LA Requiem ec-8

by Robert Crais

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  The girl screamed, "It's getting away! "Like her little show was over and she'd missed the best part.

  Joe brought the stick down as hard as he could, but the stick was half rotten and broke across Daryl 's forearms with a wet snap.

  Daryl threw a wild windmill of punches, catching Joe in the forehead and the chest, and then the other boy was behind Joe, punching as hard as he could. Joe felt their blows hitting him, but oddly felt no pain. It was as if he were somewhere deep within himself, a small boy alone in a dark wood, watching the action without being apart of it.

  The fat girl had gotten over her disappointment, and was now jumping up and down, pumping her fists like she was rooting for her football team to make the game-winning score. "Kill him! Kill the motherfucker!"

  Joe stood between the two older boys, punching wildly. The cigarette boy hit him hard behind the right ear, and when Joe turned to meet him, Daryl kicked him in the back of the leg, and Joe fell.

  Daryl and the cigarette boy leaned over Joe, throwing a flurry of blows that rained on Joe's face and head and back and arms, but still he felt nothing.

  They were big kids, but his father was bigger.

  They were strong boys, but his father was stronger.

  Joe rolled onto his knees, feeling their punches and kicks even as he lurched to his feet.

  Daryl Raines hit him hard in the face again and again and again. Joe tried to hit the bigger boys, but more of his punches fell short or missed.

  Then someone tripped him, and, again, he fell.

  Daryl Haines kicked him, but his father kicked harder.

  Joe climbed to his feet.

  The girl was still screaming, but when Joe was once more erect, Daryl Haines had a strange look on his face. The cigarette boy was breathing hard, winded from throwing so many punches, arms leaden at his sides. Daryl was breathing hard, too, looking at Joe as if he didn 't believe what he was seeing. His hands were covered in red.

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  The girl screamed, "Beat him, Daryl! Beat him real good!"

  Joe clawed at Daryl, trying to gouge his eyes, but missed and fell, landing on his side.

  Daryl stood over him, blood dripping from his hands. "Stay down, kid."

  "Beat him to death, Daryl! Don't stop!"

  "Stay down."

  Joe pushed himself to his knees. He tried to focus on Daryl, but Daryl was hazy and red, and Joe realized his eyes were filled with blood.

  "Areyoufuckin 'nuts? Stay down."

  Joe lurched to his feet and swung as hard as he could.

  Daryl stepped outside of it, then jumped forward and hit Joe square on the end of the nose. Joe heard the crack and felt it, and knew that Daryl had broken his nose. He 'd heard the sound before.

  Joe fell, and immediately tried to get up again.

  Daryl grabbed him by the shirt and shoved him down. "You little shit! What's wrong with you ? "

  The cigarette kid was holding his side like he had a stitch. "Let's get out of here, man. I don't wanna do this no more."

  Joe said, "Gonna beat you." His lips were split and it was hard to speak.

  "It's over!"

  Joe tried to hit Daryl from the ground, but the punch missed by a good foot.

  "It's over, goddamnit. You 're beat!"

  Joe tried to hit Daryl again, but this time he missed by a yard.

  "Notover. . . untillwin."

  Daryl stepped back then, his face a raw mask of rage. "Okay, you dumb shit. I warned you."

  Daryl reared back, kicked Joe as hard as he could, and Joe felt the world explode between his legs. Then there were stars and blackness.

  Joe heard them leaving, or thought he did. It seemed like hours before he could move, and when he finally worked his way to his knees, the woods were still. His groin ached, and he

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  felt nauseous. He touched his face. His hand came away red. His tee shirt was splattered with drying blood. More blood streaked his arms.

  It was several minutes before he smelled the turpentine again, and then he saw the one-earred cat, staring at him from beneath the rotten branches of a fallen tree.

  Joe Pike said, "Hey, cat."

  The cat vanished.

  "That's okay, girl. You 're okay."

  He thought she was probably scared.

  He wondered why he wasn 't.

  After a while he went home.

  Three days later Daryl Haines scowled at the envelope and said, "Fuck this shit."

  It was five minutes before 8 P.M. at the Shell station. Daryl was sitting on the hard chair he kept out front by the Coke machine, leaning back the way he did, snug in his down jacket, but pissed off about the letter. It was a notice from the goddamned Army to report for his induction physical.

  Daryl Haines, eighteen years old and without the luxury of a college deferment, was 1-A infantry material. He had to take the bus down to the city this Saturday just to have his ass poked and prodded by some faggot Army doctor so they could ship him over to Vietnam.

  Daryl said, "This sucks."

  Maybe he should join the Air Force.

