CHAPTER SEVEN

 

The phone on the bedside table started ringing.

I floated out of this black Nothing and opened my eyes, blinking. A ray of light fell through the drapes, glinting on a water glass and the mirror over the dresser. I had to squint to read the digital clock. Four-something a.m.

The phone kept on ringing. I rolled over, groped for the receiver, then banged it against my ear and heard Steffy whispering on the other end.

"Emma?" She came off frantic. "Oh, Jesus, is that you? Emma? Are you there?"

"Steffy," I mumbled. "What's going on?"

"Somebody's at the door," she said. "I heard them try the lock and now they're out there doing something – I can hear them moving around. I'm going to call the cops."

She sounded wasted. I could barely make out what she was saying.

"Listen to me." I sat up, rubbing my eyes. "Have you been jacking up again? If you're tripping out in my apartment – "

"Come and get me!"

"What?"

"You've got to come and get me!"

"Slow down. Tell me what you're..."

The line went dead. No dial tone. Nothing.

"Jesus Christ."

I hung up, then fell back on the pillows and closed my eyes. The call didn't register at first. It was like one of those dreams full of voices that don't make any sense. Then I sat up again. Somebody had tried to get in. She'd babbled something about calling the cops.

A chill squirmed down my back. I grabbed the phone and rang the apartment, jabbing at the numbers on the luminous pad. Nobody answered. When I tried again, I got an out-of-order signal. The piece of junk was dead.

"Stupid idiot."

No telling what had happened. Maybe she'd flipped out. Overdosed. Trashed the phone in one of her blackouts. Maybe she'd picked up a psychotic trick or got in a brawl with one of my neighbors, or maybe it was someone else.

Someone looking for me.

I turned on the lamp, threw the sheets back, dragged myself out of bed. I was still dressed – more or less. I found my shoes and pulled them on, then blundered around until I found my glasses and crap. Then I left, steaming and freaked. If Steffy was fighting with one of her junky friends, I had to get rid of them and calm her down before somebody called the cops or she got me evicted with all her noise. If it was something else, I might have to move again fast. Letting her stay there had been a mistake. A bad mistake. Just add it to the list.

"Moron. Moron. Moron."

It was dead quiet outside. An ice machine rattled. Headlights trickled along the highway a couple blocks away and a million lights sparkled in the Berkeley Hills. Shivering, I walked over to the Dodge, got in and started the engine, cranking the heater full blast and running the wipers to clear the dew off the windshield. I had that wired and vacant feeling I always got on zero sleep, but this was worse than usual.

The channel marker chimed on the breakwater. I pulled out of the lot and drove past the yachts and harbor buildings, heading back to the highway. The dash lights got bleary, so I turned on the radio, punching through the stations for something to wake me up. Elevator music drifted by, mixed up with commercials and late-night jabber, then I found a talk show that was coming through loud and clear. The host was one of those conspiracy crackpots ranting about how the government was going to stage a false-flag terrorist attack in the United States to set up their New World Order and stick us all in FEMA camps. I changed channels and landed on Britney Spears screeching "Till The End Of The World." Jesus Christ. I turned her off mid-squawk.

A pickup full of drunks ran the light at West Frontage Road. I waited for them to go by, then crossed the highway and headed into Berkeley, yawning and trying not to fall asleep at the wheel. I was wrapped so tight I thought I was going to explode, but I kept nodding off at the same time and I had to fight to keep my eyes open. Then I passed Arn's place and saw something that woke me up.

The lights were on in his apartment.

#

It took a minute to sink in.

I glanced at his windows as I drove by, but I was so wasted that I had already gone half a block before I realized what I had seen. No way. It couldn't be. I took the next left, circled around and cruised by again, looking up at his building.

It was true. His lights were on.

I got this surge of elation, but that didn't last very long. He'd probably forgotten to turn his lights off, that's all. I could have sworn they were off when I went by earlier, but I must have been mistaken. Then, just as I was driving by, I saw a shadow move across the blinds in his living room window. Somebody was up there, all right. Maybe it was Arn. Maybe he had escaped.

Or maybe it was someone else.

I couldn't figure out what to do. Turning left on Seventh, I parked in the darkest space I could find, then I turned my lights off and slouched down behind the wheel to get my head together. The street was deserted: porch lights in the trees, black alleys, a circle of streetlight on the corner. I was awake now – wide awake – but the adrenaline made me feel kind of sick. Five minutes passed. If I was going to go up there, I had to get moving. I still had to check on Steffy.

