Alien Blues

by Lynn Hightower

  Santana rounded his lips over Naomi’s mouth, like a dog sucking marrow from a bone.

  The tunnel was silent. Quintero took a deep breath.

  Santana’s mouth slipped wetly off Naomi’s lips. He let her go and she slid down his chest, her chin catching his belt buckle before her weight pulled her to the floor. David stared at the crumpled body, the glassy eyes, the magic box that lay an inch from the lifeless hand.

  “David Silver,” Santana said softly, and the warm promising voice sent ice up David’s spine. “I been wanting to know you for some time now.” Santana held out a hand. David felt the flesh on his cheek tighten and twitch, though Santana was not close enough to touch.

  “I know Rose.” The voice implied a peculiar intimacy. “She and I go way back. So I been curious about you. Her husband. A cop.” The voice was lilting, sweet and slightly southern. “And the weather, you know, is in our favor. We have time to kill.” Santana motioned to Quintero. “Hold him.”

  Quintero grabbed David’s arms, and the coat bunched and strained, pulling across David’s back, clumping over his shoulders. He was hot, suddenly, cramped, the coat holding him like a straitjacket.

  Santana was smiling, face luminous and soft.

  “I will love you.” The rich timbre of the voice promised him pleasure. “I will hurt you.” The voice throbbed, promising pain.

  Santana moved toward him in the dark passageway, body flowing, sinuous, rippling ever close. David feared the proximity, yet felt a fascination that was almost desire. Get it over, he thought. Get it done.

  The seductive slowness became a blur of motion, and a well-calculated blow caught David on the left side, breaking two ribs and bruising a third. He heard the chuff of his breath as it escaped his throat, felt Quintero’s grip tighten on his arms and take his weight as his legs jelled and collapsed beneath him. And he knew, in a small working part of his mind, that Santana had pulled a punch that could have gone right through him.

  Santana touched David’s cheek with fingers that smelled faintly of lilac. He cupped David’s chin in the sweet-smelling hands and bent close, licking David’s lower lip with a fleshy wet red tongue.

  David closed his eyes and groaned, clenching his teeth against the tongue that strained between his lips.

  Santana pulled away, sighing softly. “Sweet. So sweet.”

  David lifted his head, his voice a guttural hiss. “Stick to the pain, Santana.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  David’s mouth was pulpy and wet, and blood trickled down the back of his throat. He coughed, thinking he should roll over on his stomach.

  “He’s still moving.”

  David coughed again, and strained sideways.

  “More like trying to move.”

  “We been here too long.” Santana’s voice. “Beller, check for weather. See if it’s safe to go out.”

  “What about her?”

  “Leave it.”

  “We taking the cop?”

  “I have something in mind.”

  Someone was lifting him—firm hands under his armpits, propping him against the wall. He slid sideways. Santana straightened him up again.

  David couldn’t remember being hurt this bad before, couldn’t remember feeling such hot brokenness inside.

  “Silver.” Santana patted his cheeks affectionately. “Look at me, Silver. Focus. Still there? I have something for you.”

  Why did he keep on? David wondered.

  “I wish I had time to take you with me,” Santana said, voice soft, regretful.

  David wanted to lay down, but there was a reason—wasn’t there?—that he needed to sit up.

  “Pay attention.” Santana opened his fist. “See this?”

  David squinted. Fine black dust laced the cracks and crevices of Santana’s moist palm.

  “This is it, my friend. My cop. Black Diamond. It will make you feel better, so much better. And it’s the new and improved version. Programmable, Silver, do you know what that means?”

  David wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “Easy, Silver, take it slow. This is just a taste. Five minutes. Five intense beautiful minutes. But if you like it, Silver—and you will—and if you ask me nice, I’ll give you something that will keep you up for seven hours. That’s hours—seven. And just the beginning of what we can do, Silver, think of that. Programmable highs. The drug has no limits, only people do.”

  Santana stroked David’s shoulder and David flinched backward, the pain hot and electric. Broken collarbone, David decided. Christ.

