The Parker Trilogy Page 40

  This time she’d let the tears fall. “Evan,” she said, barely choking back her emotions, “this is the other problem.”

  “What?”

  “The way you speak to me. The screaming. The disrespect. It has to stop.”

  He stayed silent, so she continued. “I’ve never, ever let another man talk to me this way.”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Your temper is hair trigger, Evan. Like, Scarily so. And . . . look, I’m just going to say it. I’m worried you’re going to do something horrible if it keeps up.”

  She’d gone too far.

  “That’s ridiculous. I would never lay a hand on you. Ever.”

  She pinched her lips and shook her head ever so slightly. “That’s not what I meant.”

  Parker picked up his cup, drank the last of the coffee cold and tried not to think of what had happened with Tic Toc, only a few days earlier, in that alley. He’d beaten him down and then barely avoided throwing a killing shot to his throat. Barely. Right-on-the-razor’s-edge barely. He hadn’t told a soul about that moment, not even Trudy. Still, somehow she knew.

  He lowered his head and nodded. “Okay. I hear you.”

  “Do you?” she said softly.

  “Yes. I just—” He took a moment and again thought of Napoleon. It was incredible, this thing that had just happened, not moments earlier. But Parker was devastated to realize that he was not at all happy about it.

  Was he happy Napoleon wasn’t dead somehow? Sure. But what Napoleon brought with him, the challenge of dealing with Güero Martinez, was bad enough. But worse? Far worse? He’d brought proof of an entire “other” world out there, and that probably meant there was a God of some kind, after all.

  And if there was a God, that meant there was an accounting to life. And Parker didn’t like how the math of his life looked right now. Too many debits. So many in fact, that he wasn’t sure if he could ever get back in the positive.

  “You ‘just’ what?” Trudy prodded.

  “I just need moments like this, I guess. Someone to call me out on my crap. I’ll keep working on it, I promise, but right now? After what just happened with Campos, I need some time, ya know?”

  She nodded, stood and came over to him. “Okay. You wanna head to the gym, blow off some tension?”

  “That sounds like a great idea.”

  “Okay. But we gotta drive separately.”

  “Why?”

  “You have something else to do. It’s a half day at Efren’s school. I called his mom and told her a bit about what happened and that you could use a lunch date with the little dude.”

  “And?”

  Trudy shook her head. “After she made sure you hadn’t shot any of her hoodlum friends, she said okay.”

  Parker laughed. “Incredible, isn’t it? Every time I go over there I feel like a mobster: head on a swivel, little thugs everywhere. That poor kid—”

  “—has you. Just like Napoleon wanted. So, go buy him a hamburger and do what guys do when they bond. Have a burping contest or something.”

  “Farting contest is more like it.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Gross!”

  He threw on a workout shirt and a black sweat suit before lacing up his Nikes. In his bag he packed a towel, his weight straps—it was shoulder day—some jeans, a faded blue Interpol T-shirt from a concert a few years back, a windbreaker and some flip-flops.

  The morning played out exactly as Trudy planned it, and that should’ve surprised no one. They both got in their workouts; she took her cycle class and lifted light weights before heading back home, and he went through his shoulder and bicep routine before hitting the treadmill for forty-five minutes. Then he showered and drove to Efren’s house.

  It was a weekday, so the street was mostly void of cars. Most of the lawns were dirt and dead grass, each of them boxed in by chain link fences, reminding him of the streets he used to patrol in South Central. All the gang neighborhoods were the same: made up of whatever walls could be put up, however feeble, to try and fend off the realities of the streets around them.

  Efren’s mom waved at him, but only barely so, as Efren skipped down the steps and ran down the cement walkway to Parker’s car. She’d somehow tapped into whatever sense of decency she had left when her brother died. Parker wanted to be optimistic. To tell himself it was because she loved her son and wanted a decent male role model in his life, but in truth he figured it was just because she wanted to get her hands on the life insurance money Napoleon had left for his nephew for when he turned eighteen. Since Efren liked his time with Parker, she didn’t want to rock the boat. He’d turned eleven a few months back, which meant she had to play nice for at least another seven years.

