Survival Of The Fittest

58

Newly retired police captain Eugene Brooker, thirty pounds overweight, slightly hypertensive, and a non-insulin-dependent diabetic, walked uphill.

Old man and the mountain; some image. When his daughters inquired about his health, he always said, “Feel like a kid.”

So, live the lie tonight.

Danny's surprise call- talking twice as fast as usual, from that consulate bathroom- had ended with, “It'll probably be nothing. Do what you can, Gene, but don't put yourself in danger.”

Sneaking a phone into the john? Why were Danny's own people doing this to him?

He trudged up Lyric, staying in the shadows when he could. He'd parked his car a long way down on Apollo, brought the only two weapons handy: the old service revolver, which he'd continued to clean and oil out of habit, and the nine-millimeter that he kept in his bedside nightstand. No long guns because all three of his were already packed away in the U-Haul and they were for quail, not people. Another reason: Rifles were too conspicuous. An overtly armed black man walking the hills at night was beyond a joke.

Up, up, and away… He forced himself to breathe slowly. How long had it been since he'd done real-life, break-a-sweat police work? He didn't even want to think about it.

Pathetically out of shape, but with the diabetes you had to be careful about your exercise- who was he kidding, since college football and walking a beat on Central, he hadn't done a damn thing, athletic-wise…

Climb every mountain, ford every stream, huff huff, the old Nikes nice and quiet.

He'd memorized the address on Rondo Vista.

Slow and steady, it wouldn't do to have a heart attack up here and end up roadkill or worse.

No reason to hurry, probably a quiet night, as Danny had said. Just a precaution for the shrink's sake.

Danny hadn't had time to give many details. The main thing was that a cop named Baker, whom Gene didn't know, might be part of it, so watch out for him, he drove a Saab convertible.

A cop behind all that blood? It could make the Rodney King case look like musical comedy. Beyond that, all Gene knew was that a crazy girl was also part of it and the shrink was on an undercover date with her.

Why a shrink for bait?

How had Danny and Sturgis put it all together?

He'd find out tomorrow. Tonight his job was to keep an eye on the house. If something looked treacherous for the shrink, pull some kind of distraction.

More, if necessary.

He made it to Rondo Vista nearly out of breath, wanting to clear his throat but the street was too silent for that kind of noise so he lived with the phlegm.

He'd made sure to eat an orange before leaving, keep the old blood sugar steady, he should probably test more often, but sticking himself was such a hassle.

As he stood there, searching for the house, he became aware of pounding in his ears. Like a fast tide, the high blood pressure. Luanne had died of a stroke- no, stupid to think about that… Lord, it was quiet up here.

Manson Family terrain; you could dismember someone in the middle of the road, no one would notice til sunrise… There was the house, small place, white with dark trim, gray or blue.

He studied the layout, examined nearby cars.

One in front, the Karmann Ghia Danny had given the shrink, and an old pink T-bird in the driveway that had to be the girl's.

Nothing else except the few vehicles he'd passed on the way up. Couple of compacts and one honey, a white Porsche 928, no doubt some hill-house guy's toy. Porsches and hill-houses went together, the old L.A. lifestyle he'd never much tasted…

Danny had said look out for three things: a Chevy van, it could be in the garage, Baker's Saab, and a Mercedes sedan owned by some other shrink named Lehmann.

What the hell was this all about?

He looked carefully. None of those were around. Maybe in the garage.

If he'd been official, he'd have run a make on every vehicle within a half-mile radius, the compacts, the white Porsche, but now…

Retirement.

He realized he was breathing fine, felt good, great, no more pounding, no clammy skin or other warning signs of impending hypoglycemia.

Revolver in his shoulder holster, nine-millimeter tucked in his waistband at the small of his back.

This was good. A send-off before he died a slow death in Arizona.

Ten more minutes of silent watching from behind a tree, and he decided to get a closer look at the house.

A narrow space ran between the crazy girl's place and its southern neighbor and Gene could see lights- more hill-houses way across a canyon.

From what he could tell, the ground sloped down sharply, probably not much backyard.

Danny'd said that if Sturgis was there, that's where he'd probably be stationed, but he had a feeling Sturgis wouldn't make it.

Cold, quiet anger in the Israeli's voice. Unusual…

Sturgis. Gene didn't know the guy, had only seen him from a distance and he didn't look in any better shape than Gene. Usually you thought of those gay guys being obsessed with their bodies. Luanne had once remarked that they seemed to be the best-looking guys, probably because they didn't have families, plenty of time for the gym-

The conversation in his head came to an abrupt halt; had he heard something?

A rustling?

No, just silence. And nothing around the house had changed.

He examined the place some more. Not much in the way of front windows, and the way the structure was stuck into the hillside, the entire bottom floor was below street level. Probably lots of windows in back, to catch the view. How to get back there- was there some foothold? Had to be for someone like Sturgis to obtain a position.

Enough idle curiosity. The idea was to stay here, on the chance- the less-than-unlikely, minuscule off-chance- that his old bones would see some action.

If Luanne were alive she'd say something like, You're doing what? Can't you work your midlife crisis out some other way, sugar?

That night, finding her on the kitchen floor… stop. Don't even think her name, don't visualize her face.

God, he missed her-

He decided to go past the house, check out the northern edge of the girl's property.