  Santana smiled. “I’m afraid, the shape you’re in, you may not survive. And then, maybe you will. Either way, the word will get out. From the coroner’s office, or the hospital grapevine. And the cops will shiver, and gear up their guys—ready to battle my Diamond. But the customers, Silver, my customers, will line up for miles.

  “So this is for you, my cop.” Santana blew Black Diamond from the palm of his hand. The black dust settled with soft finality over David’s face.

  FORTY-FIVE

  It was over too soon—a memory while he was still trying to hold it. The pain seeped back, waves and waves, intense, grinding, taking his breath away.

  Tears trickled from the corners of his eyes.

  Clothing rustled—there was someone in the passageway. Someone had watched. Boot heels clicked on the stone floor, getting closer and closer.

  “Come on, Quintero, we need you right now. The van’s on its side and we need everybody to get it up.”

  “On its side!”

  “Man, you should see it. We had a blow like you wouldn’t believe. Whole side of the street’s wiped out.”

  “What about him?”

  “He ain’t going nowhere. Santana said come.”

  Their footsteps were loud, then soft. They would be back, David knew.

  He rolled sideways and tried to get up on his knees. He couldn’t raise his left arm, so he pushed with his right, rocking back and forth, trying to keep his balance. He remembered when his daughters were babies, how they had swayed back and forth on their knees, trying to crawl. Had they been this frustrated?

  His legs went, pitching him facedown on the floor. His fingers brushed something soft and feathery. Naomi’s hair. David stared into her sad, wary face.

  He pushed with his toes, pulled with his right elbow, and inched across the floor. Sweat ran down his temples and seeped across his back, drenching his shirt and raincoat.

  He stopped at the edge of the wormhole. He wanted the raincoat off. He wiggled out of it, keeping the left arm straight, setting up hot runnels of pain. The broken ribs kept his breathing shallow, but he was able, finally, to crawl away from the bloody, sweat-stained coat, into the cold dusty blackness of the wormhole.

  He kept moving, going slowly, treasuring every inch of progress that took him farther away from Santana. He understood Rose’s nightmares, her fears, her memories. He didn’t know where he was heading. He could die in the black twists and turns, like a mouse behind kitchen walls.

  There were worse things than solitude and darkness.

  The temptation to press close to the wall and rest was getting stronger. He was cold, and shivers ran through him in bursts of agony. He stopped moving, resting his cheek on the gritty rock floor.

  He wished he had kissed the girls good-bye. Which one of them had been crying?

  So few of his friends had made it out of Little Saigo. Why him and not them? He thought of the woman he’d heard singing when he and Bertie had made their way behind the walls. Had Ruth sung to him when he was a baby? Had his mother?

  How wasteful it was, to throw away Ruth’s affection for his children.

  He heard singing again—a man’s voice, baritone and pure. “Hatikvah.” Jews in the tunnel. The voice washed over him with the comfort of his father’s affection.

  His father had taught him so many things—his prayers, his duties, how to tie knots, how to hammer a nail. But he had not taught him how to kee
p Lavinia happy.

  He wondered if his father was really dead.

  David crawled. He would keep moving until he found a way out of the wormhole. He would kiss his daughters.

  A large cockroach wandered past his cheek.

  His breath came quickly, and the broken ribs circled his chest with a deep hot ache. Best not to think, he decided. Bertie would stay put, as ordered. Mel would never find him behind the dark stone walls. Santana might.

  Definitely better not to think.

  The top of his head bumped solid rock. David stretched his hand forward and sideways. The wormhole had ended. No twists, no turns, definitely the end. He reached upward, felt rock, and realized the ceiling pressed two inches over his head.

  The sump pump throbbed beneath the rock.

  David squirmed sideways, but there was no room to turn. His elbow wedged him in tight. He could not breathe, or go forward. He yanked his elbow loose and squeezed his eyes shut. Slow, easy breaths, Silver. Slow, easy breaths.

