The photographer moved to a different angle, pressed his shutter. The flash went off again. The chain glittered in the light. Softly, Randi brushed a fingertip across the metal. She felt no heat. Only the cold, pale touch of silver.
The night was full of sounds and smells.
Willie had run wildly, blindly, a gray shadow streaking down black rain-slick streets, pushing himself harder and faster than he had ever pushed before, paying no attention to where he went, anywhere, nowhere, everywhere, just so it was far away from his apartment and the thing that waited there with death shining bright in its hand. He darted along grimy alleys, under loading docks, bounded over low chain-link fences. There was a cinder-block wall somewhere that almost stopped him, three leaps and he failed to clear it, but on the fourth try he got his front paws over the top, and his back legs kicked and scrabbled and pushed him over. He fell onto damp grass, rolled in the dirt, and then he was up and running again. The streets were almost empty of traffic, but as he streaked across one wide boulevard, a pickup truck appeared out of nowhere, speeding, and caught him in its lights. The sudden glare startled him; he froze for a long instant in the center of the street, and saw shock and terror on the driver’s face. A horn blared as the pickup began to brake, went into a skid, and fishtailed across the divider.
By then Willie was gone.
He was moving through a residential section now, down quiet streets lined by neat two-story houses. Parked cars filled the narrow driveways, realtors’ signs flapped in the wind, but the only lights were the streetlamps … and sometimes, when the clouds parted for a second, the pale circle of the moon. He caught the scent of dogs from some of the backyards, and from time to time he heard a wild, frenzied barking, and knew that they had smelled him too. Sometimes the barking woke owners and neighbors, and then lights would come on in the silent houses, and doors would open in the backyards, but by then Willie would be blocks away, still running.
Finally, when his legs were aching and his heart was thundering and his tongue lolled redly from his mouth, Willie crossed the railroad tracks, climbed a steep embankment, and came hard up against a ten-foot chain-link fence with barbed wire strung along the top. Beyond the fence was a wide, empty yard and a low brick building, windowless and vast, dark beneath the light of the moon. The smell of old blood was faint but unmistakable, and abruptly Willie knew where he was.
The old slaughterhouse. The pack, they’d called it, bankrupt and abandoned now for almost two years. He’d run a long way. At last he let himself stop and catch his breath. He was panting, and as he dropped to the ground by the fence, he began to shiver, cold despite his ragged coat of fur.
He was still wearing jockey shorts, Willie noticed after he’d rested a moment. He would have laughed, if he’d had the throat for it. He thought of the man in the pickup and wondered what he’d thought when Willie appeared in his headlights, a gaunt gray specter in a pair of white briefs, with glowing eyes as red as the pits of hell.
Willie twisted himself around and caught the elastic in his jaws. He tore at them, growling low in his throat, and after a brief struggle managed to rip them away. He slung them aside and lowered himself to the damp ground, his legs resting on his paws, his mouth half-open, his eyes wary, watchful. He let himself rest. He could hear distant traffic, a dog barking wildly a half-mile away, could smell rust and mold, the stench of diesel fumes, the cold scent of metal. Under it all was the slaughterhouse smell, faded but not gone, lingering, whispering to him of blood and death. It woke things inside him that were better left sleeping, and Willie could feel the hunger churning in his gut.
He could not ignore it, not wholly, but tonight he had other concerns, fears that were more important than his hunger. Dawn was only a few hours away, and he had nowhere to go. He could not go home, not until he knew it was safe again, until he had taken steps to protect himself. Without keys and clothes and money, the agency was closed to him too. He had to go somewhere, trust someone.
He thought of Blackstone, thought of Jonathan Harmon sitting by his fire, of Steven’s dead blue eyes and scarred hands, of the old tower jutting up like a rotten black stake. Jonathan might be able to protect him, Jonathan with his strong walls and his spiked fence and all his talk of blood and iron.
But when he saw Jonathan in his mind’s eye, the long white hair, the gold wolf’s head cane, the veined arthritic hands twisting and grasping, then the growl rose unbidden in Willie’s throat, and he knew Blackstone was not the answer.
