F Paul Wilson - Novel 04 (30 page)

Poppy pushed Katie back onto the
bed. “You stay here! Don’t move!” She eased herself into the
front room, pressing her back against the wall as Paulie and Mac rolled around
on the floor. She had to find a way to stop Mac. But how?

And then she spotted her dumbbells
by the coffee table.

Yes!

She grabbed one and raised it just
as Paulie rolled on top of Mac. She crept closer, looking for an opening,
waiting for a clear shot at Mac’s head.

And then she heard Paulie let out a
loud, “Uhn!”—a cross between a strangled cry and an agonized
grunt— and in that same awful, horror-filled instant saw the bright red
point of the knife blade pop through the back of his shirt.

She screamed his name and rushed
forward just as Mac was pushing Paulie off of him. She’d all but
forgotten the dumbbell in her hand, but when she saw Mac getting up she let out
a sound she’d never imagined she could make, a screech of rage and fear
like a truck with bad brakes.

Mac looked up, and for an instant
she cherished the look of sudden terror that filled his eyes when he saw her
and realized what she had raised over her head.

He shouted, “No!” and
tried to get a hand up but he was too late.

Poppy smashed him square between
his cold, rotten little eyes with the end of the dumbbell, flattening his nose
and spraying blood all over his face. His head slammed back against the floor
and he didn’t move again.

Poppy immediately forgot about him
and dropped the dumbbell. She turned to Paulie who was on his back now with the
knife’s black handle sticking out of his stomach, right under the breast
bone. His black shirt wasn’t showing the red of the blood, just looking
blacker—and wet.

And he was all wet. His face was
sugar white and, he looked like he was having trouble breathing and Poppy
didn’t want to think it, didn’t want to believe it could happen,
but she knew right then that her Paulie was dying.

“Paulie… ?” His
eyes focused on her, then down to the handle sticking up from his shirt. His
fingers trembled as he touched it. He tried a smile as he spoke in a wheezy
whisper.

“It’s not as bad as it
looks. I’ll be okay.”

Poppy tried to hold back the sobs
but they broke through and she started crying. “Oh, Jesus, Paulie, it
came out your back!”

He blinked. “It did?
Oh.” He looked down at the handle and touched it again. “Help me
get it out.”

“No! I can’t!”

“Poppy, it hurts so much. You
gotta get it out. Please.”

“O-okay.” The last
thing in the world she wanted to do was touch that handle, but if it was
hurting Paulie…

She forced the fingers of both
hands around the black plastic, squeezed tight, and gave a little pull.

Paulie stiffened and groaned.

“It’s stuck!” Her
voice rose to a wail. “I can’t do this, Paulie!”

“It’s my only chance.
Pull it out! Now!” Shaking, sobbing. Poppy tightened her grip and yanked
the handle with everything she had. After some initial resistance, it suddenly
came free and she almost fell backward.

When she straightened, Paulie was
even whiter than before but smiling at her.

“Oh, that feels
better.” But when Poppy looked at the wound she saw blood gurgling from
the slit and running down Paulie’s sides.

Suddenly his whole body twitched
and he looked at her. She could barely hear his voice.

“Maybe we should have left it
in.”

And then he was gone. He
didn’t move, didn’t make another sound; his eyes were still open
and looking at her, but Paulie wasn’t there anymore.

No… that couldn’t
be…

“Paulie?” she said.
“Paulie?” Poppy dropped the knife and leaned toward him, arms out
to hug him when something moved against her leg.

She turned. Mac was stirring. His
nose was smashed to the side and he looked like he’d been hit in the face
with a ripe tomato, but his eyelids were fluttering. He was coming to.

And right then Poppy knew she had
to kill him. She couldn’t let the man who’d killed Paulie and
wanted to kill Katie take another breath.

She looked around for her dumbbell
and saw that it had rolled across the floor. She started to rise to retrieve it
when she noticed the handle of the gun in Mac’s belt.

Yeah. With his own gun.

But as she began to pull it free, a
hand grabbed her wrist.

