The Bookman's Wake (14 page)

M
y brain kicked up in the cop mode. From then on I was
running on overdrive.

My goals had narrowed to one. Nothing else
mattered—not money or pain, not even the books I had
foolishly taken from Otto Murdock.

We were going on the run. That meant travel light,
travel fast: leave the books, leave the clothes, call the
Rigbys from New Mexico, hope Crystal could come pick up my
stuff. Not a perfect answer, but when you’ve got a
woman to guard, eight grand worth of books in a cardboard
box, and a man on your tail who might be seriously
unhinged, perfection is a little too much to ask for.

We were going to Taos, over Pruitt’s dead body if
that’s how he had to have it.

No time for cops: no help there. By the time Seattle
checked me out, my flight would be somewhere over
Wyoming.

Move.

Move now and move fast.

I called out for a cab. The dispatcher said she had
drivers in the neighborhood. The wait would be five
minutes, ten tops.

Cover your ass.

I called the desk. Yes, the Hilton ran a shuttle service
to the airport. It ran twice each hour, at seven minutes
past the half hour.

It was now 9:55.

The key.

Crystal would need my room key to get in here and take
out my stuff. Had to hide it somewhere so she could find
it.

In the car.

Out there in the garage, all logic dictated, Pruitt
would be waiting.

Good. Face the bastard head-on.

Eleanor sat rigidly in the chair. She looked terrified,
her knuckles white as she gripped the armrests.

“Wh-why’re you…d-do-ing
this?”

I reached out to her but she recoiled. “I’m
on your side, kid,” I told her, but it didn’t
help.

“Th-at m-man in the hall…”

“His name is Slater. He’s gone
now.”

“He’s with the d-darkman.”

“He’s nothing. He’s out of
here.”

“Darkm-man.”

I squeezed her shoulder. “Cheer up now,
you’re in good hands.”

I turned off the light, flipped off the TV. Nobody was
fooling anybody anymore.

“Let’s go,” I said.

We went with the clothes on our backs. I hung a
do not disturb
sign on the door.

“Stay close,” I said as we came into the
garage.

She was shivering so violently she could barely walk.
Our footsteps echoed as we crossed to the far wall where I
had left my car.

He was with us all the way, I could feel him out there
in the dark. “Oh, please.” Eleanor’s
voice quaked with fear. She too had sensed him there, and
Slater had it right, he was her bogeyman: just the thought
of him made her incoherent and numb.

“Darkman,” she whispered.
“D-d…kman.”

I put an arm over her shoulder.
“Everything’s cool. We’ll laugh about it
on the plane.”

“Darkm-m-an’s‘s-here.”

“Hush now. We’re heading for the land of
sunshine.”

I jerked open the door and hustled her into the car. I
looked over the roof, my eyes sweeping down the ramp and
across the garage to the door. Just for show, I moved
around the car, opened the driver’s door, and slid
under the wheel.

I kept watching through the mirrors. I put the key in
the ignition and turned it. It did nothing but click.

Eleanor whimpered faintly in the seat beside me.

“It’s okay, I expected that,” I said
calmly. “Just sit tight, we’ll be out of here
in a minute.”

I got out of the car, locking the doors.

Went through some motions, with peripheral vision
working like sonar.

Raised the hood.

Scanned the garage.

Looked at my watch while pretending to look at the
engine.

Ten oh one. The shuttle took off in six minutes.

Got down on the garage floor. Pretended to look under
the car. Palmed the key to my room and slipped it behind
the front bumper.

Scanned the garage from there. With my back to the wall,
I could see everything under the wheels of fifty
automobiles.

Two pairs of feet…two men, coming my way.

I came up slowly, an Oscar-winning performance. It was a
fat man with dark hair, flanked by a young, muscular guy in
jeans. The fat man wore a business suit and waddled my way
with an air of sweet benevolence.

I slammed the hood and wondered why I wasn’t
surprised when they came to the car in the slot next to
mine.

“Hey, buddy,” the fat man said. “You
know how to get to Queen Anne Hill?”

“I think it’s on the west side, just north
of town. I’m a stranger here myself.”

He looked at me over the roof of his car. “Got
trouble?”

“Yeah. Damn thing won’t start.”

“I’ll have the guy downstairs call you a tow
truck if you want.”

“Won’t do much good. I’m in kind of a
hurry.”

“Might be something simple. Bobby here’s
good with cars. Why don’t you just let him take a
peek under your hood?”

“That can’t cost me much.”

I raised the hood and the three of us crowded into the
space between the car and the wall. Here they were, close
enough to kiss. I could see a fresh scrape on the fat
man’s neck where he’d cut himself shaving. The
meat quivered around his ears like vanilla pudding. The kid
was carrying his right hand in a fetal position, curled
inward toward his belt. He was cradling a roll of quarters,
I thought—almost as effective as a set of brass
knucks if he got his weight behind it.

