Blood Hunt

8

Harry asked the questions. Not that the answers gave them much information. In the office in her home in the Mission District, Bella Carver — sleek, dressed in a power suit — told them, “I have no idea where Miss Barber is. She phoned a week ago Tuesday afternoon and told me not to book her any gigs for an indefinite period.”

So it was his visit that spooked her, Garreth reflected. She put the escape wheels in motion right afterward.

“She said her mother is critically ill and she intends to stay with her until the crisis is over.”

“You don’t know where her mother lives?” Harry asked.

“No.”

Harry frowned. “You mean you don’t have any personal information on your clients?”

The agent frowned back. “Lane has a veritable encyclopedia of personal information, a bio for every occasion. All probably imaginary. Look, Inspector, I find her gigs and she pays me ten percent. That was our agreement. She gives me no trouble by performing drunk or strung out, or not showing up at all, and she brings me a steady income, so I don’t pry into her life.” Carver paused. “Once or twice I asked her personal questions and she changed the subject. She looks like a hot, foxy kid, but she’s ice and steel underneath.”

No kidding, Garreth thought.

As they left, Harry shook his head. “I could have learned that much on the phone. Where do you want to eat lunch?”

The never ending problem of dodging meals. Garreth grimaced. “I’m on a diet, remember? We can eat anywhere you want, as long as I can buy a cup of tea there.”

Harry’s brows rose. “You’re serious about the weight this time.”

“Of course.” As though he had a choice.

“Well we’re in the Mission. I vote for Italian.” He smirked at Garreth. “You can have salad.”

Garreth sighed. “Fine.”

Not fine at all. The moment they walked in the door of the restaurant and he smelled garlic, his lungs froze. Panic flooded him as he tried to breathe and could not.

“Garreth! What’s wrong?” Harry shook him by the shoulders.

Garreth struggled desperately to suck in air, but he might as well have been trying to inhale concrete. He would suffocate in here! Half dragging Harry, half carried by him, Garreth bolted for the street.

Outside, the air turned from concrete to cold molasses. Garreth staggered up the sidewalk until the last foul taint of garlic disappeared. Only then did the air return to normal consistency. He leaned against a building, head thrown back, gulping air greedily.

“Garreth, what happened?” Harry demanded.

He had no idea what to say. Would mention of garlic start fatal thought trains? “I don’t know but I’m all right now.” As long as he avoided garlic. Put one more piece of the legend in the truth column. “It was nothing.”

“Nothing! That wasn’t nothing, partner. Let’s get you to — ”

From the direction of their car, a radio sputtered. “Inspector 55.”

Harry hurried back to the car to roger the call. Garreth followed with unsteady knees.

“Public service 555-6116,” Dispatch said.

Harry’s brows rose. “Sound familiar?”

Garreth shook his head.

They drove to the nearest phone booth and Harry dialed the number. Garreth could not hear Harry’s end of the conversation, only see his lips moving through the glass wall of the booth, but as he talked, Harry became more animated. He ran back to the car at a run and jumped behind the wheel.

“Hey, Mik-san, are we still interested in Wink O'Hare?”

Garreth sat up straight. “Are you kidding? Did someone find him?”

“Rosella Hambright’s sister just dropped a dime on him. Seems he got peeved at his girlfriend and worked her over. The sister wants Wink’s hide for it. But she says we have to hurry. He’s getting ready to leave town.”

“Then let’s hurry,” Garreth said.

Harry started to pull away from the curb, then stopped. “Wait. You can’t go.”

What! No! “Come on, Harry. The sister said he’s getting ready to run. We don’t want to lose him!”

Harry shook his head. “Letting you ride along to interview the agent was one thing, and I don’t know why I let you talk me into that, but going on an arrest…totally different. Especially after that anxiety attack or whatever it was. You could get hurt. Besides, you don’t even have a gun.”

Garreth bent down and pulled the Undercover from its ankle holster. “Always be prepared.” He pulled off his dark glasses. “Look at me, Harry.”

Harry looked.

Garreth stared him in the eyes. “I’m coming with you. We worked this case together. We’re going to arrest the bastard together.”

