He grabbed a newspaper and sat down at the table. It was probably going to be a long wait, or so he thought.
Knock, knock, knock, knock. Four knocks. That was the code.
He put the paper down and got up. Then he opened the door. Standing before him was a thirty-something red-headed woman wearing a baggy T-shirt and jeans, definitely guy's clothes.
"Who the fuck are you?" he asked the woman.
"I'm Joe McCarty, kid," the woman said. "Is Eddie around?"
He let her in, then closed the door behind her. "I am Eddie," he said. "And it looks like you ended up getting swapped just like me."
"You mean this is happening to other people?"
"From what I heard, a couple thousand," he answered, sitting down at the table. "Now, what can I do for you?"
"I need some guns," the woman said. "Good ones."
He smiled. "Then I've got some good news for you."
"Yeah?" the woman asked.
Suddenly, someone jumped out of the closet and the door to the room flung open and two people ran in holding guns.
The woman looked around, panicking, then looked at the person she thought was Eddie. "Eddie! What the hell is this?!"
"Sorry, Joseph. My name isn't Eddie," he said, standing up from the table. He reached into his pocket and flashed his police badge. "It's Officer Kurt Maybourn. This is a sting."
"You fucking little ..." the woman began.
"That's not very nice language for a lady," Kurt said, then he turned towards one of the officers. "Cuff him."
The one that jumped out of the closet looked like skinny nerdy girl, but underneath that illusion she was anything but. She pulled Joe's hands together with force and then cuffed them.
"Now that that's settled," Kurt said, sitting back down. "We're going to have a little talk."
The woman spit on him. "Fuck you."
"Into little kids, huh?" he said, mockingly.
The woman fell silent, but continued to stare at Kurt with that same burning hatred.
Kurt grabbed an envelope with a bunch of pictures inside and dumped them onto the table. "All of these people are dead and we both know who killed them."
The woman looked down at the photos. She seemed to recognize the three dead car repair men, but when she saw the dead motel guy, she said "I didn't do that one."
"Oh really?" Kurt asked.
"Yeah. Really," she said. "The guy was choked. Not my style."
"Whose style would it be then?" Kurt asked. Truth be told, he wasn't sure if Joseph killed the guy in the motel room, but the wife was missing, so they had to be sure. Joseph McCarty was a serial rapist. Any chance he had at fulfilling his desires would have been unavoidable. Kurt supposed that it was poetic justice, then, that Joseph would be swapped with a woman, especially a fairly attractive one. It must have been killing him to see this woman in the mirror and not be able to fuck her like he wanted to.
"The guy was black, right?" the woman asked. "I'd say The Nazi did it."
"Peter Wagner?" Kurt asked. He knew Wagner was a racial extremist. Before going to prison, he killed five men, just because of their racial background. Of course, those were only the ones they knew about. He probably killed a lot more.
"Yeah," the woman answered.
Kurt smiled. "You've been very helpful." He nodded to one of the officers who had barged in from the bar room (the officer looked like she was nearly a hundred years old, but Kurt knew that underneath that illusion, she was no older than thirty), and the woman who was actually Joseph McCarty was pulled out of the room.
Kurt looked down at the cellphone in his hand, and then made the call. "Yeah, this is Officer Kurt Maybourn. Uh huh. Yeah, just like we thought. McCarty walked right into our hands. Yeah. Uh huh. It looks like we definitely have more than one fugitive on our hands. Be on the look out for Peter Wagner, aka The Nazi. And remember, he could be swapped."
