Tail Spin

handle the media. You need me, here’s my card. Tell the media what happened straight out and keep repeating it. Remember, no one was hurt or killed and we got the bad guy. Hey, that teenage girl she caught as a hostage, take good care of her, she did good.”
    Sherlock said, “Please call me, Steve, give me her name and address. We want to thank her, speak to her parents, tell them what a heroine she is.”
    “You and Sherlock,” Steve said, shaking his head as he took Sherlock’s card. He pressed his palm over his chest. “Here I am trying to calm everyone down and my heart is suddenly ready to burst right out.” He nodded to them once more, then turned to his assistant manager to order coffee and tea from the cafe on the second floor. He yelled, “Chocolate decadence cake for everyone!”
    Savich said to Sherlock, “Perky’s got to be forty, at least, just like Donley Everett said. Amazing.” He leaned down, picked up her black wig.
    “She was costuming,” Sherlock said, “a very good disguise, too, for an assassin. She’s about as hard-boiled as they get. I’ll bet she’s been at this for a very long time. I’ll bet you Jack’s old unit has a file on her. Well, at least she’s out of business now.
    “I’ll tell you, Dillon, if the bitch doesn’t make it, I’m going to punch her lights out.” She swallowed, placed her hand on his arm, but she didn’t say anything. Perky had tried to kill him twice. Close, too close.
    Savich, oblivious, said, “I’m thinking if she pulls through this, we’ll take her to Quantico. A nice visit with Dr. Hicks could be very helpful if he can get her under hypnosis. I’ll bet my next paycheck she isn’t going to give us the time of day, even if we offer her a deal.”
    Sherlock said, “She’ll lawyer up, won’t say a word. I bet hypnosis won’t even be on the table.
    “I don’t want to deal with the media, Dillon. Let’s get out of here. I called Mr. Maitland, gave him a quick overview. He isn’t happy—I mean, we did shoot up a Barnes & Noble bookstore—but he’ll deal with things. I told him Perky would be able to tell us who hired her to kill Senator Abbott and to kill Rachael. That cheered him up. Oh yeah, I asked Dane and Ollie to follow the ambulance to the hospital to get Donley Everett checked out. He was probably still moaning in the backseat of Ollie’s car.”
    Savich and Sherlock went out the back of the Barnes & Noble, back to K-Martique. They walked up the steep stairs and stepped through the open doorway into Perky’s apartment.
    “Dillon, wait a moment.”
    He turned, smiled at his wife. He pulled her against him, stroked her hair. She said against his neck, “When we’re through here, we’re going to the gym. Yes, even before we spill out every single detail to Mr. Maitland six times. We’re going to the gym. Get away from all this for a while. I’ve got to do something physical or I’m going to explode. You’d better look out—I just might take you down.”
    “In your dreams.” He laughed as he walked to Perky’s desk, turned on her laptop. He played around with it for several minutes, humming as he worked, then sat back in the desk chair, frowning.
    “She’s got the sucker passworded. It’d take me a while, but it would be a piece of cake for MAX.” He unplugged the laptop, set it on the floor by the front door.
    They looked through the desk drawers, found a checkbook, rubber-banded stack of paid bills, some invoices. The invoices were for repairs, for merchandise for her store, and the only checks used were written to utilities, nothing personal to help them. They found a couple dozen catalogs for Goth stuff, with some of the pages folded down. And an envelope filled with five thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills.
    “Her traveling money,” Sherlock said, labeling the envelope and putting it in her jacket pocket.
    In the kitchen they found three boxes of Grape-Nuts cereal, all unopened, and not much else in the cabinets. In the refrigerator were several dozen frozen bagels, fat-free cream cheese, and a half-gallon bottle of soy milk.
    In the night table drawer by the narrow black-quilted bed, they found nipple rings in bright primary colors, black liquid eyeliner, three pairs of fangs, and two ornate bottles containing ruby red liquid, to simulate blood, they assumed. The best find was a paperback, the cover illustrated with a score of black knife slashes, titled Sex for Vamps: How to Bleed Your Way to