Shotgun Alley

by Andrew Klavan

  He straightened quickly, tightened, every muscle suddenly ready.

  In the same instant, a clap of thunder shook the place. Lightning exploded blindingly white at the window. Bishop’s eyes went to it. Blackness followed fast, and for an instant he saw the reflection in the glass again, the face half stained with night.

  Only it wasn’t his reflection this time.

  It was Cobra’s. It was Cobra, standing right in back of him, his face half blown away.

  With the other half, he was grinning like a madman.

  Fifty

  Bishop turned and Cobra struck.

  The outlaw had the bayonet in his hand. He brought it up from down low to drive it into Bishop’s guts. Bishop, still coming around to face the killer, pulled his belly out of the way. The blade slashed past him, just past him, catching a hunk of his jacket, carving a deep gash in the leather.

  Bishop was nearly on tiptoe, off balance. Still, he managed to drive his elbow into Cobra’s mutilated cheek. The blow didn’t have much force behind it, but the outlaw’s wounds were still raw. Cobra let out a quick shriek. He staggered back, clutching the place where his left eye had been.

  But Bishop lost his footing. He stumbled. His legs tangled over one of the boxes on the floor. He fell, crashing down on top of the box, rolling off it, smacking shoulder first into the wooden boards.

  A manic rattle of thunder wiped away every other sound. Bishop—his movements hemmed in by the stacks of boxes, his heart all fear and rage, all panic and a vicious fury—twisted onto his back as fast as he could, trying desperately to see the next attack.

  He saw—he got one good look.

  He saw Honey. She was pressed against the wall. She had one hand up as if for protection. The other was still holding the flashlight, letting it droop, forgotten, in her fingers. Bishop could see her elegant, chiseled, ivory features shiny with sweat. Her lips were parted, her breath came quick, her eyes were blurry with excitement. All her attention was inward, alert to her own sensations, the thrill of it all.

  Cobra was in front of her. He had just recovered from the blow to his face, was just steadying himself to locate Bishop on the floor. The light from the flash came up from under him and cast him in a weird play of clarity and shadow. For that one moment, in that dancing glare, Bishop saw his face, what was left of his face. The right side was as it had been, all intact. The remains of his thin lips were twisted upward there, and the angular crags rose from the sharp point of his smile to the sharp point of his widow’s peak. His hair was in disarray and spilled down over his brow, and through it stared one piercing emerald eye.

  The other side of his face was raw flesh, ripped asunder, gouged out and only half-repaired by whatever renegade sawbones had kept him alive. Black stitches wove through the red underskin, and something that had once been his other eye was now a red-black hole. His grin, his whole expression, his outward self, appeared to fade here into gory nothingness—and yet even that nothingness crawled with living hatred as he brought the bayonet to bear.

  The rattling thunder rose and crashed. Cobra rushed at the fallen Bishop. Honey let out a sweet, sharp cry. The Maglite slipped from her fingers, hit the floor, went out. For a single instant, Bishop saw Cobra driving the bayonet down toward him. Then nothing, there was nothing, no light at all, pitch darkness.

  Blind, frantic, Bishop scuttled back wildly. His head struck the wall behind him. His hand went out and found a stack of boxes. With a fierce heave, he toppled the stack over, sent the boxes flying in the direction he’d seen Cobra last. He heard them hit the oncoming body. He heard Cobra grunt. By then he was already twisting his body away, pulling his legs up, fighting to get his knees under him, pushing off the floor with his hands to get to his feet.

  He staggered upright. Cobra grabbed him. The oudaw’s groping hand found his shoulder and clutched leather. Bishop knew the blade was coming at him but he couldn’t see it, couldn’t see anything. He spun in the outlaw’s grasp and drove his shoulder into black space. He felt himself connect with Cobra, hard. He felt Cobra go down and he went down with him, grappling with the invisible adversary, waiting for the driving point of the bayonet to come for him out of the black nowhere.

  Cobra and Bishop crashed into the boxes, then crashed to the floor. Cobra was still clutching Bishop’s jacket. Bishop pulled away with all his might, desperate to get clear. He rolled free. He jumped up. But Cobra was up, too.