  “What up, Parker?” Efren said as he crawled into the car.

  “Not much, little train. You?”

  His black hair was finger-combed back with a little gel and his dark eyes glistened with mischief. “Hungry.”

  Parker smiled. “Oinkster sound good?”

  “Yeah! Love me some of that chipotle ketchup with my fries!”

  “Okay. Oinkster it is. But only if you start speaking in complete sentences that make it sound like you actually go to that fancy private school of yours.”

  “I apologize, sir!” Efren said. His voice hadn’t dropped naturally yet, so he forced it now. “It would be my pleasure to accompany you to the very nice restaurant that has the ketchup I quite enjoy.” Then he laughed like an eleven-year-old: genuinely and with a healthy dose of self-satisfaction.

  “That’ll do,” Parker said.

  “Cool. But, just so you know? I think my English teacher would say that ‘that’ll’ is an ‘unnecessary contraction.’”

  As he pulled away from the curb and headed to Eagle Rock, Parker chuckled. “Okay, smartass.”

  “Ooooo. And that would be a bad word.”

  It was a cold, damp day and Parker noticed that Efren was only wearing a Spiderman T-shirt and faded jeans. His shoes looked okay, but Parker decided after lunch that they’d swing by Target and get him a new jacket.

  Once at Oinkster, they feasted, drank Dr Peppers and talked about the next Marvel movie, due out in a month. Efren wanted to know if they could see it together and if he could also have a sleepover at Parker’s apartment afterwards. That was new ground and Parker wondered if his mom would ever allow it, so he gave it the old “Good idea. Let’s see about that” approach.

  As Efren ate, Parker noticed for the millionth time that he had his uncle’s eyes—dark with little bags beneath them. Parker suddenly remembered what Napoleon had said, that very morning. What makes you think I haven’t seen him?

  There was something both comforting and yet sad about that thought. How was Parker ever going to keep this news from Efren? The answer was almost immediate: he was way too young to even begin to comprehend it. At this point, Parker could barely comprehend it.

  “Hey, Parker?” Efren said as he choo-choo-trained a french fry into his mouth in tiny bites.

  “Yo.”

  “Can I offer you some advice?”

  Bemused, Parker wrinkled his brow. “Sure. What’s that?”

  “Flip-flops and jeans? It doesn’t work. Even for a white dude.”

  They laughed inside the restaurant as time eased by and Parker realized that Efren also had his uncle’s ability to pop off.

  Hector made his way to the corner and glanced up at the street signs. How many times had he looked up to this same street sign over the years—the Gage sign bent, the First Street sign tagged with a smiley face—and simply gotten to work selling his assortment of drugs to whoever had the cash and balls to drive into the neighborhood? Too many times to count.

  This time, though, he wasn’t here to sell anything. Instead, in many ways, he felt as if he was the one buying: into something. Into the idea that The Gray Man existed. Into the idea that he’d screwed up and that there was another world now, waiting for him to wander in to, maybe to make things right som
ehow.

  The house stood halfway down the block, as it always had. He hadn’t been back here for a long time, having left it behind when he began to move up the ranks and a few miles across the neighborhood. By then, under Curtis’ leadership, the gang had purchased the auto shop with the drug money collected from all the dealers. Purchasing property was part of the process of making the money “legit.”

  At some point, someone had made the decision to abandon the house. Maybe because of a drug bust or because one of the cops at Hollenbeck Station who was on the take had tipped someone off that the police were aware of the location. Whatever. The house had been abandoned before they took it over and now it was abandoned again.

  As he reached it, he unlocked the rusty chain link gate and let it swing open with a loud creak. The lawn was overgrown with weeds and littered with trash of all types and sizes, as if the yard had become a tossing off point for any little hood rat going by with an empty Gatorade bottle or bag of McDonald’s.

