Crush (11 page)

“So you can never leave here?” Amelia asked Zerbe, wide eyed.

Zerbe sunk the eight ball into the corner pocket, which he didn't think you were supposed to do, and said, “I'm like John Travolta in that plastic bubble.”

“What's that?”

He sighed. It was just like MacArthur Park all over again. “It's a TV movie he made. Back when he was Vinnie Barbarino.”

“Who?”

Kids today, he thought. They had no respect for the crap their elders used to watch.

Rush was across the room, engrossed in conversation with Donleavy, who'd rushed over to assess any damage to Amelia.

“I'm thinking you should keep her away from the Trask house,” Donleavy said. “Whoever it is, he knows her routine too well.”

“You think it's Guzman, don't you?” Rush asked.

Donleavy rubbed a hand over her face. She looked tired. “He knows the layout. His relationship with the family was…complex. And he's disappeared.”

“Since when exactly?”

“Walter Trask killed himself two weeks ago. Guzman stuck around long enough to talk to police. Then he vanished. Even his wife doesn't know where he is.”

“Or she isn't telling.”

“Or she isn't telling.”

Rush took a long look at the city through the window. Light was just starting to break. It looked like it was going to be a shitty day.

“What does the threat assessment team say?” he asked.

“He doesn't fit the profile.”

“Chalk one up for the threat assessment team.” Rush turned his back to the window. “Guzman was there on the night?”

“Yeah. When the girl spotted the body she started
screaming. Guzman ran out from the house and found her.”

“Guzman did? Stanley Trask said he himself was the first one on the scene.”

“Did he?” Donleavy asked.

“He implied it.”

“A man like Trask is used to putting himself at the center of the story.”

“And they were the only ones there?” Rush asked. “Guzman, Amelia, and Trask?”

“If you don't count Walter Trask.”

“Something tells me he was used to getting left out.”

Donleavy cocked an eye at Rush. “Crush, do you know why I fired you?”

“I don't play well with others? Miss Holiday said the same thing in my fifth-grade evaluation.”

“Miss Holiday knew her shit. I mean, you've done all right on your own. I've kept track; I know. The way you handled the Gillespie stalker? Brilliant. I'd recommend you to anybody who was looking for one man. But you're part of a team now, whether you like it or not. So I have to ask—do you know where Guzman is?”

Rush shook his head. “No. But I gotta say, if I knew, I wouldn't tell you.”

Donleavy heaved a sigh. She glanced back at Amelia. “Just find a safe house for her.”

Amelia didn't notice. She was bending over the table to make a bank shot. It was truly glorious, Rush thought. The shot wasn't bad either.

“Where'd you learn to play pool like that?” Zerbe asked.

She prowled around the table and took another shot. “My dad has a table in the game room. Tony Guzman and I used to play.”

Zerbe let that one go by.

“You live here, right?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“And Crush…is he your brother or isn't he?” she asked as she moved to take another shot.

Zerbe glanced over to Rush and decided he was too far away to hear them. “Well, his mom was married to my dad for a while.”

She nodded, understanding. “My mom and dad married a lot of people too.”

“My brothers hated her,” said Zerbe. “His mom. Thought she married Dad for his money. Called her terrible names. The Trophy Wife. Stripperella. The Whore.”

“How come?”

“Cause she was a trophy wife and a stripper. The whore part? I don't think so. I liked her. And I like Caleb.”

She looked questioningly at Zerbe.

“That's his name. Caleb Rush. He looked out for me. I was kind of a geek in high school. And this was before geeks were cool. I used to get beat up a lot. Something about me seemed to attract bullies. But once Caleb was there…well, like I said, he looked out for me.”

“So now you look out for him?”

Zerbe was surprised. Few people saw that. “You noticed.”

“When you love somebody, you look out for them. That's the only law that counts.”

She was all right, Zerbe thought. Bending over the pool table or not.

TEN

C
atherine Gail's dojo was not much to look at, a downtown storefront with a few mats and a punching bag. Just a place to keep kids off the streets and teach them about respect and tradition. If nine out of ten kids ended up falling in love with her, that wasn't her fault. She just shrugged and taught them to redirect their energy.

She was working a class full of green belts through the
katas
—Rush always thought of it as that routine the Japanese Secret Service did in
You Only Live Twice
when they were showing off to James Bond—when Rush came in, a reluctant Amelia in tow. Gail bowed to her students and dismissed them. Then she headed over to Rush. The sweat on her face only made her look more bright and glowing.

“Is this the girl?” she asked.

Amelia crinkled her nose. “It smells all locker-roomy in here.”

“You get used to it,” Gail said with a smile.

Amelia eyed her with distrust. “This is your teacher, huh,” she said to Rush. “What does she teach you?”