Joanie was dead, and he did not know the others well enough, hardly knew all their names, didn’t want to know them better.
So, in the end, like it or not, there was only Randi.
Willie got to his feet, weary now, unsteady. The wind shifted, sweeping across the yards and the runs, whispering to him of blood until his nostrils quivered. Willie threw back his head and howled, a long shuddering lonely call that rose and fell and went out through the cold night air until the dogs began to bark for blocks around. Then, once again, he began to run.
Rogoff gave her a lift home. Dawn was just starting to break when he pulled his old black Ford up to the front of her six-flat. As she opened the door, he shifted into neutral and looked over at her. “I’m not going to insist right now,” he said, “but it might be that I need to know the name of your client. Sleep on it. Maybe you’ll decide to tell me.”
“Maybe I can’t,” Randi said. “Attorney-client privilege, remember?”
Rogoff gave her a tired smile. “When you sent me to the courthouse, I had a look at your file too. You never went to law school.”
“No?” She smiled back. “Well, I meant to. Doesn’t that count for something?” She shrugged. “I’ll sleep on it, we can talk tomorrow.” She got out, closed the door, moved away from the car. Rogoff shifted into drive, but Randi turned back before he could pull away. “Hey, Rogoff, you have a first name?”
“Mike,” he said.
“See you tomorrow, Mike.”
He nodded and pulled away just as the streetlamps began to go out. Randi walked up the stoop, fumbling for her key.
“Randi!”
She stopped, looked around. “Who’s there?”
“Willie.” The voice was louder this time. “Down here by the garbage cans.”
Randi leaned over the stoop and saw him. He was crouched down low, surrounded by trash bins, shivering in the morning chill. “You’re naked,” she said.
“Somebody tried to kill me last night. I made it out. My clothes didn’t. I’ve been here an hour, not that I’m complaining mind you, but I think I have pneumonia and my balls are frozen solid. I’ll never be able to have children now. Where the fuck have you been?”
“There was another murder. Same m.o.”
Willie shook so violently that the garbage cans rattled together. “Jesus,” he said, his voice gone weak. “Who?”
“Her name was Zoe Anders.”
Willie flinched. “Fuck fuck fuck,” he said. He looked back up at Randi. She could see the fear in his eyes, but he asked anyway. “What about Amy?”
“Her sister?” Randi said. He nodded. “In shock, but fine. She had a nightmare.” She paused a moment. “So you knew Zoe too. Like Sorenson?”
“No. Not like Joanie.” He looked at her wearily. “Can we go in?”
She nodded and opened the door. Willie looked so grateful she thought he was about to lick her hand.
The underwear was her ex-husband’s, and it was too big. The pink bathrobe was Randi’s, and it was too small. But the coffee was just right, and it was warm in here, and Willie felt bone-tired and nervous but glad to be alive, especially when Randi put the plate down in front of him. She’d scrambled the eggs up with cheddar cheese and onion and done up a rasher of bacon on the side, and it smelled like nirvana. He fell to eagerly.
“I think I’ve figured out something,” she said. She sat down across from him.
“Good,” he said. “The eggs, I mean. That is, whatever you figured out, tha
t’s good too, but Jesus, I needed these eggs. You wouldn’t believe how hungry you get—” He stopped suddenly, stared down at the scrambled eggs, and reflected on what an idiot he was, but Randi hadn’t noticed. Willie reached for a slice of bacon, bit off the end. “Crisp,” he said. “Good.”
“I’m going to tell you,” Randi said, as if he hadn’t spoken at all. “I’ve got to tell somebody, and you’ve known me long enough so I don’t think you’ll have me committed. You may laugh.” She scowled at him. “If you laugh, you’re back out in the street, minus the boxer shorts and the bathrobe.”
“I won’t laugh,” Willie said. He didn’t think he’d have much difficulty not laughing. He felt rather apprehensive. He stopped eating.
Randi took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. She had very lovely eyes, Willie thought. “I think my father was killed by a werewolf,” she said seriously, without blinking.