Mac looked at her groggily.
“No way, bitch.” Poppy got her other hand on the gun and yanked it
free, but Mac still had hold of her wrist. And now he brought both of his hands
into play, trying to twist it away from her. But Poppy wasn’t letting go.
She knew her life and Katie’s depended on keeping it away from Mac.

Suddenly the gun went off and Poppy
felt something whiz past her cheek. The sound was so deafening at such close
range she jumped and almost lost her grip.

She glanced down and saw
Mac’s finger against the trigger, then up to see him grinning at her, so
sure he was going to win. Just to show him he wasn’t, Poppy gave the gun
a vicious twist and it discharged again, the bullet nipping a lock of his hair
as it went by.

Suddenly he wasn’t smiling.
If he hadn’t just been coming out of being knocked cold, and if he
hadn’t been struggling with someone who worked out a lot more than he
did, he might have won already. But he was far from his peak and Poppy was
right at hers, and she knew she had to get that gun fast before his bigger
muscles and weight advantage wore her down.

She jammed her thumb inside the
trigger guard, right on top of his, and pressed down hard while pushing the
barrel toward him. Another shot, and this one nipped his shoulder before it
smashed through the window. He winced and jumped as red began seeping through
the hole in his shirt, and now his feet were kicking along the floor, looking
for leverage against her. Poppy kept staring at him, not saying a word as they
no longer fought for the gun, but for which way it would point, and he must
have seen something in her eyes because now he was looking scared.

Finally his feet found something to
push against and suddenly he was angling up, looking to topple her over and
trap her under his weight. If he did that, he’d be in control. Poppy put
all her strength into one last desperate twist of the barrel, lifting it and
crunching down on the trigger.

The muzzle flash seared her chin as
Mac gave a shout and lurched back with blood spurting from the right side of
his head. His grip loosened and suddenly the gun was all Poppy’s.

She scrabbled backward on her free
hand and feet and butt, and then sprawled there gasping, pointing the gun at
him, ready to drill him again. But he didn’t move. He lay flat on his
back, arms and legs splayed in all directions, his right eye all bloody, an
expanding pool of red encircling his head.

Mac was dead. She’d killed a
man, but that was okay. It wasn’t really a man—it was Mac. And
he’d killed Paulie. And was gonna kill—

Katie!

Dimly, through the ringing in her
ears, she became aware that a child was screaming. Poppy dropped the gun and
ran into the guest room where she found her crouched white faced in a corner,
hands over her ears, eyes squeezed shut, and her mouth wide open. She lifted
Katie and held her trembling, quaking little body against her.

“It’s all right,
baby,” she said, putting her lips against Katie’s ear and
whispering. “It’s all right. It’s all over and no one’s
gonna hurt you. Poppy’s gonna take care of you. You’re safe now.
You’re safe.”

Safe… Poppy realized that was
the one thing they weren’t. How many times had the gun gone off? Three?
Four? She couldn’t remember. But sure as hell someone was dialing 911
right now and saying Sylmar Street was turning into the OK Corral.

She had to get out of here.

But where to? She had no place to
go. And she had no money. Paulie always took care of— Paulie! Oh, Jesus,
poor Paulie was dead in the next room… She bit back a sob. She
couldn’t think about that. She had to get Katie and herself to safety.

“Here’s what
we’re gonna do. We’re gonna move to a new place, a brand new place
where nobody gets hurt. Okay? First thing you have to do is close your
eyes.”

Katie didn’t say anything,
but when Poppy looked, her eyes were closed. Maybe they’d been closed all
along.

She carried her out through the
living room, keeping her own eyes straight ahead and Katie’s turned away
from the blood-splattered floor.

Once in the kitchen, she put her
down on one of the chairs. “Stay here, Katie. Don’t move.
I’ll be right back.” Katie sat unmoving, her eyes still closed.

Poppy hurried back into the living
room and fought the rising nausea as she approached the bodies. Blood
everywhere. She couldn’t think of anyplace she totally wanted less to be,
but she needed money. And more than that, she needed the keys to the truck.

Without really looking at
him—she couldn’t bear to see his slack, white face—she sidled
around to Paulie’s body and knelt just outside the wet stain that
encircled him. She reached toward him and pulled back.

