Immortality Is the Suck (11 page)

The floor was covered with blood. It occurred to me that most of it was

probably mine, but my full attention was on Caballo, grinning like some kind of

lunatic, and circling.

I held the .45 out in front of me with both hands. “Hold it right there,” I

said.

He stopped. Looked at the gun. Laughed. And jumped right at me.

I fired.

The bullet hit him square in the chest and knocked him down, but it

seemed to do no more than that. It was like I'd thrown a pebble at the man. He

regained his feet with a neat acrobatic kip-up and his expression changed from

amusement to anger and then his face turned into the saber-toothed maw that

I'd seen on Betsy and Aybie.

I was a little more ready this time, so I met him midleap. We grabbed each

other, did a double axel in midair, and then landed together on the concrete. I

Immortality is the Suck

67

was lucky I landed on top. I didn't stay there. He tossed me off and I rolled as

he leaped at me again. I stepped back and turned and he crashed into the wall.

When he spun around, still trying to recover, I landed a drop kick into his

chin then scissor kicked and put my heel into his chest. This usually will

knock an opponent out by knocking the wind out of him. I felt his sternum

compress. Even heard the snap of a rib. He didn't seem to feel anything, but

grabbed my ankle and twisted it.

It was either go with being twisted like a giant screw or let him break my

leg, so I went with it. Used his hands as my base and somersaulted into his

head, grabbing it and taking him with me, skull first, to the floor.

Aybie was back, wooden stick in hand. I turned, backhanded him, then

landed a double kick. It spun his body and when he fell, he seemed to take the

stake in his hand to the floor first. His body jerked as the stick went into him.

And then he exploded into dirt.

I heard a scream come from my own mouth. Up until this moment I had

been acting and reacting instinctively. My Marine training kicking in, I was all

visceral reaction. In the zone like I'd never been before. All of that stopped as I

processed what had just happened. Played it back mentally up to the moment

when my adversary became a heap of something you expect to find in a

crematorium urn.

While I hesitated, Betsy leaped on my back again, yanked out chunks of

hair. I swear I could hear it ripping from my scalp. Caballo staggered to his

feet, staring at the heap of dust on the floor.

“Let's get out of here, Betsy,” he said.

I made a leap and grabbed at him but he tore out of my hands. Literally,

his pants pocket tore away and a cell phone and an MP3 player clattered out

onto the ground.

68

A. M. Riley

I dived at him again, but he ducked, spinning, and grabbed Betsy's hand.

Then the two of them turned, ran a few steps toward the wall, then
ran straight

up the wall and through an open window.

I stared upward at the place they had disappeared, willing my brain to

process what had just transpired. No, said my brain, this is too much. No more

processing tonight. The kitchen is closed.

I was left standing in a warehouse with bad art on the wall, blood

everywhere, and a pile of dust drifting across the floor.

I picked up the dropped cell phone. And got the hell out of there.

The Caddy was exactly where I'd left it. I didn't even exercise due caution

and wait to make sure it, too, wasn't being staked out. I jumped in and started

the engine. And that's when I saw one slow loop of bright light in my rearview

mirror.

The lights and grille of Peter's Mustang grinned back at me. The temp

police light he kept on his dash, circling.

I rolled down the window and he walked up in that cautious way a cop

approaches a stopped vehicle holding a passenger he knows nothing about.

“Well, well, well,” he said.

Immortality is the Suck

69

Chapter Eight

Peter trusted me as far as he could spit, I guess.

I didn't even ask him how he knew I'd go hunting despite what he'd said.

He leaned on the car and looked up and down the street, then back at me.

He didn't ask, he just looked at me.

Damn, I hated that.

“Freeway's dead,” I heard myself blurt.

The barest flinch in his eyes registered that he'd heard me. “Did you kill

him?” he asked.

“No!” I managed to look outraged. “I came out here to talk to his girlfriend

and then I trailed her to that gallery down the street.”

Peter stepped away from the car and looked back down the alleyway from

which I'd come. Then he looked back at me. The sleeve I'd taken the knife in

was drenched in blood. Blood all over my pants and shirt. “I take it that didn't

go well.”

“Could have gone better.”

“What will the unis find when they go in there?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Nothing really. Blood but no bodies. There's a pile of

ash back there that used to be some punk calls himself Aybie. Betsy, the

girlfriend, and another dude have split. They seemed to have some kind of

superhuman powers; I saw them run straight up a brick wall.”

I heard myself and closed my lips together. Peter's expression had

changed from one of caution to tired disappointment. “What are you
on
,

Adam?”

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A. M. Riley

Peter had on what I call his “intervention” face. There's been a few times

that I swear he's sitting on my shoulder like a cartoon angel. It's like he's my

Jiminy Cricket or something.

“Adam, you are an addict.”

“No, man. I had to use or they would've known I was a cop.”

“That's a lame excuse and you know it.”

“Fuck, man, my knee was killing me and I thought what can it hurt? I can

stop right now, if you want.”

A brochure on the table. “Call them.”

I got my NA one-year pin six months ago. Peter had treated me to a steak

dinner to celebrate. And, you know, the after-party back at his place. There

hadn't been a day, though, when I hadn't craved it. Until now. And if anything

in the past wacky evening had made me seriously consider that I might still

really truly be dead it was the lack of the craving. Because it never leaves you.

“I'm clean,” I said. “But there's some things I have to tell you.”