Here I am, I thought, take your best shot. When the kid
moved, I took a fast step to one side. His closed fist
smacked against the car, the roll broke open, and the coins
clattered across the floor. I hit him a hard right to the
jaw and he went down like a sack of laundry. I could sense
the fat man groping for something under his coat, but I was
faster and I had the same thing under mine. I whirled
around and kneed him in the groin. I punched his wind out,
and the next time he blinked I had my gun in his jowls,
half-buried in fat.

He was breathing hard through his nose, his eyes wide
with fear and surprise. I slapped him across the mouth and
spun him around, slamming him against the wall. I took a
.38 snub-nose out of his belt and put it in mine. The kid
was still cold. I knelt down, frisked him, and got another
gun for my arsenal.

I manhandled the fat man back around the car.
“Where’s Pruitt?”

“I don’t know any Pruitt.”

I grabbed his necktie and jerked him silly. He tried to
roll away: I hammered him under the ribs and he doubled
over, wheezing at the floor. I grabbed his hair and smashed
his head hard against the car, got down there with him
between the cars, and said, through gritted teeth,
“You wanna die in this garage, fat man? You wanna die
right now, here on this floor?” I had the gun jammed
between his jawbone and his eardrum, and I had his
attention.

He rolled his eyes down the ramp, into the spiraling
darkness.

“That’s better. Lie to me again and
you’re dog food. Tell me now, are there any more rats
down there with him?”

He shook his head none.

“Gimme your keys.”

He fished them out of his pocket.

“Which one’s for the trunk?”

He held it up. I took the ring and opened the trunk.

“Get in and lie down.”

He looked at me with pleading eyes. I grabbed him by the
scruff of the neck and spun him around and sat him down
hard in the trunk. I motioned with the gun and he swung his
legs over the rim, curling his butterball body around the
spare tire.

I slammed the trunk. It was 10:08, and the enemy himself
had delivered us from evil.

I got Eleanor moved over and threw the guns on the seat
between us. We careened down the ramp in the fat
man’s car. Eleanor sat frozen, gripping her knees
like a kid on her first roller-coaster ride. I reached the
street just as the shuttle pulled out. I pealed rubber
turning north into Sixth Avenue. I was soaring, I was high
enough to hit the moon. I had to rein myself in, force
myself to stop for a red light. The last thing I needed,
now that I had the game all but won, was to get stopped by
a traffic cop, and me with a car full of guns.

I was trolling the side streets looking for an on-ramp.
I stopped for another light. “Darkman,” Eleanor
said, but I looked and the street was empty.

“He’s gone. We kicked his ass, Rigby.
It’s time to start thinking about what you’ll
do when you get to New Mexico.”

I leaned over the wheel and looked at her. She looked
like a stranger, mind-fried with fear.

“We won,” I said.

She looked like anything but a winner. She looked like
the thousand and one women a cop meets in a long and
violent career. A victim.

“Darkman…”

“Is he your stalker?”

She looked at me. “He’s everywhere. I
can’t turn around…”

“He’s a wrong number, honey, a guy in a
gorilla suit. He’s only scary if you let him
be.”

“He was in New Mexico.” She closed her eyes
and quaked at some private demon. “No matter where I
go he finds me. I pick up the phone and he’s there,
playing that song.”

The guy behind us blew his horn. The light was green. I
moved out, giving her shoulder a little rub, but she seemed
not to notice.

“He’s there,” she said. “I saw
him.”

I scanned the street in my mirrors and saw nothing.

“Oh, God,” she said. “Oh God oh God oh
God…”

“We beat him. We’re gettin‘ out of
here.”

“Take me back to jail.”

“We’re going to New Mexico.”

“No!…No…take me back to
jail…”

“I want you to listen to me.”

“Take me back to jail…take me…take
me…”

No more talk, I thought: the less said at this point the
better. I thought if I could get her on the plane, I could
win her back: then we’d have the whole ride into
Albuquerque to calm down and start digging the truth out. I
gave her a long sad look. She had covered her face with her
hands, but I could see her eyes looking at me through her
fingers.

I gunned the car and banked south into the freeway. I
was almost up to thirty when she wrenched open the door
and, with a shriek of madness, jumped.

I
hit the brakes and the car spun across the wet pavement and
slammed into the guardrail. I leaped out on the rim,
running along the edge of a dark gulf. She was somewhere
down in the street: I couldn’t see her, but I heard
her scream as I skidded down the slope. I had a long clear
look at the street running back downtown: she hadn’t
gone that way, so she had to have ducked under the freeway
to the east. This led me into a dreary neighborhood of
shabby storefronts and dark flophouses. The rain had kept
people off the street and the hour was late…the block
was as dead as an old graveyard. The wet clop of my feet
punctured the steady hiss of the rain, but I was chasing a
ghost. She was gone.

