Hot Wire (8 page)

I just stood there, staring at her, my mind a total blank. Then I noticed the phone lying on the carpet next to the bed, its cord ripped from the wall. I walked back into the living room, then went into the kitchen and tried to stop the leaking faucet. The gasket was busted or something. I had called the landlord a couple times, but his maintenance guy had been deported and I couldn't get any repairs. Then I kind of spaced on the sink for a while. Steffy had put out a cigarette in one of my coffee cups and left it in the drainer. What a slob.

Something rumbled behind the walls. It sounded like the elevator. I went back to the living room and picked up the phone by the sofa, but the line was dead, cut by the wall jack. Then everything played back through my head like a grainy snuff flick and I got scared worse than I'd ever been in jail. I had to get out of here. Get my stuff from the motel. Get out of the city.

I had to dump the body. I had to go back there, untie Steffy from the bedposts, wrap her in a blanket, then drag her down five flights of stairs, stuff her in the trunk and dump her in the Bay or something. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't go back into the bedroom. But even if I could, she was too heavy for me to move. There was no way I could ever lift her. I had to call Deacon. He could send his guys. Get rid of her. Clean up the mess.

Then somebody banged on the door.

#

The knocks on the door hit me like hammers.

I jerked around, hunched over and gripped by this massive fear. A shadow moved in the crack under the front door. Something clicked – it sounded like the chamber on a semi-automatic.

Whoever it was pounded on the door again.

"Police," a voice yelled. "Open up."

I lost it. I don't know. I ran over to the window, opened the blinds and looked outside. No cop cars. Maybe they were parked in the alley. Then I ran back over to the couch and leaned against it, staring at the door. Footsteps shuffled in the hall. Two or three people.

Bang.

"Police," the voice yelled again, like I hadn't heard him the first time. "C'mon, we know you're in there."

There was no way out. I ran down the hall into the bedroom, yanked open the closet door – I don't know why – then I scrambled over to the window, pulled it up, and looked outside. A streetlight glowed behind the trees about twenty feet away. I looked down into the alley – a five-story drop to a circle of light on the pavement by the trash cans. A gutter pipe ran down the wall next to the window. I reached out and grabbed it with one hand. No way.

Something crashed against the door in the living room. They were trying to break it down. The dead bolt must've held, though, because there was a moment of silence, then they bashed the door again and I heard the lamp by the sofa fall on the floor. The light went out in the hall leading to the bedroom and I knew I only had a couple minutes to do whatever I was going to do. I didn't even think about giving myself up, not with Steffy lying there on the bed.

I stuck my right foot out the window, then hunched over and squirmed around, hanging onto the frame until I got my other foot out and was sitting in the window, half in and half out of the room. I had to squeeze my head and shoulders through, then I got stuck for a minute and had to rip my shirt to get free, almost losing my balance. Bugs clouded the streetlight in the trees on the other side of the alley. I tried not to look down.

More bangs from inside. They were still working on the door. I saw a window light come on below me, then another one off to the left. Then I heard a big crash in the living room and I reached out for the gutter pipe, my heart thrashing in my throat.

Bolted clamps fastened the pipe to the stucco wall. They didn't look very sturdy. Leaning over, hanging on to the window frame with one hand, I managed to get hold of the pipe and tested it as gently as I could. One of the clamp bolts was loose. I saw it move and some dust and paint flakes spilled down the side of the building. I looked down at the alley and the circle of streetlight shrank to the size of a dot.

Then they broke the door down inside. No doubt about it.

I let go of the window frame, reached around to grab the pipe with my other hand, and fell out of the window. Someone yelled inside the apartment and I had a glimpse of a flashlight beam flickering in the living room as I slid down the pipe, kicking wildly to get my feet on something, the rough edges of the pipe joints ripping my hands. Then the pipe broke loose at the gutter and I swung out over the alley and crashed into the trees, losing my grip and tumbling down through the branches and leaves like a bundle of bloody laundry. I hit something hard, flipped upside down, smashed my shoulder and turned sideways, then crashed into a thorny hedge and landed on my face in the yard next door.

