Brush Back

Sebastian wrenched himself free of the thug holding him and fled toward the exit. Big Goon turned and shot. I leapt over and smashed my gun stock into Small Goon’s jaw.

He roared in pain, loosed his grip on Bernie.

“Go, go, go!” I screamed.

She almost made it, bending her slight frame low, to slide under Small Goon’s arms, but she was too tired, too shell-shocked for the speed she needed. Big Goon grabbed her. Small Goon slugged me. I kicked his shins, hard, and he jumped back. Small Goon fired at me, missed.

I felt the heat as the bullet zinged past. I ducked down, scooted under a pipe, shot back, high, over Bernie’s head. The sound was unbearable, echoing, reechoing. Smoke filled the air, the stink of sulfur. Big Goon fired again.

“Don’t fucking kill her until we know where the goddam pages are!” the smaller creep yelled.

“We’ll get little missy here to tell us where she lives and search her place. I’m tired of fucking bitches thinking they own the universe.” Big Goon shot again.

Eyes watering, coughing, ears ringing, find a target that wasn’t Bernie. Edge forward. A sharp shock, and I was plummeting over a cliff, bouncing down rocks into the tar pits.

WILD PITCH

Tar was in my nose, my lungs. It sucked me under, I couldn’t move my arms. Someone had been sick in front of me and the smell mixed with the tar was so terrible it made me vomit. I wanted my mother but Stella Guzzo and my aunt Marie appeared.

The tar poured over me and I blacked out. I woke in the modern epoch, into darkness so awful that I thought for a moment I actually was buried in tar. I flung my arms wildly trying to swim to the surface. Hit my hand on metal, heard it clang. Not tar. Tu

I struggled to sit up. My head knocked into a pipe and the jolt made me throw up again, a trickle of bile that left me panting for water.

Test for concussion: Can you remember the day, the president, the geological epoch? What’s your name? V. I. Warshawski. What’s your occupation? Idiot.

Bernadine Fouchard, she’d been with me. And then—masked men. Sebastian Mesaline. We’d fought, I could still smell the acrid gun smoke through the stench in my nose. Don’t think about what you’ve inhaled, sit up, move, slowly, but move! Phone in pocket, still working, turn on the light.

I’d been in the dark too long, I’d become a mole, couldn’t handle the stabbing shapes, colors. My head ached, my left eye was tearing, but I forced myself to keep blinking, looking, hoping for Bernie.

I was alone except for the rats. They’d gathered where I’d been lying, insolent, unconcerned, eating my vomit. Good thing I’d been sick, they’d have gone for my nose and cheeks first without it. The hard hat I’d borrowed had rolled off. My gun, nearby, I wanted to shoot the rats, but I only had one magazine and I’d already fired twice.

I bent slowly, not wanting to challenge my head, picked up the Smith & Wesson and the hard hat. I must have fallen heavily: the hat had a dent in it. I started to put it on, then looked at the dent. I’d been shot. The hat saved my life. The impact had knocked me out, but the men must have thought I was dead.

Move, V.I. Don’t be feeble, get out of here. I moved up the tu

“What the hell are you doing in there?” Noises, mops scraping back, the door opened. I stood in the shadows, put away my gun when I saw who was on the other side. Five in the morning, game day. The grounds crew was there, getting the field ready for play.

I left through the doors in the outfield wall while the grounds crew were waiting for the cops to pick me up. The crew hadn’t been able to follow my story, or at least they didn’t believe my story—how could someone have been living inside the ballpark without the security detail noticing? They didn’t want to go into the tu

I didn’t try to argue, just said I needed to use the washroom. While they stood guard at the entrance they’d unlocked, I picked the lock at the far end and slipped out, back hugging the wall, until I’d rounded a bend in the stadium wall. I went out through the first open aisle door, staggered down the seats and shuffled along the perimeter of the field to the exit. At least it was still so dark that they didn’t see me until I actually opened the door beneath the ivy. I heard them shout, but I hobbled over to Clark without stopping to look.

I didn’t contact Conrad until I was clear of the park, but as soon as I was sure I wasn’t being followed I texted a full report of my night. Terrified, I finished. They have Bernie and I don’t know where they’re taking her. Check Sturlese Cement, check Virejas Tower and Bagby’s truck yard.

Conrad wrote back at once: he’d sent a team into Wrigley as soon as he got my first message—he’d taken an hour off for sleep—but they hadn’t checked the locked doors. And now where was I and what evidence did I have that would allow him to apply for a warrant to any of the three places I’d mentioned?

My phone died as I was dictating a response. Squad cars were passing me, lights flashing, presumably on their way to Wrigley to arrest me. I turned down Racine, my legs quivering, waves of nausea overtaking me. My body wanted to go to bed.

“Permission denied,” I said out loud in my sternest voice. “They have Bernie and you must find her.”

A woman out walking her dog in the early dawn turned to stare, called the dog to heel and scuttled into her building. I sounded as crazy as I smelled and looked.

My legs were two numb trees plodding down the street, untethered from my mind, which floated between Racine Avenue and the tu

Don’t hold out, Bernie, don’t hold back. I prayed that she had blurted out my address as fast as possible, but what they might be doing to her—I would not think about it. Could not. I couldn’t fix it by taking time for fear. Focus on what you can do, move your damned legs.

The building floated up in front of me, no one casing the front, good or not good? How could I tell? No one in the back, don’t be holding out on them, Bernie.

My front door didn’t show any signs of forcible entry. Maybe I should have checked the back as well, but the thought of going down all those stairs and coming up to the kitchen entrance was more than I could bear.

Once again I stripped before going inside, once again left a heap of foul-smelling clothes outside my door, took just enough time in the bathroom to scrub sewage and asbestos from my hair and skin. Hurry, hurry. Two pairs of jeans destroyed, I had one left, not quite clean, but it would do. I’d sacrificed both pairs of ru

Once Mr. Contreras grasped the crisis, he stopped fussing over my own corpse-like appearance. He sent me out back with the dogs while he dressed, and was huffing up the stairs to my place in pretty quick order. I typed up some talking points for him, which he studied and practiced a few times.