First Drop (12 page)

And then, in the distance to the south of us, came the unmistakable sound of police sirens. Lots of them. I glanced back at the dead cop and knew that staying here was just about to get a lot more dangerous.

The driver of the Buick must have made that decision, too. I saw the nose of his car bounce as he put it into gear and wheelspun for the first thirty metres. The force of the takeoff slammed both doors shut, carrying both him and his fallen colleague away from the scene.

I jumped up, reached back into the Mercury and grabbed hold of Trey by the front of his shirt, yelling at him to move. This time he responded, scrambling out after me.

I ran, dragging Trey behind me with my hand fisted into his collar, uncaring of his cries of protest as we went. I fled like an animal, looking for darkness, looking for somewhere to hide. Across the highway, through a narrow alleyway that formed an access road between the industrial units and into cover on the other side. The sodium lights didn’t reach this far back and it was all the darker for being just outside the scope of their glare.

The sirens were growing louder all the time. I just prayed that when the cavalry arrived they didn’t have dogs with them, otherwise this was going to be over very quickly. I’d deliberately chosen not to head onto the waste land because our footsteps would be too easy to track across the soft sandy surface. Asphalt would make it just as easy for a dog.

The first of the reinforcements slid to a messy stop alongside the cruiser. I stopped, struggling to make out the sounds of pursuit over the drumming of the blood in my ears. My breath was coming harsh and loud, so I had to hold it in when I was trying to listen. I wasn’t a sprinter any more than I was a long distance runner but I’d given our short flight everything I’d got and it had shattered me.

Gradually, as I stood there in the darkness, I felt my body begin to put aside the shock of the assault I’d just inflicted on it. My heart no longer seemed about to rupture with every beat. The balmy night air dried the sweat on my skin without chilling it and my eyes were sharpening.

We were hidden for the moment but vulnerable to anyone with methodical determination and a powerful torch. I remembered the way the cop had fallen. Whoever came looking for us would bring both, backed by shotguns and anger. It would be best if we weren’t here for them to find.

I lifted the tails of my shirt and slipped the SIG back into my belt. Having it in my hand would only encourage the law to shoot me and, anyway, I wasn’t planning on killing anyone else tonight if I could help it.

Behind me, Trey was snivelling quietly into his hands but I daren’t soften towards him. Survival was all that mattered now. Compassion could come later. Roughly, I urged him on.

We picked our way through the debris that littered the backs of the units until we came to an area where the chain link fencing was sagging enough to climb over. Beyond it was the car park behind the bar I’d seen earlier.

It was a single-storey building with wooden siding and neon signs for Bud Light and Coors beer that flickered intermittently. I spent a moment watching the bar entrance but it wasn’t exactly bustling. The kind of place where the regular clientele arrive as the doors open and have to be persuaded to vacate at closing time, usually with each arm across someone else’s shoulders.

There was an array of vehicles parked up outside, mainly pickups. I worked my way along them, trying all the handles, but nobody had been in such a hurry to get a drink that they’d overlooked locking the doors when they’d arrived. I could have simply smashed a window but even if I did I’d no idea how to hot-wire a car.

And then, just when I’d almost given in to despair, I caught sight of the line of motorbikes against the far fence. Now bikes, on the other hand, I was much more familiar with . . .

I hustled Trey behind the bar itself, keeping him out of sight of the highway. I could still see the flashing lights reflected from the industrial buildings.

“Stay here,” I hissed, then made my way over to the bikes. There were a dozen or so of them, parked up neatly, noses towards the fence like cowboys’ horses outside the saloon. I ducked down into the shadows as I checked over each one.

“What are you looking for?”

I turned. Trey had followed me out and was standing a few feet behind one of the bikes. In plain view.

“A way out of here,” I bit back in a savage whisper. “Either stay out of sight or find me one that isn’t chained up. No mechanical locks and no alarm.”

He looked at me for a moment as though he was going to ask questions, then he shrugged and moved away with a lack of urgency that almost made me want to scream at him.

As I went through the bikes it seemed that most of them had additional security of some form or another. I couldn’t blame them for that. I carried a roller-chain wherever I went with my bike and I always used it to hobble the rear wheel. The end one of the machines here was tied with something very similar, except it was also threaded through the side bull bars of the nearest pickup truck. I hoped the respective owners knew each other, or things were going to get rough at chucking-out time.

When I reached the other end of the line I found Trey hovering, hands shoved into his pockets and shivering like he was cold.

“Will this one do?” he asked. I gritted my teeth but said nothing as I quickly checked it over.

The bike was a Kawasaki GPz 900 Ninja, not in the first flush of youth and much abused if the dirt-engrained scars in the fairing were anything to go by. The counterweight on the end of the clutch lever was missing and one indicator dangled by its wiring. Not exactly somebody’s pride and joy, then. Well, that was good.

Better still, there were no extra locks or chains and no warning stickers for an alarm system. Just the steering lock, which held the handlebars cocked hard over to the left.

“Yes, it will,” I said at last, trying to force my lips into an encouraging smile towards the boy. “Well done.”

I straightened up, put one hand on the pillion seat, reared back and kicked the scuffed bar end with as much force as I could put into it, given the angle. The bike lurched on its side stand like it was shying away from the blow. As soon as I could be sure it wasn’t going to go down, I hit it again.

This time the whole of the front end bucked as the steering lock sheared. The bars rebounded off the far side of the fairing as they broke free. I had to grab the body of the bike to stop it diving forward off the stand. My muscles cramped as I took the full weight of it, straining to keep it upright. It was like slapping a particularly nervous racehorse round the muzzle and then having to stop it bolting afterwards.