  He inched backward, his left toe hitting rock. Fear made him cold, and he sobbed. There could not be rock behind him. Think. He’d crawled in, he could crawl back out.

  He prodded backward with his foot. He’d turned a corner without being aware of it. He moved backward slowly, keeping his mind strictly on the task at hand.

  The jog in the tunnel was a short one. David squirmed back into the open wormhole.

  His shoulder was swelling and aching with mounting intensity. He thrashed from side to side, trying to get away from the pain. Moving hurt more, and he forced himself to lay still. If he kept going, he chanced working himself into unknown depths of rock that did not open into any tunnels, but instead drove him deeper into the earth.

  Behind was Santana.

  David laid his head down on the cold rock floor.

  Somewhere a dog was barking. David opened his eyes. He heard the scrape and scuffle of dirt underfoot. A rock hit the wall, setting up reverberations in the wormhole behind him.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” The voice came through the ventilation shaft, echoing oddly.

  David closed his eyes and smiled. Mel’s voice. A dog barked, then whined, scrabbling at the rock on the other side of the wall. Dead Meat? Leave it to Mel.

  David frowned. The scuffling noises had come from behind. If Mel and the dog were on the other side of the wall, what was in the passage behind him?

  Something—someone?—was in the tunnel, heading his way. David held his breath and listened. Whoever it was moved steadily and swiftly. His best bet was to stay quiet.

  Pale yellow light wavered across his foot, and striped his leg and hip. David winced when the light hit his eyes.

  “Silver.” The voice caressed him, and the light went out.

  David’s cry amounted to little more than a moan, and Santana’s hand was across his mouth before he could call out. Santana crouched over him, his silky lips warm on David’s ear.

  “Did you forget that I promised you pleasure, my cop? A taste was all you had. I have a programmed pleasure for you, if you want it.”

  David bit hard, teeth latching onto Santana’s soft palm. He tasted sweat and dirt. Santana slammed his fist into David’s side. David gagged.

  Dead Meat barked frantically on the other side of the wall.

  “What the fuck, you stupid dog! He ain’t in the goddamn rock!”

  David closed his eyes.

  “Shhh, now, shhhh, Silver. I’ll give you a choice. Call for help, if you like. Or take the Diamond. I have it right here.”

  Santana rattled a packet.

  “What will it be, my cop?”

  He took his hand away from David’s mouth.

  David licked his lips. He needed to call out, warn Mel. But the Diamond would take the pain away, let him breathe. He could go back to that good place, and get out of this one, just one more time …

  He raised a hand to hit the wall when he yelled. But he did not yell. He dropped his hand slowly, curling the fingers into a fist.

  Santana laughed softly. “I thought so. You are no different, my cop. No different.”

  He opened the packet, and David felt the warmth of Santana’s breath as the black dust misted in his face.

  FORTY-SIX

  Santana had David’s ankles, and was dragging him backward through the wormhole. Santana held a flash in his mouth, and David watched the patterns of light on the wall.

  His hearing was suddenly very acute. He could hear the shift and groan of rock in the tunnel.

  Santana stopped, easing David’s legs gently to the floor.

  “They have to find you, Silver, before you decompose.” Santana kissed him gently. “Good-bye, my cop.”

  David squinted his eyes. Santana had left him at the end of the wormhole, and he had a clear view of the main tunnel. He heard the echo of voices.

  “It was close to here. Davie sent us out through the wormhole.”

  “How many of these prowlers were there?”

  David frowned, wondering if he was imagining his wife’s voice. Maybe not. Rose and Haas were getting too tangled up in this case. Why had Mel let them come? Why hadn’t he gotten backup from Halliday?

  “I don’t think I remember how many. Lots of them.”

  David heard their footsteps, their breath moving through their lungs, the hiss of blood that moved through their veins like liquid silk.

  “Ah. This is bad.” Haas’s voice. “Who is this?”

  David closed his eyes, watching himself spin in the darkness.

  “Her neck’s been snapped,” Rose said. “So Santana’s here.”

