by H. T. Night
“What happened to it?”
“Made a right onto Brea Blvd and was gone.”
“Did it at least use its turn signal?”
The light turned green. He gunned the truck as if he were in a drag race. He looked over at me and smiled. “You don’t seem to believe any of this.”
“No,” I said. “Do you?”
“Hard to say. A hundred witnesses is a lot of witnesses.”
“Mass hallucination?” I suggested.
“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe they really saw something.”
Sherbet pulled behind a long line of cars waiting for the freeway on-ramp. I had the distinct—and exciting—feeling that Sherbet would have preferred to go over the cars.
“You hungry?” he asked suddenly.
“No.”
“You sure? You look like you could eat.”
“I’m sure.”
He pulled out of the line of cars, hung a suicidal turn back onto Imperial Blvd, and headed into a nearby Wendy’s drive-thru.
“That was frightening,” I said.
“Then why are you smiling?” he asked.
“I guess I like frightening,” I said.
He ordered his food and pulled up in line. He said, “The wife tonight made a German dish called machanka. She thinks I like it. I haven’t had the heart to tell her that I quit liking it fifteen years ago.”
“You must love her.”
“With all my heart,” he said.
“Lucky her,” I said.
“Lucky me.”
He got his food. Two bacon burgers, an order of fries, and a king-sized Coke.
“That’ll kill you,” I said.
“True,” he said. “But on the flip side: no more machanka.”
Shoving fries into his mouth, he recklessly made a left into traffic, into a break of traffic that was virtually non-existant. He looked at me and grinned around the fries.
I grinned, too.
Soon, we were heading south on the 57 freeway.
47.
It was after 10:00 p.m. when we parked on a street that ran perpendicular with Horton’s massive Gothic revival.
A thin sheet of rain obscured the street. We sat in the cab of his truck with the engine and wipers off. Moving wipers attracted attention, as did an idling car. So we ate in the cold and wet. The house before us was massive and brooding. Its towering gables spiked the night sky. Hawthorne would have been pleased. The truck’s tinted glass made the world darker than it really was. I liked darker.
After a moment, Sherbet shook his head. “Who could live in something like that?” Sherbet shuddered. “Like something in a fucking Dracula movie.”
“I like it,” I said.
“Why does that not surprise me?”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Nothing. Just being a wise guy.”
Sherbet was still sipping on his king-sized Coke. Occasionally some of the sips turned into loud slurps. The remnants of his greasy meal were wadded into a greasy ball and shoved into the greasy bag. The strong smell of burgers and fries suffused the interior of the truck cab. My hungry stomach was doing somersaults.
Easy, girl.
“That your stomach growling?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Haven’t noticed.”
He shook his head and slurped his Coke. The street was mostly empty. Occasionally a big car would splash past, and since tomorrow was trash day, most of the residents already had their trash cans out by the curb. Rick Horton’s trash cans were nowhere to be found.
“Maybe he forgot tomorrow was trash day,” said Sherbet.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe he’s one of those procrastinators who runs out just as the trash truck pulls up, dragging their trashcans behind them, beseeching the truck drivers to wait.”
“Beseeching?” I said.
“It’s a word.”
“Just not a word you often hear from a cop with a dollop of ketchup on his chin.”
He hastily swiped at the dollop, but missed some of it. He licked his finger. “You have good eyes,” he said.
“And you have a bad aim.” I used one of the napkins to clean his chin.
The rain picked up a little. The drops were now big enough to splatter. Overhead, the weeping willows wept, bent and shuddering under the weight of the rain.
“I could use some coffee,” the detective said. “No telling when this guy is coming out with his trash.”
So we got some coffee at a nearby Burger King. Or, rather, Sherbet did. He bought me a bottled water.
“You’re a cheap date,” he commented as he mercifully decided—at the last possible second—that an incoming bus was too close to dash in front of.
“And you’re the reason fast food establishments stay in business.”
“On second thought,” he said. “I would never date someone as grouchy as you.”
“It’s been a bad week.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
“No.”
He didn’t push it. We pulled back up in front of Horton’s Gothic revival. Nothing much changed. Horton still hadn’t taken out his trash, which was, at least tonight, the object of our interest.
So we waited some more. Investigators are trained to wait. We’re supposed to be good at it. Waiting sucks. The interior of the truck was filled with the soothing sound of rain ticking on glass and sheet metal. I sipped some water. Sherbet was holding his coffee with both hands. Steam rose into his face. A light film of sweat collected on his upper lip. The coffee smelled heavenly. Coffee was not on my list. Rivulets of rain cascaded down the windshield. The shining street lamps, as seen through the splattered windshield, were living prisms of light. I watched the hypnotic light show.
“What’s it like working for the feds?” Sherbet suddenly asked.
“Safe, secure. Often boring, punctuated with the occasional thrill. My days were endlessly fascinating. I loved my job.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Hard to say. I miss the camaraderie of my partners. My job now is a lonely one. When I get the chance to work with someone else I often take it.”
“Even with an old dog like me?”
