Bishop stumbled to the doorway. He clutched his wounded shoulder. He felt the blood running out between his fingers, making them slippery. As he neared the door, he banged his leg on the edge of a box. He grunted with pain. He rested against the wall.
As he leaned there, he saw the light switch. He reached out weakly, flipped it up. He squinted against the sudden brightness. Then he turned to look at the room.
It was pretty much what he expected. Cobra was dead. No question about it this time. He was one hell of a mess.
And as for Honey—what else?—she was gone. She had done Cobra’s bidding—she had set him up for the kill. But the second it turned into a fight, an uncertain thing, she was in the wind. She was gone.
With another grunt, Bishop peeled off the wall. He staggered forward again. Out into the hall, then into the living room. Lightning flickered at the big windows here, and he saw the lie of the furniture, the path to the front door. The lightning flickered out with a long, sharp crackle of thunder. But Bishop could still see the room in the glow of the flashing red-and-blue lights outside.
The cops. And Weiss. He knew at once it would be Weiss out there. Magical Weiss, who always somehow figured out what everyone would do. Bishop thought about that, and he thought about what had brought him here. How he was about to steal Cobra’s money and run off somewhere with Honey. Weiss had probably figured that out, too. Well, to hell with Weiss, he thought. But he felt pretty rotten about it.
He kept shuffling to the door, clutching his wounded arm.
Sure enough, he reached the front door, yanked it open, and there they all were, the whole party, parked in the front yard. Three Oakland PD black-and-whites and that dull-as-shit Taurus Weiss drove. And here came Ketchum, too, just pulling up in his crap Impala. The lights whirling round on the cop-car racks turned the slanting silver rain red, then blue.
Bishop stepped out onto the porch. The sound of the rain grew louder. He heard it hit the grass and the roofs of the cars. Thunder rumbled. It was louder, too, out here.
Bishop let his right arm hang down limp. He clung to the balcony railing with his left hand. The blood was drying now on his palm and fingers, and they felt sticky on the splintery wood.
He made his way slowly to the stairs. Stepping out from under the porch, he felt the rain pelt him. His hair was soaking by the time he came off the last riser. His boots sank half an inch in the puddling mud.
Weiss was standing by his Taurus, massive in his trenchcoat, his hands shoved deep in the pockets, his shoulders hunched. He had a Giants baseball cap on, the brim pulled low over his big, sagging features. From under the brim, he gazed at Bishop with that droopy deadpan look of his. Bishop approached him and met the gaze defiantly. Then after a moment, he couldn’t hold it. He looked away.
“Cobra in there?” Weiss asked him. There was nothing in his voice to tell Bishop what he was thinking.
Bishop nodded, staring down about two feet in front of him, staring at where a muddy pool hopped and spat as the rain hit it. “What’s left of him,” he said.
Weiss answered nothing. He gestured with his head, and a young cop came over to take Bishop by his good arm. The young cop helped Bishop to one of the patrol cars. It was the second cop car to Bishop’s right. As they walked past the first cop car, Bishop saw Honey sitting in its backseat.
They’d caught her. Bishop was surprised. He’d figured she’d outsmart everyone, slip away, go home to Daddy. Weiss again. Weiss was too quick for her.
He could tell by the way she was leaning forward that she had her hands cuffed behind her. She strained forward in her seat, pressing her face to the window, peering out at him. Their eyes met through the slanting rain that was silver and red and blue.
Honey shrugged. Bishop shrugged. What the hell.
The young cop led Bishop away and helped him into the car.