James Patterson - Cat & Mouse

We kissed again, and then Christine got in her car and drove away to Mitchellville.

I missed her already.

I COULD STILL feel Christine’s body against me, smell her new Donna Karan perfume, hear the special music of her voice. Sometimes you just get lucky in life. Sometimes the universe takes care of you pretty good. I wandered back to the party taking place in my house.

Several of my detective friends were still hanging out, including Sampson. There was a joke going around about Soneji having “angel lust.” “Angel lust” was what they called cadavers at the morgue with an erection. The party was going there.

Sampson and I drank way too much beer, and then some B amp;B on the back porch steps-after everyone else was long gone.

“Now that was a hell of a party,” Two-John said. “The all-singing, all-dancing model.”

“It was pretty damn good. Of course, we are still standing. Sitting up anyway. I feel real good, but I’m going to feel pretty bad.”

Sampson was grinning and his shades were placed slightly crooked on his face. His huge elbows rested on his knees. You could strike a match on his arms or legs, probably even on his head.

“I’m proud of you, man. We all are. You definitely got the twenty-thousand-pound gorilla off your back. I haven’t see you smiling so much in a long, long while. More I see of Ms. Christine Johnson, the more I like her, and I liked her to begin with.”

We were on the porch steps, looking over Nana’s garden of wildflowers, her roses that bloomed so abundantly, and garden lilies, looking over the remains of the party, all that food and booze.

It was late. It was already tomorrow. The wildflower garden had been there since we were little kids. The smell of bonemeal and fresh dirt seemed particularly ageless and reassuring that night.

“You remember the first summer we met?” I asked John. “You called me watermelon-ass, which burned me, because it was complete bullshit. I had a tight butt, even then.”

“We tangled good in Nana’s garden, right in the brier patch over yonder. I couldn’t believe you would tangle with me. Nobody else would do that, still don’t. Even back then you didn’t know your limitations.”

I smiled at Sampson. He finally had taken off his shades. It always surprises me how sensitive and warm his eyes are. “You call me watermelon-ass, we’ll tangle again.”

Sampson continued to nod and grin. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen him smiling so much in a long while. Life was good tonight. The best it had been in a while.

“You really like Ms. Christine. I think you’ve found yourself another special person. I’m sure of it. You’re down for the count, champ.”

“You jealous?” I asked him.

“Yeah, of course I am. Damn straight, Christine is all that and a bag of chips. But I would just fuck it up if I ever found somebody sweet and nice like that. You’re easy to be with, Sugar. Always have been, even when you had your little watermelon-ass. Tough when you have to be, but you can show your feelings, too. Whatever it is, Christine likes you a lot. Almost as much as you like her.”.

Sampson pushed himself up off the sagging back porch step, which I needed to replace soon.

“God willing, I’m going to walk on home. Actually, I’m going to Cee Walker’s house. The beautiful diva left the party a little early, but she was kind enough to give me a key. I’ll be back, pick up my car in the morning. Best not to drive when you can hardly walk.”

“Best not to,” I agreed. “Thanks for the party.”

Sampson waved good-bye, saluted, and then he went around the corner of the house, which he bumped on the way out.

I was alone on the back porch steps, staring out over Nana’s moonlit garden, smiling like the fool I can be sometimes, but maybe not often enough.

I heard Sampson call out. Then his deep laugh came from the front of the house.

“Good night, watermelon-ass.”

I CAME FULLY awake, and I wondered what I was afraid of, what the hell was happening here. My first conscious fear was that I was having a heart attack in my own bed.

I was spacey and woozy, still flying high from the party. My heart was beating loudly, thundering in my chest.

I thought that I had heard a deep, low, pounding noise from somewhere inside the house. The noise was close. It sounded as if a heavy weight, maybe a club, had been striking something down the hallway.

My eyes weren’t adjusted to the darkness yet. I listened for another noise.

I was frightened. I couldn’t remember where I left my Glock last night. What could possibly make that heavy pounding sound inside the house?

I listened with all the concentration I could command.

The refrigerator purred down in the kitchen.

A distant truck changed gears on the mean streets.

Still, something about that sound, the pounding noise, bothered me a lot. Had there even been a sound? I wondered. Was it just the first warnings of a powerful headache coming on?

Before I realized what was happening, a shadowy figure rose from the other side of the bed.

Soneji! He’s kept his promise. He’s here in the house!

“Aaagghhgghh!” the attacker screamed and swung at me with a large club of some sort.

I tried to roll, but my body and mind weren’t cooperating. I’d had too much to drink, too much party, too much fun.

I felt a powerful blow to my shoulder! My whole body went numb. I tried to scream, but suddenly I had no voice. I couldn’t scream. I could barely move.

The club descended swiftly again-this time it struck my lower back.

Someone was trying to beat me to death. Jesus, God. I thought of the loud pounding sounds. Had he gone to Nana’s room first? Damon and Jannie’s? What was happening in our house?

I reached for him and managed to grab his arm. I yanked hard and he shrieked again, a high-pitched sound, but definitely a man’s voice.

Soneji? How could it be? I’d seen him die in the tunnels of Grand Central Station.

What was happening to me? Who was in my bedroom? Who was upstairs in our house?

“Jannie? Damon?-” I finally mumbled, tried to call to them. “Nana? Nana?”

I began scratching at his chest, his arms, felt something sticky, probably drawing blood. I was fighting with only one arm, and barely able to do that.

“Who are you? What are you doing? Damon! Damon!” I called out again. Much louder this time.

He broke loose and I fell out of the bed, face first. The floor came at me hard, struck, and my face went numb.

My whole body was on fire. I began to throw up on the carpet.

The bat, the sledgehammer, the crowbar, whatever in hell it was-came down again and seemed to split me in two. I was burning up with pain. Ax! Has to be ax!

I could feel and smell blood everywhere around me on the floor. My blood?

“I told you there was no way to stop me!” he screamed. “I told you.”

I looked up and thought I recognized the face looming above me. Gary Soneji? Could it possibly be Soneji? How could that possibly be? It couldn’t!

I understood that I was dying, and I didn’t want to die. I wanted to run, to see my kids one more time. Just one more look at them.

I knew I couldn’t stop the attack. Knew there was nothing I could do to stop this horror from happening.

I thought of Nana and Jannie, Damon, Christine. My heart ached for them.

Then I let God do His will.

MATTHEW LEWIS happily drove the graveyard shift on the city bus line that traveled along East Capitol Street in D.C. He was absently whistling a Marvin Gaye song, “What’s Going On,” as he piloted his bus through the night.