  The outlaw must’ve slashed out blind. This time, he managed to bring the blade slicing across Bishop’s front, so close that Bishop felt the whisper of it on his naked throat. Then the edge of the thing sliced through his right shoulder and the coal-blackness went blood-red with pain.

  Bishop let out a growling scream. His rage flared and his panic flared and he wanted to bust up everything. He felt the point of the bayonet snagged in his jacket. He found Cobra’s wrist with his left hand, clamped it fast. The pressure dug the bayonet edge back into Bishop’s gashed shoulder, and the detective screamed again as his whole body became one shattered nerve.

  Then, with the force of his agony and anger, he pistoned his stiffened hand into the darkness, knowing where Cobra’s face should be. The blow struck home. He felt a ferocity just like joy as his fingertips buried themselves in the mutilated flesh.

  Cobra let out a wild, high howl. His body twisted violently. At the same time, the pain became too much for Bishop and he lost his grip. Cobra spun away from him and vanished again in the pitch-black.

  Bishop crouched low, peered hard into blind space. His shoulder throbbed and burned and he could feel the blood coursing out of it. He tried to keep from sobbing with the searing pain, tried to keep his breath as quiet as he could so Cobra wouldn’t hear him. And he listened, listened with his whole furious self, trying to place Cobra by the sound of his ragged, agonized panting.

  But he was lost now, disoriented. He had no idea where he was standing in the room. A swirling vertigo was making a slow whirlpool in his head. He wavered where he stood. He knew if he could just stay alive another second, maybe two, his eyes would adjust. He’d see the window, the door, maybe even make out the shadowy shape of his adversary.

  But Cobra also crouched in the dark, clutching the bayonet, waiting for the same moment. And as Bishop scanned the nothingness, searching for him, he realized it was Cobra who had the upper hand.

  Bishop was crouching there, listening, peering. He heard Cobra breathing, moving. He heard his own heart pound. He heard the rain lashing at the window. He heard the wind lashing at the rain. By those sounds, bit by bit, he became aware that the window was just behind him, just off his left shoulder. He realized that if Cobra got into the right position, he—Bishop—would be visible: a silhouette against the window, against the slightly lighter dark of the night outside.

  At the same instant the thought occurred to him, he knew it had happened: Cobra had found him. He heard the outlaw’s breath catch on a grunt of effort. He heard the scrape of Cobra’s boots as he rushed forward. For one terrible instant, he knew Cobra was charging at him, invisible, hurtling out of the blackness, impossible to see.

  Then lighting struck again. The room flickered with a long, stark silver flash. In the momentary strobic glare, Bishop saw the monstrous face, maimed on one side, twisted on the other like the mirror of his own rage and hatred. It went white and black and white and black in the lightning and it was almost on top of him—then it was gone in the darkness.

  Cobra roared and drove the bayonet at Bishop’s body. Bishop, having seen him, was able to pivot out of the way. He caught hold of the outlaw’s neck as he flew past. He hurled him headlong into the window.

  The glass exploded into the night as Cobra crashed into it. The furious storm exploded into the room, washing Bishop’s face with rain. Bishop, still turning, was alongside the outlaw now, clutching his neck, bracing his forearm against his back. Before Cobra could even start to struggle, Bishop used all his weight to drive him downward.

  The o
utlaw’s face smashed full force into the bottom half of the broken window. Over the rising wail of the wind, Bishop heard the thick, wet, unmistakable noise of sharp points driven into flesh.

  Cobra never screamed. He just gagged, just thrashed and spasmed under Bishop’s weight. Bishop heard the bayonet drop heavily to the floor. Cobra’s body twitched and then went still.

  The wind blew the rain in. The rain pattered against Bishop’s leather, ran down. Bishop let go of Cobra’s body. It slid off the windowsill and collapsed at his feet.

  Bishop stood up, breathing hard. That was the end of it.

  Fifty-One

  Bishop stumbled to the doorway. He clutched his wounded shoulder. He felt the blood running out between his fingers, making them slippery. As he neared the door, he banged his leg on the edge of a box. He grunted with pain. He rested against the wall.

