The Tin Man (31 page)

The bouncer could move fast for a guy his size. He shoved the stranger away from the door, then reached inside the doorway for a piece of galvanized steel pipe used to bar the rear entrance when it was shut. The stranger flew backward, landing hard on his back and side, though from his dazed expression it looked more as if he’d hit his head. “You’re trespassing, buster,” the bouncer yelled. “You get lost, or you get hurt.”

T
hat guy’s gotta be a 5150,” one of the officers hi the police surveillance van said with a chuckle as they listened to the interchange. A 5150 was the radio code for a mental patient. Recent events around Sacramento had brought out a lot of weirdos who thought they could clean up the town all by themselves. “Or probably another stupid cop wanna-be.”

“He’s gonna get his head smashed in if he doesn’t run like hell,” his partner said. “Think we should call a Patrol unit before this guy gets hurt—or dead?”

“Yeah. Better get a black-and-white heading this way,” said the other cop. “We can always Code-ten him if the 5150 beats feet.” He got on his portable radio and called Central Dispatch, requesting that a Patrol unit swing by and shine its spotlight down the alley. “It’ll take a few minutes to get here,” the cop said. “That’ll be enough time to give the 5150 a good healthy scare—hopefully.”

“If the bouncer starts beating on him, well have to do something.”

“Relax and wait for the Patrol unit.”

The other cop lowered his binoculars, his mind racing. “Intel did speculate that Mullins was one of the guys that did that robbery, right? He was the one they found dead a few days later, right?”

“I think so.”

“Did that ever come out in the papers?”

“About Mullins? Yeah. He was a security guard or watchman at Sacramento Live!, one of the missing guards.”

“Yeah, but did it ever come out that he was a Satan’s Brotherhood member, or that he might have been
involved
in the robbery?”

“Yeah, sure … at least I think so,” the other cop said, not much interested in the subject.

“I don’t think it did,” his partner said.

“So?”

“So if it didn’t come out in the papers, then how could this guy know that Mullins was Brotherhood and involved in the heist? Not many cops know about that, only guys in Intelligence or Gangs. How could a buff know?”

“How the hell should I know?” his partner said irritably. “Just take the pictures, okay? I got enough to think about.”

T
he stranger got himself up to a kneeling position, his chest heaving as if he was having difficulty breathing. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “You tell me everything I want to know about Mullins and I go away. If you don’t, I’ll break your head, and then I’ll go inside, break some more heads, and destroy the place.”

“Listen, shithead, you got one more chance,” the
bouncer said. “Get up and get your fat ass outta here or 111 bend this pipe around your fucking head.”

The stranger got up, retrieved his helmet, and took a couple paces right toward the bouncer. “Last chance for you,” he said. “Mullins was working for a guy called the Major. The word is that Mullins met the Major or one of his men here about a week before the robbery. Tell me about him. Who was he? Did he have a German accent? What did he look like?”

“Not as bad as you’re gonna look, asshole,” the bouncer said—and swung the pipe. He faked a head shot, brought the pipe back, and swung it at the side of the stranger’s left knee. The blow would’ve put a two-inch dent in the side of a car. He gaped as the pipe ricocheted off the guy’s leg as if he’d hit a concrete post.

W
hat did he say about Germans?” the second surveillance officer asked. “Did he say ‘the Major’ was a German?”

“Yeah—I heard about the Major but that never got in the papers either. And I never heard about no tie-in between him and any Germans. What makes him think the Major was … Ohhh, shit, he hit him, right in the fucking knees! Better get that Patrol unit over here fast. Looks like the bouncer just tried to break that turkey’s knees.”

“They’re on their …” Both cops stopped to watch. The guy was still standing after being clubbed in the knees. No set of biker leathers would protect him against a shot like that. “He must’ve missed, trying to scare him? …”

“He hit ’im,” the first officer said, sounding unsure whether or not he saw what he saw. “That pipe
didn’t faze him. He must be wearing full body armor, but it sure doesn’t look like it.”

His partner put down his light-intensifying binoculars. “I’m going over there and talk to this guy,” he said.