“Oh, Jesus,” Willie said. He didn’t laugh. A very large invisible anaconda wrapped itself around his chest and began to squeeze. “I,” he said, “I, I, I.” Nothing was coming in or out. He pushed back from the table, knocking over the chair, and ran for the bathroom. He locked himself in and turned on the shower full blast, twisting the hot tap all the way around. The bathroom began to fill up with steam. It wasn’t nearly as good as a blast from his inhaler, but it did beat suffocating. By the time the steam was really going good, Willie was on his knees, gasping like a man trying to suck an elephant through a straw. Finally he began to breathe again.
He stayed on his knees for a long time, until the spray from the shower had soaked through his robe and his underwear and his face was flushed and red. Then he crawled across the tiled floor, turned off the shower, and got unsteadily to his feet. The mirror above the sink was all fogged up. Willie wiped it off with a towel and peered in at himself. He looked like shit. Wet shit. Hot wet shit. He felt worse. He tried to dry himself off, but the steam and the shower spray had gone everywhere and the towels were as damp as he was. He heard Randi moving around outside, opening and closing drawers. He wanted to go out and face her, but not like this. A man has to have some pride. For a moment he just wanted to be home in bed with his Primatene on the end table, until he remembered that his bedroom had been occupied the last time he’d been there.
“Are you ever coming out?” Randi asked.
“Yeah,” Willie said, but it was so weak that he doubted she heard him. He straightened and adjusted the frilly pink robe. Underneath the undershirt looked as though he’d been competing in a wet T-shirt contest. He sighed, unlocked the door, and exited. The cold air gave him goose pimples.
Randi was seated at the table again. Willie went back to his place. “Sorry,” he said. “Asthma attack.”
“I noticed,” Randi replied. “Stress related, aren’t they?”
“Sometimes.”
“Finish your eggs,” she urged. “They’re getting cold.”
“Yeah,” Willie said, figuring he might as well, since it would give him something to do while he figured out what to tell her. He picked up his fork.
It was like the time he’d grabbed a dirty pot that had been sitting on top of his hotplate since the night before and realized too late that he’d never turned the hotplate off. Willie shrieked and the fork clattered to the table and bounced, once, twice, three times. It landed in front of Randi. He sucked on his fingers. They were already starting to turn red. Randi looked at him very calmly and picked up the fork. She held it, stroked it with her thumb, touched its prongs thoughtfully to her lip. “I brought out the good silver while you were in the bathroom,” she said. “Solid sterling. It’s been in the family for generations.”
His fingers hurt like hell. “Oh, Jesus. You got any butter? Oleo, lard, I don’t care, anything will …” He stopped when her hand went under the table and came out again holding a gun. From where Willie sat, it looked like a very big gun.
“Pay attention, Willie. Your fingers are the least of your worries. I realize you’re in pain, so I’ll give you a minute or two to collect your thoughts and try to tell me why I shouldn’t blow off your fucking head right here and now.” She cocked the hammer with her thumb.
Willie just stared at her. He looked pathetic, like a half-drowned puppy. For one terrible moment Randi thought he was going to have another asthma attack. She felt curiously calm, not angry or afraid or even nervous, but she didn’t think she had it in her to shoot a man in the back as he ran for the bathroom, even if he was a werewolf.
Thankfully, Willie spared her that decision. “You don’t want to shoot me,” he said, with remarkable aplomb under the circumstances. “It’s bad manners to shoot your friends. You’ll make a hole in the bathrobe.”
“I never liked that bathrobe anyway. I hate pink.”
“If you’re really so hot to kill me, you’d stand a better chance with the fork,” Willie said.
“So you admit that you’re a werewolf?”
“A lycanthrope,” Willie corrected. He sucked at his burnt fingers again and looked at her sideways. “So sue me. It’s a medical condition. I got allergies, I got asthma, I got a bad back, and I got lycanthropy, is it my fault? I didn’t kill your father. I never killed anyone. I ate half a pit bull once, but can you blame me?” His voice turned querulous. “If you want to shoot me, go ahead and try. Since when do you carry a gun anyway? I thought all that shit about private eyes stuffing heat was strictly television.”
