Middle Of Nowhere

C H A P T E R

12

A s he stepped out of his battered, department-issue Chevy, Boldt immediately sensed that something was out of place. A moment later the same sensation registered as relief—the neighbor's dog was not directly on the other side of the rotten fence greeting Boldt after a long day of work. Instead, he was barking furiously at the far corner of their shared property—thankfully a decent enough distance away to reduce the ear damage.

The Boldt driveway led past the left of the house to a detached garage. Liz's spanking-new Ford Expedition typically won the inside parking while the Cavalier was relegated to the elements, where it rightfully belonged. But with Liz and the kids at the Jamerson home, Boldt nosed the front bumper to within a foot of the garage door and parked with the engine running. He didn't carry a clicker. He would have to trip the automatic door from inside the garage. His watch read 11:00. Suddenly it hardly seemed worth parking the thing in the garage for a few brief hours while he attempted sleep. He killed the engine and pocketed the keys.

Though he'd been preoccupied with the Sanchez case and now Brooks-Gilman, he had nonetheless put in some time on other cases, including a teen shooting at a drugstore. Just as he was leaving the precinct, he sent off a second department-wide E-mail requesting information on any of Sanchez's activities or known cases prior to her assault. But he wasn't holding his breath.

Neither was that damn dog. The thing was suddenly berserk with the barking—wild to where Boldt shouted, "Shut up!" loudly enough to hope his neighbors would hear. If his own kids had been home, they would have been sleeping. That seemed reason enough for the reprimand. Eleven o'clock, he thought. Gimme a break!

The back door to his house, just ten to fifteen yards away, suddenly felt much farther. His neighbor's fence was to his left; the garage, directly in front of his car, blocked his way to the back porch, forcing him to come around the rear bumper. Three sides of the box were closed to him—his only egress to the street. He wasn't sure why any of this mattered; perhaps it had something to do with the blood-curdling yelps of that annoying dog and its steady approach up the fence toward Boldt. The air felt electric. Adrenaline charged his system. What the hell? he wondered.

Someone jumped him from behind. Someone big. Someone strong who'd probably come up along the narrow space between garage and fence, because that barking dog was now immediately on the other side of that fence. Boldt's brain kicked in: muggings were up a hundred and fifty percent since the walkout.

The chokehold was decisive: Boldt's neck in the crook of an elbow, enough pressure to slow the blood to his brain and air to his lungs. A stinging rabbit punch below and behind his right ribs. He heard his gun thump to the driveway.

Another person to his right. Big, and broadshouldered. Too dark to see faces. Or maybe masks— he wasn't sure. They meant business. Another rabbit punch. More pressure on his windpipe.

A hand found his wallet. It registered in him again that he, a cop, was being mugged. But his body felt hard and frozen. He was in no shape to put up much resistance. Another devastating blow found his side. Caught a rib. Maybe broke it. A hand slipped down his pants side pocket and pulled out some bills and change. He took another charge of voltage to his gut and weakened. One or two more like that and he'd be throwing up blood.

A third man appeared to his left—or had the second simply moved? Boldt caught sight of a black balaclava covering this one's face. The next abdominal blow buckled him forward, further choking him and thrusting him toward unconsciousness. Down there by his own shoes he saw a pair of gray and brown Nike running shoes, one of the curved logos partly torn off.

He raised his head. It was a third guy, and this one carried a baseball bat, its polished aluminum winking in the ambient street light. Boldt thought that a hospital bed might be wishful thinking. This guy seemed intent on a home run to the head.

The neighbor's crazed dog sounded ready to climb the fence.

The dog! What little strength Boldt still had lay in his legs. He rocked back into the chokehold and simultaneously pushed off his car, driving the man behind him into the fence. The chokehold faltered. Boldt broke the hold and spun around. Either the baseball bat or more fists found his upper back—his chest and lungs felt stunned, his right arm numb. He was going down.

The man who'd lost the chokehold around Boldt's neck wanted it back, and now danced around Boldt in an ungainly step, using the fence to pin him in. Boldt took advantage of this human shield, protecting his abdomen by leaning over. At the same time, he kicked the rotten fence like one of the kids in the park practicing penalty kicks. The bat hit a single to first base using his shoulder as the ball. The old plank fence had seen endless winters of relentless rain, had stood witness to days, weeks, even months of it without a single ray of sunshine to dry it out. Boldt's second kick split it open. The black shiny nose of the angry creature with the gleaming white teeth poked through, quicksilver saliva raining from its gums.

The chokehold reinstated itself with authority, and Boldt gagged and choked. He felt a glove against his ear and pressure began to twist his neck to the right. He kicked the fence again as the man behind him attempted to drag him away from that wall. Extremely strong, Boldt thought. No junkies, these three.

He kicked a larger hole through the rotting wood, this time big enough for the thing's entire bearlike head to poke through. That limited success provoked further enthusiasm from the dog. He took over for Boldt. The hole widened even more.

"K-9," a voice warned from behind. The baseball bat found the dog, bouncing off as if it had hit a stone statue. The dog clearly took umbrage at the use of an aluminum bat on its head. It shrugged and wiggled forward, enlarging the hole and making progress through it. The dog's entire head popped through, ears and all, followed by the shoulders. Splinters of rotten wood rained out onto the Boldt driveway. He was some kind of hybrid—bred for teeth and head and muscle. An oak body, but flexible. And fast.

Perhaps Rin Tin Tin had been trained to identify the victim versus the assailant—perhaps it was a matter of posture, but the four-legged trained killer went straight for the calf of the man holding Boldt, who was released in a nanosecond and purposefully fell to the ground, both to distinguish himself from the others and in hopes of retrieving his weapon.

The man cried out as those jaws tore into him and ripped flesh.

Boldt felt blindly around the blacktop for his gun, the fervent growling like a wind in his ears. A dull thump of that baseball bat won a whimpering whine and a momentary relapse as the dog considered the time zone. Footsteps fleeing. Car doors thumping shut. At least one engine starting. Ferocious barking as the dog regained his bearings and ran down the drive in pursuit. Tires screeching. Boldt tried to roll over, hop ing to catch a car profile or even the license plate, but his body belonged to Pain, and Pain alone. He gasped for air. A huge, wet tongue found his face. "Good boy," Boldt said, more than a little afraid of the animal. "Good boy."

His right ear rang like an alarm clock sounding in a distant room—he'd been struck in the head with the bat and was bleeding buckets, the way only head cuts can bleed.

"Good God," a man's voice said.

His neighbor, the owner of the dog.

"Police," Boldt groaned, finally able to straighten up. He fished for his ID wallet, but his attackers had apparently taken this along with his wallet and money. "I live here," he managed to cough out. "Neighbors."

"Don't move! I'll call!" The man took off at a run. The dog followed, probably expecting a Tasty Chew.

"No!" Boldt stopped him. He lay there in the dark, the smell of the rotting fence and his own blood overwhelming him. He didn't want a 911 call. He didn't want the press getting hold of a cop getting mugged. An inquiry. Reports. Paperwork. Invasion of privacy. He didn't want to worry Liz, didn't want her arguing for him to take sick leave—thinking that maybe that had been the intention of his muggers, and not wanting to face that right at that moment. "I could use a little help here," he said. He needed to patch himself up and think this through.

Daphne, he thought, as his neighbor attempted to help him to his feet, and he felt the effort like a boneraw punishment.