"Feeling any better, Brian?" said Lieutenant Ivory.
"No."
"You should have let them check you over last night."
"It wouldn't have done any good."
"You had something to eat, I hope."
"I didn't have time. I've been apartment hunting."
Kettering took a seat next to Protius, across the desk from Lieutenant Ivory.
"There really isn't a whole lot of point in continuing this," Ivory said. "We covered the whole incident last night and again this morning. We could close the books now, Brian, except for your stubborn insistence that - "
"It was a kid," Kettering finished for him, making an effort to keep his voice steady. He lapsed into a rote recitation, repeating words he had spoken many times today. "A kid six, maybe seven years old. But when he first stood up out of a crouch there at the front door, he looked like a full-grown man. A big man. He reached out and pointed something at me. Metal. A gun, I thought. And I shot him."
Lieutenant Ivory and Dr. Protius looked quickly at each other, then back at Kettering.
"There wasn't any kid, Brian," Ivory said. "We told you that."
"I shot a kid," Kettering insisted. "Four times. I don't miss at that range. I didn't miss last night. But I swear, all the time I was shooting I thought it was a man. After he went down I ran up to the door. I saw then it wasn't a man. I turned him over, faceup, and he looked at me. This little kid looked at me. He opened his mouth and blood came out. He died with me standing there looking at him."
"There wasn't any kid," Ivory said yet again. "No kid, no gun, no blood."
"I know now he didn't have a gun," Kettering said. "It was a spray-paint can. A fucking spray-paint can. I thought it was a gun."
"There wasn't any spray can either," Ivory said.
"I shot him four times."
"You fired your piece four times. That much we verified. There are four bullet holes in your door. Your neighbor saw the whole thing and called us. He said you were standing outside on the sidewalk, yelling and shooting at your own house."
Kettering wiped a hand over his chin. The twenty-four-hour beard rasped against his palm.
"It was all ... so real. When I turned the kid over, it was like I knew him. He looked like ... he looked like ..."
"Who, Brian?" Dr. Protius said softly.
"He looked like me."
Lieutenant Ivory cleared his throat and got businesslike. "You know I've got to take you off the street while this is under investigation. Standard procedure. Whether we have a victim or not, it's still an officer-involved shooting."
"I know," Kettering said.
"And you know the options. I can either put you on the desk for a few days or you can take some of the time you've got coming."
"I'll take the time," Kettering said. "I've got to move today."
The other men exchanged a look.
"If there's anything I can do ..." Protius said.
"Thanks. I don't think so." When neither of the others spoke, Kettering stood up. "If that's it, then ..."
Ivory rose quickly and came around the desk. "This shouldn't take more than two, three days. Check in with me, will you?"
"Sure."
Kettering pushed himself up out of the chair. Dr. Protius stood up quickly beside him.
"Got any lunch plans, Brian? I missed mine, and I hate to eat alone."
"Thanks, Doc, but I'm not hungry."
"I thought we might talk."
"Not now, okay?"
Protius nodded. "You know where to find me."
"I know."
Kettering started out the door, then turned back. Lieutenant Ivory and the doctor were watching him.
He took a couple of steps back toward them and said, "Lieutenant, when they checked out my front door, where the bullet holes were, was something painted there?"
"Yeah. Some kind of a picture. Crude, like a kid did it."
"Thank God something I saw was real." To Protius he said, "It's the same one I told you about. The one I scrubbed off."
"Well, you didn't get it all," Ivory said. "Probably, that was what you saw from the street and mistook for someone standing in front of your door. A trick of the light made it seem three-dimensional."
"Yeah, probably," Kettering said without conviction.
The lieutenant spoke up. "If it makes you feel any better, you drilled it four times in the upper abdomen. You could cover the pattern with a jack of diamonds."
Kettering's smile was cold. He said, "At least I can still shoot."
***
Al Diaz was out in the parking lot, pretending to search for something in the back of his Toyota van, when Kettering walked out. He looked up with poorly feigned surprise as his partner approached.
"Oh, hi, buddy. I heard you were in the hot box with Ivory and the Doc."
"You heard right."
"So? How'd it go?"
Kettering shrugged. "They tell me I was shooting at shadows. But definitely shooting. They gave me the usual choice - desk or days off."
"You took the days, right?"
"Right."
"I don't blame you. Uh, Brian ..."
"Yeah?"
"Sorry to hear about you and Mavis."
"Jesus, does everybody know?"
"Word gets around."
"Yeah, well, I guess it's something that's been building."
"How's your boy taking it?"
"Trevor? He's eighteen, he can make his own decisions. I suppose he'll stay with Mavis. Or maybe he'll find a place of his own. He's got a job now. So I hear."
"That's good."
Kettering sagged back against the side of the van. "Hell, I don't know how if it's good or not. I don't even know what he does, Al. We don't talk."
"I guess that's the way with teenage kids and fathers."
"I guess."
"At least he's got a job. Where is it?"
"Some club where the kids go. Called The Pit. Ever hear of it?"
Diaz's mouth tightened. "Isn't that Enzo DuLac's place?"