“You
what?
You’ll blow our surveillance, man …”

“The guy knew about the Major, and, he knew about the meeting here between him and Mullins,” the second cop said, rolling open the sliding door of the van. “He knows a lot more than any civilian should know. If he’s a cop, then he’s trying to pull some kind of off-duty or vigilante shakedown thing, and we gotta stop him before he sets this city on fire. Besides, I want to figure out how he can take a hit from a steel pipe and keep on standing. Tell the black-and-white I’m 940.”

T
he second blow was sheer rage. It was hard, fast, and overhead, aimed right at the head. Patrick McLanahan deflected it with ease with his left arm, cracking the pipe. The surge of electricity from the arm to the rest of his body mixed with the surge of energy he had felt from the blow to his leg, and the two power waves seemed to meet right at his heart, sending an explosive stream of energy through the rest of his body.

Patrick screamed through a wicked-looking smile. They hadn’t fixed the problem with the energy surge through the suit but he didn’t care. In fact, he was glad. It was like a drug—and he was hooked on it.

It all happened as if in slow motion. The bouncer stared at Patrick as though he were a swamp monster, then grasped the pipe in both hands and tried a major-league home-run swing at his head. Patrick
never let it happen. He simply stepped forward and drove his right fist into the bouncer’s chest.

The guy was wearing a bulletproof vest, which attenuated some of the impact and probably saved his life. His sternum and left rib cage shattered, collapsing his left lung. Blood spurted from his mouth and nose and he crumpled to the ground. Patrick was close enough to be showered with blood, but instead of sickening him, it further fueled his anger and thirst for …

… for what? Patrick wasn’t sure
what
he wanted: revenge, information? No, just to take out his frustration and bitterness on whoever was inside. To hurt someone. To make
them
afraid, the way he and his family were afraid. He was going to …

“Stop! Police!” Patrick turned. A plainclothes man with a badge on a chain around his neck was galloping across the alleyway from Anne Street. His right hand was behind his back, probably hiding a gun. He held up his gold detective’s badge. “Hold it right there! I want to talk to you.”

Patrick tossed away the watch cap and put on his helmet. The instant the final component of the suit was in place and activated, he felt the extra surge of energy course through his body. He had bypassed the safety system that deactivated the suit when the helmet was removed, which allowed him to take it off but still be protected by the rest of the system. Now that he had put it back on, and the environmental system was fully functional and data was streaming in on his heads-up display and headphones, he felt utterly alive, utterly powerful.

“Take the helmet off
no
w!” the detective ordered. Patrick stood there, unmoving. The cop’s gun came up. “I said, take off the helmet, then put your hands on top of your head and turn around!”

“I’m unarmed,” Patrick answered, his voice now electronically amplified through the helmet.

“Do it, buster. Helmet off, hands on top of your head.
Now!”
To his surprise, the guy simply turned around and headed inside the rear door of the Bobby John Club.

He holstered his gun—the guy
was
unarmed, and he couldn’t shoot an unarmed man, especially in the back. If he had killed the bouncer, he was a murder suspect and could legally be detained by any means necessary, including shooting him—but if the guy didn’t have a weapon it would still be hard to justify using deadly force. “Jesus, Dave, get over here and give me a hand,” the cop said to his partner, who was listening on the directional mike. “Better call in a 245 and possible 187, get some backup, and roll an ambulance—I think the bastard killed the bouncer.”

As Patrick came into the hallway, a biker appeared from the kitchen area, rushing him. Patrick solidified his entire left arm and straight-armed him in the face; it was as if the biker had run headlong into a steel girder. The door Patrick was looking for, the one that was closed and guarded the last time he was here, was on the right, locked. He stepped back into the kitchen and ran at the door, using his shoulders as a battering ram. The door splintered and came off its flimsy hinges.

Two bikers were inside, with several partially dressed girls. Patrick recognized one of them as the same guy who had confronted him with the broken beer bottle, the same one who cut Jon Masters—and the one who knew about Mullins and the Major. One girl was kneeling between his legs; the others scurried around the room at Patrick’s entrance, grabbing for their clothes. Several lines of a white
powder, crank or cocaine, were laid out on a serving tray on the table.

“Who the fuck are you?” the biker shouted.

