Guilty (7 page)

Macklin stood up uneasily, grabbing Shaw's forearm to balance himself. "Don't push me, Ronny. I've got nothing left to lose. Get in my way, and I'll go to the press. Imagine what will happen when the city finds out the LAPD has an assassin on their payroll."

"You can't even stand up on your own," Shaw said. "How can you fight her like this?"

Macklin glared at his friend. "This began with me and it will end with me, one way or the other."

Shaw slid off the desk. "You are one stupid son of a bitch, Mack." He walked out the office door. "I hope you've got a coffin picked out."

# # # # # #

12:30 p.m.

Surreal. That's what a handful of codeine made Brett Macklin's world—it made it tilt, it made the sunlight a different shade of bright, and it diffused pain into wisps of smoke that fleetingly breezed through his psyche.

The codeine gave him the illusion of health and strength he needed to find the downtown Los Angeles address "Cheshire Davis" listed as home when she came to Puerto Vallarta. That was the morsel of information Macklin brought back from Mexico with him.

He drove downtown expecting to find nothing but a vacant lot. He was almost right. The address was a decaying tenement. The windows on the bottom floor had been broken long ago. Rotted wood planks were nailed haphazardly over the windows. Many of the planks hung loose, barely held in place by a rusted nail or two. Graffiti over graffiti over graffiti painted the building in senseless scribbles.

People still lived in it, though.

He saw some underwear draped over a third-floor windowsill to dry in the sun. One floor below, a man in a tank top sat on the fire escape, nursing a beer and listening to Spanish music from a transistor radio.

Macklin got out of his '59 Cadillac and walked up to the door. It gaped open, inviting him into a hallway of soiled plaster walls and cracked tile floors. The heavy stench of urine, vomit, and booze was palpable; it was like walking through gel. As he pushed himself down the hallway, he could hear the life behind the walls. Starsky and Hutch argued with Huggy Bear. Babies cried. Laughter peaked and ebbed. Angry voices bounced off each other.

He came to the door: 107. Staring at the number, he realized how badly the codeine had fucked him up.
I forgot to go home,
he realized.
I forgot to get a gun.

Too late now, shithead.

Macklin grasped the doorknob and debated whether to burst in or ease in. Since bursting in would hurt too much, easing in won by default. He slowly pushed open the door. The apartment was completely vacant. The floor was covered with dust. On the opposite wall directly across from him, Macklin saw a strip of computer paper hanging from the point of an exposed nail. Three words were written on it in dot-matrix, computer-generated type. Each letter was a different typestyle and size, as if she had taken each letter from a different newspaper headline. It said:

I'm not easy.

"Damn you." Macklin tore the paper off the wall and jammed it into his pocket. She was the puppet master, and he could feel her pulling his strings. And he hated it.

She's having a ball, Macky boy, and you can't do anything about it.

He could almost feel the strings being jerked on his arms and legs as he left the room and marched down the hallway.
Somehow,
he thought,
there has to be a way to cut myself free, to take some of the control away from her.

Macklin was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't see the five Bloodhawks until he was already outside. They stood grinning between him and his car. They carried chains and knives lazily at their sides.

He remembered their faces from the gas station.

The one nearest to Macklin sneered, wrinkling the scar that sliced the lunar landscape of his pockmarked left cheek and cut across his thin lips.

"See, motherfucker, it ain't over," Moonface said.

"Yeah," Macklin agreed wearily, yanking off one of the wood planks covering the cracked window to his left. He now had a bat
.
.
. with four crooked, rusted nails poking out at the end. It didn't send the Bloodhawks scurrying away in fear.

"Fuckface is gonna take us all out with his nasty stick," crooned Moonface sarcastically, pointing his knife at Macklin and grinning at the guy beside him. "I might piss my pants I'm so scared, Rambo."

"Let's see how far we can jam it up fag boy's ass," Rambo replied, swinging his chain and shifting his weight from one to foot to the other.

The whole scene had such a dreamlike quality, thanks to the codeine, the heat, and the Spanish music, that Macklin half thought it wasn't happening. Maybe he was slowly dying in a Puerto Vallarta hospital, lost forever in the endless matinees at the Coma Theater.
What the hell,
Macklin thought, if this was his last dream, he might as well enjoy it.

