Страница 3 из 64
“We have to go.”
“In a minute.” Evan nudged the guy with his boot. “Where’s your stash, old man?”
The owner groaned, a strange, raspy sound. Da
“Where is it?” This time Evan kicked the owner, steel-toed boot driving into the man’s stomach near where his hands clenched the wound. The guy gasped for air, an agonized keening.
“Evan!”
“What?” Evan spun, eyes narrowed and arm half raised. The air-conditioning chilled the place cold as January. For a long moment, they stared at each other, Da
“Fuck!” Evan yelled after the girl as she sprinted to the back room. “Stop!” For a moment she seemed to hesitate, then leapt a pile of junk from one of the cabinets and sailed into the dark office, slamming the heavy door behind her. Da
Evan roared with frustration, his face burning bright red, that angry color he got in a fight. Turning, he kicked the owner again, the guy trying to cover his head with one hand and his bleeding stomach with the other, a whimpering sound coming now, fast and hard, a sound Da
He stepped in front of Evan, hands to shoulders, and shoved him back. His partner stumbled, almost went down, came up mad. Eyes narrowed, he looked like he was about to bull rush Da
“Stop.” Da
For a moment, he wasn’t sure it was going to work. But then Evan straightened, slowly. He exhaled loudly, then nodded. “All right, forget the weed. We’ve got the money.”
Da
Evan looked at him, then at the office door, closed and locked. “Where is it?”
Da
“Jesus, Da
“Well, I wasn’t pla
“Don’t start.” Evan’s eyes blazed. “I don’t want to hear that shit.”
“Fine.” Da
Evan stared at him, shook his head. “No.”
“The cops will be here any second,” Da
“I’m not leaving empty-handed.” He started for the office door.
Da
Standing outside the office, Evan spoke loud and precise. “Lady, open the door or I will break it fucking down.” Silence. Maybe the woman had spotted the back exit, been smart enough to leave.
“Have it your way.” Evan lashed out with his boot. The door shivered in its frame, but held. As he stepped back to wind up again, a sharp roar tore a chunk of wood out of the door, spraying splinters in all directions. As the second bullet punched through, Da
For a hesitant second nothing happened.
Then Evan exploded. Whatever demons shooting the pawnshop owner had freed took control of him again. He raised his pistol and pulled the trigger, aiming in a triangle of quick blasts. Not pointing at the lock but trying to hit her, trying to kill. At Da
Da
No. No more.
He opened the front door and slipped out into the night. His body screamed to run, just go, but he made himself walk. Not draw attention. Just a guy headed for the El, nothing noteworthy about that.
When he was two blocks away, he heard the sirens.
2
It started different ways, but always ended the same.
This time he’d been in a church. It wasn’t the Nativity, but he’d known that he was in the old neighborhood. A deep voice intoned alien words. Stained glass spilled bloody light across polished pews. Karen held a hymnal, terror squirming in her eyes. He’d tried to read the book, knowing the key to her fear lay on the page, but the words twisted and blurred. Sliding metal rattled behind him. In the half awareness of an ending dream, he knew he wouldn’t make it, that he couldn’t impose sense onto this world in time. He looked up to find that Karen had turned into Evan, and that the hymnal had become a pistol aimed at Da
The furious orange of the soundless gun blast yanked him from sleep, as it always did.
Beside him, Karen murmured something soft and rolled away, pulling the blankets with her. The draft cooled his sweat-soaked body. Da
He let himself drift until the alarm rang. Karen fumbled for the snooze button; she’d hit it two, three times before getting up. He rolled out of bed, careful not to disturb her, popped his head to either side and stretched his arms. Thirty-two years old, and it was already harder to get out of bed than it used to be.
In the shower, the water diamond sharp against his back, he replayed the dream. Probably two months since the last one. For a while they’d been weekly. It had been a hairy time, seven years ago.
Waiting for the train had been maybe the toughest ten minutes of his life. He’d wanted to take a cab, even just to sprint, but he needed the anonymity of the El. Mouth dry, sirens in his ears, a quarter mile from the pawnshop, and he’d stood waiting for the train, certain every moment that this would be the one when they’d come for him.
But when the Brown Line had finally rattled in, the wind from it stale breath on his face, he’d boarded like any civilian. There’d been a kid with baggy pants hanging off his ass, and a fat woman with a Marshall Field’s bag, and he’d stepped on between them as though he had nothing to fear. The train ran north, into the land of yuppies and condos and coffeehouses, and he made a fresh compact with God at every stop. Each one a step farther from where he’d come. A preview of things ahead. A series of geographically minor hops that took him from his old world into what would become his new one.
And good goddamn riddance.
Karen opened the bathroom door, rubbing at her eyes. She sat on the toilet, yawned.
“You have a nightmare, baby?”
“Yeah.”
“Bad?”
“The same.”
She flushed, and he almost jumped out from under the shower before remembering that wasn’t a Lincoln Park problem. It was the little things that brought home the difference between his old world and new. Karen slid open the curtain and stepped into the shower, eyes half closed. He swapped places with her, watched her tip her head back, the water sluicing over her body, flattening her dark hair to her shoulders.
On second thought, thirty-two didn’t look so bad. Not so bad at all.
“Christ, I hate mornings.” She fumbled for the shampoo. “Aren’t you late?”
“It’s Wednesday.” Most days he spent the bulk of his time on-site. Wednesdays he spent in the office, reviewing paperwork, filing permits, trying to juggle the budgets of half a dozen construction projects so that each, barely working out, could finance the next. When he’d reached management, it’d struck him as fu