They radioed in the details and collected two Northern District patrol units for backup on the way. When they arrived, Harry surreptitiously checked the house before they moved in…a decaying two-story building with poverty ground like dirt into its facade. Wink was supposed to be in the second-floor apartment. On his return, Harry reported that narrow, bare stairs led up from a front hall. Two windows overlooked the street. With only a few feet between it and the neighbors on each side, it had no side windows. In back, old wooden stairs in two flights rose to a narrow back porch with one window into the apartment and a window in the upper half of the rear door.

The wages of sin is the hell of hiding in stinking holes, Garreth reflected.

Harry deployed everyone, a uniform behind a patrol car out front, covering the front windows, another around the corner of a building covering the rear window. A third uniform would go in the front with Harry, and the fourth, up the back with Garreth.

“You’re sure you’re all right?” Harry asked.

“I’m fine. Let’s go.”

“We’ll give him a chance to come out. If he doesn’t, you break in the back door. I’ll go through the front at the same time. Back door and hall door are at right angles to each other, so we shouldn’t be in each other’s cross fire, but for God’s sake be careful about that.”

Garreth and his uniformed partner, a barrel-chested veteran named Rhoades, squeezed between buildings to the back and eased up the stairs, checking each tread for betraying creaks. Keeping low, they crossed the porch, then flattened themselves against the building on each side of the door. The jamb looked half-rotted, easy for kicking in.

With his ear pressed against the side of the house, Garreth heard Harry knock at the front door and call, “Wink O’Hare, this is the police.”

Nothing stirred in the apartment.

“Open the door, Wink.”

A board creaked inside and stealthy footsteps approached their door. Garreth met Rhoades’ eyes and by sign language indicated he would kick in the door then enter high. Rhoades would dive in low. The uniformed officer nodded his readiness.

“O’Hare, open up!”

The footsteps inside moved closer.

“Garreth! Get him!” Harry yelled.

Garreth raised a leg and smashed his heel into the door just above the knob. The door slammed inward. With it a wave of pain like fire burned up his leg and through his body. He staggered sideways. At the same time a shot sounded explosively inside the kitchen and a bullet thudded into the roof of the porch.

Rhoades swore. Garreth tried to shoot back at Wink, pointing his gun around the edge of the jamb and tilting his head just enough to expose one eye for aiming. But fire exploded at him again, paralyzing his finger on the trigger.

“Shoot!” Rhoades yelled.

Garreth could not. Fire seared him. What the hell was this?

The question raced through his head between one heartbeat and the next. An answer followed… but he could not accept it. The prohibition against entering a dwelling uninvited was illogical. It had to be just a legend! He had no trouble at Harry’s place the morning he took refuge there. It made even less sense for a bullet from his gun to be blocked, too. Besides, this was a hideout, not a real dwelling…a hideout!

Wink disappeared from the kitchen into the rest of the apartment and two more shots sounded, this time followed by a man’s agonized yell. Garreth could not tell whether the shots came from Wink’s.45 or Harry’s Beretta.

“Harry! Harry!”

“Don’t just stand there!” Rhoades yelled.

The uniformed officer hurled himself through the door, shouldering Garreth aside. As a third shot sounded, he disappeared through the doorway on the far side of the kitchen.

With pain wrapping him in flame, Garreth pressed at the opening, willing himself through it. The hot reek of blood filled the apartment. “Harry, are you all right?”

“Get in here, Mikaelian,” Rhoades’s voice snapped.

The pain vanished instantly. Garreth stumbled forward, cold with fear.

Fear justified. Harry sprawled in the middle of the living room gasping while the uniform who had come up the front with him tried to staunch the blood welling from Harry’s chest. Garreth saw Wink, too, shoulder bleeding and screaming as Rhoades roughly cuffed his hands behind his back. Garreth dropped on his knees beside Harry, pulling out his handkerchief to use as a compress on the wound.

A hand caught his collar and dragged him back. “What the hell were you doing out there?” Rhoades demanded. “If you’d fired when you had the chance, this wouldn’t have happened. You froze, didn’t you? This turkey shot at you and you lost your nerve!”

“I — ” How could he explain.

Rhoades thrust his portable radio at Garreth. “See if you can make yourself use this and call for an ambulance. If we get him to a hospital fast enough, maybe we can still save your partner’s life.”

Stinging from the lash of the sarcasm, Garreth keyed the mike.