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.