“Dude, they looked like someone’s balls,” Miki muttered. “I’m kind of freaked out. The fingers… I could sort of handle… okay, I didn’t, but the other shit? That’s too fucking much. Do you think they’re Carl’s? The fingers, I mean?”
“We’ll see,” Kane promised. “Where were you going when you found them?”
“The grocery store. I’ve got nothing in the house.” He shrugged. “There’s dog food and ramen, but that’s about it.”
“Okay, tell you what.” Kane reached for the piece of paper Miki still had clenched in his fist. “I’m going to leave them here and go grab what’s on your list. You go inside and wait.”
“And do what?” Miki pursed his lips. “I feel like I’m in some damned slasher flick, man. I’m sure as fuck not going into the shower. I’ve seen that movie. It did not end well for that chick.”
“First, go brush your teeth,” Kane advised. “I won’t be long. I’ll come back and cook you dinner. We’ll figure out what to do after that. If you don’t give the cops any shit, I’ll even bring you cake or something.”
Miki let Kane lead him to the door connecting the garage to the warehouse, but he got one last mutter in before closing the door behind him. “Better be good fucking cake, because I’m getting sick of all the extra cops showing up when I only wanted you.”
HE WAS still grinning at Miki’s words as he unloaded the groceries from the back of the SUV. The garage was still open and empty. The GTO would probably be gone another week or so, and only Dude’s stolen treasure remained, a forlorn pile of nonsense spread out and picked through by technicians looking for any clues to Shing’s murder.
Even though he’d spent nearly two weeks with Miki at his shop, Kane had never been inside the converted warehouse. Instead, they talked either in the garage or on the front stoop, sometimes not realizing they’d been outside for a couple of hours until Miki tried to take a step and his leg refused to bend. They talked about ordinary things, even Miki’s band mates, but never about Shing or Carl. There was too much pain in Miki’s voice when he said their names. It was the one tender, raw spot Kane avoided poking at.
Coming through the garage, Kane spotted the chamois he lost to the dog a while back. Shaking his head, he walked through the garage and tried the door to the house. It swung open when he turned the knob, and Kane sighed heavily.
“Why don’t you lock the door, you fricking idiot?” he grumbled, and shouldered his way in, clutching the bags in his arms and shutting the door with his foot. Taking a look around, Kane was dumbstruck by the high-ceilinged living room.
“Spartan” seemed like too fancy of a word to describe the place. “Empty” came closer, but Kane still didn’t think it captured the echoing desolation of the large space.
A big-screen television dominated one wall, a tangle of wires hanging down from connections to lead to an array of gaming systems and players. Sitting a few feet opposite of the screen was an enormous, battered sectional Kane would have tossed out to the curb years before it reached its current state. Bed pillows and a quilt lay piled up on one end of the L, and a metal storage locker between the TV and the couch was mostly clean except for a couple of game controllers, remotes, and a bunch of dog-eared spiral notebooks. Sprawled out upside down on the other end of the couch, Dude snored loudly, his furry body twisted into a pretzel and his feet twitching as he slept.
“You are the shittiest watch dog ever,” Kane said to the sleeping dog. “Of course, your master should lock his damned doors.”
An archway separated the living area from an equally barren kitchen. A hallway led to the rest of the warehouse, and Kane peeked through an opening in the wall, expecting to find a dining room, but discovered a mattress set sitting on the floor and tucked into a corner. A mound of pillows were scattered around into a nest on the bed, and the linens were in a twisted pile at the foot end of the mattress. An upended milk crate did duty as a night stand, its faced-out interior stacked with books and more beaten-up notepads.
Kane found Miki in the bathroom, sitting partially submerged in a half-full large marble tub. The cop didn’t recognize the music coming out of the sound system set up into the ceiling, but the oddly constructed melody seemed to soothe Miki, who’d laid his head back against a rolled up towel and closed his eyes.