Quest Call Read online

  Quest Call

  Kirk Dougal

  Copyright © 2017 by Kirk Dougal. All rights reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or fictitious recreations of actual historical persons. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the authors unless otherwise specified. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Worldwide Rights

  Created in the United States of America

  Edited by Tim Marquitz

  Cover & Interior Design by ST K•Kreations

  Acknowledgments

  Breann—You are a spot of sunshine on every rainy day. Never let anyone try to put you behind clouds in your life.

  Books by

  Kirk Dougal

  The Dowland Cases

  Reset

  Quest Call

  Gemini Divided (May 2018)

  The Fallen Angels

  Dreams of Ivory and Gold

  Valleys of the Earth

  The Dream of Solomon (Fall 2018)

  Young Adult

  Jacked

  Table of Contents

  INSIDE

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  OUTSIDE

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  INSIDE

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  OUTSIDE

  Chapter 51

  Afterward

  About the Author

  Inside

  Stink hung over the city like a blanket over a corpse, feeding on the body until all that remained were the shadows and ghosts of dreams.

  Garbage in the streets and the not-so-occasional body washing up near the docks were the smells you knocked off your shoes at the end of the day or chased away with gin you hoped would not leave you blind.

  No, the stink smothering the city, clinging to skin and clothes until you almost drowned in the stench, that was the smell of corruption.

  I walked through it when I could, dog-paddled through the muck when I had to, and dove through its black depths when that was all that was left to do, emerging from the filth smelling like the garbage I hated so much.

  I did it with the hope of one clean breath of air.

  I did it because I loved the city.

  My city.

  The City.

  Chapter 1

  I dove behind the crates, the chattering of the Thompson echoing down the alley. Brick chips and splinters rained down as the bullets bit into the wall above my hiding place.

  “That's it, Cy!” a man shouted. “Fill `im with daylight.”

  Another dozen shots roared over my head.

  “The bastard's tucked in tight,” said another man, his thin voice breaking. “Find us a way out of here, Driller.”

  “There's nothing. Maybe we can make a deal.”

  I checked my .45 and let out a slow breath. That explained why the two men had taken the time to squirt lead at me. I had chased them into a dead end. Otherwise, they would have been long gone with the bag of cash they had lugged out of the bank. The good news was that they were not escaping without making it past me. The bad news was the Tommy gun was going to get a lot closer before this was over.

  “You're not going to fade, Cy,” I said, my voice sounding louder in the silence after the gunfire. “It's you I want, not the money.”

  The crate quivered under more bullets.

  “He's no copper,” Driller said. “A bull would take the split.”

  “Who are you?” Cy asked. “One of Big C's gunsels? Is he getting worried because I'm bumping off a few places without his say so?” There was a pause. “No matter what he thinks, he doesn't own the city. But I'll bet you and I can do some business he doesn't need to know about. What kind of cabbage will help you walk back out the alley?”

  I ignored the offer. In the quiet between Cy's talking, I had heard the fall of a footstep moving toward me. My time was running short.

  “I'm not gonna wait all day, button man,” Cy said. “I'm offering a square deal.”

  A grimace crossed my face. Bloody Cy Fanini had killed more than two dozen people in the three bank jobs that I knew he had pulled with his gang. The only thing square about the deal I would get from him was the corners on my coffin.

  I flipped my fedora across the alley as soon as I heard the next footstep, and I followed behind it a second later, my gun aiming down on the movement in front of me.

  But it was not the small, pale Cy standing in front of me, his nose almost big enough to make his ears look normal. Instead, it was the hulking Driller, the double-barreled shotgun in his hands looking like a kid's toy.

  The first blast trailed after my hat, and I did not give the killer a chance to point the second round at me. I squeezed three shots into his chest, each one throwing a shudder into his body until he dropped to the alley floor, allowing me to see behind where he had been standing.

  Cy stared at me, the Thompson pointed at my head.

  Gunfire filled the narrow space between the buildings, and I waited for the City to go dark, preparing myself for the disorientation of waking up in my FBI-controlled hospital room on the outside.

  But there was no pain, no slipping away of the game. Instead, the smoke cleared and Cy was the one lying flat in a growing pool of red.

  “I would have negotiated a little longer.”

  I looked back over my shoulder and stared at my partner, Voice, his face split with a wide grin, and the half-dozen police officers with him.

  “I was starting to think you had stopped off for a shot of corn and a butt on the way here,” I said as I put my gun back into the holster beneath my coat. I turned to the coppers. “What took so long, Dutch?”

  Detective Hanlon waved at his officers to check the two bodies. “It took us a while to smoke out the three you left at the bank, RJ. Besides, I knew you could handle two of `em.”