I reached a cross street still clinging to a shred of
hope. She could be blocks away by now, going in any
direction. Guess wrong and kiss her good-bye: the next time
she stuck her head up, she’d be scouting books in
Florida. She could make a pauper’s living forever in
that anonymous subculture, never pay taxes, never have her
name recorded on any official docket, never be seen again
by friend or foe. I pushed on into the rain, as if she had
suddenly materialized in the block ahead. But the street
was as empty as ever. I came to another intersection and
stopped to look. No use running anymore, I could just as
likely be running away from her. I walked along a dim wet
block looking in cracks and crevices. Gone with the goddamn
wind, son of a bitch. I passed the flickering light of a
neighborhood bar and looked at my watch: 10:23. It was
still possible to make the plane, if she came to her senses
this very minute, if we stumbled into each other in the
murk, if the car was still on the ramp where I’d left
it, if I was all paid up with the man upstairs, if pigs
could fly and I could break every speed limit going to
Sea-Tac and get away with it. I stopped and leaned against
a mailbox and longed for a break, but Luck had gone her
fickle way.

I looked into the bar on a hunch. Nobody there but the
neighborhood drunk, who’d been holding up his end of
the bar since Prohibition ended. I walked up the street in
the rain, unwilling to admit that the fat lady had sung her
song. Something could still happen. Something can still
happen, I thought again, but my watch was pushing
ten-thirty, and it had to happen now.

What happened wasn’t quite what I had in mind. A
car turned into the street and I knew it was Pruitt half a
block away; I had the color and shape of that Pontiac cut
into my heart forever. I stepped into the shadows and
watched him roll past me. Apparently he hadn’t seen
me: he cruised by slowly; I stood still and watched him go
the length of the block. He was hunting, same as me: he
would drive a bit, slow, occasionally stop and look
something over. It seemed she had given us all the royal
slip. Pruitt stopped at the corner and turned. I broke into
a full run, reaching the cross street well before he had
turned out of the next block. He was taking it easy, trying
to miss nothing as he worked around one block and into
another. The block was dark: a streetlight was out, and I
thought I could run along the edge of the buildings without
being seen. Something might still be salvaged from this
rotten night, if I could get close enough to pull that door
open and jerk Pruitt’s ass out of that car.

A pair of headlights swung toward me two blocks away. I
flattened into a doorway as the two cars flicked their
brights on and off. It was the fat man’s car—I
could see the crushed fender where it had hit the
guardrail. I patted my pocket and knew I had left them the
keys, a stupid mistake, and I’d left their guns there
on the seat as well. The two cars pulled abreast for a
confab. Then Pruitt turned right, went on around the block,
and the fat man was coming my way. He passed and I could
see there were two of them in the car—the kid, riding
shotgun, was slumped in the seat as if he hadn’t yet
come back to the living. Lacking Pruitt, I’d be
thrilled with another shot at these two. I wanted to put
somebody in the hospital, and any of the three were okay
with me.

I let the fat man go on into the next block. I moved out
in the rain and ran after Pruitt. He was still the grand
prize in this clambake, but by the time I reached the next
corner he was gone. Again, I could go off in any direction
and be right or wrong, or wait right here while the wheel
took another spin. When nothing happened, I crossed to the
dark side of the street and walked along slowly, hoping
they’d all catch up. For a time it seemed that the
action had moved on to another stage. No one came or went.
I worried about it, and I was worrying three blocks later
when Eleanor turned a corner far ahead and walked briskly
up the street toward me.

She was two blocks away but coming steadily. I stood
flat in a shallow doorway and egged her on in my mind. I
peeped out and she was still there. She passed a light in
the next block and I could see her clearly now, looking
none the worse for her tumble down the slope. Her hair had
come down but that was good: I could get a grip on it and
hold her that way if I had to. She was close enough now
that I could catch her, but I let her keep coming, each
step a little added insurance. If she kept on, she’d
pass so close I could grab her without a chase. I had
pushed myself as far back in the doorway as I could get: I
didn’t dare even a peep as she came closer. I thought
sure I’d have her, then everything seemed to stop. I
had lost the sense of her, I had to look. She was still a
block away, stopped there as if warned off by intuition. I
waited some more. With a long head start and terror in her
heart, she could still make it though.

She crossed the street. Something about the terrain was
bothering her: an alarm had gone off in her head and she
was like a quail about to be flushed. I buried my face in
the crack and held myself still as death. But when I looked
again, she was walking in the opposite direction, back up
the street the way she had come.

I leaped out of the doorway and ran on the balls of my
feet. I stretched myself out and ate up the block, trying
to make up lost ground before she turned and saw me. She
ducked into an alley. I clopped up and looked down a dark,
narrow place. Something moved a block away, a fluttery blur
in the rain. She was spooked now, going at a full run: I
gave up stealth and chased her through the dark. I hit a
row of garbage cans and went down in a hellish clatter,
rolled with the momentum, came up running. But I
didn’t see her anymore, didn’t see anything in
the murk ahead.

I came out into a street lit only by a distant lamp. It
was high noon on Pluto, a world bristling with evil. She
screamed, a shriek of such ungodly terror that it smacked
me back in my tracks and damn near stopped the rain. Far
down the block I saw Pruitt’s kid manhandling her
into the car. The fat man stood by the driver’s door,
smoking a cigarette down to his knuckles. I had no chance
to catch them. The fat man gave me the long look as I ran
up the block. He flipped his smoke, flipped me off, got in
the car, and drove away in a swirl of mist.