"Stop talking and do something already," Macklin said. "You're boring me to death."

Moonface lunged, thrusting his knife towards Macklin's gut. Macklin sidestepped and clubbed Moonface's outstretched arm with his stick. The nails plunged deep into Moonface's bare arm. Moonface yelped like a wounded dog. It was a very satisfying sound.

Macklin wrenched the stick free and slammed him in the face with the nail-legs side. Moonface flew backwards, crashing into two of the gang members.

Rambo swung his chain at him. Macklin ducked, sidestepped, and brought the stick down on Rambo's back. The nails smacked into Rambo's flesh with a sickening, moist squish. A surprised, agonized cry escaped from Rambo's throat.

"Don't move. Your friend won't enjoy it," Macklin said to the others.

He held the stick embedded in Rambo's back and jerked it once. Rambo screamed, his arms and legs shaking.

"Think of this as a very short leash," Macklin hissed into Rambo's ear. "We're going for a walk."

He and Rambo shuffled towards the car.

Macklin guided the whimpering gang member with the stick and eyed the others warily as he moved into the street. The four men stood fuming on the sidewalk.

Moonface's smashed nose oozed blood down his face. Little droplets hung off his chin and dripped onto his chest. Moonface was clutching his bleeding arm and glaring furiously at Macklin, who edged towards the driver's side door of his black Cadillac.

Macklin jerked open the door. He let go of the stick, kicked Rambo hard in the butt, and ped into the car, slamming the door shut and locking it. Rambo twitched facedown on the pavement.

Macklin was safe inside the hot, stuffy car. The windows were shatterproof and he had reinforced the chassis to withstand gunfire, flames, and small explosives.

The adrenaline of the fight had diminished the potency of the codeine, and pain squeezed Macklin's body. His deep, hungry breaths, from the anxiety and exertion, swelled his chest and pushed against his broken ribs. Tiny knives stabbed his sides.

He jammed his key into the ignition, twisted it, and pumped the gas. Nothing happened.

Moonface let out a raucous shriek and threw something at Macklin's windshield. It bounced off and rolled on his hood.

The distributor cap.

Moonface pressed his bloody visage against the windshield.

"Scumfucker's not going anywhere," Moonface said. "He's gonna eat his balls right here."

While Moonface and his buddies whipped the Cadillac with their chains, Macklin scrounged around the inside of his car looking for a weapon.

The oppressive heat inside the car was squeezing the sweat out of him, soaking his clothes and bandages in perspiration. The temperature in the car was building up. He knew he'd be pressure-fried if he didn't get out of there soon.

It's a damn funny situation,
Macklin thought.
I'm inside a tank and yet, utterly defenseless.

The two air-cooled, .50-caliber machine guns mounted under the front headlights couldn't do him much good now, unless Moonface obediently lined up his men in front of the car. Or maybe they would be kind enough to stare into his taillights so he could blind them with the halogen burst lamps.

Some tank.

If he survived this, Macklin promised himself he'd add some lethal, and highly illegal, modifications to this 221-inch Batmobile.

Macklin popped open the glove compartment and found some road maps, some .357 shells, a Bic lighter, a Bruce Springsteen tape, and a first aid kit.

Great,
Macklin thought.
I'll flick my Bic at them, and while they stumble around blind, I'll hit them over the heads with the Springsteen tape and shove bullets down their throats.

Moonface opened his fly and urinated on Macklin's car.

Christ,
Macklin thought,
is there anyone who isn't pissing on me?

He climbed over the seat and searched through the clutter that had accumulated on his backseat. Old cartons of food, yellowed newspapers, unreturned videocassettes, flight plans, hangers, small grocery bags, and other assorted garbage covered the seat and the floors.

Under the front seat he found an old, eel-skin shaving bag that he had lost months ago. It was his overnighter kit. He'd had one in his car ever since college. After all, he never knew when he might get lucky.

He unzipped it and found a disposable razor, travel toothbrush, sampler can of aerosol deodorant spray, shaving gel, toothpaste, and wintergreen Binaca breath spray.

Macklin squirted the Binaca in his mouth and tossed the kit on the passenger seat. The Binaca tasted good and gave him a little extra moisture on his dry throat.

