Gregg Hurwitz: Last shot

The harmonics of Boss Hahn on the move.

Walker rose, staying just inside the dark of his cell. He counted the steps, gauged the approach, and pivoted onto the catwalk, face-to-face with Boss. A ragged white towel wrapped the big man's waist and thighs. Exertion pulled Boss's lips back, revealing oddly square teeth. His cheeks and chest shone with sweat. The startled expression gave way to an arrogant smile.

Walker clenched the hard plastic against his palm. His hand was down at his side, and then it swung up and tapped Boss high on the neck. A black spray fanned two feet in the air, and Boss grunted and waved his dense arms as if trying to keep his balance. Walker put one hand on the bullish slick chest and one under the chin and flipped Boss over the rail. He fell into darkness, the white afterthought of the towel fluttering down in his wake.

An instant of silence.

Then he hit the floor. The CO flipped the lights, and there Boss lay, gasping and shuddering, limbs bent in the wrong places. Blood pumped lazily from beneath his ear, widening the pool that had already encircled his torso. One arm managed a single paddling rotation against the concrete, painting a sloppy arc, then stilled.

The CO stared down at the pink body, its mouth caught in a perfect O. He stepped slowly back to the single steel door that could make J-Unit airtight, his hand grabbing for the radio at his belt and catching it on the second try. A moment of breath-held anticipation as a hundred sets of eyes peered out from fifty cells. A giant roar came all at once, as if from a single throat, and then the convicts charged from their cells.

Decked out in Spider-Man shoes, an empty belted scabbard, Evel Knievel helmet, and wearing a goatee of chocolate ice cream, Tyler rose from a crouch that dangled his pale butt to the carpet and sneezed a Spideyweb of snot into his spread fingers. He studied the result, impressed.

"Bless you," his mother said.

An encore.

"Bless you."

Yet again.

"Enough already." Dray grabbed a flailing arm and tugged Tyler around Bear's legs toward a waiting Kleenex. Ty dropped his milk, kicking it across the floor, its airtight roll reinforcing Tim's perpetual regard for the inventor of the sippy cup. In an act of nearly unprecedented stupidity, Tim and Dray had recarpeted the house-in white-shortly after Tyler's second birthday. They still hadn't figured out just to let the rug get appropriately stained, their neurosis about spills an indication of how basic their lives had become.

Over by the fireplace, Tim finished duct-taping carpet scraps onto the corners of the raised hearth. Tyler had scraped a shin on one yesterday, and tonight the offending stone was paying the price. Bear reclined on the couch, a dessert plate on each knee.

Bear fingered his own plate and licked the frosting, then regarded Tim's untouched square longingly. Tim had doubted the wisdom of entrusting his piece of birthday cake, which amounted to the shaky th in Happy 38th, to his partner's custody. Though enormous, Bear had little flab. He was more like a shaped block. It was a lot of mass to support, and his stalwart reliability ended when food entered the picture.

Since Tyler's screeching arrival, Tim and Dray had enjoyed staying home more. Slowing down and speeding up to a domestic pace. Eating dinner when it was still light out. Going to bed before Letterman. They'd had good practice for the seven years of Ginny's life, and with Tyler's birth they'd returned to the once-familiar lifestyle with renewed appreciation.

Bear had filled in increasingly over the past year as Tim and Dray had started to spend some evenings out alone. Early on, Dray's mother had trooped over religiously, bringing with her onion-intensive casseroles and a vast collection of unwarranted fears-"You'd better child-safe that toilet lid." "There's no juice in this juice!" "Do you know the crap in the air on this side of the freeway?" Dray, realizing that her mother was augmenting Tim's own overprotectiveness, finally informally banned her from the house. They met once a week at a park or a mall, which was about fifty times a year more than they did before Tyler. Tim's father, an inveterate and accomplished con man, had sent a postcard on Tyler's first birthday saying he wanted to meet his grandson, but Tim had not replied. The card represented the sole correspondence between them since their latest falling-out three years before.

Dray released Ty, who tottered around Boston, Bear's Rhodesian Ridgeback, and regarded the pajamas he'd kicked off-yet again-moments before. "Kaiyer hot," he declared.

"So you've indicated," Bear said. "Several times."

Dray, looking as if she had grave doubts about having extended her maternity leave from the Sheriff's Department, regarded Tim's work and shot a blond wisp out of her face with an expertly directed exhale. "Missed a corner or an edge somewhere." Her index finger roamed, sweeping across the carpeted backyard step, the rugs muffling the kitchen linoleum, the foam taped over the corners of the coffee table. "Huh. Guess not." Her smile tugged left-her smart-ass grin-and her hair fell across her light green eyes. Thirteen years of marriage, and still the impossibly pale shade of her irises could catch Tim off guard. She glanced over at the couch, and her eyebrows, two of her most expressive features, tilted sternly. "I said that's enough cake."

Bear, Tyler, and Boston all reacted to her tone with hurt expressions.

Tim rose from the hearth and dusted his hands. "Not you, Bear."

"Oh." Bear glanced down and saw Tyler's hand, sneaked around his midsection and embedded in frosting. "You little rat. Get outta here."

Tyler squealed and ran away, avoiding a tap on the naked rear end from Bear's size sixteen boot. It was good to see Bear smiling again. He'd had to put his other dog down three months ago and had been smothering his grief with Two-Dozen Tuesdays at Krispy Kreme all week long.

As Dray had suggested on more than one occasion, Bear needed a woman.

Tyler stalked around the back of the sofa, licking his blue-smeared hand, coming back for another pass at Bear's plate.

"Don't even think about it." Tim claimed his cake, smashed by the hand imprint. To Bear he said, "Nice work."

Bear shrugged. "Off duty."

Tim checked his watch-9:05 P.M.-and set down his plate. "Come on, bub." He swung Tyler up onto a hip. "Say good night."

Ty blew kisses, which involved knocking a sticky hand against his chin and then flinging it outward.

"Night, Typhoon," Bear said.

"Night, Bautin." More awkward gesticulation at the dog, who lifted his eyes solemnly in acknowledgment. Tim headed toward the back.

Bear's cell phone revved up into a flat rendition of Zeppelin's "Kashmir." He stood, hefting his jeans, tugging the Nextel from his belt. From his reaction, the text message was something more pressing than a confidential informant trying to sell a tip.

Predictably, Tim's phone vibrated next, startling Tyler. Tim handed him to Dray, tilted the screen, scowled.

Bear said, "Happy birthday."

Tim started back again. He returned to the living room a moment later, holstering his Smith amp; Wesson. He leaned over, kissed his son on the forehead. Bear pocketed an oatmeal cookie.

Dray raised an eyebrow. Tim nodded in affirmation, kissed her as well, and followed Bear out.

Bear accelerated down the Harbor Freeway, his overused Ram protesting with a whine of engine and shocks. For a prison break, as with a missing-persons, the first twenty-four hours are key. Since 1979, when the Justice Department shifted responsibility for fugitives from the FBI to the Marshals Service, federal prison escapees had fallen into the Service's domain. Tim and Bear had swung by the district office downtown to grab whatever files Guerrera had been able to pull together. Consigned to light duty in the squad room after a questionable use of force during a raid last spring, Guerrera had accompanied them down the hall on their way out, right up to the awkward moment when the elevator doors banged shut in his envious face.