A car turned a corner two or three blocks away, heading in the opposite direction. Its tail lights flashed, then it vanished over a hill. I scanned the houses, the sidewalks, the line of parked cars, then I watched the rearview for a while. A delivery truck passed on University. Two or three cars went by. Then a white van with a couple of whip antennae turned onto Seventh and rolled by my hiding place, its headlights sweeping the windows and flashing off the mirrors. I slid down on my seat, holding my breath, but I wasn't sure why it mattered if they saw me. Then the van turned a corner and the traffic died down again. I was all alone on the street.

I found my cell phone and started to dial Arn's number, tapping at the luminous keypad. The keys beeped, loud enough to hear outside the car, so I disconnected to mute the sound, my fingers twitching as I worked through the screens. Then I dialed him again, sitting back and watching the mirror. The street was so quiet I could hear the pulse thumping inside my head.

Arn's phone rang once. Twice. Three times.

One more ring and I would get his machine. I was about to disconnect when somebody picked up on the other end and the call turned weird and spooky.

Whoever had answered, they didn't say jack. Didn't ask who I was or what I wanted at five in the morning. I clenched up when I realized they weren't going to say anything. I was suddenly scared to open my mouth. Scared to breathe. I had this nasty feeling that I had just screwed up again, but all I could do was sit there with the phone pressed to my ear, listening to them listening to me...

A couple seconds passed, then I heard a radio crackle in the background. Static. A distorted voice. Then it got quiet again.

A cold flush oozed across my skin.

Whoever it was, I could hear them breathing. Air brushed the receiver on the other end, faded away, then flowed back again. The connection had a spacy sound – white noise, an undercurrent of signals and voices from the other side of the planet. Then I remembered that cell phones could be traced with GPS locators and I got this flash of panic.

I disconnected. Turned the phone off.

Checking the street, I pulled out as quietly as I could, took the next corner, then drove another block before I switched on the headlights.

#

Things had changed somehow. I could feel it.

By the time I got back to San Pablo, I expected to see flashing lights and barricades in front of my building, but the street was dark and quiet – so quiet I could hear the traffic on I-80 when I cracked my window. A cold, damp fog drifted through the yards, leaving haloes around the porch lights. I parked two blocks away, hiding the Dodge in the shadow of an oak tree growing beside the curb, then I crept through the service alley back to the building. My apartment windows were dark. No signs of life.

I slipped in through the back door and stood by the laundry room for a while, listening to the sounds of the building. Nothing. The hall leading to the front door was empty. A pipe knocked in the wall. I took the elevator up to five, walked down to my door, then listened at the door for a minute, one eye on the stairwell. Nothing at all. The door was locked. No sign of forced entry. I unlocked it, ducked inside, closed it as quietly as I could, then threw the dead bolt and latched the chain.

The living room was dark and stuffy. Rays of light from the alley fell through the blinds across the sofa and easy chair, reflecting on the TV. I could hear the faucet dripping in the kitchen. The compressor in the refrigerator clicked on with a low hum.

"Steffy?"

I turned on the lamp by the couch and walked down the hall leading to the bedroom. The door was open, fragments of light in the mirror on the dresser. I couldn't hear anything inside the room.

"Steffy?"

Then I turned on the light and saw her.

She was lying on the bed, naked and glistening, hands and feet tied to the bedposts with towels, gagged with her own blouse, her eyes staring vacantly at the water stains on the ceiling. Her arms were covered with skin cuts and burns; somebody had been working on her with a cigarette and a knife, maybe a razor. Her face looked like a fright mask, eyes bulging, the gag so tight that it had cut into her cheeks. She had a black hole in the center of her forehead. Blood had spattered the pillows and pooled on the sheets.

I just stood there, staring at her, my mind a total blank. Then I noticed the phone lying on the carpet next to the bed, its cord ripped from the wall. I walked back into the living room, then went into the kitchen and tried to stop the leaking faucet. The gasket was busted or something. I had called the landlord a couple times, but his maintenance guy had been deported and I couldn't get any repairs. Then I kind of spaced on the sink for a while. Steffy had put out a cigarette in one of my coffee cups and left it in the drainer. What a slob.

Something rumbled behind the walls. It sounded like the elevator. I went back to the living room and picked up the phone by the sofa, but the line was dead, cut by the wall jack. Then everything played back through my head like a grainy snuff flick and I got scared worse than I'd ever been in jail. I had to get out of here. Get my stuff from the motel. Get out of the city.

