She felt his boots press her fingers against the floor. She knew if he put all his weight on them she’d lose a knuckle or two, maybe more. But the smell of the CHCI3 hit her and she couldn’t help herself. All the panic rose inside her and it put up a ferocious struggle to get out. She tried to pull her hands free of his weight but it was useless. She screamed against the tape. She felt him grab her hair hard and press the cloth up tight to her face. For the first time in her life Merci thought of heaven as a place with a door, and the door would not open.
And back she fell into the soft black nowhere.
Colesceau unfolded one of the big gray blankets used to protect newly chromed or painted automobile parts, and laid it down over the stained floor. Then he lowered the unconscious Merci to the blanket. He cut away her blouse. He unfastened the heavy bulletproof vest and cut her bra off and set them aside. He ran his fingers lightly over her pale skin and kissed each nipple and was pleased to feel them harden between his teeth. Then off with her boots and pants and undies. He was efficient but not hurried. He arranged her hair up, a crown of dark lavish curls.
He stood and looked down at her. She was more beautiful than he’d thought she’d be: large, well proportioned, strong but smooth, like a mare. Powerful legs, but shaped well. Not very hairy, considering that dark-haired women often had extra. Big knockers, as the Americans liked to say. The way her beauty marks contrasted with her skin was exhilarating.
He regretted that he’d have to drain and preserve her simultaneously — standard operating procedure taught at mortician school — but for Colesceau a hurrying of what should be a calm, meditative and often erotic procedure. Still, an hour and a half should be plenty of time. If push came to shove he could load her into the yellow-and-black Shelby Cobra, squeeze the Porti-Boy into the trunk and check into a motel somewhere to finish his saving. A little TV volume would be enough to disguise the chugging of his machine. Maybe he could find an old western on.
He touched the red ligature marks around her ankles. They would restore easily. Same with the tape marks on her wrists, but it wasn’t prudent to cut that tape away just yet. Or the mouth tape, for that matter. He moved the Porti-Boy up close and hit the “on” button just to test it. The motor whirred assuringly and he turned it off.
Well, he thought: cut in, hook out the carotid and install the insertion tube. When everything was up and running he could start massaging the life out of her and the preserving fluid in. Inject her with eternity.
He took the blade from his instrument book and started pushing his fingertips down into the gristle around her clavicle. And there it was, lovely carotid, throbbing against his finger like a snake.
What a weird thing to be doing, he thought, going to so much trouble to preserve a cop.
Forty-Three
Hess made a left on Palmetto, gunning the Chevy through the light industrial zone of Costa Mesa, past a boatyard and a liquid propane distributor and a wrecking yard for German imports and a surfboard maker and a custom motorcycle shop. At intervals, large dogs regarded him through chain link. Then the brick and windows of Pratt Automotive. He cranked a hard right at the next comer and came around the backside behind the bay.
There it was, sheltered behind two metal doors that opened from the ground up. Into each big slider was built a man-sized convenience door. No van in sight. Hess planted his sedan to block the use of either doorway, then cut the engine and called his position into Dispatch. Hess said there wasn’t a Costa Mesa prowl car in sight and Dispatch told him there was a 211, armed robbery, going down on the east side, all area units requested. But the real news was Sheriffs deputies had pulled over a panel van eastbound on the Ortega Highway, stand by.
He got out, put on his hat and walked toward the doors. That set off the guard dogs, a whole pack of them from the sound of it, their voices shrieking all around Hess in the warm summer air. He could hear the clink and rattle of the fences. The convenience doors wouldn’t move. Neither would the big sliders. Locked from the inside, as he’d expected.
And if there was anyone inside, they’d heard him.
He went around the building to the front. No van. There were five spaces in front of the store, a patch of brown grass and ivy up by the windows, a break area with some patio furniture on it. He was breathing hard by the time he rounded the corner and he wished his heart would just settle down but it was thumping away. It felt like something was slipping in there. Hess told himself not to worry about it. When was the last time his heart did something he asked it to, anyway?
Up close to the building and bent low under the windows, he crept along. The chipped letters spelling out Pratt Automotive went past over his head. The ivy he stepped on was threadbare and almost leafless. He squeezed behind a rusted wrought-iron bench surrounded by cigarette butts. His back hurt and it was hard to ignore the pain when he was bent over like that. The front doors were mesh-reinforced glass and they were locked, too. He cupped his hands to the dirty scarred glass and saw the dark wood paneling of the front office, the counter with the computer on it, the rows of shelves. At the end of one row Hess could see a door with a square window.
The front of the shop sat in darkness but light showed through the window to the high bay. An orange rope swayed very slightly, hung in the cavernous bay beyond the glass.
His vision went sharp and his heart kicked in strong and fast. He ran over to the wrought-iron chair and dragged it away from the building. The legs caught on the moribund ivy, leaving furrows in the hard dry earth.
It took him two tries to get it up and balanced over his head. He swayed, feet planted in the cigarette butts.
The window exploded just under “Pratt,” carrying most of the name with it. Jagged triangles rimmed the frame. Hess I pulled his .45 and knocked some of them out with the butt. Then he swung one foot onto the bottom of the window frame and hauled the rest of himself up. He crunched heavily to the floor inside, slicing open his left finger on the way down. Swaying in the broken glass, Hess tried to keep his balance. He found the hatch in the counter and slammed it up and open.
Then he was running the aisle between the high stacked shelves, left arm reaching for the high bay door, the window getting bigger as he approached.
He grabbed the door handle, jerked down and pushed through. The sound of the door closing behind him echoed faintly in the high ceiling.
Over his gun sights now: a silver van. Yellow race car. Orange rope. Merci curled on the floor below the rope, naked but moving. She lifted her head and shook it when she saw him. Her face was taped and Hess could hear her scream against it.
Then a small long-haired man popped up from behind the race car and shot him in the stomach.
Hess fired fractionally later and the man blew backward against the van. He looked like Kamala Petersen’s guy, and he wore a thick black vest over a bright shirt. Hess’s next two shots seemed to pin his target to the metal. But two more blasts quickly came back at him. Hess ducked into a shooter’s crouch, hearing the bullets careening around the bay. When he went to fire again he saw nothing but silver vehicle. He looked to the floor by the van, unable to believe that there was no body lying on it. Then one of the bay doors flew open and the sunlight charged in and the little man charged out.
He was back to Merci in five steps. Her eyes were clear and focused and her neck muscles strained against the tape. She was still trying to speak.
“It’s okay,” he said. His voice didn’t sound believable to him. “Here.”