Jesus Christ.

I got up and ran through the yard into the alley. I had this weird limp and a knot on the side of my head, but I couldn't feel a thing. Someone yelled behind me and I ducked behind a trash can, gasping to catch my breath. When I looked down the alley, I saw a black SUV parked about a block away. A radio crackled somewhere and beams of light flickered between the garages. Just then, a man wearing a black field jacket and a headset mike ran into the alley and slowed to a walk, looking around. He was carrying a piece in one hand and a flashlight in the other. Sweeping its beam across the fence and hedges, he checked a couple doors, then he turned his back to me, waving at the SUV. He didn't look like a cop. Plainclothes, maybe. Tactical. I couldn't tell. The minute he turned his back, I ducked through a gate, struggled over a chain-link fence, then ran through another yard and came out on San Pablo down the street from my building. Another SUV had parked in front, but it looked empty. No markings. Nothing. Flashlight beams darted back and forth in the alley and voices barked through bursts of static. Whoever they were, they thought I was still back there.

I hid behind a parked car, then ran across the street into a driveway, climbed another fence, thrashed through some bushes, and came out in an alley lined with garages, dumpsters and crooked telephone poles. A dog barked in a yard. Gusts scattered leaves and trash across the pavement. I took off again, trying to keep to the shadows, then I tripped over a pot hole and fell on my ass. Panting, I scrambled to my feet, then ducked down again when I saw another black SUV pass on a side street about a block away. They must have had a spotlight mounted in the window. I heard them snap it on, then a foggy beam swept through the trees behind me.

I made it to the Dodge somehow, got in and ducked down on the front seat, panting and coughing. A car passed in the other direction. Headlights flashed in the rearview. I thought I heard voices and static nearby, then it got quiet again and I peeked over the dash. The street looked empty, but I knew they were all over the neighborhood, at least one SUV circling around and talking over the radio with the others on foot. If they were cops or feds, I had to get out of there before they called for a helicopter and more backup.

My hands were bleeding, my face scraped and raw. My leg hurt like crazy, but it didn't feel like it was broken. I started the engine and drove off nice and slow, expecting to get pulled over at any second, dragged out of the Dodge, clubbed and zapped with Tasers, then dumped into the back of an SUV with my head rammed down my throat. But nothing happened. I'd seen two vehicles, maybe three, so there were probably five or six of them, whoever they were, two at my door, two parked in back, and two circling the neighborhood. I didn't think any of them had seen me, but it didn't really matter. In a couple hours, I'd be the prime suspect in a murder investigation and every burrhead cop in the state would have me on his radar. They'd snoop around the station and talk to Deacon, then he'd talk to Heberto and they'd hand out the contract.

I got away, but it was simple dumb luck. Sirens wailed to the south and when I turned onto University, I saw a couple radio cars and a cargo van speed by in the other direction, their cherries flashing. The sun cracked the horizon, an orange and violet haze to the east, and the city felt like an alien planet. I didn't have any choice now: I had to run. Driving back to the Marina, one eye on the rearview, I saw a helicopter with a spotlight circling the neighborhood where I used to live.

I had to get my junk. It was all I had.

When I got back to the Radisson, I parked as far from my room as I could, then I sat in the car for ten or fifteen minutes, watching the motel and parking lot while the blood dried on my hands. I felt like I'd been attacked by a jackhammer and my face in the rearview looked like something out of a Driver's Ed film about a drunk and a bridge abutment. I was shivering and spaced, chilled to the bone. I must've been in shock. After a while, the sun started to warm me up and I tried to get my act together, brushing twigs out of my hair, mud off my jeans. I didn't have much time.