  I grunted when Dutch and Voice fell into step with me as we walked to Driller. A quick examination of his wrist did not reveal a watch. That made the dead bank robber a game construct, a part of the software made to enhance the experience for other players. I shook my head at Voice and moved to Cy.

  “So, this is Bloody Cy,” Dutch said as I knelt. “Knocking off banks is a pretty big step up for a guy that was a sawbuck con on street corners a few months ago.”

  “Everybody's trying to fill the hole left by Rose when he died,” I said,
not bothering to mention I was the one who killed the number two gangster in The City. I pulled the watch off Cy's wrist and grabbed a piece of paper from my coat pocket, writing down the numbers I saw inside before standing again. “He's not the first two-bit who’s tried to make the leap.”

  “Yeah, but eventually anybody growing that large is going to face Big C,” Voice said. “That means playing for keeps.” The laughter in his words had melted away, leaving behind shadows of even darker memories. A little line of sweat appeared above the pencil thin mustache on his upper lip. I had helped him escape those black days and knew how desperate he was to never see them again.

  “And Fanini was one of the deadliest,” Dutch said. “With enough time to grow a gang, he might have had a shot at taking C down.” He gestured at my pocket with the paper. “Did you link him to some of the murders?”

  I pulled out a rumpled pack of Luckys and offered one to Voice. He accepted, his fingers twitching only once. I nodded at Dutch as I lit my cigarette.

  “Thompson and MacGuire. Probably just cons gone bad.” I would send the information to the FBI and they would cross reference to murders in the real world to see if there was a correlation. But I suspected they would find the two gamers alive and well, buried in another software world and never knowing how close they had come to dying for real.

  One of the uniformed officers walked closer.

  “A crowd's starting to gather outside the alley, Detective. Can we get the bodies in the wagon?”

  Dutch glanced at me and I nodded. “We're all done here, Sgt. Fiore. Take care of cleaning up the mess. I'm gonna head back to the bank.” He waited until the sergeant left before he spoke again. “You two want a ride?”

  “No thanks, Dutch.” I patted my coat pocket with the paper. “I've got a message to deliver.”

  “And then a drink,” Voice said. The grin had returned to his face.

  *****

  The woman swayed to the music before leaning in close to the microphone, breathing out the chorus over the soft piano melody. Cigarette smoke hung from the ceiling like a descending cloud, muting the lights even more and casting the rows of tables into deeper shadows the farther the lines fell back from the stage.

  I took advantage of the darkness. The room was only about two-thirds full, allowing me a small ring of privacy off to one side with just the flare of the cherry on my Lucky to give away my presence. After the rush of catching up with Bloody Cy, being by myself felt comfortable. But if I had really wanted to be alone, I could have gone back to my apartment after I dropped off the information for Card and cracked open a bottle of rye. I tried not to think about why I had ended up in the lounge at the Ashford Hotel.

  The singer's set ended and a smattering of applause followed her off the stage. The house lights brightened, drawing back the curtain on the crowd, sending some people scrambling for darker corners and leaving others huddled together. It also revealed the reason I was not at home.

  “What did you think of the new singer?” Helen Thistlewood asked as she slid onto the chair beside me, her knee rubbing against my thigh.

  I waved at the waitress who went off to bring us drinks. “I think she can sing well enough that she doesn't need to worry about wearing a dress two sizes too small,” I said.

  “You noticed the dress?” Helen's dark eyebrow rose until it was nearly hidden by the platinum blonde hair hanging over her forehead. “I better have a word with her about that.” Her smile took away any sting in the words. “I hear you had some fun this afternoon.”

  I grunted. “Bloody Cy wasn't someone I'd call a barrel of monkeys. He sent another handful of people for the dirt nap before we caught up to him outside the bank. How'd you glam onto it?”

  “Chance heard a whisper. He figured the end of the case would bring you around tonight. He said he might have something for you.”

  I nodded. Chance Burton was the house detective at the Ashford, and what he did not know about what was happening in this part of the City was not worth knowing. He was also a construct planted inside the game as one of my best friends and informants while Helen worked as his secretary. The software also occasionally had him bring me cases, and some of them had actually tied into my real mission inside.

  Silence settled between us as the waitress delivered our drinks. I sipped at mine before I noticed Helen's glass was still untouched, her attention stuck on the other side of the room.

  I followed her stare and saw Voice sitting at a table near the stage with the singer. He was leaning in close, and even from across the room, I saw her blushing.

  “Your man works the angle hard,” Helen said. “Sometimes too hard.”

