Survival Of The Fittest

Baker never had a chance to see them. His pink shirtback sucked up crimson and the rear of his head dissolved in a red-brown mist.

The front of his head followed, facial features blanketed in red oil and white jelly, the substructure disintegrating, features losing integrity, turning to port wine. Melting. A wax figure melting.

His chest exploded and soft things flew out, plunking wetly against the wall.

One of the shooters ran to me. Young, sharp-featured, black hair. One of the guards I'd seen at the consulate. Behind him, a big, heavy, white-haired black man in navy blue sweats. Older, at least sixty. He glanced at Baker's body, then at me.

The young, hawk-faced man began undoing my restraints, only to be yanked away.

By Milo, disheveled, wet-eyed, sweating, breathing hard.

“Sir,” said the young man, Milo's big hand still on his arm.

“Get lost! Do your job and I'll do mine.”

The young man hesitated for a second, then left. Milo freed me. “Oh, Alex, such a fuckup, such a goddamn idiotic fuckup, I'm so- oh, man, we almost lost you- it really went bad- never again, never fucking again!”

“You always were one for drama,” I said.

“Shut up,” he said. “Just shut up and rest- man, I am so sorry, I will never let you talk me-”

“Shut up yourself.”

He lifted me.

He carried me past Baker, lying in a broth of gore, crossed the white room, now candy-striped, bits of brain and bone a free-form collage. Out to the stairs. Tenney's corpse was sprawled on top.

“Up we go.” His breathing was too hard, too fast. I felt strong enough to walk and told him so.

“No way.”

“I'm okay, put me down.”

“All right, but we've got to get the hell out of here. Be careful not to trip over that piece of shit.”

A woman came into view at the top of the stairs. Very short, heavyset. Rosy cheeks, bulbous nose.

Irina Budzhyshyn, proprietress of the Hermes Language School. Small pistol in her hand, nothing fancy.

In her Russian accent, she said, “No one else in the house. Get him out of here and then we bring in the cleanup crew.”

A man appeared behind her, in black. Late twenties but already bald on top with a brown mustache and goatee.

He was breathing hard, too. Everyone was.

“I've got transport,” he said in a thick voice. Not acknowledging me, though we'd met.

The landlord at Irina's building- what name had he used? Laurel. Phil Laurel. As in Hardy.

Everyone's a comedian.

60

We got into Rick's Porsche.

Milo said, “You all right?”

“I'm fine.” I was coated with icy sweat and fought not to shake.

He made a too-fast U-turn and raced down the hill.

“Oh, man,” he said. “What a-”

“Forget it.”

“Sure, forget it. Biggest fuckup of my life- forget it is exactly what I won't do- how the hell could I have been so goddamn stupid-!”

“What happened?”

“I got ambushed is what happened. Sudden meeting with a deputy chief. Sharavi was pulled off, too, by his own people. Til I found out, I thought he set it up- did you see an older black guy in there?”

“Captain Brooker?” I said. “The one who got hold of Raymond's file and shoes?”

“Sharavi managed to call him from the john in the consulate… The guy ended up being righteous.”

“Think Sharavi's bosses will punish him?”

He reached Apollo, turned sharply, sped. “Bosses don't like being bucked… I'm taking you to my place, Brooker's gonna meet us there and we'll all get cleaned up.”

“How'd you get free?”

“Faked a heart attack, scared the hell out of the department lackey they sent to drive me. He zoomed to Cedars, ran for help, I split, got to the E.R. the back way, found Rick, borrowed the Porsche.”

He was still breathing hard and his color was bad.

“Laurence Olivier,” I said.

“Yeah, maybe I'll switch jobs, become a waiter.”

“Meantime, calm down. We don't want a real heart-”

“Don't worry, I won't drop dead on you, too pissed off to die- Jesus, Alex, this was the worst thing that's ever- the department pulled me off but I screwed up by not anticipating it. Big-time. Should have known Carmeli would be listening in to every word. Knew from the start the guy was no social director- what'd he call himself- an arranger. He arranges all right.”

He cursed.

“You predicted it,” I said. “The Israelis would take care of business themselves.”

“So I'm a goddamn prophet. But a stupid one. I kept seeing Sharavi as the hit man, got thrown off. Truth is, he was just like me, fucking bait… The whole thing went to shit- I am leaving the fucking job. Switch to something quiet- I'll use my goddamn master's, teach English somewhere- elementary school, not in L.A., where ten-year-olds shoot you, some backwater, kids who still say aw, shucks and-”

“What exactly happened?” I said.

“What happened? Shit happened is what happened. Brooker and I were up there playing I Spy when they grabbed us. Two guys and that little Russian girl and they managed to get us cuffed before we knew what hit us. Finally, we convinced them we weren't the enemy and they freed us, demanded we leave, it was their operation. Brooker and I refused because we didn't trust them to protect you, said we'd spoil whatever plans they had if they didn't share the wealth. Bluffing, because I knew that if the debate stretched out I'd have to split. Because I wanted to make sure someone was watching you- didn't want you in there without surveillance.”

He blinked hard- wet eyes? Rubbing them hard, he coughed.

“They agreed to let us in on it but they had to call the shots. She did- Irina, Svetlana, whatever. She agreed to let us be part of the rear attack if we didn't “cause problems.' The arrangement was Brooker and me and one of them- the black-haired guy- in back of the house and her and the other guy- the fucking landlord- at the front door. The guy with us had a mike, parabolic, like Sharavi's, but it wasn't working well and by the time he got it going, Baker was ready to… I'm sorry, Alex, when I heard you say potassium chloride I nearly- I told the guy we're going in right now, bucko, he tells me he needs a signal from her, I say fuck you, and he uses his beeper to signal her and she says she's already at the front door, just hold on one second, but I'm already up, running for the glass door anyway and the black-haired one is holding on to me, I'm fighting with him, come this close to shooting him. Finally Svetlana and Landlord pull the front-door thing, do Tenney, we can hear them