Robert Crais - The Watchman

He said, “We’re in place. What happened last night?”

“I’m still trying to find out. I got no idea. Is the new house okay?”

“They had our location, Bud. I want to know how.”

“I’m working on it. Is she okay?”

“I want to know how.”

“Jesus, I’m working on it. Do you need anything?”

“I need to know how.”

He closed the phone as she stood, water running down the trough of her spine to the dolphin until she wrapped her hair in a towel. Only then did she find him in the mirror again and smile.

“You’re looking at my ass.”

The pit bull barked.

He did not hesitate. He drew the Python and ran to the back bedroom.

She said, “Joe! Damnit.”

In the back bedroom, he fingered open a slit in the shade as the girl hurried up behind him. The dog was on its feet, squinting at something he could not see.

She said, “What is it?”

“Shh.”

The pit was trying to see something to their left, the flat top of its head furrowed and its nubby ears perked, no longer barking as it tested the air.

Pike watched through the slit, listening hard as the pit was listening.

The girl whispered, “What?”

The pit exploded with frenzied barking as it jumped against its chain.

Pike spoke fast over his shoulder even as the first man came around the end of the garage. It was happening again.

“Front of the house, but don’t open the door. Go. Fast.”

The towel fell from her head as he pushed her forward. He hooked their duffels over his shoulder, guiding her to the door. He checked the slit in the front window shade. A single man was walking up the drive as another moved across the yard toward the house. Pike didn’t know how many more were outside or where they were, but he and the girl would not survive if he fought from within the house.

He cupped her face and forced her to see him. She had to see past her fear. Her eyes met his and he knew they were together.

“Watch me. Don’t look at them or anything else. Watch me until I motion for you, then run for the car as fast as you can.”

Once more, he did not hesitate.

He jerked open the door, set up fast on the man in the drive, and fired the Colt twice. He reset on the man coming across the yard. Pike doubled on each man’s center of mass so quickly the four shots sounded like two- baboombaboom -then he ran to the center of the front yard. He saw no more men, so he waved out the girl.

“Go.”

She ran as hard as she could, he had to hand it to her. Pike fell in behind her, running backwards the way cornerbacks fade to cover a receiver, staying close to shield her body with his because the pit bull was still barking. More men were coming.

When Pike reached the bodies, he dropped to a knee and checked their pockets by touch. He was hoping for a wallet or some form of ID, but their pockets were empty.

A third man came around the corner of the house into the drive, saw Pike, then dove backwards. Pike fired his last two shots. Wood and stucco exploded from the edge of the house, but the man had made cover and the Python was dry. The third man popped back almost at once and fired three shots- bapbapbap -missing Pike, but hitting his Jeep like a ball-peen hammer. Pike didn’t have time to holster the Python. He dropped it to jerk free the Kimber, pounded out two more shots and dropped the man at the edge of the house. Pike ran for the car. The girl had the driver’s door open, but was just standing there.

Pike shouted, “Get in. In. ”

Another man appeared at the edge of the house, snapping out shots as fast as he could. Pike fired, but the man had already taken cover.

“In.”

Pike pushed the girl across the console, jammed the key into the ignition and gunned his Jeep to the corner. He four-wheeled the turn, buried the accelerator, then glanced at the girl.

“You good? Are you hurt?”

She stared straight ahead, her eyes red and wet. She was crying again.

She said, “Those men are dead.”

Pike placed his hand on her thigh.

“Larkin, look at me.”

She clenched her eyes and kneaded her hands.

“Three men just died. Three more men.”

He made his deep voice soft.

“I won’t let anything happen to you. Do you hear me?”

She still didn’t look.

“Do you believe me?”

She nodded.

Pike swerved through an intersection. He slowed only enough to avoid a collision, then accelerated onto the freeway.

They had been at the house in Eagle Rock for twenty-eight minutes. He had killed three more men, and now they were running. Again.

He was sorry he lost the Colt. It was a good gun. It had saved them last night in Malibu, but now it might get them killed.

Blasting North on the 101. Pike gave no warning before horsing across four lanes of traffic to the exit ramp. They fell off the freeway like a brick dropped in water.

Larkin screamed.

They hit the bottom of the ramp sideways, Pike turning hard across oncoming lanes. Horns and tires shrieked as Pike turned again up the opposite on-ramp, back the way they had come. The girl was hugging her legs, hunched into a knot like they tell you to do when an airplane is going to crash.

Pike pushed the Jeep to the next exit, then pegged the brakes at the last moment and fell off again, checking the rearview even as they fell.

The girl moaned.

“Stop it. Stop-Jesus, you’re going to get us killed.”

They came out by USC, busy with afternoon traffic. Pike cut into the Chevron station at the bottom of the ramp, wheeling around the pump islands and office, then jammed to a stop. They sat, engine running, Pike pushing bullets into the Kimber’s magazine as he studied the cars coming down the ramp. This time of day the ramp filled fast. Pike studied the passengers in each vehicle, but none acted like killers on the hunt.

“Did you recognize the men at the house?”

“This is insane. We’re killing people.”

“The one in the front yard, you passed him. Have you seen him before?”

“I couldn’t-God, it happened-no.”

Pike let it go. She hadn’t seen the two he killed earlier, either; just dark smudges falling. Pike himself had barely seen them: coarse men in their twenties or thirties, black T-shirts and pistols, cut by bars of shadow and light.

Pike’s cell phone vibrated, but he ignored it. He backed from the end of the building, then turned away from the freeway, picking up speed as he grew confident they weren’t being followed.

Ten blocks later, Pike eased into a strip mall, one of those places where the stores went out of business every two months. He turned past the end of the mall into a narrow alley and saw nothing but dumpsters and potholes.

Pike shut the engine, got out, circled the Jeep, and opened her door.

“Get out.”

She didn’t move fast enough, so he pulled her out, keeping her upright because she would have fallen.

“Hey! What- stop it!”

“Did you call someone?”

“No.”

He pinned her against the Jeep with his hip as he searched her pockets for a cell phone. She tried to push him away, but he ignored her.

“Stop that-how could I call? I was with you, you freak. Stop-”

He snatched her floppy Prada bag from the floorboard and dumped the contents onto the seat.

“You freak ! I don’t have a phone. You took it!”

He searched the pockets in her purse, then pulled her duffel from the backseat.

“I didn’t call anybody. I don’t have a phone!”

Pike finished going through her things, then stared at her, thinking.

“What? Why are you staring at me? ”