Bleeding Out

dinners, truck drivers eager to park their rigs, and single men and women in sports cars fantasizing what their dates would be like. Watching them as dusk blued the skyline, Frank's thoughts kept straying back to her own evening, but she quickly refocused on work.

Studying an elegant couple in the Beamer next to her, Frank pondered her options if the Delamore carpet didn't match the evidence sample. There were a number of ways she could play it. As the Beamer inched forward, she wondered where the couple was going. The man was laughing, the woman smiling, as if she'd just said something clever. They seemed quite happy. Frank looked away.

Later, sitting in the dark, watching shadows against the light—one thin and small, the other tall and wide— Frank was keenly aware of the action around her. A dog trotted down the sidewalk. A car door shut. There was canned laughter from a TV turned too loud. City sounds punctuated the night—a horn, trucks rumbling, a chopper whumping not far off.

'Come on,' she whispered, following Delamore's silhouette across the living room window. 'Come on, buddy.'

And then he was at the front door, light tumbling out around him. She sank lower, slowly, never losing his face as he slid into a shabby Camaro. As his taillights faded, so did Frank's exhilaration. She stared at the house, its allure diminished by his absence. His secrets were in there, though.

By the time Frank pulled away from the curb the couple in the Beamer were in their bed, fast asleep, and Clancey Delamore's house had long been dark.

He was sitting at a picnic table on the edge of the park, anchoring the sports section open with large forearms. The day was cool and blustery, but little kids were running around on the grass and mothers were relieved to have them distracted. At least until one of them fell and hurt himself, or wouldn't share the ball with someone else.

There were two Mexican girls swinging branches at each other, sisters he guessed. He studied them openly, surprised to find he had no feeling for them. He was beyond little girls; they'd been practice for the older and more demanding work he faced now. A quick survey of the park uncovered no suitably aged girls. But that was alright. He didn't want to take them from here anyway. He'd snuck in though a gash of chain-link fence in the thick scrub just to think and relax before going home to his mother and the same dumb questions she always asked: How was his night? What did he want for dinner? Where had he been since he got off work? He thought she'd stop asking because his answers were always the same: Okay. Anything. He'd gone for a walk or to the twenty-four-hour movies.

He knew he couldn't tell her what he was doing, couldn't tell anyone, even though he just wanted to run down the streets screaming, 'It's me! I did it!' He was proud of his work, especially the last girl, and thinking about the next one made him feel hot and excited. It was going to be even better. He knew just what he wanted to do.

His chest tightened when he thought about it, and he felt pure pleasure, just like he'd felt before crashing into a defender or bringing the ball home against his chest. In those rare moments of perfect clarity and peace, he'd known the right moves to make and made them flawlessly. Those were the moments when his father had beamed at him from the sidelines. He'd always wished he could stop the clock and stay forever in that smile of acceptance. For those short and shining seconds he felt loved and happy and safe.

That's how it felt when he was with them, right before he made the big play with his father's eyes still somehow on him, bright and smiling, clapping with his hands raised, proud of his son. This was what he felt he'd been groomed for all his life. Football had just been a way to get him here where he truly belonged. His father had known that and tried to show him, but he'd been afraid. Now he wasn't afraid anymore. He knew what he had to do.

32

She was trying to be patient, but ten working days after she'd submitted the carpet samples, Frank broke down and called the lab. A clerk cheerfully told her they'd completed her carpet sample just that morning. Frank grabbed her coat, a handful of stapled papers, and raced past Foubarelle, who had wandered into the squad room. 'Frank, I need to talk to you.'

'Gotta go,' she said in a flurry. 'Be back in an hour.' In the lab's parking lot, Frank opened the sealed report. Skimming past the technicalities she carefully compared the two sample reports. The color, size, shape, and processing of the two fibers were identical. The examiner had traced both of them to a textile manufacturer in Rhode Island and identified each sample as a multifilament polyester with a distinctly characteristic octalobal cross. In his opinion, it was highly likely that they were from the same source.