  As he leaned there, he saw the light switch. He reached out weakly, flipped it up. He squinted against the sudden brightness. Then he turned to look at the room.

  It was pretty much what he expected. Cobra was dead. No question about it this time. He was one hell of a mess.

  And as for Honey—what else?—she was gone. She had done Cobra’s bidding—she had set him up for the kill. But the second it turned into a fight, an uncertain thing, she was in the wind. She was gone.

  With another grunt, Bishop peeled off the wall. He staggered forward again. Out into the hall, then into the living room. Lightning flickered at the big windows here, and he saw the lie of the furniture, the path to the front door. The lightning flickered out with a long, sharp crackle of thunder. But Bishop could still see the room in the glow of the flashing red-and-blue lights outside.

  The cops. And Weiss. He knew at once it would be Weiss out there. Magical Weiss, who always somehow figured out what everyone would do. Bishop thought about that, and he thought about what had brought him here. How he was about to steal Cobra’s money and run off somewhere with Honey. Weiss had probably figured that out, too. Well, to hell with Weiss, he thought. But he felt pretty rotten about it.

  He kept shuffling to the door, clutching his wounded arm.

  Sure enough, he reached the front door, yanked it open, and there they all were, the whole party, parked in the front yard. Three Oakland PD black-and-whites and that dull-as-shit Taurus Weiss drove. And here came Ketchum, too, just pulling up in his crap Impala. The lights whirling round on the cop-car racks turned the slanting silver rain red, then blue.

  Bishop stepped out onto the porch. The sound of the rain grew louder. He heard it hit the grass and the roofs of the cars. Thunder rumbled. It was louder, too, out here.

  Bishop let his right arm hang down limp. He clung to the balcony railing with his left hand. The blood was drying now on his palm and fingers, and they felt sticky on the splintery wood.

  He made his way slowly to the stairs. Stepping out from under the porch, he felt the rain pelt him. His hair was soaking by the time he came off the last riser. His boots sank half an inch in the puddling mud.

  Weiss was standing by his Taurus, massive in his trenchcoat, his hands shoved deep in the pockets, his shoulders hunched. He had a Giants baseball cap on, the brim pulled low over his big, sagging features. From under the brim, he gazed at Bishop with that droopy deadpan look of his. Bishop approached him and met the gaze defiantly. Then after a moment, he couldn’t hold it. He looked away.

  “Cobra in there?” Weiss asked him. There was nothing in his voice to tell Bishop what he was thinking.

  Bishop nodded, staring down about two feet in front of him, staring at where a muddy pool hopped and spat as the rain hit it. “What’s left of him,” he said.

  Weiss answered nothing. He gestured with his head, and a young cop came over to take Bishop by his good arm. The young cop helped Bishop to one of the patrol cars. It was the second cop car to Bishop’s right. As they walked past the first cop car, Bishop saw Honey sitting in its backseat.

  They’d caught her. Bishop was surprised. He’d figured she’d outsmart everyone, slip away, go home to Daddy. Weiss again. Weiss was too quick for her.

  He could tell by the way she was leaning forward that she had her hands cuffed behind her. She strained forward in her seat, pressing her face to the window, peering out at him. Their eyes met through the slanting rain that was silver and red and blue.

  Honey shrugged. Bishop shrugged. What the hell.

  The young cop led Bishop away and helped him into the car.

  Epilogue

  It was a bad day, the start of September. Everyone in the Agency walked on eggshells, wore long faces, traded glances, rolled their eyes. Every time the phone rang at the front desk, voices fell silent in corridors and alcoves. Every time the door opened, anyone nearby faltered in his tracks.

  Weiss had come in early, rumbled down the hall like some great brooding beast. Shut himself into his office, and stayed there, quiet as a stone. No one went near him for a long time. Everyone who passed looked at his door as if he might come raging out of it, or as if he could be seen through it mulling his troubles, fist to chin.

