All the fight went out of him. And all the anger and hatred and excitement and hunger for revenge, until there wasn’t anything left.
“Give it up, Douglass, you’re all finished.”
Finished. Yeah.
He didn’t move. Couldn’t have moved if he’d tried. Even when the darkness went away and he could see again, there just wasn’t anything left.
22
JAKE RUNYON
He backed away from where the Douglass kid sat dazed against the rear wall and went to check on Jerry Butterfield. Not as badly hurt as it’d first looked when he came in. Butterfield was up on one knee now, spitting out the residue of whatever they’d shoved in his mouth, holding the side of his head. Blood leaked through his fingers, made a glistening snake’s trail through his dark brown beard, but when he looked up his eyes were clear enough.
“Thanks,” he said. “Don’t know who you are or where you came from, but… thanks. I thought… Jesus, I thought they were going to kill me.”
They might have at that. The way Douglass had had that aluminum bat cocked-if he’d swung with all his strength, he’d have bashed Butterfield’s head in. Pure luck that Runyon had got here when he did, just as the two of them were ducking into the lighted garage. He hadn’t even had enough time to drag his. 357 Magnum out of the glove box. More luck there-that he hadn’t needed the weapon.
He said, “Better not talk, Mr. Butterfield. Just take it easy.”
“No, I’m all right. Not disoriented, just bruised and… cut. Bleeding like a stuck pig.”
“Head wounds always bleed like that.”
“How do you know my name?”
“Long story. Time for that later.”
“What’s yours, your name?”
“Runyon. Jake Runyon.”
“Help me up, will you, Mr. Runyon?”
“You sure you can stand?”
“Long enough to sit down.”
Runyon gave him a hand up, guided him through the open car door and onto the front seat. Butterfield had the presence of mind to sit leaning forward, so that the dripping blood spattered on the concrete floor instead of the leather upholstery. He fumbled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket, pressed it to the gash in his temple.
“I just bought this suit,” he said. He was staring at the crimson streaks on his jacket and trousers. “Sixteen hundred dollars at Wilkes Bashford. Ruined now. You can’t get blood out of fabric like this.”
Runyon said nothing.
“Ruined,” Butterfield said again. He raised his head, squinting. “You sorry excuse for a human being,” he said to Tommy Douglass. “Tried to kill me and ruined my new suit.”
“Fuck you, faggot.”
They stared at each other across the empty space.
Douglass still sat in the same position, legs splayed out, like something discarded against the wall. He hadn’t moved the entire time. And the words he’d said to Butterfield had been a by-rote response, passionless, mindless. Runyon had seen dozens like him over the years, young and old, all races and colors. Big men when they had weapons in their hands and they were in control, capable of just about any act of violence. Shriveled little cowards when the tables were turned and they were on the receiving end, capable of nothing except feeling sorry for themselves. The one who’d scrambled out on his hands and knees, Bix Sullivan, was another cut from the same cheap cloth. Long gone now in that pickup of his. But he wouldn’t get far, probably wouldn’t even try. Just go on home and wait the way his buddy was waiting, riddled with self-pity and banked hatred and not understanding for a minute why he deserved to be punished for what he’d done.
The hell with him. The hell with Tommy Douglass. Runyon opened his cell phone and called 911.
The SFPD’s response time was nineteen minutes, not bad for a week night in a city with a fairly high crime rate and a department in a state of flux. The paramedics took a little longer to get there-more emergency medical calls than felony crime reports tonight. Runyon showed his state ID to the two uniformed officers; that didn’t impress them, but they showed some respect when he mentioned his time on the Seattle PD. He gave them a full accounting of the situation, and when Jerry Butterfield added his version and said damn right he wanted to press home invasion and assault charges, the uniforms Mirandized Tommy Douglass, handcuffed him, and stuffed him into the back of their patrol car. The kid didn’t have much to say and offered no resistance; he was all through making trouble for anybody tonight. While the paramedics were ministering to Butterfield, one of the cops radioed in a request for a pickup order on Bix Sullivan.
Butterfield insisted he wasn’t badly hurt, but the paramedics kept talking to him about the unpredictability of head wounds and convinced him to take a ride to SF General for a doctor’s exam. He closed up the garage and went with them in the ambulance. One of the uniforms told Runyon to stop by the Hall of Justice within the next twenty-four hours and talk to a Robbery and Assault inspector and sign a statement; he said he would, and they took Douglass away and left him with the usual crowd of neighbors and rubberneckers. The crowd was still milling around, reluctant to let go of their little thrill, when Runyon climbed into his car and drove off.
The whole thing hadn’t taken much more than an hour. Violence erupts, blood gets spilled, the cleanup crews move in, the crowds finally disperse, and it’s as if none of it ever happened. Life in the city. Confirmed all over again just how pointless human behavior, human action, human existence was. People live, people die; life goes on and then it doesn’t. Everything matters for a while, and then nothing matters.
Colleen had lived, Colleen had died; his life had gone on, and then someday it wouldn’t. Everything had mattered for twenty years. And now it didn’t.
The apartment Joshua shared with Kenneth Hitchcock was only a few blocks from here. He was on his way there, to tell Joshua the news, see if it would make a difference in their relationship, make something matter again for a little while, when the call from Bill came through.
Bill’s car was parked in tree shadow just down the block from Robert Lemoyne’s house-the same place Tamara had been parked during her two-night surveillance, he’d said on the phone. Nearly ten-thirty now. Two-thirds of the houses along here were dark or just showing night-lights; Lemoyne’s was one of the dark ones. Runyon made a U-turn, pulled up behind Bill’s car, and went to slide in on the passenger side.
“You made good time, Jake.”
“Not much traffic. Still no sign of him?”
“No.” Bill’s voice had a thick tension in it. Finding Tamara’s car had wired him up tight. “I took a turn around the property a while ago. Doors, windows… everything locked up tight.”
“Gone since last night?”
“Or early this morning.”
As much as twenty-four hours. And the first twenty-four hours in a case like this were critical. If a snatch victim survived them, the odds jumped in favor of continued survival. Problem was, the percentage of victims who didn’t survive them was a hell of a lot larger.
“So how do you want to handle it?” Runyon asked.
“Keep on waiting. For now.”
“Brace him if he shows?”
“Push him hard if we have to. You carrying?”
The. 357 Magnum was in his belt now. He said, “Yeah. But I hope it doesn’t come down to that.”
“So do I.”
They sat in silence. Bill kept shifting position, finding things to do with his hands. Runyon sat without moving, tuned down inside, on hold.
After a time Bill asked abruptly, making talk, “How goes the gay-bashing investigation?”
“It’s finished now. Right before you called.”
“Finished how?”
Runyon told him.
“Right place, right time. Good job. Why didn’t you say something before?”
“This is more important.”
Bill thumped the steering wheel with the heel of his hand, kept on doing it.
Runyon said, “We’ll find her. She’ll be all right.”