"Watch out, faggot's gonna kiss us," said Groove, a purple-Mohawked scumking.

Macklin sat still for a moment and thought. A Bloodhawk jumped on the hood like a monkey. Moonface ran a finger down his bloody arm and wrote the word "FUCKER" in blood on the driver's side window.

Macklin had a plan. He scrambled around the car again, tossing papers aside as if still searching for something useful. In the process, he hid the Bic lighter in his left hand and twisted the flame control with his thumb to its highest setting.

Macklin took the deodorant in his right hand and reached for the door handle.

Moonface stepped back, grinning, fanning his hands towards himself to beckon Macklin. "C'mon out, motherfucker."

He burst out of the car, flicking his Bic lighter and holding it up to the deodorant can as he depressed the spray button.

A tongue of flame lashed out of the spray can and ignited Moonface's blood-soaked shirt. Moonface became a blazing effigy, his horrified screech swallowed by hungry fire.

"You shouldn't play with fire," Macklin scolded Moonface. The three terrified Bloodhawks scattered.

Macklin whirled, spraying white-hot death against the backs of two fleeing Bloodhawks. The fire crawled up the screaming men's backs and turned their heads into flaming wicks. They ran until they were formless lumps of sizzling blackness. The purple-Mohawked scumking escaped around the corner unscathed.

The man who had been listening to Spanish music on the tenement's second-floor fire escape was standing up and applauding.

Macklin stared down at the burning logs of flesh, dropped the deodorant can, and picked the distributor cap off the hood.

It was time to go home.

# # # # # #

The dark, age-freckled skin was stretched tight over the eighty-three-year-old man's squat, gnarled frame. He leaned heavily on his pearl-handled cane and stared at Craven, his most trusted aide, through thick, tortoiseshell glasses.

The old man stood at the edge of the cliff and stared out at the sea. He owned every drop of it. He also owned every grain of sand within twenty-five miles of where he now stood. The gray skies and turbulent, heavy tides underscored the unbridled hate Craven saw burning in the old man's eyes.

"Tell me he's suffering," the old man wheezed. "Tell me he's bleeding to death inside."

The misty sea breeze blew into Craven's pale face and fanned his bright red hair. "Yeah, Macklin's hurting."

Vicious guard dogs prowled the property. One of them came up and licked the old man's age-spotted hand. Craven had a remote control in his pocket that, when activated, delivered an electric charge to the collar around each dog's neck. It was perfect for training and for keeping the dogs in line if they ever decided to turn on their masters.

The same collars worked just as effectively with some of Craven's lovers.

The old man turned towards Craven. "Do any of his family or friends still live?"

Craven nodded, staring into the old man's wise, scrutinizing eyes.

The old man faced the sea again. "Then he isn't suffering enough."

# # # # # #

4:30 p.m.

Macklin's bedside phone was ringing, but he didn't want to move. The bed was nice and warm, his body was relaxed, and the pain from his wounds was a tolerable ache. His head rested in a snug hollow in the pillow, and the sheets smelled fresh and clean.

He could stay here forever.

But the phone wouldn't let him. Its shrill rings rudely yanked him by the ears, nagging him into motion.

Macklin angrily reached for the phone. The movement raised the sheets. Air rushed under the sheets and destroyed the delicate warmth he had generated during his sleep.

"This better be good," Macklin snapped, lying on his back. His broken ribs, irritated by the sudden movement, throbbed painfully awake.

"Is this Brett Macklin?" a man asked.

"Yeah." He closed his eyes. Maybe he could keep that restful, sleepy feeling from vanishing. Maybe the pain would go back into remission.

"My name is Marc Prine. I'm Jessica Mordente's lawyer."

All vestiges of sleep disappeared and Macklin sat up against the headboard. His ribs complained in sharp bolts of pain. He hadn't noticed Jessica's absence until now. He had been back in LA for only a few hours.

"What is it?"

"Jessica told me if she didn't call me four days after entering the Transformational Awareness Life Church I was to call you," Prine said. "I'm supposed to tell you that she's in trouble. She said you'd know what to do."

Macklin felt the familiar coldness, the rage, wash over him, submerging his emotions and invoking the killer inside him.