As he took a step, something pressed against his left mastoid and a voice whispered, “Don't move, don't even blink. Hands up, very slowly- behind the head, grab the head.”

A hand took hold of his shoulder and turned him around.

Suppressing Oh, shit! thoughts, Gene mentally prepared a plan: Size up the enemy, figure out a way to catch him off-guard, land a sucker punch, maybe trip him, distract-

It was Sturgis and he looked furious. His eyes were green- God, they were bright, even in the darkness. The guy stank of exertion and stress.

They stared at each other. Sturgis's shirt had a button missing. Something black and plastic, probably one of those German Glocks, was a foot from Gene's nose.

“Hey,” whispered Gene. “I'm a civilian now, but shouldn't rank count for something, Detective?”

Sturgis kept staring.

“Can I drop the damn hands, Detective Sturgis?”

The Glock lowered. “What're you doing here, Captain?”

Gene told him about the bathroom call. The guy didn't look surprised, just angrier.

The disheveled appearance. They'd tried to keep him away, too, but he'd managed to get away.

Gene said, “You, too?”

Half a nod.

“The Israelis actually grabbed you?”

Sturgis's lips pulled back, showing teeth- something out of a horror movie, and Gene was glad the guy was a cop.

Then the realization hit him.

“The department?” said Gene.

Sturgis didn't answer.

“Damn… and you escaped.”

“Yeah, I'm a fucking Houdini.”

“And now you're in deep manure.”

Sturgis shrugged and lowered the black gun to his side. “Keeps life interesting.” He guided Gene back behind the tree.

“How long you been up here?” said Gene.

“Got here right before you.”

“How far down did you park?”

Sturgis hooked a thumb. “The Porsche.”

Hill-house guy; so much for his powers of detection, thought Gene. It was good they were putting him out to pasture.

“You and Daniel had a two-man plan,” he said. “He was going behind the house. You figuring to do it now?”

Sturgis didn't answer.

Wasn't this a picture. Alone in this dark, quiet place with a gay guy and it didn't bother him a whit. Years ago…

“He was supposed to go back there with a microphone and a tape recorder,” said Milo. “I'll go back there but if the drapes are drawn, I won't be able to see anything. I don't like it, but Dr. Delaware's in there already.”

“See what you mean,” said Gene. “Daniel also said it would probably turn out to be nothing.”

“Hopefully. Dr. Delaware's putting himself on the line.”

“Dedicated, huh?”

“You have no idea.”

“You know,” he said, “I worked a case with Sharavi. Serial killer before they were calling them that. The guy's righteous as they come. Never met a better detective.”

Sturgis kept looking around, those wild eyes on full alert. As if he heard something that Gene wasn't hearing.

Gene said, “Now that I'm here, at least you have backup. Let's get some signals.”

“We were supposed to use cell phones but that's fucked, too. I had all the stuff at my house before they grabbed me at the station.”

“Except the gun.”

“Except that. Had it in a pants holster, the driver never searched me, they were trying to make it look like something positive, getting called downtown.”

“A driver,” said Gene. “You've got to worry when they escort you.”

Sturgis gave a weird half-laugh, half-grunt. Big lunk, you'd never know he was gay.

“Okay, signals,” he said.

Gene waited a long time for him to come up with something. Deferring, because Sturgis was still active-duty, knew more details than he did.

Finally, the guy said, “How about this: You stay here, keep a special lookout for cars-”

“Saab ragtop, Chevy van, Mercedes.”

“Good. Two could be in the garage, though I've been up here several times today, never saw them enter or exit. I go in back of the house, step out every half-hour, over there, in that space between the houses, and hold up my hand to let you know everything's okay. You'll be able to see me because of the lights shining from those houses in the distance. I'll only hold it up for a second, so we need to get our times straight. If I don't come out, wait another five minutes, then come checking. If you don't see me right away, pull some distraction-”

“Knock on the door?” said Gene. “Pizza man? Chinese-food delivery?”

Instead of answering, Sturgis looked around some more, though Gene still couldn't see any reason why.

“Yeah, fine, whatever works,” said Sturgis. “Okay, let's play bad spy movie and synchronize our goddamn watches.”

Both of them peeled back their cuffs. Gene was squinting at the dial of his Seiko Diver when sudden activity threw him off-balance. He had time to see a black-gloved hand chop down on Sturgis's gun arm, sending the Glock falling to the ground with a dull clunk.

As he watched Sturgis fall back into darkness, he was grabbed from behind, arms pinioned, yanked behind his back, and cuffed- Sturgis, too. Glove leather over both their mouths.

Black-garbed figures coming out of the shadows.

Out of nowhere- where the hell had they been-

At least three of them, armed for bear and more- Jesus, look at those machine pistols, Gene had seen them in gang roundups, never fired one because, unlike lots of other cops, he'd never been much of a gun freak.

Sturgis was dragged out of his vision and Gene felt himself pulled in the opposite direction.

Damned Keystone situation and now he was probably gonna die from something else, not the damned diabetes.

Fool, fool, fool- never underestimate the enemy- a cop like Baker would be a serious enemy- but, still, both he and Sturgis were pros, how could they have-

Hands guided him down the hill.

“Shhh,” a voice said into his ear, and he blotted out images of Luanne's reproving face.

Oh, honey.

Yeah, I screwed up, baby. Joining you soon.