“We don’t know that for sure yet,” Bill said.
“We need to confirm, at least,” Marcton said. “And we can’t wait for the news tomorrow.” He thought about that for a second. “Not that they’d be able to identify the body.”
“Can someone else go?” Bill said. “Not sure my legs would get me all the way there. They’re still shaky as shit.”
“I’ll go,” Cleve said, and headed in the direction of the nurse’s building. “Might clear my head a bit.”
“Don’t be seen,” Marcton said as Cleve walked past him. “Only get as close as you need to, then come back.”
“Yep, got it.” He walked away, turned a corner, and was gone.
“So. Kendul, yeah?” Melvin said.
Marcton sighed, walked over to where Bill sat on the curb, joined him. “I guess we should. They were old friends. He should hear the news from us.”
“If Palermo’s dead.”
“Yeah, if.”
But they both knew he was. Marcton, especially, felt it in his gut.
The three men passed the remaining time before Cleve’s return in silence, just watching the snowflakes come down. Feeling the wind pick up. Turning their collars up against it – except for Marcton, who, as usual, still only wore a T-shirt and jeans.
Soon, Cleve came back around the corner. It was hard to tell from his face what the news was.
Marcton and Bill stood up. Melvin came closer. Cleve had to nearly shout now to be heard over the wind: “Two bodies. Well, one and a half. Neither are him.”
It was not at all what Marcton expected to hear. “What? You’re sure? Absolutely positive?”
“Positive, man. Didn’t recognize either body. They were both fairly smooshed and all, but their faces were pretty much intact, and I swear neither was Palermo.”
Marcton turned around in the direction of the subway entrance, put his hand over his mouth, turned back, said, “Well, we don’t know what happened inside. If the thing was tossing bodies out of windows, it might have left a few inside, right? We don’t know the body count indoors.”
Everyone nodded.
“So how do we find that out without trying to get inside?” Melvin said. “Rubbernecking from a safe distance is one thing, but no way we’ll be able to get in there. At least not till the cops are gone… But hey,” Melvin continued, “maybe Kendul can get inside. Would the leader of the Hunters have any pull with the city cops?”
“Dunno. Maybe,” Marcton said. “I’m just not particularly looking forward to that conversation, you know?”
“Well, since we don’t know – for sure – if Palermo’s in there, you don’t have to lead off with, ‘Hey, so your old buddy’s dead. Can you help us identify the body?’”
Marcton thought about it. “Yeah, maybe I just ask if he can put me in touch with someone who can get inside. That way, he won’t have to find out through some dumbass cop.”
“There ya go,” Melvin said. “Thinkin’ with your noodle now.”
Marcton smirked. “OK, I’ll make the call. You guys keep quiet in the background. Gonna be hard enough to hear over this wind as it is.”
After calling the warehouse to get Kendul’s cell number (not the quickest task, since the Runners and the Hunters didn’t exactly make a habit of gabbing to each other), he stepped a few feet back from them, dialed, waited. Kendul picked up on the fourth ring.
“Kendul.”
Christ, now that he had him on the line, what would he say? How would he tiptoe around this?
“Yeah, hi, Kendul, it’s Marcton. Listen,” he said, deciding to dispense with pleasantries. “I need access to a building where some crazy shit has gone down. Cops are swarming it, though, so I can’t get inside. I need to find out if one of ours is down. Do you have any connections, anyone you could put me in touch with?”
“Got one guy you can use: Anton Eckel.” Kendul rattled off his number.
“OK, thanks. I’ll–”
The line went dead.
Marcton pulled the phone away from his head, stared at the screen. “Well, shit. Didn’t have to worry about prying questions from that guy.”
One phone call to Eckel and ten minutes later he arrived, flashed his badge around, and strolled into the building. Marcton and his guys watched him go in from a safe vantage point a hundred feet away. Then they walked back to the Hummer through the ever-thickening snow, got in, headed back to the warehouse.
The sun would be coming up in a couple of hours, and Marcton was itching for word so he could proceed accordingly. If Palermo was dead inside, he was going to launch the biggest manhunt the Runners had ever been part of – and they’d been part of plenty over the years.
Well, machinehunt in this case, I guess. Or whatever the hell that thing was.