“Go... hell,” Crystal mumbled through her gag.
With her toes she lifted her open purse a foot off the floor and shook it. A dozen pennies and a single bobby pin tumbled out. Pressing down with her big toe, she made the bobby pin stand on end, clenching it before it fell to the floor.
They were coming to a red light. Crystal saw Death shift in his seat as he slowed the van down. She jammed her right heel against the edge of the sliding metal door that separated them.
Death hit the brakes hard. Throwing the van into park, he jumped out of his seat and came for her. Crystal viciously kicked the sliding door, trying to catch him with it.
The door flew by his face, missing it by a fraction and shutting with a resounding bang! Crystal heard him laughing heinously on the other side and shrieked through her gag.
“I’m going to mutilate you!”
Death tried to open the door. When it did not slide free, he kicked it. Suddenly he was pounding his fists against it, and Crystal realized the door had locked itself.
“Rock and roll!” she screamed through her gag.
Lifting her foot up to her face, her right fingers plucked the bobby pin from her toes.She twisted it into proper lock-picking shape while trying to brush away the grime it had attracted in her purse. If the pick wasn’t clean she could jam the lock and permanently screw herself.
Her shoulders were going numb, and she stuck the pin into the keyhole and wiggled it around the ratchets and steel pins. Finding the sweet spot, she pressed as hard as she could in such an awkward position.
The cuff sprung open, freeing her.
Death’s fist had turned purple from striking the door.
THE KEY! his dark mind screamed, YOU HAVE TO FIND THE KEY!
He turned around, seeing first the green traffic light, then the ring of keys in the ignition. What an idiot he was! He turned the engine off just as traffic started to flow around him.
Immediately he heard horns, and when he did not move the van, some choice profanity from the car behind him. He caught the driver’s face in his side mirror; a big bullet-headed black driving a beat-up Lincoln.
“Nigger,” he shouted without thinking, having suppressed the word for so long in the mental hospital where he’d been part of a white minority that it was now part of his everyday language.
The Lincoln’s driver got out of his car. The man was huge, and looked ready to kill him. Death jumped behind the wheel and threw the van into drive, vaulting ahead.
He could no longer think clearly. Downtown L.A. had turned a muted gray, and he drove as if lost in a fog, his breathing labored and painful.
Death bit down on his lip, tasting blood. The pain brought instant relief and slowly — as the grayness surrounding the van lifted — clarity. He leaned his head out his window, listening for sirens. Hearing none, he told himself everything was fine. A few blocks later, he pulled down a side street, and backed the van into the alley where he’d parked the Firebird.
Jan drove while listening to the thumping of her wildly beating heart. She raced down 18th Street, each passing second forcing her to imagine life without Crystal, and the shattering effect her loss would have on all of their lives.
The van had turned, but where? On a chance she pulled down a deserted side street, and inched down the block. A white van was parked at the end of an alley next to a Mexican restaurant. Was that the right vehicle? Her instincts told her that it was. She jumped out of the cab, and ran down the alley.
The van was empty. Coming around the driver’s side, she heard a muffled scream. Crystal lay on the pavement with a man straddling her, his hands working feverishly to tie her wrists with a piece of twine. Taking a stutter step, she threw a roundhouse kick at the man’s head.
His hat flew off, revealing a bald, misshapen skull. Falling off Crystal, he rolled out of harm’s way and jumped to his feet, a dark stream of blood flowing from his nostrils into his mouth. His eyes bulged out of his head, making him look like a freak.
So this was Death, she thought.
Pulling Crystal off the ground, Jan shoved her forward.
“Run!”
Her stepdaughter hesitated. “But Jan...”
“Damn it! I said run!”
Crystal took off for the street. Death lunged at her, unconcerned by Jan’s presence. Jan sent her foot into his solar plexus, and he dropped helplessly to the pavement.
“And keep running,” Jan yelled after her.
Hearing a distant siren, Jan glanced toward the street. In the split-second it took to look away, the beast within Death swelled up, and his strength returned. Jumping off the ground, he threw his body into her, and slammed Jan against the van.
“Bitch!”
Jan shouted, expelling air as she drove her knee straight into his groin. It was a blow that could break bricks, and he staggered backward, moaning in pain.
“You... hurt me.”
Jan touched her side, felt a cracked rib. The gentle teachings of the master at the dojo where she trained in Vegas had taken their toll. She had gotten careless; sloppy. No more.
She moved toward him, ready for the kill.
“Leave me alone,” he said.
“I’m not done with you.”
“But I’m sick. I have problems.”
“I’m sure you do.”
He backed himself into a corner, cowering in fear. It was pathetic how quickly killers turned into spineless pieces of jelly when captured. Garbage was strewn across the ground. Picking up an empty bottle, he threw it at her head.
“Go away,” he screamed.
“Stand against that wall. Do as I say.”
“No. Leave me alone.”
She decided to take him down, and threw a vicious roundhouse kick at his head. She heard the rustle of the newspaper she’d inadvertently stepped upon, and felt her legs shoot out from under her. Her head snapped as she hit the ground. Black curtains came down around her, and she lost consciousness.
Chapter 19
Bad Seeds
Hardare could not make himself cry, yet knew he should. Holed up in his hotel bedroom, his sedated daughter in the next room, he knew this was the right time and place to break down, and accept the fact that he might never see Jan alive again.
But he fought the urge, the ungodly image of Barbara and Jan sitting on a cloud having a chat too much to bear. His first wife’s death had nearly destroyed him, and he felt the old wounds starting to resurface, the aching loss ripping out his insides. He hadn’t thought he would ever get over Barbara until he’d fallen in love with Jan, and he was going to cling onto even the tiniest thread of hope that she might still be alive.
Is alive! he corrected himself angrily. Knowing her, probably alive and kicking. He pushed himself up from the bed and raked his fingers across the venetian blinds, catching glimpses of the mid-afternoon sun peeking through the haze of L.A. smog. It was not even bright enough to squint at.
Why hadn’t he seen this coming? Why hadn’t the deadly encounter in the desert convinced him that he had too much to lose playing games with a madman? To compound his misery, he had been forced to cancel his two weeks at the Wilshire Ebell; by contract he was now liable for all costs incurred, including the non-refundable deposit on the theatre. In one fell swoop he had destroyed every single thing that was important to him. He heard a light tapping on the door and cracked it open. It was Rittenbaugh.
“You have a visitor,” the detective said.
Hardare peered into the suite. Kenny Kitchen was standing in the suite, talking with Wondero.
“Death called him,” Rittenbaugh said.
Hardare burst into the suite and grabbed the DJ by the arm.
“Tell me what he said to you,” the magician said.