any response to ‘Did you hear a shot fired?’ But if the building’s nearly a half mile away, they wouldn’t, would they? So they’re going to requisition traffic cams and do some interviews, and what are we going to do?”
Henry took the phone from Jackson before he could object. “Well,we’rerunning by the house so Jackson can take some pain meds and I can rebandage his back—”
“Goddammit!” Sean sounded legitimately pissed. “Our entire job was to keep you from overdoing it!” He dragged in a labored breath, and then Billy spoke on the phone.
“We’ll meet you at the house,” he said grimly. “Because you’re both done. That’s it. I’m calling a halt.”
“K-Ski should go home,” Jackson conceded, but Henry still had the phone, and he turned his back.
“Billy, we’ll meet you at Jackson’s place. If you love me, if I’ve done anything for you at all in the last few months, you’ll stop for food. I’m in the mood for Thai or Chinese, but I’ll leave it up to you.”
“I can do that,” Billy agreed, and Jackson was reminded that Henry had roomed at the flophouse for his first few months in Sacramento, and Billy was one of the kids who looked up to him the most.
“Excellent. Now remember, no matter what we do, we absolutely, positively can’t let them overdo it.”
“Roger that. See you there.”
Then Billy hit End Call and Jackson was left sputtering.
“Dammit, Junior, I just need a rest. Like you said, pain meds, change of bandages—”
“Rest,” Henry said implacably.
“But—”
Henry put his hands on his hips. “Jackson, answer me this. What can you do at this juncture?”
“I was going to be in the interview room when Fetzer and Hardison brought Cartman in—”
“Do you think that’s going to happen right now? Be honest. I know we were all gung ho because you had a witness and a license plate, but he’s the DA. When do you think that’s going to happen at the earliest?”
“Tomorrow,” Jackson replied grudgingly. “But Junior, do you think this guy’s done?”
Henry shook his head. “No. And I get it. We need to find him, and we need to figure out his agenda and who he’s after next. You and Ellery are probably on that list. Do you think I’m not worried? And we can do some of it from your house. Christie, I’m sure, will send you the footage to go over. Fetzer and Hardison will be calling to see how to bring in the DA. Crystal and AJ will have some reports to run. But all of that isworking, and right now, your body isnot.So c’mon, man—let me do my job, okay?” Henry’s face, which had never been boyish in spite of the All-American blue eyes and blond hair, took on a hauntingly gentle cast. “I was sent out to be your backup, but also to help you call it when it got too hard. I’m calling it. You and Sean are done for the day. Now let’s get you down the stairs.”
Jackson involuntarily winced with the thought.
By the time he was down the first flight, he was holding on to Henry’s hand for balance. By the time he got to the ground floor, he was sweaty and shaking and ready to throw up and his vision was doing that great sci-fi strobe thing from dark around the edges to gray in the middle. Still, he was pissed at himself for giving in until his phone pinged as Henry pulled away from the hospital and headed back to American River Drive.
