CHAPTER 17: LOOSE ENDS
[Meat Cute Charcuterie, Front Counter — Mid-April 2015, 9:30 AM]
Two uniformed officers walked into Meat Cute at nine-thirty on a Thursday morning. Don E was behind the counter arranging the daily special — a house-cured coppa that Jackie had sliced thin enough to read newspaper through, if anyone still read newspapers.
"Morning, officers." Don E's voice carried the specific cheerfulness of a man who'd been coached to treat police visits like customer service opportunities. "Can I interest you in a sample? We've got coppa, bresaola, fresh sausage — the Italian sub's on special today."
The lead officer — a woman, mid-thirties, the build of someone who ran and the posture of someone who stood — scanned the shop the way cops scan every room: exits, occupants, anomalies. The shop gave her nothing. Clean display case. Visible kitchen. A chalkboard with a cleaver logo and today's specials in neat handwriting. The most boring business on the block.
"We're canvassing the neighborhood," she said. "There was a break-in at a warehouse on Holgate last night. Anyone in the area see or hear anything unusual?"
"Holgate's what, five blocks south?" Don E's brow furrowed with convincing confusion. "We close at seven. Pretty quiet around here after that."
Her partner took a sample of the coppa. Chewed. His eyebrows went up. "This is good."
"House-cured. Twelve days, Calabrian pepper rub." Don E beamed. "You want a quarter pound?"
They left seven minutes later with a quarter pound of coppa, two business cards exchanged, and zero suspicion directed at the charcuterie shop where the man who'd committed the break-in was currently reorganizing inventory thirty feet away. Frank Goss's security principle held: the most effective camouflage was competent normality.
I waited until the patrol car was three blocks away before stepping out of the walk-in.
"Nailed it," Don E said.
"You offered free samples to investigating officers."
"You told me to be the most boring business on the block. Boring businesses give cops free samples. It's like, law-enforcement hospitality." He paused. "Also the coppa's really good and I wanted someone to notice."
The logic was circular and somehow airtight. I left him to the counter and went to the office. The patrol car's visit was predictable — canvassing after a warehouse break-in, standard procedure, box-checking. The real concern wasn't cops asking routine questions at butcher shops.
The real concern was Chief.
[Back Office — 2:15 PM]
He walked in without knocking.
The front door chimed. Footsteps — heavier than Don E's, more deliberate than a customer's. The security brain flagged the gait before the office door opened: Chief's boots, Chief's weight distribution, the specific rhythm of a man who'd spent years moving through spaces he believed he owned.
He stood in the doorway. New jacket — leather, expensive, the kind of purchase that required cash flow from a source that wasn't a butcher shop salary. His right hand hung at his side with the relaxed readiness of someone who'd considered whether this visit might turn physical and decided he was comfortable with either outcome.
"Boss." The word came out flat. None of the deference that the original Blaine's enforcers had used — this was a man who'd stopped pretending that the hierarchy applied.
"Chief. It's been five days."
"Six."
"Nobody told you to take a vacation."
"Nobody told me to stop working, either." He stepped inside. Closed the door. The office shrank — Chief was broad-shouldered, physical, the kind of presence that occupied square footage disproportionate to his actual size. "You went soft. Cancelled the harvest. Started buying geriatric brains from a funeral home and calling it progress. Some of the clients want better."
"Some of the clients."
"Julian. Adler. Three others you haven't met because they were the original Blaine's VIP list — high-paying, low-patience, the kind of people who don't eat leftovers." He reached into the new jacket and produced a phone — not his usual burner, a different one. "They contacted me. Said the product quality dropped. Said the supply is inconsistent. Said they'd pay premium for what they used to get."
What they used to get. Young brains. Strong tissue. The kind that came from teenagers who walked into Meat Cute expecting work and walked out in specimen bags.
"You've been sourcing." My voice went quiet. The combat medic's register — low, steady, the one that didn't telegraph emotion.
"Three deliveries this week. Premium product. The VIP clients are happy. The revenue covers my expenses and leaves—"
"You've been killing."
Chief's mouth closed. His jaw set. The word hung between us — not an accusation in his reading, but in mine. The first night in this body, I'd opened the ledger and counted the names. Seven dead. The ones with lines through them. I'd cancelled the harvest, built a supply chain, hired Jackie, fed Lowell, launched a legitimate business, all to put distance between this body and the work those hands had done.
And Chief had been doing it anyway. In the shadows, unreported, sourcing brains the way the original Blaine had sourced them — because some clients wanted premium and Chief knew how to deliver.