I had to dump the body. I had to go back there, untie Steffy from the bedposts, wrap her in a blanket, then drag her down five flights of stairs, stuff her in the trunk and dump her in the Bay or something. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't go back into the bedroom. But even if I could, she was too heavy for me to move. There was no way I could ever lift her. I had to call Deacon. He could send his guys. Get rid of her. Clean up the mess.

Then somebody banged on the door.

#

The knocks on the door hit me like hammers.

I jerked around, hunched over and gripped by this massive fear. A shadow moved in the crack under the front door. Something clicked – it sounded like the chamber on a semi-automatic.

Whoever it was pounded on the door again.

"Police," a voice yelled. "Open up."

I lost it. I don't know. I ran over to the window, opened the blinds and looked outside. No cop cars. Maybe they were parked in the alley. Then I ran back over to the couch and leaned against it, staring at the door. Footsteps shuffled in the hall. Two or three people.

Bang.

"Police," the voice yelled again, like I hadn't heard him the first time. "C'mon, we know you're in there."

There was no way out. I ran down the hall into the bedroom, yanked open the closet door – I don't know why – then I scrambled over to the window, pulled it up, and looked outside. A streetlight glowed behind the trees about twenty feet away. I looked down into the alley – a five-story drop to a circle of light on the pavement by the trash cans. A gutter pipe ran down the wall next to the window. I reached out and grabbed it with one hand. No way.

Something crashed against the door in the living room. They were trying to break it down. The dead bolt must've held, though, because there was a moment of silence, then they bashed the door again and I heard the lamp by the sofa fall on the floor. The light went out in the hall leading to the bedroom and I knew I only had a couple minutes to do whatever I was going to do. I didn't even think about giving myself up, not with Steffy lying there on the bed.

I stuck my right foot out the window, then hunched over and squirmed around, hanging onto the frame until I got my other foot out and was sitting in the window, half in and half out of the room. I had to squeeze my head and shoulders through, then I got stuck for a minute and had to rip my shirt to get free, almost losing my balance. Bugs clouded the streetlight in the trees on the other side of the alley. I tried not to look down.

More bangs from inside. They were still working on the door. I saw a window light come on below me, then another one off to the left. Then I heard a big crash in the living room and I reached out for the gutter pipe, my heart thrashing in my throat.

Bolted clamps fastened the pipe to the stucco wall. They didn't look very sturdy. Leaning over, hanging on to the window frame with one hand, I managed to get hold of the pipe and tested it as gently as I could. One of the clamp bolts was loose. I saw it move and some dust and paint flakes spilled down the side of the building. I looked down at the alley and the circle of streetlight shrank to the size of a dot.

Then they broke the door down inside. No doubt about it.

I let go of the window frame, reached around to grab the pipe with my other hand, and fell out of the window. Someone yelled inside the apartment and I had a glimpse of a flashlight beam flickering in the living room as I slid down the pipe, kicking wildly to get my feet on something, the rough edges of the pipe joints ripping my hands. Then the pipe broke loose at the gutter and I swung out over the alley and crashed into the trees, losing my grip and tumbling down through the branches and leaves like a bundle of bloody laundry. I hit something hard, flipped upside down, smashed my shoulder and turned sideways, then crashed into a thorny hedge and landed on my face in the yard next door.

Jesus Christ.

I got up and ran through the yard into the alley. I had this weird limp and a knot on the side of my head, but I couldn't feel a thing. Someone yelled behind me and I ducked behind a trash can, gasping to catch my breath. When I looked down the alley, I saw a black SUV parked about a block away. A radio crackled somewhere and beams of light flickered between the garages. Just then, a man wearing a black field jacket and a headset mike ran into the alley and slowed to a walk, looking around. He was carrying a piece in one hand and a flashlight in the other. Sweeping its beam across the fence and hedges, he checked a couple doors, then he turned his back to me, waving at the SUV. He didn't look like a cop. Plainclothes, maybe. Tactical. I couldn't tell. The minute he turned his back, I ducked through a gate, struggled over a chain-link fence, then ran through another yard and came out on San Pablo down the street from my building. Another SUV had parked in front, but it looked empty. No markings. Nothing. Flashlight beams darted back and forth in the alley and voices barked through bursts of static. Whoever they were, they thought I was still back there.

