He looked left, right. Couldn’t see a door.
That wasn’t surprising, considering a rave was essentially an illegal drug party staged in a deserted warehouse, not a chaperoned prom in a hotel ballroom where there would be well-lit red exit signs. But, Jesus, it would be so pointless and stupid to survive the Pause and the golems, only to be trampled to death by hundreds of doped-up kids frantically trying to squeeze through a doorway all at once.
Harry decided to go right, for no better reason than that he had to go one way or the other. Unconscious kids were lying on the floor, recovering from long hits of laughing gas. Harry tried not to step on anyone, but the light under the loft was so poor that he didn’t see some of those in darker clothes until he’d stumbled over them.
A door. He almost passed by without spotting it.
In the warehouse behind him, the music continued to thump as ever, but a sudden change occurred in the quality of the crowd noise. It became a less celebratory roar, darkened into an uglier rumble shot through with panicky shrieks.
Connie was gripping Harry’s hand so tightly, she was grinding his knuckles together.
In the gloom Harry pushed against the door. Pushed with his shoulders. Wouldn’t budge. No. Must be an outside door. Pull inward. But that didn’t work either.
The crowd broke toward the outer walls. A wave of screaming swelled, and Harry could actually feel the heat and terror of the oncoming mob that was surging even toward the back wall. They were probably too disoriented to remember where the main entrances were.
He fumbled for the door handle, knob, push-bar, whatever, and prayed it wasn’t locked. He found a vertical handle with a thumb latch, pressed down, felt something click.
The first of the escaping crowd rammed into them from behind, Connie cried out, Harry shoved back at them, trying to keep them out of the way so he could pull the door open—
More than a dozen ravers were in a parking area, gathered around the back of a white Ford van. The van was draped with two sets of green and red Christmas-tree lights, which operated off its battery and provided the only illumination in the deep night between the back of the building and the scrub-covered canyon wall. One long- haired man was filling balloons from a pressure tank of nitrous oxide that was strapped to a handtruck behind the van, and a totally bald guy was collecting five-dollar bills. All of them, both merchants and customers, looked up in amazement as screaming and shouting people erupted through the back door of the warehouse.
Harry and Connie separated, bypassing everyone behind the van. She went around to the passenger-side door, and Harry went to the driver’s side.
He jerked open the door and started to climb in behind the steering wheel.
The guy with the shaved head grabbed his arm, stopped him and pulled him out. “Hey, man, what do you think you’re doing?”
As he was being dragged backward out of the van, Harry reached under his coat and drew his revolver. Turning, he jammed the muzzle against his adversary’s lips. “You want me to blow your teeth out the back of your head?”
The bald man’s eyes went wide, and he backed up fast, raising both hands to show he was harmless. “No, hey, no man, cool it, take the van, she’s yours, have fun, enjoy.”
Distasteful as Connie’s methods might be, Harry had to admit there was a certain time-saving efficiency when you handled problems her way.
He climbed behind the steering wheel again, pulled the door shut, and holstered his revolver.
Connie was already in the passenger seat.
The keys were in the ignition, and the engine was running to keep the battery charged up for the Christmas lights. Christmas lights, for God’s sake. Festive bunch, these NO dealers.
He released the handbrake, switched on the headlights, threw the van in gear, and tramped hard on the accelerator. For a moment the tires spun and smoked, squealing like angry pigs on the blacktop, and all the ravers scattered. Then the rubber bit in, the van shot toward the back corner of the warehouse, and Harry hammered the horn to keep people out of his way.
“The road out of here’s going to jam tight in two minutes,”
Connie said, bracing herself against the dashboard as they rounded the corner of the warehouse not quite on two wheels.
“Yeah,” he said, “everyone trying to get away before the cops show up.”
“Cops are such party poopers.”
“Such numbnuts.”
“Never any fun.”
“Prudes.”
They rocketed down the wide driveway alongside the warehouse, where there was no exit door and therefore no panicked people to worry about. The van handled well, real power and a good suspension. He supposed it had been modified for quick escapes when the police showed up.
Out in front of the warehouse, the situation was different, and he had to use the brake and the horn, weaving wildly to avoid fleeing partiers. More people had escaped the building more quickly than he had imagined possible.
“Promoters were smart enough to roll up one of the big truck doors to let people out,” Connie said, turning in her seat to look out the side window as they went past the place.
“Surprised it even works,” Harry said. “God knows how long the place has stood empty.”
With the pressure inside so quickly relieved, the death toll — if there was one — would be substantially smaller.
Hanging a hard left into the street, Harry clipped a parked car with the rear bumper of the van but kept going, blowing the horn at the few ravers who had made it that far and were running down the middle of the street like terrified people in one of those Godzilla movies fleeing from the giant thunderlizard.
Connie said, “You pulled your gun on that bald guy.”
“Yeah.”
“I hear you tell him you’d blow his head off?”
“Something like that.”
“Didn’t show him your badge?”
“Figured he’d have respect for a gun, none at all for a badge.”
She said, “I could get to like you, Harry Lyon.”
“No future in it — unless we get past dawn.”
In seconds they were past all of the partiers who had left the warehouse on foot, and Harry tramped the accelerator all the way to the floor. They shot by the nursery, body shops, and recreational-vehicle storage lot that they had passed on the way in, and were soon beyond the partiers’ parked cars.
He wanted to be long gone from the area when the Laguna Beach Police arrived, which they would — and soon. Being caught in the aftermath of the rave debacle would tie them up too long, maybe just long enough so they would lose their one and only chance at getting the drop on Ticktock.
“Where you going?” Connie asked.
“The Green House.”
“Yeah. Maybe Sammy’s still there.”
“Sammy?”
“The bum. That was his name.”
“Oh, yeah. And the talking dog.”
“Talking dog?” she said.
“Well, maybe he doesn’t talk, but he’s got something to tell us we need to know, that’s for damn sure, and maybe he
