It was a dud. He didn’t get it. Instead of being offended, he was confused.

“What?” he sputtered.

I sighed. “Bad breath.” I was disappointed that the fire had puttered out. But Stockton snapped and went for his baton screaming “Motherfucker!”

I backed away fast and threw my bag down. If I was gonna fight a cop in the damn precinct, I didn’t want to have a loaded Uzi on me. They’d just love that.

Stockton had his nightstick at the ready, violence flaring in his eyes. He could beat the crap out of me and get away with it. He was a cop, after all! If I fought back, he could slap me with charges and a free beating. I didn’t give a shit. I had every intention of mopping the joint with the nasty little prick’s face.

Before any blows could be exchanged, Blout came out of a side door. “Stockton, what the hell are you doing?!”

In the end, I was relieved there weren’t going to be any punches thrown. I would have come out on the losing end of that particular stick any way you looked at it. Cops don’t look kindly on flatfoots beating on uniforms in the hall of the precinct.

“Get the hell out of here,” Blout spat.

Stockton gave me a nasty look and promptly left. It wasn’t over. Blout was looking at me, pissed again.

“Do you think you could stay out of trouble for two seconds?”

I shrugged. “I’m willing to try,” I said, picking the bag off the seat. “Here’s the Uzi someone tried to kill me with.”

Blout laughed a jerky, breathy laugh.

We left the Uzi with the lab to dust for prints and run ballistics, and left the precinct at around eleven thirty. Blout was hungry, but I had other plans.

7

By midnight we arrived at the deserted apartment complex where Edgar Cain had lived. The place couldn’t have been creepier. The streetlights were dead, but it didn’t matter since four looming high rises would block out any moonlight. The way the buildings were laid out gave the impression that the architect had simply thrown blocks into the air, and the way they landed was how the apartments were built. It was planned chaos that created shadowy corners, blind spots, and black canyons even the bravest thug would be wise to avoid.

The complex was called Whitney Green. In some ways it could be compared to the gigantic, soulless projects in New York and Chicago, with two major differences. It was condemned, for one. But what made it ominous was when you looked around Whitney, you saw nothing. No graffiti, no gang signs. No homeless, no squatters. Not so much as a broken window since the day Cain slaughtered the tenants with his mind. The compound imprisoned the troubled memories of over a hundred dead.

Nobody, not even the lowest of lows, dared penetrate its boundaries for shelter. It was truly a haunted place.

Blout was not at all pleased to be there.