Killer in the Hills (14 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Once we’re around the corner I stop and lean against the wall. The pain in my side and my hip overcome me and I am about to pass out. I try to bend over but the pain tears me apart. I grab Karen’s sleeve. I can’t breathe.

“My sock,” I say, forcing the words. “Gun.”

She kneels and takes the automatic from my sock, which is soaked with blood. I hear shuffling sounds from the foyer below.

“Go. Your room. Anyone comes…just pull the trigger.”

She hesitates, her eyes wide, terrified.

“You hurt?” I say. She shakes her head. She’s trembling all over. I give her a weak shove.

“
Go.
”

She runs to her room and closes the door.

I slide down the wall and sit on the floor, near the corner of the stairway.

More shuffling sounds from below. I put the empty 500 down on the soft carpet and fumble with the Glock to check the magazine. My hands are shaking so hard I have to steady them with my forearms against the wall. Seven rounds left. I replace the magazine and jack a round into the chamber as quietly as I can. I lift my shirt and see a small entrance wound in my side, just below my rib cage. I feel around my back and find an exit wound—
right through
—

I hear a stair creak. I try to focus, but the pain is blotting everything out and making me dizzy. I drop my head and open my mouth.

Breathe.

Karen’s little pink clutch purse is next to me on the floor. I grab it and open it and dig through the lipstick and makeup and—
yes—
a small black plastic compact. Inside the lid is a tiny mirror.

Another sound from the stairs—a soft thump—a footstep, coming closer.

I lie on the floor, on my stomach—
pain from my hip…

I slide the mirror toward the stairway, inching it closer and closer along the floor until I can see the man reflected in it, moving slowly up the stairs—Sal’s short, stout goon from the backseat of the Escalade.

I draw the mirror back and grip the Glock and reach out around the corner and start firing down the stairs. The goon fires back. Plaster and grit fly into my eyes. I fire until the gun is out, then it’s quiet.

I hear a sliding, bumping sound. I hold out the mirror again and see the man sprawled on the stairs, holding onto a moulded wooden baluster on the staircase. I drop the mirror and peer around the corner and see the goon’s pistol on the carpet runner, two steps above him.

It takes me a moment to get up on my hands and knees. My whole body feels weak and my left leg won’t move. I reach back and feel my hip and
PAIN
shoots through me as I touch what feels like bone through the bloody bullet hole in my skin. I drop to my elbows as the pain overcomes me and my limbs go limp and everything starts to go black. I work hard to keep my eyes open, trying to focus on something. I stare at a floral design on the rug, my vision blurred. I squint at the pattern until it comes into focus and the darkness ebbs a little.

I rise from my elbows and inch forward, dragging my left leg behind me, toward the stairs. I round the corner and start crawling down the stairs, toward the pistol.

The man gripping the baluster hears me and looks up and sees me crawling toward the gun. He pushes off of the baluster and moves for the gun, crawling up the stairs toward it, his face twisted in pain. There is blood on his neck.

I lunge down the stairs, stretching out for the gun—the pain and dizziness reaching a point where everything starts to go black again. I fight back the darkness and stretch out my hand and grab the gun just before the man reaches it. He shoves himself on top of me and grabs the gun with both hands and tries to wrench it away. I raise my working leg and kick him in the stomach as hard as I can and he falls backward, all the way down the stairs, and lands hard on his back, on the parquet floor of the foyer, next to the giant. Blood pools out from underneath his head and his dark brown eyes stare up at nothing.

I reach for the baluster near me and try to pull myself up but the weakness overcomes me. I lose my grip and bump down the stairs with one hand holding the gun and the other sliding down the base of the balustrade to slow my fall. My hand makes a squeaking sound and leaves a long streak of blood on the polished wood.

I reach the bottom stair and my knees hit the foyer floor and I stop. I lie there for a moment, trying not to pass out. I turn my head and look around the foyer. Sal and Victor are both down. It takes a minute for me to get up on my elbows and knees, then I drag myself over to Sal. He is dead, his chest concave and filled with blood.

