Redemption Alley

What are you going to do, Jill? You’re in no shape to take anyone on.

It didn’t matter. This was mine to finish off, and by God, I was going to.

I stroked the Charger into starting. It was an automatic, so I didn’t need to worry about shifting the way I would have in my Impala. Which was good—my legs were still weak and my fingers painfully swollen. The headlights came on without any demur, cutting a swath through the night.

You’re not even in any shape to drive. Find somewhere to rest, get to Harvill tomorrow.

Fat fucking chance. I slid the car into drive. Eased my foot off the brake and the car slid forward, the engine sounding overworked and underpaid.

Just like the rest of us, honey. Never mind about that. We’ll fix that right up. I always wanted a Dodge.

A roaring sheet of darkness beat at the edges of my vision. I blinked. The tears slicking my cheeks came faster, dripping off my jaw and wetting the ruins of my shirt.

It’s about a twenty-minute drive, Jill. Do it in ten.

The Charger nosed at the street, I turned, and reached for the little tingle of precognition along my nerves. It didn’t happen for a long thirty seconds, so I cruised along the dark street, my fingers still swollen and aching. The wheel slid smoothly under my hands, and I turned left on Twelfth. I could zig crosstown and avoid the major cop activity, which at this hour would be around the bars and nightclubs as they hit their stride. Drunks would be getting rowdy just about now, and domestic disturbances reaching their peak for the night too.

The Kat Klub won’t be reopening anytime soon, folks. I done put that bitch out of business, as Leon would say.

And I would be lying if I’d told myself it didn’t feel good to know Shen An Dua was dead. The only trouble was, her replacement was likely to be an even bigger bitch. Cogs in a wheel—one corruptor rolls out, another clicks in. Way of the world.

When the tingle came, I shook myself. I was weaving, and one tire kissed the curb before I snapped into my own skin, each new ache in my overstressed muscles not just a weight against the nerves but a balm, keeping me awake.

Come on, Jill. Just one more thing. Then you can rest.

I was lying to myself and I knew it. But I tightened my dirty hands on the wheel, shook my hair back, and jammed the pedal to the floor. The Charger had some life left in him yet, and he lurched forward like someone had just stuck a pin in him. Speckles of streetlight ran up the hood, and the buildings on Twelfth all yawned at me, sliding past as if greased. I let out a painful, half-hitched laugh; it sounded rusty under the wind from the rolled-down window rustling all the fast-food wrappers. First thing I had to do, when I had time, was clean this goddamn car out. It was a dirty crying shame for a good piece of American metal to be so filthy inside.

Complain about my driving now, goddammit. I dare you.

He had the wrong house for a DA. It was a nice ranch-style pseudo-adobe, all done up with red tile roof and everything. The garden, what little there was of it, was immaculate, and he had a lawn that probably guzzled a winter’s worth of water every week.

The Charger looked sorely out of place in Riverhurst. It’s the rich section of town, well insulated both from pesky downtowners and from the stink of the industrial section. The rule here is wide sidewalks, lovely expanses of thirsty grass, and more often than not a wall and an iron gate. And trees. This is the only place in the city, other than the parks, where you find honest-to-God trees, mostly left over from the quiet neighborhoods of the twenties and early forties.

Harvill’s house was easily the shabbiest, but still worth a nice chunk of change in property tax alone. The windows were all dark and deserted, only the porch light burning.

What are you going to do? Go up and ring the doorbell? Is he married, does he have kids?

I couldn’t remember right now.

What are you going to get into if you walk up the path and knock on that door?

I was still considering this when another car approached, nosing down the street. It was a little red import number, and the engine sounded like an overworked sewing machine. Even more out-of-place than the Charger. I slouched down, keeping it in view. What’s this?

The little red car—I could identify it now, it was a Honda—chugged to a stop in front of Harvill’s house under a big old elm tree in full leaf. The engine shut off, and the door opened, squeaking. A slim male shape rose from the tiny front seat, and I smelled someone familiar. I had trouble matching it to a face for a few seconds.

Gilberto Rosario Gonzalez-Ayala went up the front walk. He checked the house number, then rang the bell.

Jesus. What the hell?

Two full minutes ticked by. He pressed the bell again.

A light came on.

Twenty seconds later the door opened, a rectangle of golden light. Harvill stood in the door, a man-mountain in pajamas. He looked ruffled and sleepless, and my blue eye saw a faint stain of Hell’s corruption on him. He wasn’t a Trader, but he’d been fucking around with a hellbreed.

Gilberto said something I didn’t catch.

“Who the hell are you?” Harvill’s voice carried across the street, the stentorian tones of a man used to the courtroom and television appearances.

The gun spoke, a faint pop. He had a silencer.

Harvill went down hard. I reached for the door handle.

Gilberto stepped forward, fired twice more. Stood watching. I heard a slight sound, like an exhale. Like someone sinking down into a bed. The breath of corruption intensified, taking hold as the soul fled the body and quit fighting to reclaim the flesh.

Do I have to kill him too?

“That was for my brother, you piece of shit.” Gilberto’s young voice broke on the last syllable. I slouched further in the seat. So Gil had been conducting his own little war, and found the hand behind his brother’s killer in his own way.

It all made sense—Harvill putting whatever cops he was sure of on me, and using his position to start a little gang war on me too. I wouldn’t be able to question him and find out exactly who opened fire on me, though.

Life’s not perfect, Jillybean. Take what you have.

The 51 retraced his steps. He stopped by his driver’s side door, eyeing the Charger. I touched a gun butt, ran my fingers over it, and was glad I was in deep darkness.

I didn’t want to kill this kid, no matter how scary his flat dark eyes were.

“Eh, bruja,” the young man whispered. “Still on the job, me.”

I can see that, Gilberto. I turned into a stone, drawing silence over me like a cloak. Could he sense the change in the night, an absence where before there had been listening?

How much did he know about the nightside?

Just who was this kid, anyway?

He dropped down into the Honda. The sewing-machine engine started up again. He backed into Harvill’s sloping driveway and pulled out, heading away down the street. Somewhere in the deep water of darkness a dog barked.

Before he turned the corner I saw a brief flare of orange light. Gilberto had just lit a cigarette.

Jesus. A shudder worked its way down my body. I stroked the Charger into starting again, watching the street. Not a hair out of place, except for that faraway hound. Everyone sleeping the sleep of the rich and untroubled.

Jacinta Kutchner’s neighbors hadn’t heard anything either.

I put the car in drive and pulled out. Took a right on Fairview. The city stayed quiet. Darkness beat at the edges of my vision again, my body reminding me that it had put up with a lot of shit from me in the last forty-eight hours.

I made it to Galina’s, parked drunkenly crosswise in front of her store because I couldn’t see well enough to do more than bump the car up against the curb. I fell sideways across the cushioned center console and darkness finally took me. I struggled on the way down—there was more I had to do, wasn’t there? There was always more to do, and something I’d forgotten.