THE BLUE HOUR

by T. Jefferson Parker

  And through it all she smelled the gagging sweet smell of chloroform, which she remembered from chemistry class was a simple CHCl3 chain once popular as an anesthetic. So far the bastard had hit her twice with it while she dangled here, plus at least once in her car and God knew how many times while they were in transit.

  Her H&K was gone—she'd seen him handling it over by one of the workbenches. Her ankle cannon was gone, too. He had laughed at it, then put the tiny thing in his pocket. Her only undiscovered secret was the Chinese-made Italian stiletto, which was in the bottom of her purse. And her phone. But her purse remained just out of the reach of her outstretched hands, purposefully placed on the floor like some ideal, something she could strive after for the rest of her life and never quite get. She wondered if she could get herself swinging like a pendulum the arc might bring her within reach of it.

  "Time's a running short," he said. His voice was calm, accented lightly in a strangely indefinable American manner—kind of western but southern, too, a hint of Texas and maybe Arkansas and even California. There was another influence floating around in his voice and Merci assumed it was the Romanian inflection learned early in life by Matamoros Colesceau.

  "I don't like to work fast," he said. "Because you know, honey, it's the process that's important."

  Merci had no voice. The tape choked off her words and left her with only grunts and growls. And there was the damned roaring of blood in her head. It was like standing next to a waterfall or a jet.

  What she thought was, important for who, shitbird? But even her own thoughts sounded feeble and far away.

  "So I am going to have to move things along. Don't want the owners getting here at nine, and us still around."

  Merci looked at him: a short, chubby man in boots and tight jeans, a boldly striped country-singer shirt and black leather vest. And flowing blond hair and a thick blond mustache that she knew to be fake, though in spite of her knowledge looked undeniably authentic. But under it all she recognized Colesceau, even upside-down like he was, something in his posture, the shoulders hunched to hide the budding breasts, the sad, untrusting eyes. Yes, this was the man she had talked to just a few days before.

  The one she'd bullied and disrespected and dismissed. Called stupid on TV.

  The one Hess understood but couldn't explain to her. Or even to himself.

  More disturbing than his appearance was the gleaming contraption over which he stood: an embalming machine, likely the one delivered to the Rose Garden Home. She wondered if the mother was in on all this. She tried to get herself swinging in the direction of the purse. She might be able to grasp it with her blood-bloated fingers, get to the knife and ... what? At first she hoped to be covert about it, but soon understood that just getting some momentum took a lot of work. She flexed her legs, bent at the stomach, swung her aching head. When she felt the first small kinetic glide of energy kick in, she turned her head to look at him. He had one of the embalming machine tubes in his hand, but he was watching her.

  She watched him back and kept pumping with her shoulders and hands, and tightening her calves to create sway. It was amazing how much effort you could put into something for so small a result. He dropped the end of the tube and picked up a half-gallon bottle of something and began pouring it into the canister on the machine.

  She had to slow him down long enough to let someone in the world find her, but it was hard to imagine someone finding you when you had no idea where you were.

  A shiver of fear broke over her. It was like drowning— no oxygen and a need to scream. She told herself to be calm. Calm but alert. She estimated how far her body was swinging now, in each direction away from center. It seemed to be about four feet. The purse was still at least a yard away from her hands. Through the red panic and a sudden clutch of nausea Merci tried to counsel herself: I will you to stay calm. I will you to overcome this situation. I will you to prevail.

  But it was extremely hard to draw extra breath with your mouth taped shut.

  "That's funny," he said. "Hold on now, honey. I'm gonna hit the brakes."

  He came around behind her and Merci felt the rope stiffen, breaking her momentum and slowing her. Something inside her panicked, then broke.

  She flailed blindly with her bound wrists, in hope of catching any part of him. What she wanted most right then was just to make him hurt somehow.

