Dangerous by Default

45. The detective prowls

As the woman with no discernible clothing other than an oversized tweed cardigan rolled her train of shopping carts into the street, a red Mustang curled around them in a precise arc, sending her and the shopping carts to which she clung toppling to the ground.

"I'll throw a match into that nasty hair and watch it burn up, you fake bitch!" the woman shouted over her shoulder, her eyes wide and venomous. But Janus' roaring sports car was already halfway down the block, and her mind was more than a thousand miles away. Janus instinctively put a hand to her chest. Her heart was racing.

Ami was taken. The notion raked at her thoughts numbly. Caine and Mina had told her that Ami was taken. Ami was taken. Her car crept up to the line of a red light. She looked left and right and, without waiting for the light to change, stepped on the gas. Speed was her beta-blocker. Her pulse slowed. The city could forgive her for being a little reckless. She needed to think. And to think she needed to calm down.

What was Ami actually working on up there? Mina had only given her breadcrumbs of information in regards to their secret project. The cloaked figure wanted the goo. The stench of questions begging to be unearthed aroused her instincts. All roads lead to Mina and Caine. Plenty of time to uncover the secrets buried there. The look of fear and panic on Caine's face during the interrogation earlier caused her to crack a momentary smile. She had all of the levers she needed to snap them like twigs.

But she couldn't think about them now - not yet. She had only one goal. Find Ami.

Janus flew up the Leavenworth Street hill and careened through another red light before screeching to a stop in front of the Amigos corner store. The dealers no doubt recognized the only tough detective in San Francisco, and a chorus of coded whistles sent them scattering. Janus carelessly lit a cigarette and waited. She was there for information, and her presence was a call.

Three long drags later, her eyes noticed a small glimmer along the roofline of a 2-story construction site nearby. A small disco ball, under-lit by a flashlight, was bobbed on a wire. To anyone else it would have been just another piece of rubbish in a neighborhood of colorful forgottens. Not to Janus. Her message had been received.

She puttered further down the block and pulled her car down into the basement floor of a parking garage, waving away two junkies who seemed intent on using the space to inject. She didn't need anyone around, this meeting had to be private.

A man called out from the dark shadows of a column. "Star eyes!" boomed his voice in the narrow concrete room.

"My savior" Janus replied with a grin.

"Why did you have to drop in during business hours? You promised me..." His voice was polite but fearful. Janus knew he was losing money. She respected her informants but also knew she held all the power in this relationship, and this was no time to play soft.

"I need to know something, and it can't wait."

"That's always your reason."

"The break-in."

The man fell silent. "At the robotics lab? What about it."

"Who?"

"I'm just a 9-5er. I don't get involved with B&E"

"And you'd never hurt a fly. That's why I let you breath in all this fresh air."

"Gasoline, rubber, feces, the occasional crack smoke. You spoil me so." Janus' lack of amusement told him to continue, "Look, I don't know exactly who they were. It was a badass crew. Everyone is talking about them. Looked like some freaks right out of a comic book, with capes and black leather and semi-automatic. You gotta be kidding, I thought, but then I saw them myself."

"So they stopped by to pay their respects to the king of Eddy and Leavenworth? Did they kiss your ring?"

"I'm a family man. I don't get involved. The real criminals don't even know my name. But I was up on Ellis - you know the red gate to the Tenderloin National Park? They went in but they didn't come out."

"And you let them?"

"They had some heavy weapons. I ain't a fool."

"Ok. So as far as you know I can find them back in the park. And that's it?"

"No, that's not all of it. They had someone with them. A woman."

Janus moved quickly, closing the ground between herself and her informant like a wild cat, sneaking between breaths. She put her hand on his shoulder and spoke quietly, almost sweetly.

"We've been working together for how many years? If you are lying to me I will come find you in your shitty suburban house and kill you." The informant went pale.

"It's the truth, I swear. I saw who it was - the woman. I recognized her. I see a lot of things that happen in the neighborhood. That's why we're such good friends. I see her riding shotgun in your car when you pick her up from work."

Janus was already revving her engine back to life when he yelled to her open window, "Don't ever let true love die, you'll regret it the rest of your life!"