  We imagined Bishop was the worst of it for him. The personal betrayal and so on. Jaffe & Jaffe, the lawyers upstairs, were telling anyone who’d listen that Bishop had done nothing wrong. That he hadn’t known about Honey’s involvement in the market killings. That he was just trying to do his job. He had gone to the clubhouse to recover the money for the police, they said, unaware that Cobra, patched up and morphined and powered by an almost supernatural thirst for revenge, was lying in wait for him.

  The arguments had kept Bishop out of jail so far, had even kept any criminal charges at bay. But prosecutors in three counties were making ugly noises—murder, accessory to murder, conspiracy to commit burglary, grand theft, the works. And Ketchum was raging—raging—swearing in that guttural rasp of his that he would take Bishop down, so help him, that he would save Weiss from whatever mental defect it was that had caused him to hitch his wagon to such a psychopathic star.

  As for Weiss, no one was sure what he believed or how he felt about it. But we all knew that Bishop was his personal reclamation project, his prodigal, proxy son. He was so sharp about these things that he must have at least suspected that the man had simply gone after the money for himself—gone after the money and the girl, and Weiss and his Agency be damned. So there was that on his mind, in his heart.

  Then there was Beverly Graham—Honey. Behind bars in San Mateo, charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, felony murder, accessory to murder, and a whole bunch of other things, most of which ended in “murder.” Her father’s lawyers were laboring feverishly to get her sprung, but they were a hardworking crew and still found time to harrass the Agency with all sorts of threats and accusations. Apparently Philip Graham was not too happy about the fact that Weiss had set the police on the trail of his runaway baby. Plus his political career was over before it started, and that seemed to make him irritable, too. He was not, in short, the satisfied customer Weiss had been hoping for. Instead of the Agency thriving on his future business and the business of his wealthy friends, it had become a question of whether Weiss Investigations would survive his furious campaign to destroy it.

  So it was a bad day.

  Sometime around eleven, I finished sorting the mail and made my deliveries office to office. I left Weiss for last, but there was no way to avoid him forever. I knocked at his door meekly. Heard him grumble something. Opened the door a crack and peeked through.

  He was in his chair, the phone to his ear. He was listening with sorrowful eyes. He gestured at me brusquely. I went in.

  As I dropped the mail off on his desk, I caught a glimpse of a yellow legal pad on his blotter. One corner of the pad’s top page was covered with doodles. At the center of the doodles there was one word: Paradise. That was the name of the town that Julie Wyant’s phone call had come from. The last place he knew she’d been.

  I turned to go—and as I did, I saw her image. It was that
video he had of her—that ten-second loop—it was playing on his computer screen, over and over. I caught a sidelong glimpse of that angelic face of hers, that red-gold hair, that otherworldly expression as if she were beckoning you out of reality into a dream. Then I put my head down and hurried out.

  A few moments after I left, Weiss set the phone down. He turned off the video of Julie Wyant. He sighed. It was Professor M. R. Brinks who had just called him. She had asked if she could hire him to do one more service for her. He’d agreed.

  So, after lunch, he drove his Taurus out across the Bay Bridge again. It was a fine, bright afternoon, crisp and clear. The professor was waiting for him in front of her stucco cottage. She was standing very straight at the end of the flagstone path. Holding a little purse down in front of her, a small, ladylike purse, not her usual briefcase monstrosity. Other than that, she was in one of those mannish getups she favored. Another angular jacket, tweed this time, and jet-black slacks with dagger-sharp creases.

  But as she slid into the front seat next to Weiss, the detective caught the scent of perfume on her. She’d never worn that before, not so he’d noticed, anyway.

  Brinks smiled at him briefly, thinly, then quickly looked away, then just as quickly bowed her head so that her black hair fell forward, screening her reddening cheeks.

  Weiss faced the windshield, made himself busy maneuvering the car from the curb into the street.

  As they drove along, she stared out the window. “I feel like an idiot asking you to do this,” she said bitterly.

  Weiss made a noise, a little puff of air. “Nah. Forget it.”

  “I just somehow can’t bring myself to go alone,” she said. “And there’s no one else who knows. It’s nice of you to come out on such short notice.”

  “Forget it. I’m telling you: It’s no problem.”

  “You’re—” She seemed about to say more, but must’ve decided against it. They drove the rest of the way in silence.