  She heard fluid splashing into fluid. She turned her head—God, it was just a throbbing ball of pain—and watched Colesceau swing into view. He plugged an orange extension cord into the wall. He carried the contraption toward her, setting it down on the stained concrete floor.

  Merci felt her body settling into a little circular orbit now. The dregs of her energy were all that was left. As she swung slowly on the rope she tried to think of how to best stall Colesceau, give him something to worry about, give her companions in law enforcement time to find her.

  She watched him approach her, upside down, blond waves on his shoulders, boots shining, vest taut.

  "Nice try," he said. He steadied the rope. "I don't see anything else you could have done, little woman."

  Then he reached out his hand. He seemed to be offering her one of those faded red shop rags sold in bunches of fifty. It was folded neatly and cupped in his palm.

  She felt his boots press her fingers against the floor. She knew if he put all his weight on them she'd lose a knuckle or two, maybe more. But the smell of the CHCI3 hit her and she couldn't help herself. All the panic rose inside her and it put up a ferocious struggle to get out. She tried to pull her hands free of his weight but it was useless. She screamed against the tape. She felt him grab her hair hard and press the cloth up tight to her face. For the first time in her life Merci thought of heaven as a place with a door, and the door would not open.

  And back she fell into the soft black nowhere.

  Colesceau unfolded one of the big gray blankets used to protect newly chromed or painted automobile parts, and laid it down over the stained floor. Then he lowered the unconscious Merci to the blanket. He cut away her blouse. He unfastened the heavy bulletproof vest and cut her bra off and set them aside. He ran his fingers lightly over her pale skin and kissed each nipple and was pleased to feel them harden between his teeth. Then off with her boots and pants and undies. He was efficient but not hurried. He arranged her hair up, a crown of dark lavish curls.

  He stood and looked down at her. She was more beautiful than he'd thought she'd be: large, well proportioned, strong but smooth, like a mare. Powerful legs, but shaped well. Not very hairy, considering that dark-haired women often had extra. Big knockers, as the Americans liked to say. The way her beauty marks contrasted with her skin was exhilarating.

  He regretted that he'd have to drain and preserve her simultaneously—standard operating procedure taught at mortician school—but for Colesceau a hurrying of what should be a calm, meditative and often erotic procedure. Still, an hour and a half should be plenty of time. If push came to shove he could load her into the yellow-and-black Shelby Cobra, squeeze the Porti-Boy into the trunk and check into a motel somewhere to finish his saving. A little TV volume would be enough to disguise the chugging of his machine. Maybe he could find an old western on.

  He touched the red ligature marks around her ankles. They would restore easily. Same with the tape marks on her wrists, but it wasn't prudent to cut that tape away just yet. Or the mouth tape, for that matter. He moved the Porti-Boy up close and hit the "on" button just to test it. The motor whirred assumingly and he turned it off.

  Well, he thought: cut in, hook out the carotid and install the insertion tube. When everything was up and running he could start massaging the life out of her and the preserving fluid in. Inject her with eternity.

  He took the blade from his instrument book and started pushing his fingertips down into the gristle around her clavicle. And there it was, lovely carotid, throbbing against his finger like a snake. What a weird thing to be doing, he thought, going to so much t
rouble to preserve a cop.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Hess made a left on Palmetto, gunning the Chevy through the light industrial zone of Costa Mesa, past a boatyard and a liquid propane distributor and a wrecking yard for German imports and a surfboard maker and a custom motorcycle shop. At intervals, large dogs regarded him through chain link. Then the brick and windows of Pratt Automotive. He cranked a hard right at the next comer and came around the backside behind the bay.

  There it was, sheltered behind two metal doors that opened from the ground up. Into each big slider was built a man-sized convenience door. No van in sight. Hess planted his sedan to block the use of either doorway, then cut the engine and called his position into Dispatch. Hess said there wasn't a Costa Mesa prowl car in sight and Dispatch told him there was a 211, armed robbery, going down on the east side, all area units requested. But the real news was Sheriffs deputies had pulled over a panel van eastbound on the Ortega Highway, stand by.