  Before him, the two-storey house seemed to sigh under its own weight. The porch sagged and the wooden railing around it was tipped and teetering. The roof had holes, and someone had thrown something through one of the second-storey windows, the shattered panes now looking like jagged teeth.

  He noticed that the only thing that still looked halfway decent about the house was the blue door. And this, of course, made him wonder what was behind it.

  It was right about then that Hector wished he hadn’t read so much Edgar Allen Poe. But it was too late now. He had to go in. Because it was part of some bullshit mission, yeah, but mostly for Marisol. Because he’d ruined her, hadn’t he? She’d never be beautiful again. And that was his fault. And, maybe because The Gray Man was still messing around in his head, or maybe because Hector was really a bit more perceptive than he liked to let on, there was also the very real fact that David Fonseca probably had a mother who had gotten word that her son was dead and who, as a result, right now, probably wanted to die herself.

  That was on Hector, wasn’t it? Yes. It was.

  He made his way down the broken cement pathway, then carefully up a set of old, wooden steps and onto the porch, which shifted under his weight. One of the boards was shattered, so he took care stepping over it before he grabbed the handle of the blue door, twisted the knob and pushed it open.

  He was greeted with what anyone might expect: a dark interior with scattered shadows, fragmented by light from the holes in the ceiling, the few windows that had no drapes and the light he’d just let in by opening the door. Something—he told himself it was a rat—scurried through the room to his right, shifting some old newspapers that were stiff and crinkled.

  Hector gathered himself together. The Gray Man was right—something was in there. He instinctively reached for the gun in the small of his back that was no longer there. He’d dropped it in terror, when The Smiling Midget had come running down the hall at The Mayan toward him, an insanely long knife in each hand, just before The Gray Man had materialized.

  No gun. Okay. Great. But if all this shit’s for real, what good really is a gun going to do against a demon anyway?

  He didn’t know. But walking in defenseless was not an option.

  He exhaled and felt his chest tighten.

  Looking around, he saw an old, rusty screwdriver just to the right of the door. It was better than nothing. He bent over cautiously, head up and eyes still glancing into the dark interior of the house, and grabbed it. An idea came to him and he pulled out his cell phone and punched up the flashlight app he had downloaded. Blissful light cast itself across the threshold and a few feet into the house, and Hector followed it.

  Once inside, he waited for the Hollywood moments to arrive—for the door to slam shut behind him or an organ to start playing somewhere. Or maybe, thinking of Poe again, he’d hear a heart beating in one of the damned walls.

  Sniggering at himself and the sudden nausea that had gripped his stomach, he made his way forward. It had been a long time since he’d been in a really good scrap—

  Yeah, and you lost that one, didn’t you? The Smiling Midget’s voice said in his head.

  Thank God that little bastard was dead. He’d first visited Hector in prison, haunted him the entire time he was there, then followed him out after his release to haunt him some more. At least until The Gray Man had vaporized him in that supply room in The Mayan.

  Yeah. But are you really any better off, buddy boy? I mean, look what you’ve been asked to do to “save” yourself. Come in here? Fight demons? Then what? Go to jail to help Curtis? What a deal!

  The Smiling Midget’s nasty little cackle of a laugh seemed to echo from inside the house.

  Hector looked around. There were a few old mattresses on the floor in the room to his left. The place had evidently been a flophouse for the homeless for a while. Glancing down, he saw a few used condoms, old and covered with dust. Prostitutes. They’d probably used this place too, to turn tricks.

  He forced himself to walk the perimeter of the ground floor, from room to room and through the kitchen, until he reached the bathroom. The door was ajar. Using the screwdriver, he poked it open and held his cell phone out to light up the inside. The sink was broken off and the tub was filled with some sort of sludge that had spread up and corrupted all the tile grout in creeping lines of mildew.