Frank closed her eyes, containing her elation. She wondered if RHD had the lab samples back on Peterson yet, and if they would be a match with these. It didn't matter. This was good enough. Though it was impossible to say that the fibers were identical, they were a hard match, and Frank felt an almost sexual pleasure start slowly burning in her belly. She knew she should really be getting back to work. Instead, Frank settled against the headrest. She was perfectly still except for one finger absently rubbing a phantom ring.

She didn't think she'd sleep, but late Friday night Frank forced herself to lie down and was surprised when the alarm went off. She dressed quickly in a navy sweat suit and tucked her hair under an old Dodgers cap. From the dresser she grabbed the holstered Beretta, her badge, ID, wallet, and car keys that dangled from a complicated Swiss knife. Within minutes she was southbound on the 110. It was just past 2:00 a.m. Although Frank had the road to herself, she cruised cautiously at the speed limit. A thin fog dimmed the moon; Frank had hoped the cover would be thicker and lower.

But no matter. She exited easily on Slauson and headed west to Capitol Baking. Parking unobtrusively across the street, she hunkered down and waited. Eventually, a skinny, balding rent-a-cop strolled through the parking lot. Frank sank a little further. He paused at the steps to the front office, joggled the doorknob, and sat down for smoke. Frank had quit years ago, but she envied him now. When he finished, he carefully ground the butt with his heel and retraced his steps through the parking lot.

Frank checked her watch. She knew from Clancey's timecards that breaktime was 3:45. Switching off the dome light, she quietly slipped out of the Honda. She'd driven through the parking lot hours ago, after the swing shift had clocked out, and located Clancey's Camaro. Now she was striding easily toward it on silent running shoes, her red pocketknife hidden in her fist.

Inconspicuously checking the lines of cars, Frank knelt by Clancey's to tie a shoelace. With the awl on her knife she swiftly punctured both his front tires, the air whispering out slowly. For good measure, she stooped and punched the tires on the cars to either side of his. Not nice, but in the long run Frank hoped it would serve a greater humanitarian purpose.

Walking casually back to her car she surveyed the lot again. No one in sight. She started the Honda and eased back onto the side street, then west on Slauson. At a red light she checked the rearview mirror and caught a fraction of her reflection; the satisfied face looking back at her seemed like a stranger's. Frank glanced at the time again and noted she was in good shape, barring any setbacks. She stopped at an AM/PM for coffee. A huge black woman flashed three gold teeth at Frank, saying, 'You're lucky. I just made a new pot for myself.'

Frank smiled at the towering woman and asked for the bathroom key. It might be a long morning and she wanted to make sure she had lots of room for the coffee. On her way out, the woman told her to have a good day. Frank answered, 'I already am.'

She still was when she slid against the curb in front of the house next to the Delamores'. Frank pushed her seat back from the steering wheel and assumed her slumped position. Pulling the bill down over her face as if dozing, she listened to her engine tick its heat away. No lights came on, no curtains stirred, no doors shut. Frank sat, motionless, for a few minutes. She took a sip of coffee.

Her watch said Clancey's break was over. Now both of them were waiting for six o'clock. Frank scrunched her neck against her shoulders, easing the knots there. She sighed and stretched her legs, flexed her ass, pumped her arms isometrically, sipped more coffee. As relaxed as it was possible for her to be, Frank reviewed Plans A, B, and C. Then she reviewed them again.

Almost two hours later, a light came on in the Delamores' living room. Frank waited patiently, hoping Plan A was proceeding. It was, because ten minutes later the garage door opened and Clancey's mom backed out in a white Fiesta. As soon as it rounded the corner Frank got out. In the brightening darkness, she crossed the small front lawn and quickly tested the lid on a metal garbage can next to the garage. Using it as a springboard, she pulled herself over the high wooden fence, surveying the back yard even as she landed in it. The fence went all