  He got out, put on his hat and walked toward the doors. That set off the guard dogs, a whole pack of them from the sound of it, their voices shrieking all around Hess in the warm summer air. He could hear the clink and rattle of the fences.

  The convenience doors wouldn't move. Neither would the big sliders. Locked from the inside, as he'd expected.

  And if there was anyone inside, they'd heard him.

  He went around the building to the front. No van. There were five spaces in front of the store, a patch of brown grass and ivy up by the windows, a break area with some patio furniture on it. He was breathing hard by the time he rounded the corner and he wished his heart would just settle down but it was thumping away. It felt like something was slipping in there. Hess told himself not to worry about it. When was the last time his heart did something he asked it to, anyway?

  Up close to the building and bent low under the windows, he crept along. The chipped letters spelling out Pratt Automotive went past over his head. The ivy he stepped on was threadbare and almost leafless. He squeezed behind a rusted wrought-iron bench surrounded by cigarette butts. His back hurt and it was hard to ignore the pain when he was bent over like that. The front doors were mesh-reinforced glass and they were locked, too. He cupped his hands to the dirty scarred glass and saw the dark wood paneling of the front office, the counter with the computer on it, the rows of shelves. At the end of one row Hess could see a door with a square window.

  The front of the shop sat in darkness but light showed through the window to the high bay. An orange rope swayed very slightly, hung in the cavernous bay beyond the glass.

  His vision went sharp and his heart kicked in strong and fast. He ran over to the wrought-iron chair and dragged it away from the building. The legs caught on the moribund ivy, leaving furrows in the hard dry earth.

  It took him two tries to get it up and balanced over his head. He swayed, feet planted in the cigarette butts.

  The window exploded just under "Pratt," carrying most of the name with it. Jagged triangles rimmed the frame. Hess I pulled his .45 and knocked some of them out with the butt. Then he swung one foot onto the bottom of the window frame and hauled the rest of himself up. He crunched heavily to the floor inside, slicing open his left finger on the way down. Swaying in the broken glass, Hess tried to keep his balance. He found the hatch in the counter and slammed it up and open.

  Then he was running the aisle between the high stacked shelves, left arm reaching for the high bay door, the window getting bigger as he approached.

  He grabbed the door handle, jerked down and pushed through. The sound of the door closing behind him echoed faintly in the high ceiling.

  Over his gun sights now: a silver van. Yellow racecar. Orange rope. Merci curled on the floor below the rope, naked but moving. She lifted her head and shook it when she saw him. Her face was taped and Hess could hear her scream against it.

  Then a small long-haired man popped up from behind the race car and shot him in the stomach.

  Hess fired fractionally later and the man blew backward against the van. He looked like Kamala Petersen's guy, and he wore a thick black vest over a bright shirt. Hess's next two shots seemed to pin his target to the metal. But two more blasts quickly came back at him. Hess ducked into a shooter's crouch, hearing the bullets careening around the bay. When he went to fire again he saw nothing but silver vehicle. He looked to the floor by the van, unable to believe that there was no body lying on it. Then one of the bay doors flew open and the sunlight charged in and the little man charged out.

  He was back to Merci in five steps. Her eyes were clear and focused and her neck muscles strained against the tape. She was still trying to speak.

  "It's okay," he said. His voice didn't sound believable to him. "Here."

  He used his pocketknife to cut the tape from her wrists. It was hard to get the blade out because both his hands were covered with blood. He'd told himself not to look at the hole and not to touch it, but apparently he'd done just that. So he glanced down at his abdomen as he slid the knife back into his pocket, not seeing much but a bloody shirt and belt. A bullet made no bigger hole going in than a sharp pencil, but going out was different.

