Steven James - The Rook

Now.

Wait.

Just wait.

She’ll respond somehow, she has to respond somehow.

Confidence. That’s the key.

Creighton took a swig of his beer.

She might just blow him off. Yes, she might.

But maybe.

“Well,” she said at last. “You’re right about this place. And I do know the city pretty well…” She stood and slipped her arm around his elbow. “All right. Tonight, I’ll be your guide.”

“I can’t wait,” he said, and led her to the door.

Since I’m six-foot-three, I was thankful yesterday when Avis up-graded us to a full-size car. At least this way I could steer with my hands and not my knees.

I turned off a street peppered with tattoo studios, car dealer-ships, and small ethnic restaurants and then cruised past a group of homeless immigrants who stared blankly at our car from the curb.

“Patrick,” said Tessa. “We can go back to the hotel now if you want to. I mean, I don’t mind. Just so you know. It’s OK with me.”

“Don’t worry, it’s all right. The neighborhood we’re going to isn’t so bad.”

“How do you know?”

“This is what I do.”

We drove for another ten minutes and then I said, “So earlier you asked if I could tell where the next fire would be, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well.” I let the car roll to a stop beside a series of brown stucco homes lining one of San Diego’s many sagebrush-covered hills.

“This is it.”

“Here?” She sounded excited, like I’d just suggested we move back to New York City.

“Yes. If I were going to predict the future, I’d say the next fire is going to be somewhere right around here.”

We stepped out of the car, and she looked around the desolate neighborhood. Not much to see. A small tobacco store stood on the corner at the end of the block. The hills were fringed by palm trees and dotted with quiet homes now fast asleep. The traffic on the Five murmured to us through the night. A commuter train, which they call trolleys here, roared down the tracks in the distance.

It wasn’t the worst neighborhood in the city, but I didn’t want to keep Tessa here too long, either.

“Do you really think there’s going to be a fire here?” she asked.

“Of course not. I already told you I can’t predict the future.

It’s just that if I were going to… that is-based on the arsonist’s pattern; if I were him, this is where I’d choose.”

She looked around expectantly. “So, when is it supposed to happen?”

I looked at my watch. “All right, let’s see… three… two… one.”

She turned slowly, eyes wide. “Are you sure?” she asked.

I noticed a transient Hispanic man lurching across the street at the end of the block. He wore a tangle of scraggly clothes, and when he arrived at the curb he began to walk in odd circles around one of the murky streetlights. “Tessa, I already told you I can’t do this. What, do I look like Nostradamus?”

She nodded, still scanning the neighborhood. “That’s a good line. I’d hang on to that one.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t see a fire.”

“Of course you don’t.” The homeless man was about thirty meters away. He appeared to be mumbling to himself. He looked our direction and then began to stumble toward us.

“I think it’s time to go,” I said.

Nearby, I could hear the rattle and hum of the trolley coming closer.

Tessa slid into the passenger seat. “So, how much did you say graduate school cost you?”

“Apparently, way too much.”

As I pulled away from the curb, the vagrant began staggering down the center of the road toward us. He stopped directly in front of the car. I couldn’t safely pass him so I let the car idle. He stood only a few meters from us, frozen, staring into the headlights.

“What’s he doing?” Tessa asked.

“Probably just wants some money.”

I was about to get out of the car and tell him to kindly step out of the way, when he let out a wild screech and rushed screaming toward our car, clambered up the hood to the windshield, and stared at us through the glass. I threw open my door. “Tessa, stay in the car. Lock the door.”

She did.

He looked at me menacingly, eyes wild in the night. “Brraynn,” he screamed. Before I could stop him, he slammed his face against the glass.

Tessa scrambled back as far as she could. “Patrick!”

Drugs. He’s probably on drugs.

I grabbed his arm. “Sir, you need to settle down. Come on. Let’s get you off this car.” He pulled away, shook his head violently, and smacked his forehead against the windshield, sending an array of cracks flying across the glass. Then he looked at me with a crazed, twisted expression, his nose now bloodied and broken. His teeth were rotten nubs, his breath a putrid cloud.

He was incoherent. High. Maybe drunk, although his breath didn’t smell of booze.

“Ssslllleee,” he screeched. “Mergh. Whikl!”

Restraining people high on crack is never fun. Inhuman strength.

Combative. Out of control.

But I needed to protect him from himself.

I pulled him off the hood, but as I did, he let out a shriek, swung his head toward me, and buried his rotten teeth through my windbreaker and into the meat of my forearm. I jerked my arm away, and one of the stained teeth peeled out of his mouth and stayed lodged in my arm. He toppled off the car and sprinted with surprising speed toward the tobacco store, where a man in his early twenties had just exited.

I rapped at the window, made sure Tessa was OK, and then I ran toward the tobacco store and called for the college kid to get away!

The transient, who was either mentally ill or high-or both-was now holding a rusted tire iron. Whether he’d had it hidden nearby or just found it, I didn’t know.

“Hey!” I had to yell loudly to be heard over the clatter of the approaching trolley. The guy was fast, frantic. I ran toward him.

“Stop!”

“Preehl!” he screamed.

Rumbling from the tracks nearby, the trolley was accelerating.

I sprinted toward the transient. “Put it down.” I reached for the plastic restraints I carry in my back pocket. “Do it now!”

This was spinning off bad, bad.

The vagrant turned in a circle, delirious. Disoriented. “Rrrrh-hhhkkk.”

Finally, the customer who’d been standing outside the tobacco store backed away and slipped into the thick shadows beside it.

Good, that’s good.

But you still need to restrain this guy so he doesn’t attack someone else.

I closed the distance to the homeless man, and he threw the tire iron at me, then bolted toward the trolley tracks. His impromptu weapon clanged to the sidewalk beside me as I ran toward him.

Only a few more meters.

The rushing thunder of the trolley became more pronounced here, because just past us, the track descended into a tightly cut trench through the city. A stiff, black metal fence two meters tall lined the sides of the rift to keep people from falling in.

Or jumping.

Oh no.

The transient grabbed the railing and began to climb. I sprang forward to clutch his leg. Almost had it. Almost.

There. I had his ankle.

But then he screamed one last unintelligible word, fiercely kicked my hand away, and threw himself over the top of the railing directly into the path of the oncoming trolley.

Even above the sound of the trolley rattling over the tracks, I could hear the wet, grisly sound of the trolley’s impact.

No, no, no.

I ran to the railing.

The engineer was braking the trolley, but it wouldn’t matter anymore to the man who’d jumped. I wondered if the people aboard had felt anything, if they had any idea what had just happened. I noticed something wobbling to a stop beside the tracks. Then I realized what it was.