[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

he recognized.
Schaefer.
His face was half-covered with bandages, but there was no question it was
Schaefer
For a moment Rasche's weary mind went blank-what the hell was Schaefer doing
there?
The pounding continued, and eventually that penetrated Rasche's confusion.
He opened the door, pistol still in his hand.
"`Bout time, Mac," the stranger said.
He was a young black man of undistinguished size, and he was struggling to
keep Schaefer upright with one arm while he knocked with the other.
Schaefer was barefoot, still wearing his green hospital gown. He coughed.
"Hey, Rasche," he said, "pay this creep, will you?"
Rasche looked past them both at the city cab waiting at the curb.
Schaefer had gotten out of the hospital and found a cab. He didn't have any
money, didn't have his goddamn clothes, but he'd gotten a cab.
"Let's get him on the couch," Rasche said to the stranger, ignoring
Schaefer.
Together, Rasche and the cab driver got Schaefer onto the sofa in the living
room, his head propped up on a throw pillow, Shari's crocheted afghan thrown
across his bare legs. A twenty from the housekeeping money covered the fare
and a tip, Rasche didn't want to keep the cabbie around long enough to worry
about change.
As he showed the driver out, Rasche saw Shari at the top of the stairs and
signaled to her that everything was okay. She crept down the steps and saw
their guest. She relaxed slightly upon recognizing him, but his condition was
enough to keep her nervous.
"I'll get you some tea," she said.
Rasche pulled a chair up beside the couch and sat, looking down at his
partner.
Schaefer was still in bad shape-that had been obvious at the door. He was
bandaged half a dozen places, and couldn't speak without coughing-Rasche
guessed that came from pressure on his lungs from a broken rib.
He was conscious, though.
"How did you get out of the hospital?" Rasche asked. "The doctor said-"
"Screw the doctor," Schaefer interrupted.
Then he went into a brief fit of coughing.
Rasche waited for it to pass.
"So what're you doing here?" he demanded.
Schaefer held up a bandaged hand. "I'm going to need some help for a few
days," he said.
"Help?" Rasche asked. "Help doing what?"
Schaefer coughed. "I need a place to stay where I can do some thinking, get
some things done. Can't do shit in that damn hospital. Besides, the feds can
watch me every goddamn minute there."
"But, Schaef, you're all busted up . . . ."
Page 34
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"That's why I didn't fucking go home, Rasche," Schaefer said, lifting his
head. "I can't manage by myself yet. Come on, give me a break."
"Right, you can't go home like this . . . ," Rasche agreed uncertainly.
"So can I stay, or not?"
"You're welcome to stay, Schaef, but what is it you want to do that you can't
do in the hospital? I mean, you're in no shape to . . ."
"I'm going to find the ugly son of a bitch that did this . . . ," Schaefer
interrupted, before being overtaken by more coughing. Again Rasche waited for
the coughing to stop.
"I'm going to find him," Schaefer said, "and I'm going to kick his ugly ass
from here to Jersey"
Shari appeared in the kitchen doorway, holding a cup. "I . . . I made you some
tea, Schaef. I . . ."
Schaefer, already sitting up to ease the coughing, turned slightly and
accepted the cup.
"Thanks, Shari," he said.
A voice spoke from the hallway.
"Wow, just look at his neck!" the boy said. "It's all bloody!"
"Cool!" another voice answered.
Rasche looked up- and saw his two sons standing in the doorway, staring at
Schaefer.
They were right; the thing on Schaefer's neck was oozing fresh blood again.
The coughing had probably done it.
"Honey, please," Rasche said, "could you get the boys out of here?"
Shari obeyed, dragging the pair of them to the kitchen for breakfast.
When they were gone, Rasche asked, "What about that thing on your neck?
We've got to get it off before it kills you."
"I don't think it's there to kill me," Schaefer said. "At least not yet."
"So what do you think?"
"I think I've been tagged, like some kind of baby seal," Schaefer said.
"Guess he wants to keep tabs on me." He grimaced, coughed, then added wryly,
"I guess the bastard likes me."
11
Schaefer, Rasche thought, was one tough hombre.
If I had been beaten up and thrown off the fifth floor, he thought, I'd spend
the next few days sipping chicken soup and watching Love Boat reruns.
Schaefer just wanted to get back to work.
Oh, they'd both slept most of the day and taken it easy that evening; Rasche
had made a run down to the hospital and talked the nurse into turning over
Schaefer's clothes and wallet, made a stop at Schaefer's apartment for a
fresher outfit, then come home and tried to coax a coherent description from
Schaefer of just what he had fought in that tenement.
They'd talked over what it was, where it came from, what it was after-all of
it guesswork, of course, but Schaefer had that last chat with Dutch to help
him.
He thought the thing was a hunter, the kind Dutch had talked about-probably
the one Dutch encountered; after all, how many could there be?
Schaefer told Rasche the thing wasn't human, but he admitted he hadn't gotten
that good a look at it, had only been in the same room with it for a few
seconds in poor light; Rasche didn't comment on that.
But Dutch had run into it in Central America, and this one was in New York.
Well, it had had seven or eight years to find its way north. Maybe it had
already gotten Dutch and was going on after his family. Or maybe Dutch had
gotten away, and it had mistaken Schaefer for his brother.
In any case, Schaefer figured that it was toying with him, playing
cat-and-mouse games, killing Schaefer's own natural prey at the downtown
Page 35
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
tenement, killing Schaefer's allies on Twentieth Street, marking Schaefer.
Schaefer didn't think it had intended to knock him out of the building; that
had been an accident. And it hadn't bothered coming down after him because it
wanted the chase to continue a bit longer, it didn't want to kill him while he
was helpless.
It wanted the sport of hunting him.
It was all guesswork, all just talk, and that was all Schaefer and Rasche did
that first evening.
But the next morning, bright and early, they were in Schaefer's car again,
driving back to Manhattan.
Schaefer planned strategy on the way as Rasche negotiated New York's traffic.
"We can't let that thing call all the shots," Schaefer said. "We have to track
it down, get at it when it isn't ready, catch it off guard."
"How the hell are we supposed to do that?" Rasche asked.
"We need to find out more about it," Schaefer said. "We've got to backtrack
Philips. He knows a lot more than he's telling-he's plugged into this somehow.
He knew that thing was in town. And he's hiding something about Dutch,
something more than I know. I can feel it."
"I can feel that we're going to be canned if we don't bring McComb in on
this," Rasche replied.
"Look, Schaef, I haven't pushed you because I figure you have your reasons,
but I've got to know what we're really up against. You saw that character up
there, I didn't you must have some idea what's going on. Okay, so it's some
kind of superhunter -- who sent it? Why was it after your brother? Who'd he
piss off, the mob? Terrorists? Some foreign government? Sinatra's bodyguards?"
"How about, `None of the above'?" Schaefer said. "You want the truth, Rasche?
The truth is, I just don't know. It could be some kind of mutant monster on
the rampage for all I know; it could be from outer space. Maybe
Philips is involved because it's some kind of biowar experiment gone wrong. I
just don't know."
Rasche started to ask another question, then dropped it. If Schaefer didn't
know, more questions wouldn't help.
At Police Plaza they didn't need to go looking for McComb; they were [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]