Nocturnal (76 page)

“Sure,” the boy said. “Don’t you also want to know if Savior is alive?”

“I don’t give a shit about Savior,” Bryan said, not the least bit surprised by his automatic honesty. If it came down to a brother by blood or a brother by actions, there was no question. “Keep Savior. Just let Pookie go.”

“No,” Rex said. “Mister Chang has to pay for his crimes.”

Bryan knew that smell on Rex was supposed to make him want to follow the boy, help the boy. He knew that at a base level, but all the scent in the world couldn’t change his urge to find Rex, to wrap his hands around the boy’s little neck, to squeeze the life out of him and make him
beg
.

“Let Pookie go,” Bryan said. “If you don’t, I’m going to find you, Rex. I’m going to kill you. But before you die, I’ll make you
hurt
.”

“You won’t find me,” Rex said. “But we’ll find you soon enough. You’re a murderer, Mister Clauser. You killed Sucka. We’ll put you on trial just like the others. Good-bye.”

Rex hung up.

Bryan closed his eyes. His best friend was gone.

Pookie had stood by him through everything. Pookie and Robin.

Robin
.

His eyes snapped open. “Adam, get me to Shotwell and Twenty-First, right now.”

As the three men shuffled toward the Magnum, Bryan texted the one person he hoped he could still trust. He needed backup, and he wasn’t about to be picky.

They hobbled to the Jessups’ station wagon and climbed in just as the first police cruiser pulled into the hospital parking lot. Bryan and Alder got in the back of the Magnum, Adam hopped into the driver’s seat. Bryan saw that Alder had handcuffed Aggie to the inside door handle of the front passenger seat. The bum looked at Bryan, his expression fearful and sullen.

“Jesus, man,” Aggie said. “Who fucked up your face?”

Bryan ignored him, waiting to see if he’d have to fight his way out of there.

Adam drove out of the parking lot and onto Potrero just as a second and third cruiser pulled in.

At least Bryan wouldn’t have to hurt any cops to go after Robin — and hurt them he would, kill them if he had to, because
nothing
was going to stop him from getting to Robin Hudson.

Bryan reached up and grabbed Aggie’s shoulder. Aggie winced; Bryan relaxed his grip — he had to remember his new strength.

“They took my partner,” Bryan said. “Do you know where they might take him?”

Aggie nodded. “Probably the same place they took me.”

“What will they do with him?”

Aggie shrugged. “Depends on how hungry they are, I guess.”

Bryan had to get to Pookie. He had to get to Robin. An impossible decision, but if he could get Robin out of harm’s way, then he could focus all of his energy on saving his partner.

“Start talking, Mister James,” Bryan said to Aggie. “You’ve got ten minutes. Tell me what happened to you down there.”

B
ig Max held a glass of wine in his left hand. His right was against his ear, cupped to the wall that separated their apartments.

“Max, quit it,” Robin said. “You’re making me nervous.”

He leaned toward her in that way people do when they whisper. “There could be someone out to get you, but me
listening
to see if anyone is in your apartment is making you nervous?”

“Yes. It’s making me think about it and I don’t want to think about it. I just want to sit here and have all of us be quiet.”

Sitting there, on the couch, was about all Robin could do at the moment — Emma was on one side of her, weighing her down from the left, while Billy’s big head and shoulders weighed her down from the right. She couldn’t even reach out to the coffee table to set down her wineglass. At some point in the evening, she had become furniture for a combined 155 pounds of cuddly canine.

Max walked away from the wall and waved a hand in casual dismissal. “All right, honey, I’ll leave it alone. Not that it matters — I can hear just about everything that goes on over there. I sure did last night.”

Robin felt her face flush red. “You heard?”

Max smiled and nodded. “I did. All four times.”

Robin covered her face with her free hand. “Oh my God.”

“Yeah, I heard that, too,” Max said. “I need a boyfriend like Bryan.”

“Ho-kay, Max, you’ve now embarrassed the hell out of me.”

He laughed and sat next to her. He scooped Billy up and dragged the limp pit bull onto his lap. Billy’s tail gave two thumps, then the dog went back to sleep.