  “This is bullshit, man,” he murmured to no one. Mostly not to feel so alone and to try and steel himself for what he knew was coming next: he had to go upstairs.

  He did not want to go upstairs.

  Because if he hadn’t found the trouble down here, he was almost certainly going to find it up there. By sheer process of elimination, he was growing closer to the point of conflict.

  He walked carefully to the bottom of the stairs and peered up.

  His regret was instant, overwhelming and only matched by his shock.

  At the top of the stairs was The Smiling Midget, standing with one arm stretched out to the wall, legs crossed like a cowboy.

  My . . . MAN! he said.

  “No!”

  You didn’t really think he’d killed me, did you? I mean, he would’ve if I’d stayed. But I was, like: Peace. Out. Bitches! He laughed, deep and hard, through his creepy, smiling lips. Ya know? He who runs today lives to fight another day, and all that, right, Hector, my boy?

  As a matter of fact, and with zero shame, Hector thought that was an excellent idea. He turned to flee out the front door.

  But when he turned, he found himself face-to-face with a skinny, slack-jawed creature with a decomposed body, thick chest and arms that stretched to the floor with long-fingered hands covered in spikes. Its eye sockets were empty, save for a red dot where each pupil might’ve once been.

  The Smiling Midget laughed from the top of the stairs. Hector, meet my friend. I call him Wally. Wally, meet Hector.

  The creature growled and the skin on the entire bottom of its face creased backwards, over its ears, revealing a mouth full of sharp stubby teeth, like a shark’s.

  Struck with terror, Hector’s grip closed around the phone, his finger accidentally pressing the screen in the process.

  Which turned off his flashlight and left him in total darkness.

  Chapter Ten

  Their path was partially blocked by the cats, but they still had a few options.

  Father Soltera glanced at Michiko, whose calm demeanor was now betrayed by a face painted with concern. Her eyes moved as if she were trying to count the cats or assess the best route to safety. As she did so, a group of cats to their left moved in a tight pack to join the front ranks, a few of them hissing and baring their fangs. About twenty feet ahead, the dirt path curved to the left and sloped upward between a set of tall trees. The trees would give them cover.

  “Be ready, tomodachi, to follow me quickly, okay?” Michiko whispered through clenched teeth.

  Father Soltera nodded but was far from hopeful. They were at a disadvantage by sheer numbers alone, with only two weapon
s, her long and short swords, neither of which he was qualified to wield. He looked around for a tree branch or something to help defend them, but the nearest one was too large for him to lift on his own.

  This is always the best part for us, the lead cat said, its mouth still unmoving, its telepathic taunt seeming to reverberate through the plants and soil like a verbal earthquake. The part where we get to watch each person wait for their end.

  Michiko sneered. “You talk too much.” Then, with lightening quick reflexes, she swung her sword forward and touched its tip to the ground.

  With an awe that knocked him speechless, Father Soltera watched a fissure of blue light form in the dirt and crackle violently outward in a web that scorched a section of ferns and set the cats scattering in all directions. One of the trees that was hosting a group of cats was struck dead center, its trunk exploding and sending the cats it held across the air with cries of fear.

  The lead cat had backed up, but was now holding its ground directly opposite them with its group of ten. It arched its back and hissed loudly. Michiko looked at it with a modest smile. “It’s different when the prey is not so defenseless, isn’t it?”

  A few seconds of calm passed, the smell of burnt wood and singed cat hair wafting through the air, before the ferns began to move again and all the cats returned, moving cautiously this time, their paws taking measured steps. Those remaining in the trees descended to the ground to join them.

  The lead cat spoke again. You are from the other place. Your presence here is forbidden . . . whore.

  “Who are you to say what is or is not forbidden?”

  Without warning and in an obvious attempt to catch her off guard, a group of cats, maybe six or eight, bolted in from the right to attack her. As they did so, their claws flicked outward. These cats were huge, at least three times the size they would’ve been in the real world, with longer teeth, too.