  Daryl's older brother, Todd, was already over there. He had a cushy job working on trucks at an air base near Saigon and said it wasn't so bad. You got to screw around a lot, smoke all the pot you wanted, and fuck good-lookin' gook women for twenty-five cents a throw. His brother made it sound like goddamned Disneyland, but Daryl figured with his rotten luck he 'dprobably have to carry a gun and get shot. "Fuck."

  At eight o 'clock, Daryl shut the lights, turned off the pumps, locked the station, and headed down the street, wishing he could stop in a bar. Eighteen years old being old enough to kill

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  gooks, but not old enough to down a beer when you were thinking about it.

  Daryl was thinking that he could drown his sorrow between Candy Crowley s legs if the fat psycho bitch would ever come across. He was almost there last Sunday, when the nutty bitch got it in her head to burn a cat. You just had to shake your head sometimes, where she came up with stuff like that. But it seemed to get her righteously damp, and Daryl thought he 'dfinally get the old ball between the uprights, as it were, when that weird kid spoiled the deal. Anotherfuckin 'nut. That kid had taken the best beating that Daryl Haines ever dished out, andhejustwouldn 'tquit. Didn 'tcry, either, not even after Daryl scrambled his eggs for him. You 'd think the goddamned cat belonged to the kid, the way he carried on, but Daryl had stolen it from Old Lady Wilbur, his next-door neighbor.

  You just had to shake your head.

  Daryl was still thinking about it when this voice said, "Daryl."

  Daryl said, "Yeah?"

  The kid stepped out from behind this big azalea bush, his face swollen and lumpy with bruises. A big piece of tape covered his nose, and black stitches laced his lip and left eyebrow like railroad tracks.

  Daryl, feeling righteously cranky because he 'd been drafted, said, "You want some more, you little fuck, you picked the right time. I'mgoin 'to Vietnam."

  But that didn 't impress the kid, who suddenly had a Louisville Slugger baseball bat in his hands and hit Daryl on the outside of the left knee as if he was swinging away for the green wall at Fenway Park.

  Daryl Haines screamed as he fell. It felt as if someone had sewn an M80 in his knee and touched the sucker off. Daryl clutched at his knee, still howling as the kid brought the bat down again. Daryl saw it coming and raised his hands, and then a second M80 went off in his right arm. Daryl screamed, "Jesus Christ! Stop it! Stop! Don't hit me again!"

  The kid tossed the bat aside and stared at him. The kid's

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  face was empty, and that scared Daryl even more than all the gooks in Vietnam.

  The kid kicked Daryl in the side of the head, kicked him again, then leaned over and punched Daryl three fast times in the face. Daryl's sky filled with a million little sparkly stars aga
inst a black field, and then Daryl puked.

  "Daryl?"

  "Uhn..."

  "It snot over until I win."

  Daryl spit blood. "You win. Jesus Christ, you win. I give up."

  The kid stepped back.

  Daryl was crying so bad he felt like a baby. The kid had broken his leg and arm. Jesus, it hurt.

  "Daryl"

  "Please, Christ, don't hit me again." Scared the kid was gonna bash him some more.

  "How could you want to hurt something so weak? "

  "Jesus. Oh, Christ."

  "You ever do that, Daryl, I'll find you and kill you. That cat would kill you if it could, but it can't. I'll kill you for it."

  "I swear to Sweet Jesus I won't do that! I swear!"

  The kid picked up his bat and walked away.

  Twelve weeks later, after the casts were removed and the last of the stitches had come out, the Army doctors finally did their examination. Daryl Haines was determined to be 4-Fdue to a permanently disabled left knee. Unfit for military service.

  He did not go to Vietnam.

  He never tried to burn another cat.

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  His eyes opened, and Pike was as alert as if it were the middle of the afternoon, not two in the morning. Sleep would not come again after the dream, so he rose and pulled on briefs and shorts. He thought for a moment that he might read, but he usually exercised after the dreams. The exercise worked better for him.

  He put on the blue Nike running shoes, then buckled on a small fanny pack, not bothering to turn on the lights. He was comfortable in the dark. Years ago, the Marine doctors told him that his excellent night vision was due to high levels of vitamin A and "fast rhodopsin," which meant that the pigment in his retinas which responded to dim light was very sensitive. Cat eyes, they called it.

  He let himself out into the cool night air, and stretched to loosen his hamstrings. Even though he often ran forty miles a week, his muscles were loose from the years of yoga and martial arts, and responded well. He settled the fanny pack on his hips, then jogged out across the complex grounds, through the security door, and into the street. The fanny pack held his keys, and a small black .25 caliber Beretta. You never know.

  Much of his running was done early like this, and he found peace in it. The city was quiet. When he chose, he could run on the crown of the street, or through parks or across a golf course. He enjoyed the natural feel of grass and earth, and knew these feelings were resonances from his youth.

