The Dead Have A Thousand Dreams (23 page)

“So do it.”

“Not till this day is
done. Even then, I don’t think I’ll ever catch up.”

“You should be taking
something for the pain.”

“Aspirin’s good
enough.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Until the day’s over it
is.”

“It
is
over. This day is
done
. Get out of here
and get on with it.”

>>>>>>

Solstice Day 8:00
p.m.

THE SKI MASK

The sky over the hospital
parking lot was starting to turn to dusk mud. Light was fading, the
world was losing a dimension. Who the hell knows, maybe Alex was
right. Maybe the day
was
over. One thing I did know, though—Alex had done
right by me. He’d given me my Glock back. He’d had one of the cops
get my car and leave it at the hospital. I climbed inside, my
shoulder slowly filling with hurt, and drove off.

Stopped at a light a few
blocks away, dying pink light reflecting off the pond to my right.
The swans were craning their heads like mortgage bankers filled
with wonder.

Despite myself, I was
feeling a certain relief. I could almost believe that the longest
day of the year was coming to an end.

I had to pass through
downtown to get back to the house. As I hit the commercial district
I caught a sudden serious craving for coffee.
Good
coffee.
Real
coffee. My need for a taste was
junkie-bad.

By common consensus, Wings
‘N Things was supposed to serve a nice brew. I pulled over, found a
space on the same street where Bogash had used us and the rest of
the town for target practice. Very decent dinner crowd in Wings ‘N
Things, new plate glass on the windows. I went to the take-out
counter, ordered a regular, paid up and waited.

The pain in my shoulder
was making my nose runny. I reached across the counter for the
black box of paper napkins. Odd thing about the counter top. It had
a shiny, pearlescent surface with some weird reflective properties.
As I passed my hand over it, I saw something like a clump of smoke
traveling just below my fingers. I moved my hand again. What I was
seeing was a reflection of my hand, but it appeared to be floating
above the counter, suspended in the air like a hologram. Fucking
fascinating. I kept moving my hand back and forth. It was like
watching a ghost image hover over the counter. I know I must’ve
looked like an imbecile but I couldn’t stop.

Even when my cell went
off, I answered it with my gimpy left hand. The right was still
gliding with its spirit twin. I heard the panic in Alex’s voice,
but it didn’t really register. It couldn’t break the
spell.

He’s
gone
, Alex was screaming.
He got away. Don’t ask me what the fuck happened,
but he got away.

I don’t know what was
worse, the point where I thought I was losing my mind or the point
when I realized I wasn’t.

“What?”

He’s gone—Bogash.
GONE.

“Gone how?”

I don’t know. Said he had
to go to the bathroom. My guys, they got him out of bed, supposed
to cuff him and walk him over. Next thing, he’s got one of their
guns and they’re in cuffs. Few moments, that’s all it
took.

Words were coming back to
me. Wooly sitting in my boss’ office last week, talking about the
efficiency of the local cops.
Your average
fudgy turd has more brainpower.

“Where he now?”

GONE. He’s
GONE.

“How long ago?”

Like 10 minutes ago. My
guys fanned out looking for him, once they got themselves freed,
but it looks like he took a nurse’s car.

I was wandering out the
door like driftwood, somebody yelling at me about coffee—hey, you
forgot your coffee.

“So he does a number on
your guys and he runs away.”

That’s what I’m
saying.

“With a concussion and
broken bones?”

That’s just his head. The
rest of him I guess is fine.

All that was left of the
sun outside was a red bruise in the western sky. I told Alex I’d
stay in touch, then I got in the car and headed to Wooly’s. There
was no blood left in my body—it was all nitrogen ice. I didn’t know
the what or the why of what was going on, but I wasn’t gonna let it
happen.

>>>>>>

I hit 70 in five seconds
and was just starting to get up to real speed when the cell
sounded. Alex with an update? No, Jen’s prepaid number.

Her voice was halfway
between whispering and crying.
There’s
somebody here. There’s a man here, on the property. He just got
here.

“
Bandages on his head? Or
spiked hair?”

I don’t know, I can’t
tell. He’s got something over his head. He’s got a ski mask over
his head.

“You sure? It’s getting
dark—you sure?”

It’s a ski mask. I can see
it. He’s here. He’s sneaking around the back of the
house.

“Get away from there. Move
back into the woods.”

No. You need me
here.

“Then don’t go near the
house. Don’t go anywhere near there.

I’m staying right
here.

I was pushing 90 when I
switched her off and started dialing the house. What was Bogash
doing with a ski mask? Everybody already knew who he
was.

I was mid-dial when the
phone rang again.

He went
inside
, Jen said.
I just saw him. He just broke in.

“Where?”

The kitchen door, I think.
Yeah, the kitchen door. He just broke in.

“You stay where you are,
you understand? Do
not
go near there.”

I tried the house again,
my heart beating like somebody was tossing rocks against the inside
of my chest. No answer. I went to Nickie’s cell. One ring, two. She
usually picks up on the second ring. A third ring, a fourth. The
voicemail clicked on. Fuck me.

I was three blocks away
and I couldn’t breathe. Doing 100, 110, I was helpless. I was fated
to fail. The prediction was going to come true, no matter what. The
prediction was just sitting out there, patiently waiting to come to
pass, patiently waiting with plenty of time to kill.

