Brian Freeman - The Crooked Street

Frost stood up, too. They circled each other like wounded prizefighters. Fox was losing blood that soaked through his black clothes and puddled on the platform floor, but Frost could hardly keep the world in focus.

When he saw an opening, he attacked again. It was a mistake.

Fox nimbly sidestepped his charge and delivered another ferocious kick that landed in the middle of Frost’s back. The impact drove him into the air and off the platform, and he landed in the dust and dirt on the far side of the train tracks. He got up but then collapsed. The same thing happened when he tried again. And then he was finally on his feet, propped against the wall of the tunnel.

Everything began to happen at once. He tried to make sense of it.

A wail sounded, muffled and distant in his ears. He stared into the blackness of the tunnel hole and saw two glowing eyes growing larger and brighter. The BART train whistled, screeched, and roared as it flew from under the bay and closed in on the Embarcadero Station.

Meanwhile, on the platform, Fox bent over Fawn, dripping blood onto her body. He reached for her head. He was going to break her neck.

Frost couldn’t get to them in time. He had only seconds to leap off the tracks and escape the oncoming train. He was frozen with indecision, but then he looked down and spotted his gun where it had landed between the rails. He took two steps, picked it up in his right hand, and tried to steady his arm as he aimed at Fox, but his index finger had swelled, and he couldn’t move it or fit it inside the trigger guard.

The train stormed closer. Its whistle shrieked. Its headlights bathed him in light.

Fox had his hands on either side of Fawn’s skull, ready to twist. She was awake now, frozen in terror, her eyes wide.

Frost threw the gun into his left hand and fired and fired. He was a terrible shot with his other hand, but he got lucky. After missing three times, one bullet shattered Fox’s elbow, and another burned through the flesh of his stomach. Fox howled and fell, writhing on the ground.

The train clattered and bore down on him with a hurricane of air exploding from the tunnel.

With his gun still in his hand, Frost took two steps and jumped for the platform. His heels barely cleared the sleek silver body of the train. He rolled, and his broken finger jammed into the floor like a shock of lightning. Before he even came to a stop, he passed out from the pain.

When Frost opened his eyes, half a dozen faces loomed over him. They were passengers from the train.

“I called 911, Officer,” someone said, who’d obviously spotted the badge on his belt. “The cops and the ambulance should be here soon. Just hang tight.”

He blinked, remembering where he was and what had happened. He pushed himself to his elbows, but as he did, his finger delivered another shock of pain that almost split him in half. He touched his face, which was wet with ribbons of blood. His whole body felt pummeled.

“Whoa, hang on, man,” someone else said. “You probably shouldn’t move.”

Frost turned his head sideways, feeling the effort in his neck. He looked through the legs of the people clustered around him, and the floor of the platform was empty. Fawn was gone. He scrambled to his feet and nearly collapsed, and one of the men nearby grabbed him and propped him up.

“The girl,” Frost said urgently. “Where’s the girl?”

The people around him looked at each other, and then a woman said, “The pretty one with the big bump on her forehead? She took off.”

“Where? Where did she go?”

The passenger from the train shrugged. “I don’t know. It was crazy town around here. She got up and ran for the escalator.”

Frost swung his head in the other direction, and again his knees buckled.

Fox was gone, too. The blood trail led into the elevator. Frost broke free from the crowd and followed the trail. Several of the people shouted after him, but he didn’t pay any attention. He limped, trying to stay upright, trying to stay conscious. He jabbed the elevator button again and again, as if that would make it come faster. When the doors finally opened, he piled inside. He crumpled against the far wall and closed his eyes as the car went upward. It only took a few seconds, but it felt like an hour.

The trail of blood continued into the lobby of the station. Romeo and Moreno were both gone. The Lombard presence had melted away as the emergency sirens got closer.

Frost tracked Fox all the way to the escalator leading up to the street, but when he climbed the steps to the sidewalk outside, the rain had washed away the blood trail. The ambulances were coming. So were the police. He couldn’t wait for them. He squinted into the pounding rain, which had driven away the late-night people. The streets looked empty. At first, he thought Fox had vanished again, but then he spotted a shadow near the wall of the Hyatt hotel, staggering toward the Embarcadero.

Frost took off after Fox. It was a battle to see which one could stay on their feet longer. Frost felt thunder behind his eyes with each step, but he sprinted anyway. Fox passed under a streetlight and looked back and saw Frost gaining ground behind him. The killer tried to run, but the loss of blood had caught up to him, and all he could manage were stutter steps. He made it to the empty plaza beyond the hotel, and so did Frost, only a few yards behind him.

At the edge of the street, under the palm trees, Fox stopped. He turned on his heel to face Frost. His one arm hung limply at his side. As he bled, the rain washed it away. Frost kept a wary distance, not trusting the man’s tricks, but Fox had no tricks left. Behind him, cars splashed along the southbound lane of the Embarcadero, their headlights washing over his body. The clock tower of the Ferry Building gleamed with yellow light across the street.

“You think you’ve won?” Fox called. “You’re wrong.”

Rain shined on his face, which was half in shadow. His whole body shivered as he tried to stay standing.

“This is the end,” Frost told him. “It starts with you.”

“I’m already dead,” Fox said.

Frost shook his head. “No way. You are not going to die. I’m not going to let you. The surgeons are going to fix you up, and then I’m going to put you in a room, and you’re going to tell me how it all works. You’re going to tell me everything, Fox.”

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Fox shouted.

The traffic roared. The rain sheeted down, and wind rocked the palm trees. The gauzy lights made the sidewalk look like a carnival.

“Get what?”

“He’s coming.”

“Who?”

Fox gave him a bloody grin. “Lombard.”

Frost twisted his neck to survey their surroundings. They were alone. He took a step closer to Fox. The man looked serene in the midst of his pain.

“No one’s here,” Frost said.

“You’re wrong. He’s always watching.”

Over the driving rain, Frost heard the muffled ping of a text message arriving on his phone. Fox heard it, too.

“You better get that,” Fox warned him.

Frost yanked the phone out of his pocket, and the screen lit up. He didn’t recognize the number. The message itself was only three words.

King takes pawn.

Frost spun, looking for a ghost. He still saw nothing and no one.

“You should duck,” Fox went on, making no attempt to run, “unless you want to die, too.”

That was when it happened.

Among the flood of cars kicking up torrents of spray on the Embarcadero, one car squealed to a stop at the curb barely ten feet away from them. It was a Bugatti, black, low, sleek, and incredibly expensive. Its passenger-side window was already down, and Frost hurled himself to the ground, knowing what came next. Gunfire erupted from inside with bursts of fire and noise. Fox shuddered like a puppet on strings as multiple bullets riddled his back, and by the time the Bugatti sped away, the young killer twitched and crumpled sideways. It all took less than ten seconds.