Trey stood mute, looking puzzled, not making any attempt to help as I wheeled the Kawasaki out of the line. I cast him a single vicious glance as I set the bike back onto its stand, then flipped the fuel tap on and fumbled in my pocket for my Swiss Army knife. I folded out the slot-head screwdriver bit and rammed it into the ignition, using the leverage of the handle to break up the inside of the lock and twist it to the run position.

“OK,” I said to Trey, “get on the back. If this works we might have to get out of here fast.”

He climbed onto the pillion seat without a word. I closed my eyes briefly, then hit the starter.

The Kwak, good reliable old hack that it was, fluttered and caught. The neglected engine was rattling like a bag of old spanners and the exhaust can was in dire need of replacement, but at least it ran.

No-one came rushing out of the bar to rescue their trusty steed.

I toed the bike into gear, feeling weird to be riding without a helmet for the first time in my life. Trey wrapped his arms round my waist and clamped himself to my back like a monkey as we trundled across the uneven car park.

When I got to the highway I checked both ways carefully before I pulled out. The cluster of cop cars was about a third of a mile further back down the road. As I turned in the opposite direction I tried not to look too hard, and I made sure I went up through the Kwak’s gearbox slowly and smoothly enough not to attract their attention.

As I rode north into the subtropical night I could see the visual disco of their lights behind me for a couple of miles before they finally disappeared from view.

I managed to get us forty miles away from the scene of the shoot-out, across two county lines and almost into West Palm Beach, before I had to stop.

There was a wooden shack by the side of the road, with a faded sign by the side of it to tempt passers by with the offer of homegrown citrus fruit for sale. The shack looked as though it hadn’t had anything fresh inside it for years. A thick coating of weed was the only thing holding the rotting timbers upright. I slowed and rode carefully in through the open doorway, paddling the Kawasaki round with both feet down, clumsy.

As I pulled the clutch in and we finally came to a halt, I muttered over my shoulder to Trey, “OK,
now
I’m going to hurl.”

He almost tripped in his effort to be off the bike faster than me. I staggered to the doorway and stood bent over with my hands braced on my knees. There was a roaring growing louder in my ears like I was standing in the shallows waiting for the surf to wash over me. I didn’t have to wait long.

The teriyaki beef jerky tasted no better on the way up than it had done on the way down.

Trey stood by the bike inside the shack, watching me throw up with irritating intensity. I could feel his distaste, but sensed it wasn’t so much at the fact that I was vomiting, as at my need to do so. He despised my weakness without sympathy. I wasn’t so keen on it myself.

When I was finally on empty I came upright slowly, buffeted by dizziness and fresh nausea. Considering I was relatively uninjured I felt like hell. My eyes were gritty from squinting unprotected into the hot wind that had blasted up over the bike’s fairing. I seemed to have been hit in the face by every living species of insect in Florida. It reminded me why I never even rode with my visor open at home, never mind with no helmet at all.

I put a hand up to wipe the bug splats off my face. I swear my nose was at least twice its normal size. I prodded gently at the bridge with my fingers but I didn’t think it was broken.

The moonlight was clear and startling by the doorway and it seeped inside the shack. I noticed for the first time that Trey had acquired a small cut over his eyebrow when the airbag had gone off in his face. A little blood had trickled down past the side of his eye. Apart from that he looked OK. More or less. He was staying further back in the gloom and it was difficult to tell.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Yeah, ‘course,” he said, with a defiant edge to him. Reminding him at this point of his tears and listless shock as we’d run from the cops would not, I thought, be a way to gain his friendship and trust. I let it ride. Besides, I soon found out that he had other things on his mind.

“Was that—?” he broke off, took a breath and tried again, his voice detached. “Was that the first time you’ve like, y’know, killed someone?”

Again, I was tempted to lie. Again I didn’t see the point. “No.” I said.

Trey gulped. “Did it . . . did you throw up then, too? Afterwards, I mean.”

I cocked my head, as though giving the question serious thought. “Probably. I don’t remember.” I said, trying to be truthful. “I didn’t exactly come out of it in the best of health myself and the paramedics were giving me a lot of painkillers. Things were a little hazy.”

I didn’t explain any further than that, but Trey nodded seriously, as though what I’d just told him made perfect sense. “Can I see it – the gun?”

I eyed him doubtfully. There was a kind of fearful eagerness about him now. He’d got over the shock of watching me shoot the men in the Buick and all the ghoulishness of your average schoolboy had returned. Nevertheless, there was no good reason to refuse him.

I sighed and pulled the SIG out of my belt again. He moved forwards, his gaze locked on the gun. I deliberately dropped the magazine out and removed the chambered round before I handed it over to him. His contained excitement outweighed the offence he took at having his judgement so obviously mistrusted.

“Awesome,” he said. Even knowing the gun was unloaded, he handled it with exaggerated care, surreptitiously reading the maker’s name off the side of the barrel, but not wanting to let me see him do it in order to recognise what it was. “SIG Sauer, huh? Where d’ya get it?”

“From the house,” I said. “It’s Sean’s.” I couldn’t quite bring myself to talk about him in the past tense. Not yet.

“Where d’you learn to shoot like that?” His stance had altered, I noted. He was holding the SIG in a showy double-handed grip now, posing almost, with both elbows bent sharply in best movie tough-guy tradition. So the camera can pan in good and tight on the hero’s face and still get the gun in the same shot.

“In the army,” I said, short.

“Yeah? Why’d you leave?”

“I had my reasons,” I said. I could have added a whole lot more to that, as well. The Special Forces course I’d been on when I’d been unceremoniously chucked out had taught me an awful lot more about firearms than basic training had ever done, but he didn’t need to know that.