I hid behind a parked car, then ran across the street into a driveway, climbed another fence, thrashed through some bushes, and came out in an alley lined with garages, dumpsters and crooked telephone poles. A dog barked in a yard. Gusts scattered leaves and trash across the pavement. I took off again, trying to keep to the shadows, then I tripped over a pot hole and fell on my ass. Panting, I scrambled to my feet, then ducked down again when I saw another black SUV pass on a side street about a block away. They must have had a spotlight mounted in the window. I heard them snap it on, then a foggy beam swept through the trees behind me.

I made it to the Dodge somehow, got in and ducked down on the front seat, panting and coughing. A car passed in the other direction. Headlights flashed in the rearview. I thought I heard voices and static nearby, then it got quiet again and I peeked over the dash. The street looked empty, but I knew they were all over the neighborhood, at least one SUV circling around and talking over the radio with the others on foot. If they were cops or feds, I had to get out of there before they called for a helicopter and more backup.

My hands were bleeding, my face scraped and raw. My leg hurt like crazy, but it didn't feel like it was broken. I started the engine and drove off nice and slow, expecting to get pulled over at any second, dragged out of the Dodge, clubbed and zapped with Tasers, then dumped into the back of an SUV with my head rammed down my throat. But nothing happened. I'd seen two vehicles, maybe three, so there were probably five or six of them, whoever they were, two at my door, two parked in back, and two circling the neighborhood. I didn't think any of them had seen me, but it didn't really matter. In a couple hours, I'd be the prime suspect in a murder investigation and every burrhead cop in the state would have me on his radar. They'd snoop around the station and talk to Deacon, then he'd talk to Heberto and they'd hand out the contract.

I got away, but it was simple dumb luck. Sirens wailed to the south and when I turned onto University, I saw a couple radio cars and a cargo van speed by in the other direction, their cherries flashing. The sun cracked the horizon, an orange and violet haze to the east, and the city felt like an alien planet. I didn't have any choice now: I had to run. Driving back to the Marina, one eye on the rearview, I saw a helicopter with a spotlight circling the neighborhood where I used to live.

I had to get my junk. It was all I had.

When I got back to the Radisson, I parked as far from my room as I could, then I sat in the car for ten or fifteen minutes, watching the motel and parking lot while the blood dried on my hands. I felt like I'd been attacked by a jackhammer and my face in the rearview looked like something out of a Driver's Ed film about a drunk and a bridge abutment. I was shivering and spaced, chilled to the bone. I must've been in shock. After a while, the sun started to warm me up and I tried to get my act together, brushing twigs out of my hair, mud off my jeans. I didn't have much time.

The Radisson looked normal – whatever that meant. Clouds piled over the Bay and gulls swarmed the Marina, fighting over scraps of dead fish on the boardwalk. I got out of the car and locked the doors, keeping my head down as a van full of tourists drove through the lot, hunting for a space. A jogger ran past the Marina, trying to keep up with a mutt on a leash. After the van had gone by, I walked over to the Radisson, went in through a side door and headed down a long hall past the lounge and restaurant. A family with a kid walked by and the brat gave me a funny look; I guess he'd never seen a zombie before. I dodged the lobby, then limped past the indoor pool and through another door onto a patio and tiled path leading to the next unit. The channel marker chimed and gulls squawked in the harbor. It was going to be a beautiful day.

I was dragging now, stiff and sore. A TV jabbered in one of the rooms and I heard somebody come down the stairs behind me and go outside. Turning down the hall to my room, I got really gripped for some reason and stopped dead in my tracks. A horn beeped in the parking lot and I could hear a vacuum cleaner running in some other part of the building. Steffy's face popped into my head, gagged and bug-eyed, her cheeks bruised and smeared with mascara. I tried to blank her out, but the memory of her lying on the bed had been scorched across my brain. Whoever had killed her must've picked the lock on the apartment door, or maybe she'd let them in herself, thinking they were cops, but they were long gone by the time I got there. The goons in the black SUVs showed up later, after I'd arrived, but who were they? They'd identified themselves as cops, but the guy I saw in the alley didn't look like any cop I'd ever seen.

I wiped my hands on my jeans and walked down to my door, checking the hall in both directions. Nobody was around. I pressed an ear against the door and listened for a while, but all I got was this seashell effect. I had to get my stuff and I had to check out or they'd charge me for another night; then I had to find a teller machine and get some cash for food and gas. Unlocking the door, I walked in, trying to figure out if I should call Deacon and tell him what had happened. Then I realized it was too late for that.

Baldy sat in the chair by the bed, reading a paper, a cup of coffee in his hand. He looked up and gave me a big grin.

"Holy shit," he said. "It's Little Bo Peep."

Somebody stuck a gun in my ear.