“Well, I’m glad you guys took care of business,” Max said. “Was this just ex-sex?”

“What is that?”

Max sighed. “And they call you smart.
Ex-sex
is sex with your ex.”

“Oh. Actually, I don’t think we’re
exes
anymore.”

Max held up his wineglass. “Well then, here’s to true love.”

Robin flushed red all over again. She clinked her glass against his. “And here’s to friends — I’d be going crazy if I didn’t have a big, strong man to protect me right now.”

Max laughed quietly. “Yeah, right. You’re the one who’s packing heat.”

She shrugged. “Still, I’m pretty freaked out. Thank you for letting us stay here.”

He flipped his hand dismissively again. “Honey, please, you—”

A metallic
clang
from outside the building cut off his words. Emma and Billy lifted their heads. The arms of both owners slid around their dogs’ necks, holding them tight, sending them a clear signal to
be still
, and
be quiet
.

“Max,” Robin whispered, “what was that?”

Max nodded toward his curtain-covered window. “Fire escape.”

Robin thought of Pookie’s claims about people jumping across streets and scrambling up buildings.

Another clang. Then nothing.

“Robin, are you sure we shouldn’t call 9-1-1?”

She shook her head. “No. We can’t. We don’t know if it’s safe.”

And then Robin Hudson realized just how thin the walls really were, because she heard heavy footsteps coming from inside her apartment.

A
dam wasn’t driving like a grandfather anymore.

He didn’t seem to give a shit about other cars, the Magnum’s finish, traffic lights or even pedestrians. A few days ago, this kind of driving would have made Bryan want to throw Adam’s ass in jail. Now he wished Adam could be even more reckless, cut off a few more cars, drive just a little faster.

Aggie was still handcuffed to the front passenger-seat door. The guy spent most of his time staring at the handcuffs.

Adam raced the souped-up Magnum down Twenty-First Street, moving into the left lane to pass whenever the opportunity presented itself. The engine’s roar echoed off the buildings on either side, playing off the tinny squawk of a police radio mounted in the dash.

The Magnum hit a pothole; Bryan flinched from a deep sting in his gums.

“Bryan,” Alder said,
“sit still!”

“I’m trying,” Bryan said, or at least he
tried
to say it — he wasn’t sure what words actually came out of his wide-open mouth. Alder sat next to Bryan in the rear seat. He had to stitch Bryan’s torn gums together before he moved on to the ripped cheek. Blood covered the old man’s surgical gloves.

There might be more action coming. Alder had wanted to stop so he could fix Bryan’s wounds. Bryan told the old man to do the work en route — every bump in the road, every swerve or sudden braking brought more pain from the needle, but Bryan didn’t care.

“One more,” Alder said. He leaned in, then pulled the needle back. “Done. Now for the cheek, then we have to do the collarbone. It will refuse in the next fifteen minutes or so. If it heals wrong, we’ll just have to rebreak it anyway.”

Alder opened a kit mounted in the back of the front passenger seat. He pulled out a device Bryan didn’t recognize and started prepping it.

“Hey, cop,” Adam called from the front seat. “Bad news. Police band just said there’s a BOLO out for you. They’re saying you killed those two SWAT guys.”

That dirty
bitch
. Zou wanted Bryan so bad she’d instantly framed him for the murder of two men. Every cop in the city would be gunning for
him. His brief moment of believing Amy Zou was doing the right thing? Bryan had been a fool, and now everyone was paying the price for it.

He closed his eyes, tried to manage the pain radiating through his body. The coat had stopped the shotgun slugs, but like Adam had warned, it didn’t stop all of the kinetic energy. Bryan’s back throbbed. His right arm hurt almost as bad as his left. He tried to store up the pain, file it away — he’d return it with interest when he got his hands on Rex Deprovdechuk.

Bryan’s phone buzzed. A text — the message made his chest lock up.

He started to dial her number, then stopped. She’d texted, not called, which meant she didn’t want to make any noise. What if he called and she didn’t have her phone on vibrate?

“Adam, how long?”

“Five minutes,” the younger Jessup called back.

Bryan texted:

Alder finished prepping. Now Bryan recognized the device: a power stapler.

Bryan turned his head, offering up his torn cheek, and let Alder get to work.