“I want the Major,” Patrick said, his voice eerie through the helmet. “Tell me where the Major is and I’ll let you live tonight.”

The biker reached over to where his pants were on the floor beside his chair and pulled out a 9-millimeter Glock. “I never killed anyone while getting a blow job before,” he said with a laugh. He yanked the woman’s head back into his crotch, smiled, and pulled the trigger. At the same moment, the other biker pulled a shotgun from out of the corner of the room and fired. Patrick tumbled over backward, crashing into the opposite corner.

The first biker grinned as the invader hit the floor. “Damn, that felt
good,”
he said, firing another round into him just for good measure. He yanked the woman off his cock by the hair and shoved her aside. “Get dressed, bitch—the cops are going to be swarming over this place any minute. Clean up that coke and take the tray into the kitchen and get it in the sink. It was self-defense. All you bitches remember that. The guy busted in here and threatened to …”

“Holy shit!”
the other biker yelled. They all turned in horror to see the helmeted invader picking himself off the floor. There was not a single hole in him. A shotgun blast from less than twenty feet away should’ve put a hole the size of a Softball in his chest.

“I want the Major!”
Patrick said again. The girls grabbed whatever clothes they could and fled, screaming, from this … apparition. The second biker racked the action on his shotgun and fired again, but he was shaking so hard from the sight of this guy still standing, walking, and talking, that he
missed from fifteen feet away. He dropped the shotgun and ran.

“Hey, asshole!” the other biker screamed futilely, “get back here and nail this guy!” He swore, aimed, and fired his Glock. The invader reeled, hit right in the chest—but this time he did not go down. Another shot and another, from ten feet away and less. Still standing. It was clear he had been hit, because he stopped in his tracks and howled, as if ready to collapse from pain or shock, but then he straightened up and kept right on coming.

Patrick grabbed the biker by the right wrist, then chopped his forearm with his hand. There was the sound of bone snapping, and the Glock dropped to the floor. Then he lashed out with his right hand, hitting the biker square on the left collarbone. Bone snapped again, and the biker sank to his knees, screaming like a child. “I want tire Major,” said Patrick. “Tell me where he is or I’ll kill you.”

“I don’t know where he is, man, I swear …”

Patrick’s hand jerked out again, breaking the other collarbone. “Next, I’m going to break your sternum,” Patrick said, jabbing a finger into the guy’s chest. “Then I’m going to break your neck, and then your skull. You’ll be a vegetable for the rest of your life. Now talk. Where’s the Major?”

“I swear I don’t know,” the biker gasped, his face contorted in pain.

“Who contacted Mullins? Who met Mullins here?”

“I never seen him. One of his guys, one of his lieutenants, came here, but I didn’t see him. Mullins told me he was going to meet the Major at a ranch in Wilton. I don’t know where, I swear to God! …”

“Were they Germans?”

The biker nodded. “Yeah … yeah, Mullins said he didn’t want to deal with no krauts, but they paid him good.”

“Where was this ranch in Wilton? What road?” No response. Patrick forced the biker’s head between his left arm and his side and squeezed. “I’ll pop your head right off your damned shoulders if you don’t talk!” But the guy had fainted. Patrick let him drop in a heap on the floor and headed for the bar. He knew that the patrons had probably scattered like rats in a fire when they heard the gunshots, but he had to find that other biker. If he was this guy’s friend, he might know more about …

“Police! Freeze!”
Patrick turned. Two plainclothes cops with gold badges hanging from their necks were taking cover just outside the back door, aiming what looked like very large automatic pistols at him. “Hands up! Turn and face the wall! Now!”

Patrick ran a system self-test. Battery levels were still in the green, but down to less than two hours’ endurance. He had only had the suit on for less than an hour—must be a problem with the power-reserve indicators. Taking all those gun blasts certainly didn’t help. He could probably withstand these cops emptying their guns on him, but he couldn’t take the chance of more cops showing up and his power draining down into the reserves or to emergency levels. He would then have no choice but to surrender.

“I’m unarmed,” Patrick told the cops. He raised his hands, palms out, so they could see they were empty. “I’m leaving now. Don’t shoot me. I might hurt you if you shoot, and I don’t want to hurt the police.”