"How many." Not a question. A demand.
"Two."
Two people. Two names that didn't exist in the ledger. Two bodies buried or dissolved or disposed of by a man who'd learned the process from the real Blaine and who'd spent six days proving that stopping a machine required more than turning off the switch — you had to dismantle the parts.
"Get out."
"Excuse me?"
I stood. Marcus Webb's combat stance — feet planted, weight centered, hands loose. The transition from seated to ready happened in a motion that Chief recognized because Chief had been in enough rooms with dangerous men to know what preparation looked like.
"You're done. No more deliveries. No more client contact. No more access to Meat Cute, the walk-in, the supply chain, or any part of this operation." I moved around the desk. Chief's eyes tracked the movement — assessing, calculating distances. "Leave the phone. Leave the jacket. Leave."
"You're firing me." Disbelief, tinged with something colder. "You're firing me for doing the job you stopped doing."
"I'm firing you for murder."
The word changed the room's temperature. Chief's expression shifted from indignation to something more honest — the face of a man who'd understood the moral dimension of his work for years and had chosen to classify it as commerce rather than crime. The reclassification happening in front of him, spoken aloud by the boss who was supposed to be the last person to judge, cracked something in his composure.
He moved. Fast — a step forward, right hand rising. Not a punch, not yet. A grab. The lapel of my jacket, the old Blaine's power dynamic reasserting through physical dominance.
The soldier's training answered. I caught his wrist at the peak of the grab, rotated it inward — the same standing wristlock I'd used on Derek, except Chief was stronger, more experienced, and his balance recovery was better. He pulled back. My hip dropped. The leverage changed. His shoulder torqued past the comfort threshold and he went down — not crashing, but folding, one knee hitting the floor while his arm extended behind him at the angle that meant stop resisting or this dislocates.
"The phone." I held the lock. "And the jacket."
Chief's breathing was controlled. The pain registered in the muscles around his eyes but nowhere else. He reached into the jacket with his free hand, pulled out the burner phone, and dropped it on the floor.
I released the lock. Stepped back. Kept Webb's fighting distance — just outside grappling range, just inside striking range.
Chief stood. Rubbed his shoulder. His face had gone completely still — the expression of someone who'd finished calculating and arrived at a number he didn't like but accepted. He took off the jacket. Dropped it on the chair.
"You're making a mistake," he said.
"Probably."
"Those VIP clients won't wait. They'll find another supplier. And when they do, they'll talk about the butcher on Jackson who used to deliver and then got feelings about it."
"Let them talk."
Chief walked to the door. Opened it. Turned back.
"You're not Blaine."
The words landed like a bullet. Quiet, certain, the observation of a man who'd worked for the real Blaine for over a year and who'd just been put on the floor by someone wearing Blaine's face and using skills Blaine had never possessed.
"Get out, Chief."
He left. The front door chimed. Through the office window I watched him cross the parking lot to a car I didn't recognize — not his usual vehicle, a rental, the kind you got when you didn't want your plates on camera. He drove south. Toward the industrial corridor. Toward the part of the city where people went when they wanted to disappear.
I picked up the burner phone from the floor. Scrolled through the contacts. Three names I didn't recognize — the VIP clients Chief had mentioned. And one name I did: a number labeled AG, filed in the same alphabetical system the real Blaine had used.
Angus DeBeers. Blaine's father. The man who would eventually become Brother Love, zombie cult leader, the man who'd been turned by his own son and dumped in a well.
Chief had been talking to Blaine's father.
I locked the phone in the desk drawer with the ledger and the journal. My hands were steady. Webb's composure, Goss's threat assessment, Pollack's risk calculation — all three brains in concert, processing the implications.
A fired henchman with full operational knowledge of Meat Cute, its supply chain, its clients, and its weaknesses. A henchman who'd been in contact with Blaine's father. A henchman who'd just been told he wasn't welcome and who'd responded with the calm acceptance of a man who already had a backup plan.
I went to the bathroom. Ran the faucet. Cold water on cold skin — the splash against my face registering as temperature rather than sensation, the zombie nervous system's reduced sensitivity turning a basic human gesture into something abstract. I looked at the mirror. Blaine's face looked back. The same face that had smiled at Liv across the counter, that had held Lowell's guitar case while he locked his Vespa, that had put Chief on the floor with skills borrowed from a dead soldier.
You're not Blaine.
Chief was right. The question was whether that mattered to the people who'd known Blaine, and whether the man wearing his face could outrun the consequences of the man who'd built it.
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