"Who?"
Diaz repeated the name. "He's a small-time Hollywood street hustler. Found himself a backer somewhere and opened up a club on Van Nuys. Want me to check it out for you?"
"Nah. Well, if you get a chance."
Diaz made a note in his pad. "So what are you going to do?"
"Learn how to live alone."
"Got a place to stay?"
"I found an apartment this morning. It's not much, but I don't need much."
"Give me the address."
He took Diaz's notebook from him and scribbled the number and street. "I don't know how long I'll be here, but for a while it's home."
"Listen, you're always welcome at my place. Michi would love to have you for dinner any time."
"Thanks, Al."
"In fact, how about tonight?"
"I'll take a rain check."
Diaz cocked his head and looked at him narrowly. "And Brian, if there's anything else I can help you with ... anything ... you got it."
Kettering grasped his partner's hand. "That's good to know, buddy. I'll be in touch."
As he drove out of the police parking lot, Kettering waved to his partner with a jauntiness he did not feel.
***
When he parked out in front of his house and headed up the walk, Kettering caught himself once again deliberately looking away from the front door.
"All right, enough of this shit," he told himself.
He stopped and faced the door. There in dark, evil bloodred, stretching from the top of the door to the sill, was the hump-shouldered, talon-fingered thing that was by now too familiar. It was just sloppy enough for it to maybe be a random splash of paint. To somebody else, maybe. To Brian Kettering, it was Doomstalker.
Kettering drew his fingertips across the red smear. They came away dry, but he wiped them on his pants anyway, grimacing as though they had been slimed.
The hell with this, he decided, and went on into
the house. He looked around at what had been his home for the past eight years. He remembered, on the day they moved in, Mavis's pleasure at the large kitchen, the flower beds, the proximity of the school. To him it was just another house. A place to live. Kettering did not get sentimental about places. He would take a few memories away from here with him - some good, some bad. Most of them were just a shade of gray.
The one thing here he would really miss was his beat-up old reclining chair. He walked over and stroked the wrinkled and patched headrest like the neck of a faithful steed. Maybe he would have it trucked over to the new place. Mavis certainly would not object to that. She'd been nagging him to get rid of it for years.
Nothing else in the house made any difference to him. She could have all of it.
He filled his big soft-sided suitcase with clothes, and a smaller bag with his bathroom gear, and carried them out to the car. He went back into the house, found a cardboard carton and filled it with things he might need in the coming days. A few books, a small radio, some personal papers, a box of ammunition for the S&W Centennial, what was left of the Wild Turkey.
He balanced the full carton on one arm and pulled open the front door with his free hand. A surprised Trevor stood outside, reaching for the doorknob. The boy snatched his hand back. He looked around as though he'd like to wheel around and run the other way.
"Hi."
"Hi, Dad."
Father and son stood facing each other for an awkward moment. The boy spoke first.
"So. You're moving out, huh?"
"Looks that way. Did your mother tell you about it?"
"She mentioned it. How long you going for?"
"Hard to say."
"Yeah, well, that's the way it goes. You leaving now?"
"Unless you want to talk."
"What's to talk about?"
Kettering groped for something to say. "I hear you've got a job."
"Yeah. Part time. For the summer."
"Doing what?"
"Just, you know, helping out down at this club. Helping the D.J. on weeknights. Getting the band set up on weekends. Like that."
"Yeah. Well, that's good."
"It's okay."
"I guess I'll see you."
"Yeah, right. So long." Trevor eased past him and disappeared into the house.
Kettering looked after the boy, still holding the carton of his belongings. What did you expect, he asked himself, a big father-son reunion? Fat chance.
He walked on out to the Camaro and shoved the carton onto the passenger's seat.
***
Trevor Kettering had just reached the door to his room when he heard the front door slam. He stopped and turned back, feeling unaccountably choked up.
What the fuck, it wasn't like he and his old man were pals or anything. How could anybody be pals with a cop, anyway? Just his rotten luck to have a cop for an old man.
He flopped on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Time to sort things out. So his mom and dad were splitting up. No big shocker there. They hadn't been getting along for a long time, if they ever did. He'd be outta here himself soon, so it really wouldn't mean fuck-all.
And yet ... there was a tight feeling in his throat. Maybe they weren't as cool as Bill Cosby and the chick who played the mother on his show, but they were his folks. They had kept an okay home for him here and treated him reasonably well and not bugged him too much, even though they didn't really understand what he was all about. They could be a royal pain in the ass sometimes, but they were his folks.
Trevor sat up abruptly, startled and embarrassed by the moisture in his eyes. What the fuck was this? Was he going to cry now or some damn thing like that? Bull shit!
He got up and popped a cassette into the $300 Fisher tape deck, turned the volume up, and let the ferocious sounds of Ozzy Osburne slam into him.
Yeah, all right!
The old man would shit if he came in and heard Ozzy at this volume shaking the old house down to the floorboards. If the old man had his way, Trevor would listen to nothing but Barry Manilow and Linda Ronstadt. Or maybe those moldy old prehistoric bands that he thought were so cool.