“Martial arts,” Rush said. “Taekwondo. Kung fu. Kallaripayattu. Savate. Judo. Muay Thai. Karate.”

“So she can whip your ass.”

“It's not really about—”

“Yeah, I can whip his ass,” Gail said.

Rush challenged her to a sparring match. Amelia watched, bored, as Gail pulled the scarf off her head and Rush changed into some white pajamas and they went at it. Trading blows, jabbing, punching, and kicking, bouncing around on the balls of their feet, having a total blast as they sent sweeping kicks at each other's heads, spinning, twirling, blocking each other's moves with grace and style.

“You could learn this, Amelia,” Gail said, panting but not winded. “There's nothing more empowering to a woman than knowing she can do this.” She gave a roundhouse kick to Rush's head, just to fake him out, then spun around and let loose with a flying drop kick that would have nailed him if he hadn't moved his head just in time. As it was, the heel of her foot struck his shoulder with a blow that made him lose his footing for an instant.

“I saw that coming,” Rush said with a smile.

“Just setting you up for next time,” she said, grinning from ear to ear.

Amelia couldn't take it any longer. “Oh, why don't you two just get a room?!” she said, jumping to her feet
and running out the door. She tried to slam it, but it was too heavy.

Stomping down the street, she didn't turn when Rush and Gail caught up with her.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

“This is stupid,” Amelia said. “I don't want to be here!” Then, all at once, she was crying like a little girl. “I want to be with Tony!”

She wrapped her arms around Rush and sobbed. He looked helplessly at Gail, who pried the weeping girl off of him and led her back to the dojo.

Gail's apartment was upstairs—just a bedroom, living room, and kitchen. Nothing big, but what can you expect on a bartender/taekwondo instructor's income? Gail took Amelia up to her bedroom and let her lie down and cry it out.

Rush was pacing the kitchen when Gail came out and said she was asleep.

“You don't think Guzman would have…” Rush asked, awkwardly. “I mean, she's only a kid.”

“Pretty big kid,” Gail said.

He turned to look out the window. All he saw was another window across the way, with the blinds drawn. Some people were less open than others.

“I was thinking about my mother this morning,” Rush said. “She did a lot of bad things.”

“She did them to take care of you.”

“And herself.”

Gail smiled. “That girl in there, she kind of reminds
me of you. Right around the cold, black heart.”

Rush chuckled. That was the reaction she'd been trying for. “Wanna fight? Best of five?” Gail asked.

Rush shook his head. “There are a couple of things I have to do first.”

Stegner was standing post outside Trask's front door. It was a shit detail, and Stegner was well aware of that. There was very little likelihood, after all, that Trask's assassin would come to the front door, knock, and ask to be let in. Stegner knew Donleavy was punishing him for letting Amelia Trask slip out the night before.

That was all right, he told himself. Being given this, the most boring of assignments, was actually a blessing in disguise. It gave him time to think without the distraction of having to do anything. Stegner knew himself well enough to know he was not good at multitasking.

So he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and reasoned his way through the case before him. What puzzled him wasn't who had drowned Walter Trask and attempted to blow up Amelia Trask. Who'd done that seemed painfully obvious to Stegner. No, what puzzled him was this—why didn't anyone else see it?

Years of being with Donleavy had taught Stegner one thing—that he, Stegner, was not, in Donleavy's own
words, “the sharpest tool in the shed.” So why was he the only one who could see who was trying to kill Stanley Trask and his family? Could it be that Stegner was having a “hunch”? A flash of real insight? Or could it be that he was totally, completely, embarrassingly, wrong?

“Stegner?”

He was whipped from his reverie by the sight of Rush standing in front of him.

“If I was a ninja, you'd be dead by now,” Rush said, smiling. Stegner really hated Rush's smile.

“Where did you come from?”

“The driveway,” Rush replied.

Rush's big GTO was parked in front of the house. Stegner sighed—he must have been thinking pretty hard.

“I need to see Stanley Trask,” Rush said.

“We'll see about that,” Stegner said, calling in on his radio. He listened to the reply and sighed again.

“Go on. He's out back,” he said as he let Rush pass. He watched Rush's big shoulders barely clear the doorway and reflected on the injustice of the world. No matter how many times Rush was slapped down, he always seemed to come back, bigger than ever. Meanwhile, Stegner always seemed to be relegated to the role of Donleavy's pet stooge.

It was time to do something about that, Stegner reflected. It was time to prove that he was a sharp tool.

Stanley Trask stood on the bottom of his pool, crouched over as if scanning the cement for lost change. Somehow, pools always looked bigger when they'd been emptied of water, and to Rush, standing by the diving board, Stanley Trask seemed smaller and older as he wandered about the deep end, looking for God knows what. He reminded Rush of the Gill-Man in
The Creature Walks among Us
, separated from the water, out of his element.