I look over at Victor, who is on his back, blinking at the ceiling, making choking sounds as blood bubbles from his mouth. The submachine gun is a few feet from him. I crawl over to the gun and grab it. I look down at Victor and think about killing him. I have watched a man die from gunshot wounds, and Victor appears to be well on his way. I watch him become still, then feel his neck for a pulse and there is nothing. I crawl away, picking up Sal’s pump as I go.

I look up at the stairs and I know I’ll never make it up there.

“Karen,” I try to call out, but only manage a soft rasping sound. I can’t seem to get enough air in my lungs to raise my voice. I crawl to the front door and reach up and open it a crack and breathe the cold night air, which helps. I sit up, against the wall near the door, and breathe for a moment. The cold, fresh air and the sound of the rain bring me around a little.

I open the door wider to see if there is a car for Karen and me and I see the Escalade parked out front.

Erlacher is sitting in the back seat, illuminated by the blue glow of a television screen.

What the hell?

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

I watch Erlacher for a moment, letting the cold, fresh air bring me around some more, until I can pull myself up to my feet. I lean against the door jamb, half-hidden, gripping the pistol and watching Erlacher, wondering if I’m hallucinating. I look down at the gun I’m holding and try to figure out how to release the clip. It’s an unfamiliar gun and I can’t seem to focus on the mechanism to figure it out—

“Jack,” Erlacher calls from the car.

I look outside. Erlacher is looking at me from his opened backseat window, about twenty feet away.

“Come here, I want to talk to you,” he yells over the rain.

I step back and let him see the gun in my hand.

“It’s okay, man,” he says, and holds his hands out so I can see them. “I don’t have a gun.”

I move behind the jamb and figure out how to release the clip on the gun. Two rounds. I replace the clip and lean out and aim the gun at him.

“Hands out,” I say. My voice is stronger but I’m slurring and there’s a coppery taste in my mouth. He keeps his hands out the window as I stagger out into the rain, the gun aimed at him. The rain feels good.

I stop about ten feet away.

“Is she dead?” he says.

“Get out,” I say. “Open the door from the outside…both hands out.”

He gets out, then stands there, his hands raised, the rain coming down on him.

“Fucking Jack,” he says, shaking his head. “Four guys…and you’re the one who walks out. Balls, man.”

I limp closer, half-dragging my leg. The pain from my hip is unbearable, but the dizzying weakness is clearing as the cold rain brings my senses back.

“Just tell me, is she dead?” he says. The rain seems to beat him down.

I hear a police scanner crackling inside the car, through the open window.

“Cops,” he says. “Idiots. They lost the signal on your phone. They tracked it to Eagle Rock and now they’re crawling all over the area like a bunch of assholes. Can’t put a chopper up in the weather. They got roadblocks on both ends of Colorado, so what the hell.”

He smiles and shrugs.

“I’m done, man,” he says. “I took off, but when I saw the roadblocks I turned around and came back. There’s no way I’m getting out of here tonight.”

“You’re never getting out of here.”

“Gonna shoot me, Jack?”

“Trying to figure out why I shouldn’t.”

“Well, then,” he says.

He turns away and stares off at nothing. He looks tired. Whatever was coiled in him seems to have uncoiled. His face sags, his shoulders slump.

“I just need to know if she made it,” he says.

“What do you care?”

He points to the video playing inside the car, in the DVD player in the back of the passenger seat.

“Take a look,” he says. “I won’t move.”

“Turn around,” I say. “Lean against the car. Grab the rail on top.” He leans against the side of the Escalade and grabs the luggage rail on the roof. I limp to him and hold the gun against his head and search him. All he has is a phone, which I pocket.

I press the gun against the back of his head and glance down through the open car window and look at the video.