R
obin hissed through clenched teeth.

“Max,
put it down
.”

Big Max held an aluminum baseball bat in his big left hand. In his right hand, he held a thick leash attached to the thick collar surrounding his pit bull’s thick neck. Every muscle in Billy’s taut body seemed to vibrate — he’d picked up on his master’s agitation and was ready to follow Max into any fight.

At least the dogs had kept quiet.

“Robin, come on,” Max said in a hissing whisper. “You’re a cop, you can’t let these assholes break into your place.”

“I’m just a medical examiner.
Please
, this isn’t some meth-head. These people are really dangerous.”

Max’s muscles twitched just like his dog’s. He wanted to mix it up in the worst possible way. He tensed for a second, then sighed. “Fine. You’re right. I hope Bryan gets here quick.”

Robin nodded. Bryan would be there any second.

She had one arm around Emma, trying to keep her baby on the couch. She felt Emma suddenly stiffen. The dog started to growl. Emma stared at Max’s front door, the one that led out into the hallway. A ridge of fur stood up on her back like a furry black fin.

Billy started growling too. He leaned toward the door.

Then Robin smelled it. Coming from the door, from out in the hall, faint but unmistakable …

 … the smell of urine.

Robin reached into her purse and pulled out her gun. She held the subcompact .380 in her right hand, Emma’s collar in her left. Someone was out there. One of Marie’s Children? The Zed-chromosome people?

Max looped Billy’s leash around a heavy wooden chair. Two big steps took Max to the front door.

She tried to say
Max!
but no words would come out.

He held the baseball bat in both hands as he leaned forward to look out the peephole.

The door smashed inward, knocking Max to the floor.

Through the door stepped a man covered in a rancid, blue-and-green-striped blanket. He had a huge head. The forehead alone was two feet
wide and misshapen by lumpy, gnarled skin. Beady black eyes beneath that forehead stared right though her.

he’s one of them he’s got the Zed chromosome he’s going to kill me

Dogs barking, the sound of a wooden chair scraping across the floor an inch at a time.

In his right hand, the intruder held a boxy weapon that had a long magazine sticking out of the handle. He glanced down at his left hand — it held a piece of paper. He looked at the paper, then back up at her. He stuffed the paper somewhere inside the blanket, then he smiled.

Shoot him shoot him shoot him
echoed in her head, but she couldn’t move.

The big-head walked into the apartment, stepping over Max, reaching, grabbing, iron-hard fingers suddenly digging into her shoulders.

A flash of white and black. Emma’s teeth locked down on the man’s thick thigh. The dog shook her head like a wild thing, putting all of her weight and muscle into it, yanking even as blood sprayed across her snarling muzzle.

The man’s beady eyes widened in surprise and pain. He let go of Robin and swung the butt of his weapon hard into Emma’s face. She flew across the room, yelping.

Robin raised her pistol and fired three times before she even registered the motion. The big-headed man flinched away, covering his face with his arms.

A flash of metal arcing through the air and a ringing
thonk
. The big-headed man crumpled forward, hands moving from his face to the back of his head. Behind him stood Max, baseball bat in hand.

Billy kept lurching at his leash and barking madly, trying to pull free as the chair holding him back scooted a little closer.

A sound of clinking metal, then a
crack
of electricity. Max contorted so hard his head snapped back. The bat flew out of his hand. He dropped to the ground.

Behind him stood a raven-haired woman — a stunning, strange image. She held a chain in each hand, one set of links on the floor in front of her, another set trailing behind. Robin registered knee-high boots, vinyl pants and a cut-off Raiders sweatshirt that revealed a slim stomach. A brown cape — no, not a
cape
, it was another dirty blanket — hung from her neck. Billy lurched again, dragging the chair closer.

Robin raised her weapon to fire, but the woman flicked a wrist. Robin didn’t see the chain move, just felt an electric
zing
in her hand that made
her jerk away, throw herself back against the couch. Her hand and arm felt like they were on fire.

The gun was gone.

The black-haired woman smiled and walked forward.

The big-headed man stood up, rubbing the back of his head.

The woman looked at him and laughed. “He did a number on you.”