The Radisson looked normal – whatever that meant. Clouds piled over the Bay and gulls swarmed the Marina, fighting over scraps of dead fish on the boardwalk. I got out of the car and locked the doors, keeping my head down as a van full of tourists drove through the lot, hunting for a space. A jogger ran past the Marina, trying to keep up with a mutt on a leash. After the van had gone by, I walked over to the Radisson, went in through a side door and headed down a long hall past the lounge and restaurant. A family with a kid walked by and the brat gave me a funny look; I guess he'd never seen a zombie before. I dodged the lobby, then limped past the indoor pool and through another door onto a patio and tiled path leading to the next unit. The channel marker chimed and gulls squawked in the harbor. It was going to be a beautiful day.

I was dragging now, stiff and sore. A TV jabbered in one of the rooms and I heard somebody come down the stairs behind me and go outside. Turning down the hall to my room, I got really gripped for some reason and stopped dead in my tracks. A horn beeped in the parking lot and I could hear a vacuum cleaner running in some other part of the building. Steffy's face popped into my head, gagged and bug-eyed, her cheeks bruised and smeared with mascara. I tried to blank her out, but the memory of her lying on the bed had been scorched across my brain. Whoever had killed her must've picked the lock on the apartment door, or maybe she'd let them in herself, thinking they were cops, but they were long gone by the time I got there. The goons in the black SUVs showed up later, after I'd arrived, but who were they? They'd identified themselves as cops, but the guy I saw in the alley didn't look like any cop I'd ever seen.

I wiped my hands on my jeans and walked down to my door, checking the hall in both directions. Nobody was around. I pressed an ear against the door and listened for a while, but all I got was this seashell effect. I had to get my stuff and I had to check out or they'd charge me for another night; then I had to find a teller machine and get some cash for food and gas. Unlocking the door, I walked in, trying to figure out if I should call Deacon and tell him what had happened. Then I realized it was too late for that.

Baldy sat in the chair by the bed, reading a paper, a cup of coffee in his hand. He looked up and gave me a big grin.

"Holy shit," he said. "It's Little Bo Peep."

Somebody stuck a gun in my ear.

Crewcut didn't say much. He came out from behind the door, nudging me into the room, then he closed the door, locked it and fastened the chain.

"Over there." He shoved me against the wall by the writing table with its guidebooks and complimentary stationary. "Hands on the wall. Don't make a sound."

Deja vu.

I stared at the motel's breakfast menu, my face burning while he patted me down and dumped my wallet, keys and spare change on the table. That's when I knew they weren't cops. The police would've used a female cop to paw me. Baldy folded his paper, dropped it on the bed, then leaned forward and got to his feet, pushing himself up like he was doing a squat or a deadlift. He looked even bigger than he had the night before, all shoulders and chest and biceps, with slits for eyes, a cleft chin and this nasty, leering grin. Scarred like a soccer thug after a two-day riot, he was dressed like a banker in pleated gray flannel slacks and a pinstriped shirt with suspenders and rolled-up sleeves. He carried a cell phone on his belt, a revolver in a button-flap shoulder holster, and he had some red stains on his collar.

"Sit down," Crewcut said, pushing me towards an easy chair by the TV. He sounded bored and tired, like he'd been up all night. I sat down and the two of them just stood there looking at me for a while. Amused, I guess. Curious. Crewcut lit a cigarette and blew some smoke at the ceiling. He was an older guy – forty or fifty – with crow's tails around his eyes and clipped hair turning gray at the temples. He looked military, buff with a beer gut, his face weathered like he'd spent years staring into a sandstorm in some Middle East rat hole. He was strapped, too. Glock. Shoulder holster. I figured he was in charge.

Baldy slurped at his coffee, then walked over to the desk and started going through my wallet.

"Emma Martin." He dropped my driver's license on the desk. "Car thief and nobody mixed up with a couple mooks running hot cars and smack through the Port of Oakland. How about that?" He gave me a drowsy grin, flipped through my wallet, then put it down and inspected the keys on my key ring. "Looks like she's five years old," he told Crewcut, shaking his head. "A runty little tom-boy car thief. Hard to believe."

"Yes." Crewcut nodded. "It is at that."