“The phrase is packing heat, and it is. I only bring mine out for special occasions. My father was carrying it when he died.”
“Didn’t do him much good, did it?” Willie said softly.
Randi considered that for a moment. “What would happen if I pulled the trigger?” The gun was getting heavy, but her hand was steady.
“I’d try to change. I don’t think I’d make it, but I’d have to try. A couple bullets in the head at this range, while I’m still human, yeah, that’d probably do the job. But you don’t want to miss and you really don’t want to wound me. Once I’m changed, it’s a whole different ball game.”
“My father emptied his gun on the night he was killed,” Randi said thoughtfully.
Willie studied his hand and winced. “Oh fuck,” he said. “I’m getting a blister.”
Randi put the gun on the table and went to the kitchen to get him a stick of butter. He accepted it from her gratefully. She glanced toward the window as he treated his burns. “The sun’s up,” she said, “I thought werewolves only changed at night, during the full moon?”
“Lycanthropes,” Willie said. He flexed his fingers, sighed. “That full-moon shit was all invented by some screenwriter for Universal; go look at your literature, we change at will, day, night, full moon, new moon, makes no difference. Sometimes I feel more like changing during the full moon, some kind of hormonal thing, but more like getting horny than going on the rag, if you know what I mean.” He grabbed his coffee. It was cold by now, but that didn’t stop Willie from emptying the cup. “I shouldn’t be telling you all this, fuck, Randi, I like you, you’re a friend, I care about you, you should only forget this whole morning, believe me, it’s healthier.”
“Why?” she said bluntly. She wasn’t about to forget anything. “What’s going to happen to me if I don’t? Are you going to rip my throat out? Should I forget Joan Sorenson and Zoe Anders too? How about Roy Helander and all those missing kids? Am I supposed to forget what happened to my father?” She stopped for a moment, lowered her voice. “You came to me for help, Willie, and pardon, but you sure as hell look as though you still need it.”
Willie looked at her across the table with a morose hangdog expression on his long face. “I don’t know whether I want to kiss you or slap you,” he finally admitted. “Shit, you’re right, you know too much already.” He stood up. “I got to get into my own clothes, this wet underwear is giving me pneumonia. Call a cab, we’ll go check out my place, talk. You got a coat?”
“Take the Burberry,” Randi said. “It’s
in the closet.” The coat was even bigger on him than it had been on Randi, but it beat the pink bathrobe. He looked almost human as he emerged from the closet, fussing with the belt. Randi was rummaging in the silver drawer. She found a large carving knife, the one her grandfather used to use on Thanksgiving, and slid it through the belt of her jeans. Willie looked at it nervously. “Good idea,” he finally said, “but take the gun too.”
The cab driver was the quiet type. The drive across town passed in awkward silence. Randi paid him while Willie climbed out to check the doors. It was a blustery overcast day, and the river looked gray and choppy as it slapped against the pier.
Willie kicked his front door in a fit of pique, and vanished down the alley. Randi waited by the pier and watched the cab drive off. A few minutes later Willie was back, looking disgusted. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “The back door hasn’t been opened in years, you’d need a hammer and chisel just to knock through the rust. The loading docks are bolted down and chained with the mother of all padlocks on the chains. And the front door … there’s a spare set of keys in my car, but even if we got those the police bar can only be lifted from inside. So how the hell did it get in, I ask you?”
Randi looked at the brewery’s weathered brick walls appraisingly. They looked pretty solid to her, and the second-floor windows were a good twenty feet off street level. She walked around the side to take a look down the alley. “There’s a window broken,” she said.
“That was me getting out,” Willie said, “not my nocturnal caller getting in.”
Randi had already figured out that much from the broken glass all over the cobblestones. “Right now I’m more concerned about how we’re going to get in.” She pointed. “If we move that dumpster a few feet to the left and climb on top, and you climb on my shoulders, I think you might be able to hoist yourself in.”
Willie considered that. “What if it’s still in there?”
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