Poor Paulie. She couldn’t
even look at him. How was she gonna touch him? But she had to. No time to kneel
here wringing her hands. The cops were coming, dammit.

Steeling herself, and only looking
out of the corner of her eye, she forced her hands to pat his pockets. The
front ones were empty. Biting her lip, she rolled him half over—so
heavy!—and found his wallet, but no truck keys.

The money in Paulie’s wallet
wouldn’t take her far.

She glanced across him at Mac. He
always had lots of cash. She got up and approached Mac from the other side.
Easier to go through his pockets. Only his head was bloody. And she
didn’t give a damn about Mac.

She yanked out his wallet and
sighed with relief when she found it loaded with twenties and fifties, plus
half a dozen Visa cards under as many names.

Okay. She and Katie had money. Now
they needed wheels.

She spotted Mac’s keys on the
floor near the gun. She reached for them, then thought better of it. She knew
she wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, but she did know that the Jeep
had been sitting out front when the shots were fired. Someone might have taken
down the plate number. The truck would be better. Except for a couple of quick
trips, it had been kept in the garage all the time.

She jumped up and ran into her
bedroom and spotted the keys on the dresser. She snatched them and her little
purse, and ran back toward the kitchen. Halfway there she dropped everything. A
gun, a purse, two wallets, and keys—too much to carry. And she’d
probably have to carry Katie too. No time to consolidate. She needed— She
spotted Mac’s baseball jacket on the chair. She didn’t want
anything that belonged to that slimeball but right now she couldn’t be
choosey. She pulled it on and stuffed everything into the pockets. Then she
scooped up Katie and headed for the garage.

“Come on, baby,” she
cooed. “We’re getting the hell outta here.” As she opened the
door between the kitchen and the garage, she heard Mac’s beeper go off
again. Whoever wanted him was going to get old and gray waiting for a callback.

“You are sure you are calling
the right numbers?” Carlos said.

Llosa nodded vigorously.
“¡si!”

“I tried them myself,”
Alien Gold said.

“Then why isn’t that
hijo de puta answering? He has always called in before.”

“Maybe his beeper’s
turned off,” Alien said, “or broken. Maybe the battery died.”

“But what about his voice
mail?”

Gold shrugged. “Who knows how
often he checks it?” Carlos was getting worried. MacLaglen should not be
out of touch at such a critical time. It was very careless of him, and if
Carlos knew one thing about MacLaglen, he was not careless. A bad feeling was
growing in his gut: Something was wrong.

He pointed to Gold. “I want
you to take Llosa and drive past his house.”

“Do we know where he
lives?”

“I will give you the address.
And I will give you another address, as well. But you must drive past and
nothing more. Do not knock on the door, do not even stop the car.
Comprende?”

“Sure.”

“Call me immediately if you
see anything.” He watched them go, then turned on his back massager. His
muscles were very tight.

Something was wrong… he could
smell it.

The sun sat high and bright in a
cloudless sky, but Poppy drove through a fog. She could barely feel her hands
on the wheel. Like numb all over.

She pushed the panel truck to its
limit along 95 North through Maryland and got about sixty miles an hour out of
it. She wished she could go like a hundred, two hundred, but the last thing she
needed now was to get pulled over by a cop. Sixty would do just fine.

She glanced over at Katie, belted
into the passenger seat. She’d been a talkative little thing the past few
days, but Poppy had heard barely a peep out of her since they’d left the
house. Poor kid… she’d seen stuff today that no adult should see,
let alone a six-year-old girl.

Soon as we get somewhere, Poppy
thought, I’ll have to work on her. Bring her out. And figure out what to
do with her.

Yeah. Soon as we get somewhere.

But where was she going? And what
was she going to do when she got there? My next move, she thought. Good
question. What do I do now? She wished Paulie was here. She wasn’t good
at this sort of stuff, but Paulie’d know what to do.

The thought of Paulie started an
ache deep in her chest. She remembered his funny laugh, his crooked smile,
always trying to be a hard guy when he didn’t have a mean bone in his
body. And now he was dead. She didn’t want to remember him like that, all
soaked with blood, his face so pale, his dead eyes staring. She wanted to
remember him in bed, doing wonderful things to her…