Gotta stop that thinking.
Gotta clear through it. Try to meditate, try to concentrate. Try to
breathe, try to pray. Please God fucking help me. A song came into
my head. A gospel song,
Turn The Light
From Heaven On My Soul
. The Dixie
Hummingbirds. That’s what I need—please that’s exactly what I need.
Turn the light on my soul.

Braxton Road. Wooly’s
block. A car was parked by the side of the woods, maybe 300 feet
from the front yard, left where it couldn’t be seen from the house.
I pulled in behind it, didn’t recognize it. The nurse’s stolen
wheels?

I switched my cell to
vibrate, got out and started running. The light was just blue ooze,
everything reduced to flat outlines. I felt like—no, not like I was
dreaming. Like I was being dreamed. I felt like someone was
dreaming me.

There were only a few
lights on in the living room, but I could make out some dim
movement inside. I ducked behind the fake furniture, Glock out, and
focused on one of the wide windows.

It was like looking at a
stage setting. I could see them all in the living room as my eyes
adjusted. Wooly, Genevieve, Nickie—and a guy with a ski mask,
trying to take control of the situation. He was Bogash’s height and
weight and he was wearing not just a ski mask but clothes that were
all B&E black. Bogash wouldn’t have had time to dress like
that. Unless he got help from somebody.

They were all standing
except for Nickie. She was slumped on a chair. Something was wrong
with her. Her leg was soaked with blood. Like she’d tried to make a
sudden turn and the wound in her thigh had opened up.

I could see something
stuck in the back of the guy’s pants—Nickie’s Smith & Wesson.
The piece in his hand was something else. A great big honkin’ 9 mm.
A 9 mm Browning, the same gun Alex and the Hidden Lake cops used.
I’d seen enough of them holstered over the past few hours to
know.

He was trying to herd
everybody closer together but he seemed shaky on his feet, like a
guy with a concussion and a face full of broken bones. He was
waving the gun and shouting while Wooly and Genevieve—especially
Genevieve—were giving him shit and shouting back at him.

Things weren’t going all
that well for anybody.

Staying crouched, I ran
for the shadows on the other side of the front lawn. Once I got to
the side of the house, I called Jen, whispering.

“You still
there?”

What’s going on?
Her voice was pure nightmare.

“I’m here.”

Okay, I can see you
now.

“He went in the kitchen
door, right?”

Yes.

I worked my way along the
back of the house until I could see where he’d smashed the window
of the kitchen door—a desperate, sloppy method—then reached in and
opened the lock. I also saw the shattered glass sprawled on the
kitchen floor.

I stepped away. “I can’t
get in here.”

Why not?

“It’s a mess of glass.
I’ll make too much noise.”

I moved back along the
length of the house, looking for another way in. Every second was
taking about an hour to pass.

There’s a window. It’s too
dark to see now, but it’s open a little.

“Where?”

Keep going. About another
20 feet.

The powder room. She was
right.

“How did this get open?
All the windows are supposed to be closed.”

The woman? The black lady?
I saw her open it a while or so ago.

I remembered Genevieve
complaining about being cold. Is that what she’d done, crack the
window to lower the a.c.?

“You stay where you are,
okay?”

You gonna be all
right?

“Just stay
there.”

Normally, wedging in
through a window wouldn’t present much of a problem. The gashed
shoulder, however, sent pain into my head like an instant mushroom.
By the time I managed to hoist my ass inside, I was seeing in
triple exposure. The walls of the dark room were shadows on shadows
on shadows.

I was taking breaths,
trying to get my vision back, when the scream shot through the
door. A woman’s scream. Nickie? No time to think about it. I went
for the door and nudged it open, hoping to slip into the living
room. What I got back, though, was a tremendous, clattering,
world-shattering crash.

The chair. The fucking
chair, the one Genevieve had put against the door to keep it from
swinging open. She must’ve put it back.

Too late to stop
now.

>>>>>>

I took the plunge. Maybe
it was the weak light but the living room seemed to be doing 360s
around me. As a grand entrance, this wasn’t the best of all moves.
In the two seconds it took for me to get at least some bearings
everyone else had time to jerk around and stare at the source of
the commotion. That included the guy in the ski mask, who had his
gun aimed dead-shot at my head and who was shouting at me. “Why?”
he kept saying. “Why?”

“Careful
with that!” yelled Genevieve. “Don’t start
shooting my house up!”

He ignored her. “Why
couldn’t you leave it alone?” he said, taking a step toward me, gun
still at cranium level. “I think you should put that down. Just lay
it down there.”

He was talking about the
Glock, and since I had the thing uselessly aimed at the floor, I
couldn’t mount much of an argument. I gave it up.

“Now kick it away. Kick it
over there.”

I couldn’t tell if this
was Bogash’s voice. Maybe he was being muffled some by the mask’s
mouth hole.

I slid the Glock across
the floor.

“Why’re you taking
hostages?” I asked. I could ask questions—I’d officially joined the
party. “What’re you doing?”

“What did you
do
?” he said. “It was
a
secret
. Why
couldn’t you keep it that way?”

“Keep what
what
way?”

“It was my
life
. It was my whole
life and look what you’ve done to it. I
hate
you for what you’ve
done.”

“Me? It’s about
me
?” I pointed to Wooly.
“What about
him
?”

“He’s not here for me,”
Wooly said flatly. “He’s been waiting for you. He’s only here for
you.” He made no effort to hide the disappointment in his
voice.