  He ran west on Washington Boulevard toward the ocean, taking it easy for the first quarter mile to let his body warm, then picked up his pace. The air was cool, and a ground fog

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  hazed the streets. The fog caught the light and hid the stars, which he didn't like. He enjoyed reading the constellations, and finding his way by them. There was a time as a young Marine when his life depended on it, and he found comfort in the certainty of celestial mechanics. Two or three times every year, he and his friend Elvis Cole would backpack or hunt in remote terrain, and, during those times, they would test themselves and each other by navigating via the sun and moon and stars. More times, Pike would venture out alone to remote and alien locales. He had learned long ago that a compass and GPS could fail. You had to look to yourself. You could only depend upon yourself.

  Images came. Flashing snapshot pictures of his childhood, of women he had known, men he had seen die, and men he had killed. Of his friend and partner Elvis Cole, of the people he employed in his various businesses. Sometimes he would ponder these images, but other times he would fold them smaller and smaller until they vanished.

  He followed Washington Boulevard as it curved north through Venice, then left Main for Ocean Avenue, where he could hear the waves crashing on the beach below the bluff.

  Pike increased his kick past the Santa Monica Pier, past the shopping carts and homeless encampments, extending his stride as he worked his way to a six-minute-mile pace. He sprinted past the Ivy-by-the-Shore and the hotels, feeling himself peak, holding that peak, then throttled back to an easy jog before walking to the rail at the edge of the bluff, where he stopped to look at the sea.

  He watched ships, stars on a black horizon. A breeze caressed his back, inland air drawn to the warmth of the sea. Above him, dried palm fronds rustled. A lone car slid past, lost in the night.

  Here on the bluff overlooking the water, there were green lawns and bike paths and towering palms. A bush to his right rustled, and he knew it was a girl before he saw her.

  "Are you Matt?"

  She was tentative, but not afraid. Early twenties or late teens, with short hair bleached white, and wide brown eyes

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  that looked at him expectantly. A faded green backpack hung from her shoulder.

  "You're Matt?"

  "No."

  She seemed disappointed, but was completely relaxed, as if the reality that she should be frightened of a strange man in so deserted a place had never occurred to her. "I guess you wouldn't be. I'm Trudy."

  "Joe."

  He turned back to the lights on the horizon.

  "Pleased to meet you, Joe. I'm running away, too."

  He considered her briefly again, wondering why she had chosen those words, then returned to the ships.

  Trudy leaned against the rail, trying to see over the edge of the bluff to Palisades Beach Road. She gave no indication of leaving. Pike thought that he might start running again.

  She said, "Are you real?"

  "No."

  "No kidding, now. I want to know."

  He held out his hand.

  Trudy touched him with a finger, then gripped his wrist, as if she didn't trust her first touch.

  "Well, you might've been a vision or something. I have them, you know. Sometimes I imagine things."

  When Pike didn't respond, she said, "I've changed my mind. I don't think you're running away. I think you're running toward."

  "Is that a vision? Or something you imagined?"

  She stared up at him as if she had to consider which it might be, then shook her head. "An observation."

  "Look."

  Three coyotes had appeared at the edge of the light, having worked their way up the bluff from the Palisades. Two of them sniffed at one of the garbage cans that dotted the park, the third trotted across Ocean Avenue and disappeared in an alley. They looked like thin gray dogs. Scavengers.

  Trudy said, "It's so amazing that wild things can live here in the city, isn't it?"

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  "Wild things are everywhere."

  Trudy grinned at him again. "Well. That's certainly deep."

  The two coyotes suddenly came alert, looking north toward the Palisades an instant before Pike heard the coyote pack's song. Their singing rode down on the breeze coming out of the hills, and Pike guessed their number at between eight and twelve. The two coyotes by the garbage cans looked at each other, then lifted their snouts to test the air. You re safe enough, Pike thought. The others were at least three miles away, well up in the canyons of the Palisades.

  The girl said, "That's such a terrible sound."

  "It means they have food."

  She hitched her backpack. "They eat people's pets. They'll bait a dog away from its home, then surround it and rip it to pieces."

  Pike knew that to be true, but still. "They have to live."

  The singing grew to a higher pitch. The two coyotes by the garbage can stood frozen.

  The girl looked away from the sound. "They have something now. They're killing it right now."

  The girl's eyes were vacant. Pike thought she didn't seem to be within herself, and wondered if she was with the pack.

  "They'll pull it to pieces, and sometimes, if too much blood gets on one of their own, the others will mistake it for the prey and kill their own kind."

  Pike nodded. People could be like that, too.

  The singing abruptly stop
ped, and the girl came back to herself. "You don't say very much, do you?"

  "You were saying enough for both of us."

  The girl laughed. "Yeah, I guess I was. Hope I didn't weird you out, Joe. I do that to people sometimes."