  “You can’t be sure it’s Santana, Rosy.”

  “I’m sure. Where is Mel?”

  “Back a ways, fooling with Hilde.”

  “She’s as likely to be on the trail of a rat as she is to be after David.”

  “Bertie, where does this tunnel lead?”

  David rolled his head to one side. Painful. It wasn’t supposed to hurt.

  “It leads outside,” Bertie said. “The tunnel rats use it a lot. Davie wouldn’t go back there. Davie knows better.”

  The voices receded. David opened his mouth and watched a clear silver bell escape between his lips.

  Rose’s voice drifted back.

  “I don’t know what I heard. No, go on. We need to cover as much as we can, as fast as we can.”

  Rose was moving cautiously. David saw shadows, too many shadows. Somebody else was out there.

  “Hello, Rose.”

  David heard her intake of breath.

  “Hello, Santana.”

  “Enjoying your retirement? Been a long time since … the old days. God, the memories. You, me, and Monolo. Pretty Monolo. Not so pretty there at the end, eh? Now I wonder, Rose, why you married a cop. No, don’t do that. Don’t rush me. Kill me, and you won’t find him. I’m the only one who knows where your Silver is.”

  David listened, but Rose didn’t say anything. He could hear her breath coming in deep gulps.

  Something flapped, like a sail in the wind.

  “See what I have, Rose? Do you recognize his coat?”

  Rose had stopped breathing so hard, David realized. He couldn’t hear her breathing at all.

  “You could give it away, maybe, after you get the bloodstains out. I’m afraid there are a lot of those. But I got to know him, your husband. A man in pain is so revealing. He is funny, your David. Laughs at odd things and …”

  Rose screamed, and screamed again, and the shrill echoes shattered the silence of the tunnels and brought a chill to David’s back.

  Footsteps pounded through the passageways. A dog barked and snarled, toenails sliding on the stone floor. David inched forward, turning his head so he could see.

  Haas rounded the bend. David saw figures moving behind him.

  “Rose! Rosy, what—”

  Haas straightened suddenly, his expression oddly bland and uncaring. Light glinted on a metal handle that protruded from his back. He crum
pled and fell forward.

  David looked for Santana, but couldn’t find him. Rose cradled Haas in her lap, oblivious to the women who moved swiftly and silently toward her. David started to crawl. He had his head and shoulders out of the wormhole when he heard a bark and a snarl. Dead Meat tore into the tunnel, hurling herself at one of the women—the blonde.

  Mel was right behind the dog, holding an empty leash.

  “Rose? Rose! Jesus Christ.”

  The dark-haired woman went for him.

  “There’s Davie!” Bertie lumbered into view. “Boy, Davie, you sure are trouble, just like the old days.”

  Dead Meat yelped and fell. Blondie aimed a kick at the dog’s head and Bertie grabbed her arm. She moved sideways. Bertie’s eyes widened and he crumpled.

  Mel’s gun went off and the dark-haired woman hit the floor. Blondie picked herself up off Bertie’s chest.

  “Shit,” Mel said. He fired and missed, and she grabbed him in a headlock, knocking his gun to the floor and bringing her knife to his throat. Dead Meat snarled and snapped, biting the woman’s calf.

  “R-Rose,” Mel sounded almost annoyed.

  The woman twisted sideways, away from the dog’s teeth. Mel broke her hold, and slammed a fist into her stomach. She staggered backward, tripped over Dead Meat, and hit the floor. Mel kicked her savagely, the sweet spot on the side of her head. She quit moving.

  Mel leaned against the wall, breathing hard. He shook his head and looked at David. “You weren’t kidding, huh? When you said your neighborhood was tough?”

  Dead Meat whimpered and licked Haas’s ear. She circled three times, settled beside him, and put her head between her paws.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  The tunnels were rife with movement. David opened his eyes, then closed them. Mel was lifting him up.

  “Come on,” Mel said, “over you go. God.” Mel groaned.