Donna Davis’s Reviews > Heavy on the Dead > Status Update

Aw, crap. The back of the truck.
I'll say this: if it has to be done, Leo's abduction was a cut above most. The shot where he can see and hear but not move anything? That's a super creepy thing. And the desert drop. Nice.

The nasty rich guy and his security team are now aware of Leo and Gabe; Saunders, the cop that wants L to dig for information about that poor dead boy, is warned off by highers-up in a most unusual way. L takes her out for breakfast, and she wonders if he and Rebecca didn't work out because of his complete and utter disregard for his own safety.

So now there's an assassin chasing the other two assassins in addition to the one chasing Waterman.
We wonder along with Leo what the deal is with the guy at the start of the book, the one that calls the cops every time Brandon comes up the damn stairs, and the cops actually come. And genius idea, Leo is going to rent a unit. For himself or for Brandon, I wonder. What about Gabe?

Oh wow. The woman at the dump produces humans as an agricultural commodity. Too wretched to report. Meanwhile, one of the customers died by falling off her stair chair and breaking her neck. Ouch.

"Before I could react, he powered off the canvas chair like a bottle rocket, the can of stew pinwheeling in the air as he headed for the opposite end of the campsite on a dead run.
My mouth opened to shout a warning, but the words caught in my throat when I heard the collision of flesh. Sounded like somebody'd dropped a heifer from the roof of an apartment building."

Ultimately, Leo is unable to stop thinking about the guy that bit him, and what impact that may have on his own health, so he & G go looking. Cautiously moving through the "hierarchy of homelessness" they learn that the guy--huge fro, bar code tattoo on forehead--lives down by the riverfront, in a camp like a prairie dog with two entrances. He gets away. Now we're in Tijuana looking for the corpse's brother.

Leo and Gabe have been living under the radar, but events conspire to connect them with the local cops. The tweaker they see below the stairs is being pursued by cops, and when he lurches toward L and G, he bounces off Leo's chest. He bites Leo in the neck. Between the hospital & the cops, their identities are blown. Meanwhile, Lamar & Chub draw closer. They know his bank. Chub isn't supposed to kill Leo himself, but

Meanwhile, he is a hunted man. Chub and Lamar have been dispatched to find him; his height makes him more findable than most. Chub is not amused to find that a smart car has been purchased for his use.

So now Leo is in Ocean Beach, CA laying low; his rebuilt knee can only stand so much. Gabe is down there too, but also suffers disability. Leo assists with beach clean up via a local group; he shows up in person, cleans up after homeless and opiod users, then leaves. But this time he's cleaning the stairs (trolls likely) and finds a dead boy. Uses a burner phone to call it in, but left his picker.