On the screen I see Erlacher sitting on the daybed in the apartment on Sawtelle. Karen stands near the daybed, before him, removing her clothes. When she is naked, Erlacher reaches out to pull her to the bed with him and I look away.

I grab the top of the car to steady myself and press the gun barrel harder against the back of his head.

Shoot him now, before you pass out.

“I knew—the first time I saw her site—that I loved her,” he says, his back to me, the gun barrel digging into his scalp. “She was so beautiful, so vulnerable…”

Just pull the trigger.

“I paid Sal ten grand for that first night with her. I didn’t even think about there being a camera in the apartment, but I didn’t care, man. I just
wanted
her.”

I stare at the back of his head, tightening my finger on the trigger as the rain washes over us.

“You gonna shoot me, Jack? If you are, just do it, man.”

He stands up straight and stiff, ready for the shot.

Just do it.

“I’m not going to jail,” he says. “No way.”

He’s begging for it. Do it.

I keep my finger tight on the trigger. I have wondered if I could ever shoot anyone like this—just execute them—and as I hold the gun against his head I realize how easily I could do it. I
want
to do it.

Without a second thought
…
easily… A little more pressure on the trigger and the bullet is in his head…just like that… I want it, he wants it... So easy…

“Do it, Jack.”

…too easy.

For him.

I ease some tension on the trigger. I keep the gun against his head as I fumble in my pocket for the phone and take it out.

He hears the beeping sound as I dial.

“No,” he says. “No, put the phone away…”

I raise the phone to my ear and listen to the ring.

“Jack, put the phone down and I’ll tell you something,” Erlacher says. “You were right about me not telling you the whole story. Put the phone down and I’ll tell you.”

The phone rings and rings.

Answer…

“You were right,” Erlacher says. “Karen wasn’t just some girl.”

There is a click on the phone and I hear a woman’s voice.

“Nine one one, what is your emergency?”

“There’s been a shooting…in Eagle Rock,” I say. “On Dahlia.”

“Penelope was one of Sal’s whores when you met her,” Erlacher says. “I told you, that’s how I knew her. I was fucking her the same time you were, except I was paying for it. You had no idea. You were wasted 24/7. I freaked out when she got pregnant…”

The 911 operator says something but I’m not paying attention.

“I paid Sal to take care of it but sure enough, I find out later she had the kid.”

A horrible feeling stirs in me. I lower the phone.

“What are you talking about?” I say.

“Starting to get the picture?” he says. “That’s why Penelope went so nuts when she found out about me and Karen.”

God, no.

“All those years, I knew she was out there,” he says. “It was the last thing I wanted to think about. A fucking
kid
right? I paid off Penny and Sal for years to keep it quiet, and then I saw her one night. I was just messing around, surfing porn, and I saw her site, and I knew it was her—Penelope showed me a picture once, when she was, like, ten or something.
I recognized her—I knew she was mine. I started going to her site and chatting with her and…I fell in love with her, man. She was a part of me and I just…loved her. I know you don’t understand. No one would. But it was the first time I ever really loved anybody. Like you said, I’m a heartless prick—never felt
anything
for
anybody
. But she had my blood running through her. I could see myself in her.”

A wave of nauseating dread is rising in me and I focus on the cold, clean rain on my skin to push it back.

“Does Karen know?” I say.

“I never told her,” he says. “I thought I could take her away and we’d be together. I would’ve never told her, man. I never would have hurt her. How could I? She was part of
me
.”

Far away, down the hill, I hear sirens over the rain.

Erlacher hangs his head down. I keep the gun pressed against the base of his skull.

“I’m not going to prison, Jack,” he says. “Not like this, with people finding out all this shit. Just tell me if she made it. Tell me if my daughter’s alive, then fucking get it over with, dude.”

I back away from him, keeping the gun aimed at his head, and I hear the shot and Erlacher slumps forward against the car and slides to the ground and I turn and see Karen behind me, in the rain, the little automatic in her outstretched hand.