I RAN HALF BLINDLY, as hard as I could, but every block I covered seemed to take a century. L.A. was nowhere to be seen. When I bounced off a passing Volkswagen, went down and rolled against the curb, the concrete ripping the skin from one knee, it all seemed to happen in slow motion, the driver standing in the middle of the street behind me yelling as I scrambled to my feet and ran on, “Hey! Are you all right? I never saw you coming—what the hell’s the matter with you?” I didn’t slow down, didn’t feel any pain even though my jeans below the knee were already soaked with blood. All I could think about was how fast L.A. was and how many steps I had lost by falling.
Shit, I screamed in my mind, shit shit shit, gritting my teeth, trying to run faster, not giving a damn when I knocked some kid completely off his Schwinn on the sidewalk and heard him screaming and cussing behind me. More seconds lost.
By the time I made it to the front walk of Gram’s house my legs were rubbery and I felt like I was inhaling fire. All I could think about was how far ahead of me L.A. had gotten. Fighting to catch my breath, I looked at the house, the dark windows, the open garage. This was market day, the Roadmaster nowhere to be seen, and there was no movement or sound anywhere around the house.
But it wasn’t empty, I knew.
Opening the front door, I stepped inside, where I heard the kitchen radio playing faintly. Gram’s station, Patsy Cline doing “Crazy.” The radio being on wasn’t unusual. Gram generally left it that way when she didn’t expect to be gone long. That thought, along with the Roadmaster being gone, gave me hope.
But just inside the kitchen doorway I could see Jazzy’s body lying slack and motionless against one leg of a chair, and the air buzzed with the most terrible energy I’d ever felt in my life.
I moved as quietly as I could across the front room and into the hall, trying to minimize the squishing sound my blood-filled sneaker made with each step. The bathroom door and the door to Gram’s room stood open as usual, both rooms empty and dark. I couldn’t see whether the door to my own room was open or not, but the hallway in that direction was unlit and felt cool and empty. I visualized my bat, leaning in a corner of my closet. I could almost feel the taped grip in my hands.
But there was no time for that.
Then I was at L.A.’s door. It was closed, which it never was unless she was inside. I swallowed hard and turned the knob, letting the door swing open on its own.
What I saw burned itself into my brain like a cutting torch, and I knew in that second that no matter how long I lived it would never leave me.
Reality began coming in stop-action flashes: The killer pinning L.A. on the bed, one hand over her mouth and nose . . . his other hand tearing at the fly of her Levi’s as he kneels between her legs . . . L.A. bucking and twisting, clawing at him, trying to kick him, her eyes insane as she fights to breathe . . . the killer seeming not to notice her struggles, his mind in some unknowable place, his veined pink cock out and erect above her . . . the killer catching sight of me, letting go now of her jeans, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth as if trying to wipe away something invisible, mumbling thickly, “Bis—” . . . the alien sound of my own raw scream as I dive at him, slamming the man who all her life has called himself L.A.’s father against the wall . . . driving one fist and then the other against the side of his head, again and again and again.
“Kill you, you fucker,” Cam rasped, trying to block the blows, struggling to free himself of my weight. But I was nearly his size now, and crazy with rage. He covered his head with his arms, and I punched with everything I had at his ribs and kidneys, still screaming, trying to break his bones, crush his organs, stop his heart.
At the same time L.A., jeans and panties down on her hips, had twisted around on the bed, one hand darting under her pillow and coming out with my Swiss army knife. Quick as a cottonmouth, with exactly the same odd wrist motion the old woman had demonstrated that day at the tracks, she drove the blade into Cam’s groin.
He shrieked like a jungle bird, looking down in disbelief and clapping his hands over the rapidly widening circle of red at his crotch. Blood spurting from between his fingers, he seemed to be trying to hold himself together as he scuttled sideways off the bed and ran stumbling from the room, whimpering and gagging. A few seconds later I heard the van’s tires spinning and throwing gravel as he accelerated out of the alley behind the house.
L.A., panting, her lips already swollen and turning purple from Cam’s blows, pulled up her jeans and rebuttoned them. She looked at me, her eyes filling, saying, “He must have followed me here. I think he killed Jazzy.”
I was gasping for breath, and all I could do was nod. There was no way I could shield her from this, nothing I could do to fix it.
She shouldered past me on her way to the kitchen, saying, “How’d you know I was here?”
“I knew you’d come for Jazzy before you ran away,” I gasped out. “I saw it.”
She knelt over Jazzy and laid her hand on the little dog’s chest.
“I can feel a heartbeat,” she said, her voice breaking. “She’s not dead.”
“What happened to her?”
“She bit him and he kicked her against the edge of the door,” L.A. said. “Then he kicked her again when she tried to get up.” She carefully lifted the small furry body. “Get my bicycle, Bis.”