“Chinga tu madre!”Cortez yelled at the troopers who were scrambling off the top of the Piranha, thrusting his right arm through the window to give them the one-finger salute. The dog put in his two cents by barking a few times, then the Corvette was roaring north down Grand, leaving the troopers a block behind us before they could even fire one round.
“God, but I love doing that.” Chevy took a big hit off his beer. Cortez was smiling but otherwise played the cool. He glanced back at me. “Wasn’t that great?”
“Yeah. Big fun.” I gazed back at the intersection through the rear window. The troopers were probably already on the radio, calling all ERA units in the area to spread the alert. Chevy Dick bragged a lot about his wheels, but I didn’t recall him saying anything about making it bulletproof.
I looked down at the dog; he was curled up in my lap, his long red tongue lolling out of his mouth like a big grin on his canine face. “Figures you’d go for something like this,” I murmured to him.
“Don’t worry about it, man,” Chevy said. “I’ll be on the interstate before they manage to get their act together, and nobody knows these plates for shit.” He glanced at me again. “Y’sure you want me to drop you off at Compton Hill? It’s still a long walk home, man.”
I knew what he was implying. The Grand Avenue I-44 ramp was less than a block from the reservoir; once he got on the eastbound lanes, it was a quick sail downtown, with Soulard only a few minutes away. If I skipped the rest of the ride, though, I would be marooned in a nasty side of town; between gangs, cops, and ERA troopers, I would have a tough time getting home.
“I’m sure,” I said. “Just put me out on the street in front of the park and I’ll cut you loose. I’ll pick up the dog at your place later.”
“Fuckin’ crazy, man.” Cortez belched and looked over his shoulder at me. “Y’know that? You’re fuckin’ crazy …”
I gazed back at him. “What high school did you go to?” I asked.
Cortez and Chevy Dick shared another look, then both of them broke up laughing. Cortez uncocked his automatic, then turned it around in his hands and extended it to me, grip first, through the gap between the seats. “Here, dude,” he said. “Take it. Y’gonna need it.”
I looked at the automatic. It was a tempting notion, but … “Keep it,” I said. “I’d probably just shoot myself in the foot.”
Cortez peered at me in disbelief. Chevy Dick said something to him in Spanish; the kid shrugged and pulled the gun away. “Suit yourself, gringo,” he murmured. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The blocks melted away behind us until Chevy eased his foot off the pedal and downshifted; the car rapidly decelerated as it neared the crest of a low, sloping hill. Off to the right were the houselights from the few early twentieth-century mansions still remaining in this side of the city. The Compton Heights neighborhood surrounding the reservoir had been a wealthy area at one time; even before the end of the last century some urban estates here had fetched million-dollar estimates, and the few of them left after the quake were sealed behind high fences and electronic sentries. The Heights was nestled against the perimeter of the South Side combat zone, and no one who still lived here was taking any chances.
Then the lights were behind us, and there was a only a large patch of wooded darkness: barren trees, overgrown shrubbery, a few park benches. “We’re here, Gerry,” Chevy Dick said as he let the car glide to a halt. “Last chance …”
“Thanks for the ride,” I replied. “I owe you one.” Cortez opened his door and bent forward to allow me to push his seatback against his spine. “Vaya con dios, hombre.”
The dog was reluctant to let me go; he whimpered a little and licked my hands furiously, but I shoved him off me as I squeezed out of the car. “Stay,” I said softly. “Be good … I’ll come get you in a little while.” I glanced up at Chevy. “Give him something to eat, okay?”
“No sweat,” Chevy Dick said. “Hasta luego …good luck, bro.”
Cortez slammed the door shut behind me, then the black Corvette’s tires left rubber as it tore off down the boulevard. I waited until I saw its taillights veer sharply to the right, entering the I-44 ramp next to the reservoir, then I jogged out of the street and into the park.
The reservoir on Compton Hill was a small man-made lake encircled by fortresslike walls and a six-foot security fence. A twenty-acre park surrounded the reservoir itself, its cement pathways leading through a landscaped grove that had been allowed to go to seed in the past several months. At one end of the park was an old granite memorial, erected in the memory of German-American St. Louisians who had died during World War I: a twice-life-sized bronze statue of a nude woman seated in front of the granite slab, holding torches in her outthrust arms, her sightless eyes gazing out over an empty reflecting pool.
But neither the statue nor the reservoir itself were the most prominent features of the park. That distinction belonged to the tall, slender tower in the center of the park.
The Compton Hill water tower was a throwback to an age when even the most functional of structures were built with some sense of architectural style. The tower resembled nothing less than a miniature French Renaissance castle; almost two hundred feet tall, the redbrick and masonry edifice rose above a base constructed of ornately carved Missouri limestone, with slotlike windows below a circular observation cupola beneath the gazebolike slate roof, while wide stairways led up past a lower balcony at the base of the tower to an upper parapet thirty feet above the ground. A medieval fantasy on the outskirts of downtown St. Louis.
It was remarkable that the tower had remained intact during the quake, but it only goes to show that they don’t build ’em like they used to back in 1871. Of course, they don’t make anything the way they did a hundred and fifty years ago, people included.
Wary of any ERA troopers who might be pursuing Chevy Dick, I jogged into the park until I was out of sight from the street, then I stopped and looked around. The park was empty; the homeless people who had erected shanties here had been chased away by ERA patrols, and the police had somehow managed to keep the street gangs out of the park. I was alone …
No. Not quite alone. Gazing up through bare tree branches at the top of the water tower, I saw a dim light shining from within the windows of its observation cupola. For a brief moment, the light was obscured by a human silhouette, then the form vanished from sight.
Someone was in the tower.
I strode the rest of the way through the park until I reached the base of the water tower, then climbed the eroded limestone stairs until I reached the upper parapet. Within a recessed archway were a pair of heavy iron doors, their peeling gray paint covered with graffiti I couldn’t read in the gloom. Dracula would have felt right at home, particularly if he had taken to wearing gang colors.
I tugged at the battered handles; the doors didn’t give so much as an inch. I felt around the doors until I found a keycard slot: a rather anachronistic touch, installed only in recent years, but it didn’t do me a damn bit of good.
I pounded my fist a few times against the panel, feeling old paint flaking off with each blow, then waited a moment. Nothing. I pounded again, harder this time, then put my ear against the cold metal panel. Still nothing.
I raised my fist again, about to hit the door a few more times, when I thought I heard movement from the stairs below me: a soft, scurrying motion, like a rat rustling in the darkness at the bottom of the tower …
Yeah. A six-foot rat with an eight-inch stiletto. I froze within the archway, listening to the night as I regretted not taking the gun Cortez had offered me. There was no other way off the parapet except for a thirty-foot drop to a hard pavement.
I heard an slow exhalation, as of someone sighing in resignation, then dry leaves crunched beneath a cautious footstep on the stairs. A pause, then another footstep. I slid farther into the shadows within the arch.