I looked at him. The truck was mostly silent. I heard him breathing calmly through his nose. Could smell his aftershave. He smelled like a guy should smell. Moving shadows from the rain dribbling down the windshield reached his face. The man seemed to like me, but he was suspicious of me. Or perhaps just curious. As a homicide investigator, he had his own highly-attuned intuition, which worried me because I was obviously causing it to jangle off the hook. But I had committed no crime, other than draining a corpse of blood, which I didn’t think was a crime, although I’d never perused the penal code for such an article.
“Sure,” I said. “Even an old dog like you.”
“How reassuring.”
Through Horton’s wrought iron fence I saw a figure struggling with something bulky. The fence swung open and Horton appeared in a yellow slicker, struggling to wheel a single green trash can. The can appeared awkward to maneuver. Or perhaps Horton was just clumsy. As he deposited the can near the curb, his foot slipped out from under him, sending him straight to his back. I voted for clumsy.
Sherbet shook his head. “Smooth,” he said.
48.
“Let’s wait a few minutes,” said Sherbet after Horton had dashed inside. Horton ran like a girl.
“Doesn’t look like much of a killer,” I said.
“No,” said Sherbet. “They never do.”
The rain came down harder, pummeling the truck, scourging what appeared to be a custom paint job. Sherbet seemed to wince with each drop.
“Aren’t you a little too old to be into cars?” I asked.
“You can never be too old.”
“I think you’re too old.”
“Yeah, well how old are you?”
“I’d rather not say. Not to mention you’ve looked at my police record and already know.”<
br />
“Thirty-seven, if I recall,” he said. “A very young thirty-seven. Hell, you don’t even have a wrinkle.”
“I’m sure it will catch up to me someday,” I said, and then thought: or not. But I played along. “And before I know it, I’ll look into the mirror one day and find a road atlas staring back at me.”
He snorted. “Welcome to my world.”
We waited some more. The rain continued to pound. Some of the water collected and sluiced along the windshield in shimmering silver streaks. Sherbet and I were warm and secure in our own little microcosm of leather, plastic, wood, and empty Wendy’s bags. Here in this mini-world, I was the vampire queen, and Sherbet was my noble knight. Or perhaps my blood slave, from whom I fed.
“Your name always reminds me of ice cream,” I said. “I like your name.”
“I hate it.”
“Why?”
“Reminds me of ice cream.”
A light in Horton’s upstairs window turned off. The house was dark and silent. So was the street.
“You stay here while I procure the target’s trash,” Sherbet said. “We’re going to have to adhere to some protocol if we hope to get a search warrant out of this.”
“Lot of fancy words to basically say you’ll be the one getting wet.”
“Oh, shut up,” he said.
I grinned. “Procure away, kind sir.”
“Okay,” he said, pulling on his hood. “Here goes.”
He threw open his door and dashed off through the rain. His nylon jacket was drenched within seconds. He moved surprisingly well for an older guy. He reached Horton’s trash can, pulled open the lid, and removed two very full plastic bags. I was suddenly very much not looking forward to digging through those. He shut the lid, grabbed a bag in each hand, and hustled back to the truck. He deposited both in the bed of his truck.
“You’re dripping on the leather,” I said when he slid into the driver’s seat.
“I know,” he said, starting the truck. “It saddens the heart.”
49.
We drove until we found an empty parking garage adjacent to an ophthalmologist college. The lights inside the garage were on full force and a white security pick-up truck was parked just inside the entrance.
We pulled up beside the truck. The guard was out cold, wrapped in his jacket, hugging himself for warmth, the windows cracked for air. Sherbet rolled down his window. The sound of thumping rain was louder and more intense with the window down. The guard still hadn’t moved.
“Hey,” said Sherbet.
The man bolted upright, accidentally slamming his hand against the steering wheel. The horn went off and he jumped again, now hitting his head on the cab’s ceiling.
Sherbet turned to me. “Night of Ten Thousand Fools.”
“An Arabian farce.”
The detective leaned out the window, producing his badge from his jacket pocket. “Detective Sherbet, Fullerton PD. We need to, um, commandeer your garage for a few minutes.”
“Of course, detective.” The guard’s voice was slightly high-pitched. He was fortyish and much too small to be taken seriously as a guard. His neck was also freakishly long. “It’s the rain, you know. Knocks me out every time. My bosses found out I was sleeping again, they’d fire me.” He looked sheepish.
“Don’t worry about it, pal,” said Sherbet. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”
He brightened, his job secure. “Is there maybe something I can do for you? You know, maybe help you out?”
“Sure,” said Sherbet. “Guard this entrance with your life. No one comes in.”
“You got it, detective!”
Sherbet rolled up his window and we eased into the parking structure and out of the rain.
“Commandeer the garage?” I said.
“Sounds important.”
I looked back. The guard had positioned his truck before the garage’s entrance. “Good of you to give him something to do,” I said. “But what happens if someone wants to come in?”
“Then they’ll have to deal with Flamingo Neck.”
I snorted. “Flamingo Neck? Thought he looked more like a stork.”
“Whatever.” Sherbet pulled into a slot. “You ready to dig in?”
“As ready as ever.”
