McCone And Friends

No time for recriminations now. Besides, the nearest phone was miles away, and even if I had driven there immediately, the deputies wouldn’t have gotten here fast enough to save Adrian. I wasn’t sure I’d gotten here fast enough to save her.

I crawled back up the incline and looked around, trying to measure the distance I’d have to run exposed to get to the shelter of the outbuildings. From here it was twenty, maybe twenty-five yards. Not that far-I’d go for it.

I hunched over, made myself as small as I could, and started running-not much of a run, but still the longest, scariest of my life. I kept expecting the whine of a bullet-that’s what you hear, Sharon’s told me, before you hear the actual report, and she ought to know. You hear the whine, that is if the bullet doesn’t kill you first.

But all I heard was the howl of the wind and the banging of a door someplace and the roaring of my own blood in my ears. Then I was at the first outbuilding, crouching against its rough wood wall and panting hard.

The banging was louder here. When my breathing had calmed, I crept around the building’s corner and looked. Door, half off its hinges, and no sound or light coming from inside. I crept a little closer. Empty shed, falling down, certainly not June’s studio.

I moved along until I could see the larger building the space between the two was narrow, dark. I ran again, to a windowless wall and flattened against it, putting my ear to the boards and trying to hear if anyone was inside.

A banging noise, then a crash-something breaking. Then an angry voice-male, Waterson’s. “Where the hell is it?”

Sobbing now, and a young woman saying, “I told you I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where’s Aunt June? I want-”

“Shut up!” It sounded like he hit her. She screamed, and my hand went into my pocket, grasping the knife.

More sobbing. Waterson said, “I want those pictures and the negatives, Adrian.”

“What pictures? What negatives? I don’t know anything about them!”

“Don’t give me that. Kirby said you were holding them for him. Just tell me where they are and I’ll let you go.”

Sure he would. He’d shoot her just like he had June, and hope that this would go down as a couple of those random killings that happen a lot in remote rural areas where weirdos break into what look like empty houses for stuff to steal and sell for drug money.

“I wouldn’t hold anything for Kirby!” Adrian said through her sobs. “I’m scared of him!”

“Then why did he come out here yesterday after he tried to hit me up for money? Coming to get his evidence to prove to me that I’d better pay up, that’s why. And don’t lie to about it-I followed him.”

“No! I didn’t even see him! He figured out where I was and wanted to talk me into going back to the city. I hid from him, and Aunt June ran him off.”

So this was where Kirby had gone when I’d lost him. I remembered the eucalyptus leaves in his hair, the sand on his shoes when I’d talked to him at his parents’ house-probably picked up while he was skulking around outside here, looking for Adrian after June had told him he couldn’t see her. Waterson had not only followed Kirby here, but later to the Naples Street house, where he’d killed him.

There was a silence inside the studio, then Adrian screamed and cried some more. He’d hit her again, I guessed. Then he said, “I’m not going to ask you again, Adrian. Where’re the pictures?”

“There aren’t any! Look, Kirby’s always bullshitting, he had me fooled. I was going to go to you about what he was doing at the plaza, until I saw you at the house with him, making a deal with that fence.”

That was what had made her run out of the Naples Street place so fast she’d left her backpack-made her run straight to Aunt June, the only person she’d told about the trouble she was in, the person who’d offered to take her side and shelter her. Well, June had tried. Now it was up to me.

I started moving around the building, duck-walking like my high-school phys ed teacher had made us do when we goofed off in gym. Inside, I heard Waterson say, “You never knew about a hidden camera at that place in the Outer Mission?”

“No.”

“Kirby never asked you to take pictures of me doing deals the fences?”

“Neither of us took any pictures. This story is just more of Kirby’s bullshit.”

Waterson laughed-an ugly sound. “Well,” he said, “it was Kirby’s last shovelful of bullshit. He’s dead.”

“What…?” Adrian’s question rose up into a shriek.

I stopped listening, concentrated on getting to the corner of the building. Then I peeked around it. On this side-the one facing the water-there was a window and a door. I duckwalked on, thanking god that I still had some muscles left in my thighs. At the window I poked my head up a little, but all saw were shadows-a big barrel-shaped one that had to be Waterson, and some warped, twisted ones that were downright weird the light shivered and flickered-probably from a candle or oil lamp.

The door was closed, but the wind was rattling it in its frame. It made me think of how the wind had torn the cottage door from my grasp. I stopped, pressed against the wall, and studied this door. From the placement of its hinges, I could tell it opened out. I scuttled around to the hinged side, paused and listened. Adrian was screaming and sobbing again. Christ, what was he doing to her?

Well, the sound would hide what I was about to do.

I stood, pressed flat as could be against the wall, then reached across the door to its knob and gave it a quick twist. The door opened, then slammed shut again.

“What the hell?” Waterson said.

Heavy footsteps came toward the door. I tensed, knife out and ready.

Don’t think about how it’ll be when you use it, Rae. Just do it-two lives are at stake here, and one’s your own.

The door opened. All I could see was a wide path of wavery light. Waterson said, “Fuckin’ wind,” and shut the door again. Well, hell.

I waited a few seconds until his footsteps went away, reached for the knob again, and really yanked on it this time. The wind caught the door, slammed it back, and it smashed into me, smacking my nose. I bit my lip to keep from yelling, felt tears spring to my eyes. I wiped them away with my left hand, gripped the knife till my right hand hurt.

The footsteps came back again, quicker now, and I grasped the knife with both hands-ready, not thinking about it, just ready to do it because I had to. When he stepped outside, I shoved the door as hard as I could with my whole body, slamming him against the frame. He shouted, staggered, reeled back inside.

I went after him, saw him stumbling among a bunch of weird, twisted shapes that were some sort of pottery sculptures-the things that had made the strange shadows I’d glimpsed through the window. Some were as tall as he was, others were shorter or stood on pedestals. He grabbed at one and brought it down as he tried to keep his balance and raise his gun.

The gun went off. The roar was deafening, but I hadn’t heard any whine, so his shot must have gone wide of me. Waterson stumbled back into a pedestal, flailing. I lunged at him, knife out in front of me. We both went down together. I heard the gun drop on the floor as I slashed out with the knife.

Waterson had hold of my arm now, slammed it against the floor. Pain shot up to my shoulder, my fingers went all prickly, and I dropped the knife. He pushed me away and started scrambling for the gun. I got up on my knees, grabbed at the base of the nearest sculpture, pushed. It hit his back and knocked him flat.

Waterson howled. I saw the gun about a foot from his hand and kicked out, sending it sliding across the floor. Then I stood all the way up, grabbed a strange many-spouted vase from a pedestal. And slammed it down on his head.

Waterson grunted and lay still.

I slumped against the pedestal, but only for a moment before I went to pick up the gun. The room was very quiet all of a sudden, except for sobbing coming from one corner. Adrian was trussed up there, dangling like a marionette from one of the support beams, her feet barely touching the plank floor.

She had the beginnings of a black eye and tears sheened her face, and she was jerking at her ropes like she was having some kind of attack. I located the knife, made what I hoped were reassuring noises as I went over