Peter's cell phone rang at that moment and he answered it, listening

patiently for a while, answering with monosyllabic words and grunts. Then he

flipped it closed and stepped back. “Get out of the car, Adam,” he said.

I climbed out slowly. I was feeling pretty damned hollow and tired, I'm

telling you. “Was that call about Freeway?”

“A.k.a Leonard Chavez of Boyle Heights?” Peter stood with one hand on

his hip, jacket pushed back so that the gun in his shoulder holster was visible.

I wondered if he was thinking of pulling it on me.

“I take it they've found him.”

“They found evidence that someone broke into the equipment shed in

Hollenbeck Park. Prior to killing Mr. Chavez. Signs of a struggle.”

“He was my CI. The one who set me up with Armante. I had to talk to

him.”

“Coincidentally, a car registered to me might have been seen in the area.”

Immortality is the Suck

71

“I…borrowed your car while you were sleeping. He was dead when I found

him.”

“When you say you 'borrowed' my car, that implies that you asked and

received permission from me.”

“You were drunk and I didn't want to wake you.”

He made a noise that I had learned to interpret as “don't give me that shit”

and walked over to the Mustang to open the passenger side door. “I'll have

someone pick up the Cadillac in the morning.”

* * * * *

As we pulled into Peter's garage, dawn was oozing into the sky. Its light

illuminated Peter's face. He looked drained and in desperate need of rest. I

assumed my attitude of cowed bad puppy and slunk from the car to the garage

door. And had a nasty shock when my hand on the knob caught a warm ray of

sunshine and burst into flames.

Yes, you read that correctly.

I screamed and did what you should never do when your hand is on fire. I

waved it around in the air. Peter appeared and wrapped something around my

hand, yelling at me to calm down while he smothered my flaming hand in his

jacket.

Eventually the fire stopped.

Then I crouched around my hand, whining and whimpering. It hurt like a

motherfucker, as it should have, but then, very quickly it
stopped
hurting. I

peeled off the partially burned coat and saw that my skin was only pink. More

scalded than incinerated. And I could already flex my fingers.

“What the hell just happened?” Peter asked me. He looked worse than I

felt. Ash on his shirt and a smear of it on one cheek. His eyes wide and

bloodshot. The pupils pinpricks.

“I caught on fire.”

“I noticed
that. How
did you catch on fire?”

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A. M. Riley

“The sun seems to have caused some sort of spontaneous combustion,” I

said.

He didn't like that. He got that grim don't-fuck-with-me-Adam face. “The

sun.”

“Fine, don't believe me,” I said. I picked up a box top that had been strewn

on the floor and sidled out the door, using it as a shield. Happily, the garage

was attached to the apartment by a covered walkway so I could keep the sun

off me. Peter followed, wise enough to do so without comment.

Peter made it as far as his living room couch and then hurled himself into

it. He rubbed at his reddened eyes with the heel of one hand and I could see

the recent grief he'd been feeling. The pain I'd caused him. Was still causing

him.

“So now what?” I asked him.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees and hands over his face. “Now we

call Stan.”

“No, Peter…”

“He's my partner.”

“He's a motard.” I crouched at his knees, put a hand on his leg and said,

“Don't you see, Peter, there's something wrong with all of this? The meet with

Starz, the CI who set it up found dead? Me found dead? More or less. One of

the kids at the gallery said…”

“You really do need to tell me what happened back there.”

“You won't believe me, anyway. Stan sure as
hell
wouldn't believe me.

Heck, I was there, and I don't believe me. But now I'm thinking, maybe I really

did die,” I said. “Maybe I'm dreaming this.”

Peter rubbed his eyes again. “Shut the fuck up, Adam,” he said quietly.

I squeezed his knee with one hand. I know it sounds kinky but I've always

thought Peter's knees were kind of sexy. “One of the kids at the gallery said I'm

a vampire. The living dead.”

Immortality is the Suck

73

He looked at me. His hand closed over mine. “Maybe you are,” he said.

Then we both cracked up.

I straightened, still laughing, and said, “There's something else I need to

show you.”

Peter followed me dutifully out to the kitchen and when I brought the

cartons of blood out of the refrigerator and put them both on the counter he

blinked twice before he said, “Explain.”

“I found these near Freeway's body tonight.”

The way he looked at me, well, I'd say it broke my heart, except it was

reasonable and I should expect that expression on Peter's face by now. “And

you decided to bring it back here?”

“This is the thing,” I said. “It's a carton of blood.”

“Blood.”

“It looked like Freeway was trying to hide it when he was murdered.”

Peter stared at the cartons and very slowly his face went white. I knew

what he was thinking because I'd been a homicide detective too, and it's what I

would be thinking if I hadn't been busy thinking about how much I wanted to

drink the blood. He was thinking we had some group of whacked-out serial

killers here. And that I had something to do with it.

“Tell me everything you know,” he said.

“That's the thing. I
don't
know.”

“Don't tell me what you don't know, Adam. Start at the beginning and tell

me everything about your CI.”

“You knew him, Peter. He was the Sergeant at Arms for the Boyle Heights

Mongols. He fingered a homicide suspect for you guys last year when there was

that DB found in the trash bin on Mount Washington.”

“What else?”

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A. M. Riley

“What else?” Freeway and I had shared a very lucrative side business, but

I was fairly certain this had nothing to do with that.

“Was he your dealer?”

I managed to look quietly offended. “I quit, Peter.”

“Everything?” He held my gaze and I had to look away. “Jesus Christ.”

“So now somebody's trafficking in blood,” I said. “At least that's how it