Monk found the address, but it wasn’t easy.
Patty’s new store was on Corn Hill, in a part of town that was as close to the rough side as artsy-fartsy Pine Deep ever got. He didn’t know the cross street and his map didn’t exactly match this version of town. He kept checking painted numbers on curbs and storefronts until he found the right area. She was in the 700 block and he was coming up on it.
But he nearly wrecked his car when he saw the crooked sign for the cross street.
Monk stamped on the brake and sat there for five full seconds. The car behind him gave him an angry honk, but he didn’t care. He barely heard it. The sign said:
BOUNDARY STREET
His mouth went totally dry.
“No…” he said. “No … no, fuck no … no goddamn way.”
One of the reasons he’d left New York was because of Boundary Street. Not on any map but there, sure enough. He’d left Chicago for the same reason. And Lisbon. And New Orleans.
Fucking Boundary Street. Did every goddamn city have a goddamn Boundary goddamn Street?
One of the nightbirds landed on the sign. It stared at him, head tilted. Then it opened its mouth as if to cry, but there was no sound. Even so, Monk thought he heard it. As clear as if it had been the billboard by the bridge.
Yes, it said.
Monk pulled the car to the curb, killed the engine, got out, opened his trunk and took his gun from the safe, slapped in a loaded magazine, shoved the weapon into his waistband, and went running to Patty’s store. The echo of her sobs—of the destroyed sound of her voice—was a knife in his heart.
There was a guy standing outside Patty’s trying to peer inside. He held a sample case and looked like a salesman of some kind. The man turned as Monk came running up.
“Say,” he began, “would you know if—?”
“Fuck off,” snarled Monk in exactly the kind of way that leaves nothing ambiguous. The man blinked once, and then fucked off.
Monk pounded on the door. Got nothing. He tried the phone. Not a damn thing. He was half a second away from kicking the door in when he thought to try the knob. It would be locked, of course. It was early, so no way it wouldn’t be locked.
The knob turned.
He whipped the door open and went in at a run, yelling Patty’s name. The place was small, his voice was big, but the shadows somehow swallowed the sound. He frowned into the gloom, not liking it worth a damn.
There was something wrong here. He drew the gun, racked the slide to put one in the chamber. There was someone here who should not be. Every instinct he owned told him that. Some motherfucker had come here to hurt Patty and they were waiting for him.
He stopped, alert, his body tensed, gun raised in a two-hand shooter’s grip, finger extended above the trigger guard. Something was wrong. He looked around, pivoting on the balls of his feet. The room was washed in brown and gray tones. The three barber chairs, the stacks of boxes, some closets. The door to the customer bathroom ajar. No one in sight. No sound.
But …
Monk had spent most of his life in somebody’s uniform, humping battle rattle through jungles and deserts, pulling triggers and cutting throats. He didn’t do that now, but once a soldier, always a soldier.
He’s watching me, he thought.
He. Whoever he was.
Wherever.
The gun barrel tracked with the turn of his head.
You want me, motherfucker, you’re going to have to earn that shit.
And he went looking for something to hit.
The walls were covered floor to ceiling with sketches and photos of some of her best work. Patty’s best was the best. Monk had been in tattoo parlors on six continents and he had strong opinions on the subject. Half of the ink on his flesh was hers.
He stopped by the small fridge in the corner. It stood open and there were empty, half-empty, and smashed beer bottles clustered around it like soldiers after a failed siege. There was some blood, too.
He called Patty’s name again and got exactly the same nothing of a response.
Beaded curtains—cheap plastic and bamboo—stood motionless at the entrance to the hall. No. Not entirely motionless. They moved a little. Was it from the change of air pressure when he’d come in? Or were they settling to stillness after someone passed through?
Tough or not, he was scared to go into the black hallway behind. Tough never meant being without fear. Only idiots think otherwise.
“If you’re in there,” he said in a quiet voice, “I’m going to fuck you up.”
The silence and the darkness said nothing.
It did nothing.
Except waited for him. His move.
Monk took one hand and hooked fingers around the last strand of beads. They rattled and he waited to see if the sound sparked movement.
Monk pushed through the beaded curtain into the black hallway. He didn’t turn the lights on, preferring darkness most times anyway. The hall was empty. A bedroom was empty of everything except boxes. What he guessed was Patty’s bedroom was empty, and the bed hadn’t been slept in. But there was a single handprint on the wall by the light switch. The print looked like it had been made with motor oil, but Monk knew different. He could smell the coppery stink of blood in the air.
The feeling of being watched was still there. Still strong, but he was running out of places for anyone to hide. The only thing that moved were a few flies crawling down the wall. Absolutely nothing else that he could see.
That did not make him feel better. Just the opposite.
The door to Patty’s bathroom was closed. Monk put his ear to it and listened. He heard two sounds.
The slow drip of water. And …
A faintness of weeping.
He tried the door handle and this time it did not turn. But it was a cheap-ass Kwickset and he busted it open with a hard shoulder and a curse. The door banged inward twenty inches and then jerked to a stop.
Patty lay naked on the floor, curled like an island in a sea of beer and blood.