But the old man wasn't coming in anymore, he reminded himself. The old man and his mother had split.
Trevor turned the volume down to a listenable level. No point busting his ears if there was nobody around to get pissed off. He lay back down and thought about what his life would be from here on.
Mom wanted him to go to college, but fuck that. With his grades, he'd have to go to one of those jackoff junior colleges full of beaners and Buddhaheads and old farts going back to school for some dumbass reason. No way, not for Trevor Kettering. He had better things going for him.
The job at The Pit was a lucky break. He didn't have to do much, just sort the records and tapes for Chazz the D.J., and help set up for the bands on weekends. What it was, he was basically getting paid to hang out, which he'd be doing anyway for nothing.
But more important than the job, more important than college or his folks splitting up or any damn thing else, was Zoara Sol.
Trevor felt the stirring of his cock just from thinking about her. He reached down and rubbed himself.
He just met her that one time at The Pit, but holy jumping shit, the things she did to him inside. He closed his eyes and saw her - smoky-yellow hair, crazy silver eyes, a voice that came at you through a layer of velvet. All she would have to do would be crook her finger and Trevor Kettering would sit up and bark, if that's what she wanted.
The most important thing in his life right now was to see her again. And he knew he would. The silver eyes told him so.
He held his rigid cock through the smooth cotton jeans. From outside came the faint sound of his father's car driving away.
Trevor barely heard.
Chapter 11
Before he drove off, Kettering stood beside the Camaro and took a last look at the modest California ranch house that had been his home. There should be some kind of emotion involved, he thought. Loss, regret, nostalgia. Relief, even. But he felt nothing. No, that was not true. He felt a deep, grinding anger. Not at his wife, not at their failure to make a marriage, not at the wasted years. His anger was focused on the mocking red figure that defaced his front door, and whatever agency was responsible for putting it there. Doomstalker.
One day, Kettering sensed, he and his spectral enemy would stand face to face. And, as they used to say in Western movies, only one would walk away.
"Come and get me, you sonofabitch," he muttered.
He climbed into the car, slammed the door, and drove off without looking back again.
***
The building into which Kettering moved his sparse belongings was the last of its generation on a street of new, cheap apartments that had mushroomed during the building boom of the 1960s. It was a three-story wooden-frame structure, painted an unhealthy yellow, which dated back to a time before the freeway sliced through the Valley. When the building went up, the area was still dominated by orange groves and bean fields. As the Valley shifted emphasis and mutated to a cluster of suburbs with clots of light industry, the building somehow escaped the general razing of old structures and stood like a relic of another time among the stucco and plaster boxes that were its neighbors.
A rickety flight of wooden stairs zigged up to the second-floor landing and zagged to the third. Kettering had picked up the local throwaway paper this morning and started at the bottom of the for-rent column, where the cheapest rentals were listed. This was the only place he looked at, and he surprised the owner by taking it with barely a glance.
He was surprised to see the silver-gray Mazda parked on the street as he pulled up. He parked his own car on the other side and walked back toward the Mazda. Charity Moline looked up at him through the rolled-down window as he approached.
"You didn't call me," she said.
"Was I supposed to?"
"I was hoping."
She smelled fresh and good as she smiled
out at Kettering. He said, "How did you find me?"
"I went to the Police Building looking for you. Your lieutenant told me you're taking a few days off."
"Did he tell you why?"
"Nope. He didn't tell me why you moved out of your house, either."
"I needed a change of scenery."
"It wasn't because of the other night, was it?"
"Not the night you're thinking about."
"You mean you were doing it with somebody else?"
"I mean 'doing it' has nothing to do with me moving."
"Well, that's good." She looked across at his car. The carton and suitcases were visible through the back window. "Need any help with that stuff?"
"It's just a couple of suitcases and a box."
"I can carry something. I'm very strong."
"Come on, then."
She got out of the car, giving him a flash of silken leg as her apple-green skirt hiked up. They crossed the street together and Kettering gave her the carton. He saw she wasn't kidding about her strength as she carried it effortlessly up the stairs ahead of him. He put the two bags down when they reached the landing and keyed open the door.
The apartment was one room - an efficient layout where you lived, ate, slept, without walking more than a few feet. The kitchen alcove was more or less screened from the rest of the room by a hanging curtain. Behind it was a rust-stained sink, two-burner gas range, and small refrigerator.
There was a tiny separate bathroom with sink, toilet, and a curtained shower stall. The furniture - chrome and Formica table, mismatched chairs, convertible sofa - bore mysterious stains and cigarette burns from the forgotten butts of anonymous former tenants.
"Nice place," Charity said.
"All the comforts."
She set the carton down on the kitchen table and poked through the contents until she found the Wild Turkey bottle.
"Are you saving this for a special occasion?"
"I guess this is it. I'll see if I can find some glasses."
He located a pair of mismatched tumblers in the cupboard and a tray of ice cubes in the refrigerator.
"All the comforts," he repeated, offering Charity a glass.
She nodded toward the sofa. "Does that thing make into a bed?"
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