  Right now it felt like someone had swung an oar into his gut, maybe an oar with a big nail in it. And it felt like his body was trying to gather around where that nail had gone in and out again, trying to fill the gap. His flesh was confused. He popped the little .32 from his ankle holster and held it up to her, then set it on the blanket.

  Seconds later Hess was in the sunlight behind Pratt Automotive, surrounded by the barking of dogs, looking down the alley to his left where the Purse Snatcher ran with his long blond hair shining in the sun. He had a hundred yards. No more. A cold shiver of nausea went up through Hess, even as the warm blood drenched his underwear and ran down into his shoes.

  He ran.

  Hess's legs pumped in rhythm with his lungs. He could feel his body trying to writhe away from what had gone in him—or through him, more likely.

  He wished he hadn't worn his black wingtips, wished he could trade them for a set of body armor. But he'd had that opportunity before he left home this morning, deciding against it, looking for the damned fedora instead.

  Dogs bounced off the fences on either side of him. He was close enough to hear their teeth snap. Hess tried to keep his legs working on the same beat as his lungs but he was gulping and spitting out air twice per step now and that funny red outline had come back and it made him feel like he was dreaming.

  The important thing was to keep the legs moving, keep those wingtips aimed at the Purse Snatcher and keep him in sight. Keep him in sight. Hess was only sixty yards back. Sixty yards back and closing. Half of that, and he could try to take him out. Half of that and he could take him out with certainty, aim for his butt, below the armor. The pain in his gut made him squint.

  So Hess squinted ahead through the red world and kept his vision riveted on his prey. His footfalls were the sound of wet socks in wet shoes. The Colt was slick and heavy and he thought he might change hands but he also thought he might drop it. He thought he must be slowing down because Colesceau seemed further out. So he really dug in and tried to get his knees up, get some better speed going.

  The Purse Snatcher vanished right. Hess followed seconds later. Through a yard of hay bales with archery targets tacked to them, no archers in sight at this early hour, then around a yellow stucco clubhouse of some kind. Hess could just make out the bright shirt and flowing hair turning the corner away from him.

  Then across an empty street and into the grounds of a commercial nursery. Hess saw a stout Japanese man staring first at Colesceau then at him with set, stoic eyes. He held a flat of flowers.

  Beyond the nursery was the slough of the Santa Ana River, a thicket of bamboo and weeds inhabited by feral cats and human beings too poor to afford a place to sleep. Hess watched Colesceau scamper between the deep rows of five-gallon trees and potting soil, look back just once, then climb the chain-link fence and
drop over. He seemed about a mile away by now, but Hess figured it was just the pain that made his eyes tight, made things look farther out.

  Then his legs faltered. His balance began to abandon him and he had to put both hands out like a tightrope walker to keep himself steady, but the gun was heavy and this threw him off even more. Still, he didn't fall. He realized with disappointment that his hat was still on: how fast was he really moving, anyway?

  Colesceau was headed for the jungle, a hundred yards away.

  Then Hess sensed something behind him and Merci stretched past. She seemed to be eating up the ground ten feet at a time and there was something small and silver in her hand.

  On her way by she said, "I got him."

  And there she went.

  Hess felt his feet slow down, felt the big trunk of his body swaying for balance as it tried to slow down too, then saw the ground coming up at him and turned his face to the side so he wouldn't break his nose.

  This he accomplished. With his head in the dirt he looked toward the river in time to see Merci's body pitch over the chain-link fence.

  Hess was pleased to see his hat had finally fallen off. He was pleased to see that he still had control of the big automatic .45 in his right hand. Forty-plus years and he'd never lost his sidearm to anyone.

  He worked himself up to his knees, gathered his hat and stood. He holstered the gun, which in the nursery seemed to be an absurd, almost shameful possession. He looked for a place to sit and found a wooden bench beside the path by the potted roses. There were a million of them, it seemed, reds and yellows and whites and purples and even a fountain with a dolphin spraying water from its blowhole.