The covered garage was mostly empty, save for a few desolate vehicles. These vehicles had the look of semi-permanence. Sherbet handed me a pair of latex gloves.
The bags were sodden. One of them stank of rotten dairy. I gave that one to the detective.
“Thanks,” he said.
“I’m a lady,” I said. “Ladies don’t dig through smelly trash.”
“They do when they’re on my shift.”
“Yeah, well, luckily I don’t work for you.”
“Luckily.”
With legs crossed, I hunkered down on a parking rebar. I untied the my bag and was immediately greeted with what must have been last night’s chicken teriyaki. My stomach growled noisily. My stomach seemed to have missed the memo about my new diet. My new blood diet.
No chicken teriyaki for you, my friend. Ever.
I removed the big stuff first. An empty gallon of milk that, because it was sealed, had bloated to half again its normal size. Boxes of cereal, an empty jar of peanut butter, many cardboard cases of beer. Someone liked beer. A smattering of plastic Coca-Cola bottles. I sorted through it all, leaving a careful pile to my left.
At the bottom nook was a batch of papers which proved to be torn mail, the majority of which were credit card applications. Smart man. Debt, bad.
“Nothing over here,” I said.
I looked over at the detective who was squatting down on one knee. His hands were smeared with gelatinous muck. He looked a little green, and for a homicide detective, that’s saying a lot.
“More of the same,” he said. “Nothing.”
Beyond, the security guard was pacing in the rain before his truck. Occasionally he stole glances at us.
“Same time next week?” Sherbet asked.
“Yes,” I said. “More fun.”
“And Mrs. Moon?” he said, looking down at his rancid ichor-covered latex gloves. “Next time you get the smelly bag.”
50.
Sherbet dropped me off at the hotel and suggested that I take a shower because I smelled like trash. I told him thanks. At the hotel lobby, the doorman greeted me with a small bow. I could get used to that. Then he crinkled his nose. Maybe I did need to take a shower.
Conscious of my stench, I took the elevator to the ninth floor and inserted my keycard into the lock and pushed the door open and my warning bells went off instantly.
Someone was inside.
Movement down the hall. I turned my body, narrowing it as a target, just as an arrow bolt struck me in the shoulder, slamming me hard into the open door, which in turn slammed shut. I ducked and peered through the darkness and there, standing near my open balcony, was a man. A good-looking man. Tall and slender. Silhouetted in shadows. But I could see into shadows. His spiky blond hair looked like a frayed tennis ball. He was staring at me down the length of a cocked crossbow.
I knew him. It was the UPS man.
He didn’t say anything, didn’t move. Simply stood there with his crossbow trained, sweat gleaming on his forehead. His hands were unwavering. A flask of clear liquid was at his hip. There was a cross around his neck and a strand of garlic. He adjusted his sights imperceptibly, and I realized he was searching for a clear shot at my heart. I was determined not to give him that clear shot. I looked at him from over my shoulder.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“You don’t need to know.”
“Then why are you doing this?” My breath came in short gasps. I needed to do something about the shaft in my shoulder, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the man. The strand of garlic was bullcrap. Hell, I cooked with garlic all the time. But the water on his hip—holy water, no doubt—was troubling. I hadn’t dared experiment with holy water.
“I
t’s nothing personal,” he said.
“The bolt in my shoulder makes it personal.”
“It was meant for your heart.”
Behind me I heard voices. Someone was getting off the elevator. The voices were mixed with drunken laughter.
Although I hadn’t taken my eyes off the hunter, I had unwittingly shifted my weight to the sound of the voices. Apparently I had exposed my heart. He saw the opening he was looking for, and fired.
I heard the twang and snap of the bolt leaping from the crossbow. I saw it coming, too. Clearly. Rotating slightly in the air. My world slowed down. Much as it had when I leaped off the balcony.
As it rotated, its metal tip gleaming off of light unseen, my hand was coming up. And just before it buried itself into my heart, I caught the damn thing in the air, snagging it just inches from my chest.
The hunter gaped at me in disbelief, then flung himself backward through the open French doors and vaulted the railing. I pushed away from the doorway, stumbled through the suite and out onto the balcony. It was still raining. I peered down over the ledge and saw a man rappelling down the facade of the building. The rope was attached to the roof above. He dropped down into some foundation brush and unhooked himself. He looked up at me briefly and then dashed off. I watched him disappear around the corner of the hotel.
Back in my suite, out of the rain, I gripped the fletched end of the arrow shaft and winced. Okay, this is going to hurt. I inhaled deeply and pulled slowly. The pain was unbearable. I gasped and stumbled into the bathroom. The mirror revealed empty clothing, animated clothing, a miracle of special effects. An arrow protruded from the blouse’s shoulder area. A thick wash of blood was spreading down from the shoulder. The sight of the bloodied disembodied clothing was surreal.
I closed my eyes, continued pulling. White flashes appeared behind my eyelids. I pulled harder, screaming now. I looked down once and saw that the metal tip was almost out. I also saw that it was bringing with it a lot of meat from my arm.
Tears streamed from my eyes and I heard myself whimpering and still I continued to pull, and finally the bolt came free, followed immediately by a great eruption of blood.