  I'd noticed the same attitude with Voice as well. In the past few months, there were times when he pushed himself and the limits of the game, almost as if he was trying to cram as much action into as little time as possible. But every time the slugs started flying, he was standing right there watching my back, taking the same risks of being killed and sent out of the game on reset. It was hard to criticize a guy who was willing to catch lead for you.

  I didn't need to answer Helen's unasked challenge. A lanky, silver-haired man with a slightly rumpled suit had spotted us and crossed the room with a purpose. He stopped on the other side of the table and picked up my drink, gulping it down in one swallow.

  “Let me buy you a drink, Chance,” I said.

  He smiled as he shook the empty glass at the waitress and then turned back to me.

  “Sorry, RJ,” he said, “it's been one of those days. Now that you've wrapped up Bloody Cy, I could use your help with one of the guests. He's being squeezed on a Badger Game that I thought was being run by a couple of ham-and-eggers, but now it looks like there may be a whale behind it, maybe even one of Big C's men. Ever since what happened to Mrs. Borget, I know how you feel about C and thought you might want a shot at it.”

  I felt a shiver go down my spine at the mention of Evelyn. After she'd died saving me, both inside the game and in real life, I'd promised to continue her mission to bring down Big C. Chance knew I wouldn't be able to turn down the opportunity to hurt the crime boss.

  Before I could answer, a newsie walked up to the table, his oversized hat flopping over his head to cover an ear but still leave an uncombed mop of hair sticking out the other side.

  “Mr. Dowland,” he said. “I've got a message for you.”

  I blinked in surprise. It wasn't often that my FBI contact, Detective Ricardo Gonzalez, met openly with me inside the game. When he did, it usually meant something important. Two steps behind him was Voice, the lecherous grin long gone from his face.

  “I already dropped the information at the stand, Card,” I said, referring to my leaving the paper from the alley at the newspaper stand where he could pick it up.

  “It's not that, Mr. Dowland,” Card said, bobbing his head in deference. I never understood how the thirty-something homicide detective was able to keep up his act of being a fourteen-year-old newsboy inside the game. “Jim wanted you to know they're ready to cage the Raven.”

  Another shiver shook my body, and this one threatened to continue. I felt a squeeze on my leg, and I glanced at Helen. A small smile touched her lips.

  I nodded and then stood.

  “I'll help you with Big C when I get back, Chance. I've got to handle this first.”

  OUTSIDE

  Chapter 2

  Disinfectant. The aroma of bleach and cleaners mingled together and swam down his nose, leaving behind its pungent taste in Rick's mouth. He opened an eye, tilting his head to one side and waiting for the blinding pain that told his body how long it had been since he had stared at real light. But the sensation never erupted across his body.

  Rick noticed shades of gray covered the room, the far end drifting down into darkness. A shadow stirred, and a person walked toward him, features obscured by the lack of light.

  Sweat ran down Rick's face, droplets racing his pounding heart. Visions of Gwen swam through his
thoughts, black hair framed close to pale skin. His hands grasped at the sides of the bed, searching for anything he could swing at the danger swooping toward him on black wings. One more gulp and the breath froze in his lungs, his body twisting away from the gun pointing toward him.

  The darkness parted, Detective Gonzalez reaching out to place a hand on the edge of the bed.

  “Rick!” Card said. “What's wrong? Do you need the doc?”

  The door opened before he could respond. This time he did need to turn away from painful light. The blinding flash poured into the room, broken up by the figures of several people rushing to his side.

  “Pulse at 102,” said Nurse Gminsky. “Other stats at near normal.”

  “Get those damn things off him!”

  The nurse leaned in, gently removing a thin mesh cap with a dizzying pattern of shining wires running across its surface. Other fingers worked at his hands and gloves made from the same material slid off, leaving cool air flowing against his skin.

  “Damn it, Detective! You know protocol. Medical personnel must be on hand when long-term agents exit the games.” Dr. Jensen finally hovered into Rick's view. The man glanced at the game equipment, and he grimaced before his eyes softened. “Rick, tell me what happened. Was there a game error?”

  Rick opened his mouth, but then paused to swallow, unused muscles easing back into action.

  “No error,” he said, his voice cracking on the words. “It felt…felt like I kicked out too fast. Like I was still partially in but out at the same time. When Card walked at me, I thought it was…” Rick paused, catching Gwen's name on his tongue. “I thought he was a character from The City.”

  “I'm sorry, Rick,” Gonzalez said. “I told the nurses' station I was pulling you out, but I've never seen you dump the game that quick. You were out before me.”

  Jensen stood straight, red blooming on his cheeks.