And that, somehow, was how she’d wound up with Carson. Rydell sitting on the couch in that apartment with the lights off, watching one old Cops in Trouble after another, looking lost, and she just hadn’t been able to handle it. It had been fine when they’d had things to do together, but when it came to just being together, that hadn’t seemed to work, and Rydell going into that sad thing when it had started to look like it wasn’t going to work out with the show…
But here was the bar, a small crowd around the door now and the sound of music she’d been hearing but not really listening to, which died as she got up close to the crowd.
Place was packed. She slid in sideways between a couple of Mexicans looked like truck drivers, had those steel chisel-toe things tacked to the front of their black cowboy boots. Inside, over the heads of the people packed on the floor, she could see Creedmore with a 182 microphone in his hand, grinning out over the crowd. It was a dancer grin, ten thousand watts of bad electricity, and she saw he had the start of that thing that dancer did to your gums.
People were clapping and whistling for more, and Creedmore, his face running with sweat, looked like he was intending to give it to them.
“Thank you, thank you kindly,” she heard Creedmore’s amplified voice say. “Now this next number’s one I wrote myself, and it’s going out soon as our first single, Buell Creedmore and his Lower Companions, and it’s called ‘Just When You Think You’ve Got It Dicked..
Or anyway that was what she thought she heard him say, but then the band kicked in, loud, with the guitarist choking steely serpentine chords out of a big, shiny, old red electric, and she couldn’t make out any of the words. Although she had to admit it sounded like Creedmore could sing.
They were jammed in here so tight, it made it hard to keep a lookout for Carson, but on the other hand it wasn’t too likely he’d be able to see her either.
She kept moving, as best she could, trying to find Tessa.
183 I 45. JACK MOVE
RYDELL had taken a surveillance course, back at the academy, and his favorite part had been going out and following people. It wasn’t something you did alone, but with at least one partner, and the more partners the better. You learned how to trade off, somebody taking your place, and how to deak up ahead of the subject so you’d be ready when the next guy needed to trade off. That way the subject never had the same person behind him for too long. There was a definite art to it, and when you got it down it was sort of like a dance.
He hadn’t really gotten the chance to put it into practice, in his very brief career as a police officer, or later when he’d worked for IntenSecure, but he felt like he’d been pretty good at it, and it had given him an idea of what it would feel like if you were being followed, and particularly if you were being followed by some people who knew how to do it right.
And that was what he found himself thinking about now, as he shouldered the duffel with Rei Toei’s projector in it and prepared to depart this pathetic excuse for a crime scene. If Laney had wanted him to attract someone’s attention by standing here, well, he’d stood here. But maybe now, he thought, he was getting that watched feeling because Laney had told him he’d be sure to be noticed if he came here.
Could be nerves. Maybe, but actually he didn’t feel nervous, just tired. He’d driven all night up the coast with Creedmore, and all the downtime he’d had today had been when he’d fallen asleep listening to Rei Toei. What he felt like now was going back to his room, checking out the projector to see if she’d come back, then hitting the bed.
But there it was, that prickling at the back of his neck. He turned and looked back, but there was nobody, just the place where the Kil’Z had been sprayed over dried blood.