Nocturnal: A Novel

“Chang and Clauser?”

Pookie shook his head again. “That could be a police drama, if the show was about two gay cops that moonlighted as interior decorators.”

“I’d watch that,” Bryan said, forgoing the doorbell to pound four times on the oak door. “It would be like my favorite show of all time.”

They stared at the door, but nothing happened.

They turned and walked back down the steps. Bryan felt a sense of loss as he walked away, as if the mystery might vanish without him ever knowing the truth. “Pooks, I have to get in there. This house, Erickson, this is the key to everything.”

“How do you know?”

Bryan shrugged. “I just know.”

“That’s not much to go on,” Pookie said.

“Yeah, neither was a dream about some kid being killed at Meacham Place.”

Pookie nodded. “Good point. It’s risky to press our luck, though. Zou will be informed of any warrant we try to get.”

“Fuck warrants,” Bryan said as he opened the Buick’s door. “If she won’t play by the rules, neither will we. We have to do this. I mean, unless you still think I’m crazy?”

Pookie slid into the driver’s seat. “Well, I wouldn’t exactly let you babysit my kids, if I had any. Listen, Bri-Bri, I haven’t forgot what I saw on the roof of Susan Panos’s building. I couldn’t forget that if I drank a gallon of Jack three times a day for a week straight. I don’t know biology, but I’ve bought into Robin’s social networking species thing.”

“Eusocial.”

“Whatever. The point is, I’m with you on this. I’m down for the gunfight. We’ll figure this out, but you are going to promise me that you will not roid-rage your way into that house. We have to think about our next step.”

“Pooks, you don’t understand—”

Pookie slapped the dashboard. “Shut up, Bryan.”

Pookie wasn’t smiling now. Bryan closed his mouth. His friend wanted to be heard.

“I’ve stood by you,” Pookie said. “You owe me. You’re not going in there without a plan, even if I have to knock you out myself.”

“You can’t knock me out.”

Pookie waved his hands dismissively. “That’s irrelevant. We’re going to get the vigilante, we’re going to expose Zou, we’re going to find the Zed-Y killer that’s still out there and anyone else who helped him. We’ll get to the bottom of this Marie’s Children bullshit, but I’ve known you for a long time and you’re way over the edge. Right now you’ll make bad decisions. I won’t. So we do this my way, agreed?”

Bryan felt an urge to get out of the Buick, run back up those steps, kick in the door and let the chips fall where they may. He took a breath and fought that urge down. Pookie had backed him through all this crazy shit. That couldn’t be ignored. Pookie was right — Bryan owed him.

“All right,” Bryan said. “What’s the next step?”

“Let me think for a minute.”

They drove in silence. Pookie didn’t cut anyone off. He turned at random, obeying all the signals. Finally, the Buick turned down California Street, heading toward the Financial District. The setting sun cast an orange-juice glow on the horizon, a glow that back-lit the enlongated pyramid that was the Transamerica Building.

“We need more info on Erickson,” Pookie said. “Black Mister Burns is digging as we speak. I’ll also have Robin test the waters at the Medical Examiner’s Office, see if she can find anything.”

“Okay,” Bryan said. “What about me?”

Pookie smiled, nodded. “You, my little Terminator? I’m not going to ask you to stay away from Erickson’s house, because I saw how you were looking at the place. I don’t really want to hear you lie to me and tell me that you’ll steer clear. So, you do a stakeout, but you just watch, you do not approach. Give me your word you won’t move without backup.”

It was one thing for Pookie to believe Bryan wasn’t a murderer, but another for him to go all-in like this. If the man had his head on straight, he should have cut ties long ago and moved on. Pookie showed loyalty, true friendship — you back your boy no matter what. And for that level of dedication, was Pookie really asking for that much in return? No matter how bad Bryan wanted to go in that house and find answers, he’d do what Pookie asked.

“I just watch,” Bryan said. “I promise.”

Pookie reached out his right fist. “Word is bond.”

Bryan laughed, and the sound surprised him. “Dicker pricker fucker sucker,” he said, and bumped fists.

Bryan felt better. And, he had to admit, Pookie’s way was just flat-out smarter — the archer had survived a six-story drop, then promptly killed a man with a freakin’ arrow. If that didn’t fit the description of bad motherfucker, nothing would. He was too dangerous to take one-on-one.

Bryan settled back and looked out the Buick’s window. He watched the setting sun sink behind the Transamerica Building, counting the minutes until he could get out and hunt.

Amy Zou’s Tea Time

Chief Amy Zou took a sip of tea. The tiny porcelain Miss Piggy cup held only imaginary tea, of course, but nothing could taste sweeter.

“Hmmm,” she said. “This is very good. Which one of you made this?”

Her twin girls giggled.

“We both made it, Mom,” they said in unison. It spooked the hell out of Amy when they did that.

She sat in a little pink chair at a little pink table. Her daughter Mur sat on her left, her daughter Tabz on her right, and her husband, Jack, in front of her. He also sipped at a tiny teacup, his pinkie properly extended, a pink flower hat pinned to his thinning blond hair. The girls wanted him to wear it, so wear it he did.

“Mmmmm,” Jack said. “I do believe this is possum guts tea? Tastes delightfully rotted and smells divinely stinky.”

The girls giggled. They looked adorable in their little party dresses.

Amy felt at peace. Almost at peace; she didn’t get many moments like this, and even when she did an internal voice taunted her, said these days are almost gone and you’ve pissed most of them away. With her job, she could never fully relax. And that job was never far away — her cell phone sat on the tabletop, looking horribly out of place so close to teacups and the Kermit the Frog tea pot.

Tabitha reached for an imaginary piece of cake. Mur didn’t like the imaginary cake; she had said as much after the first imaginary bite. Tabitha preferred to be called Tabz because, as she put it, it was funner. Mary demanded to be addressed only as Mur for reasons Amy and Jack had never been able to pry out of the girl.

Jack looked at the girls with a narrow-eyed glare of suspicion. “Wait just a cotton-picking minute. Did you two spike this tea with runny elephant poop?”

The girls squealed with laughter, throwing their heads back and rocking in their chairs.

“No, Daddy,” Tabz said. “It’s not elephant poop, it’s monkey poop.”

Jack set his cup down with comedic rage, then crossed his arms and sat back, shaking his head hard enough to make the pink flower hat wiggle. God, but the girls loved that man.

Amy realized with a start that Tabz was wearing her heavy, silky black hair in long pigtails. She had never worn her hair like that before. She’d always worn it down, like Mur’s was now. They had inherited Amy’s hair, not a trace of her husband’s thin blond locks.

“Tabitha, honey, your hair looks nice.”

“Thank you,” she said, and took a sip.