The Dirty Secrets Club (40 page)

She'd never known what that phrase meant. Oh, God. With a clarity like ice, she understood. It was up to her. There was now, or it would be never.

Skunk yanked the driver's door open wide. Jo pulled her knees up and kicked him with both feet, hard, in the face.

She heard his jaw crack closed, teeth hitting teeth. His head snapped back and he staggered away from the truck.

Oh, shit, now he was really going to be mad. She stumbled crazily out of the passenger door. Sophie was about ten yards up the street. Jo ran toward her.

"Help!"
Jo yelled. "Help us!"

Nobody else was on the street. All she could hear was Sophie crying, and an eerie echo of the little girl's voice against the walls of the unresponsive buildings around them. In an apartment window, a curtain shivered aside and Jo saw a silhouette. The curtain dropped back into place.

She turned back around. "The names are in the glove compartment. Take them. I don't care."

She ran and grabbed Sophie. Skunk was gathering himself up, rubbing his jaw. Had the police gotten her message? Did they hear her?

If they did, how long would it be before they came?

She hauled Sophie to the nearest apartment building. The front door was locked. She pushed the doorbell.

Nothing. The power was out. Nobody could buzz her in.

She looked back at the truck. Skunk was digging through the junk in her glove box. He stopped, straightened, looked around. He knew what he was after wasn't there.

A quick black blur pounced from the Tacoma's cargo bed onto the roof of the cab. Skunk looked up.

"What the fuck?"

He was staring straight at Mr. Peebles.

The monkey shrieked. Jo saw it fling something at him. Skunk jumped back, yelling, "Shit!"

The monkey skittered across the roof, pounced down onto the hood, leaped from the truck, and ran toward the open door of the Cadillac. Skunk spun in the street, howling and wiping his hands over his face.

Jo grabbed Sophie's hand.

It was dark; they were by themselves. They were in a broken city.

They were half a mile from the police station.

They were on her turf.

This was her neighborhood. A house of cards, perhaps, but it hadn't yet come down around their ears. Victorian apartments, cable car tracks, weird alleys where tie-dyed flower children hung Age of Aquarius banners from their fire escapes. Where they could slip away into the dark.

It was a big boulder problem, a series of cracks and holds, and a woman on foot might make it through the fissures, whereas a man in a Cadillac never would.

She held Sophie tight. "Now. Run."

Gripping Sophie's hand, Jo sprinted along the street. Behind them the Cadillac made a wallowing U-turn and came after them.

Fifty yards up the sidewalk, Jo found a narrow footpath between two buildings. She cut through it. She pulled Sophie along in the dark. It was difficult to see their footing, to know whether anybody or anything was around.

How had Mr. Peebles turned up? The monkey must have followed them out Ferd's front door and scampered into the bed of the truck before they left.

She heard a dog bark. They came out the footpath onto another street. A cable car was stuck dead in the middle of the road, derelict. She led Sophie around it.

At the corner, the Cadillac appeared.

Shit. He'd seen them cut through the alley. She reached the far sidewalk and hurried along it. Lights rose in the night: The Cadillac's headlights were trailing them. She saw a path between two houses. She pulled Sophie toward it and stopped, hearing growling. The Cadillac's headlights illuminated the eyes of four dogs on the path, tearing into food scavenged from a garbage can.

Jo spun around. There. In the middle of the block, a flight of stairs. She dashed to it, grabbed the railing, and started down. Behind her she heard the Cadillac roar away.

"Sophie, you just have to hold on for a few minutes. The police station is—" How many blocks? Ten? A light-year? "It's this way."

"That man's coming after us."

"We're going to hide from him. He can't come down these paths."

They ran down fifty steps. When they got to the bottom Jo's legs were shaking. They lurched out to the street. The Cadillac was idling directly ahead of them.

Skunk knew they were headed for the police station. Jo looked around. In the dark, momentarily, she felt disoriented. The darkened buildings looked eerie and unfamiliar. Then she realized she was only two blocks from Java Jones. She was half a block from the reconstruction project, the old apartment building that was being gutted and rebuilt. If they cut around the back of it, they might be able to slip past Skunk and make it to the next block.

"Come on. This way."

She pulled the girl with her into the shadows and backtracked. Her legs were burning, her lungs aching. Sophie was game, but running ragged. They came out near a corner.

Her heart leaped. Across the street, she saw a bonfire in a trash can. Men were standing around it warming their hands.

"Hey." She ran into the street. "I need help."

The men ignored her. She got close enough to see them. Oh no.

They were homeless men, they were drinking, they were close to fighting among themselves over who got priority heat from the burning garbage in the trash can. They were people who brandished their schizophrenia and a two-by-four. One of them looked at her. In the firelight, his eyes said that if she came close they'd surround her, but not to help. She veered away again.

Sophie was hanging on to her. "I can't keep running."

"Then walk fast."

All they could do was keep going toward the police station. She found another alley and led Sophie down it. When they came out on the next block, Jo looked both ways. She saw no sign of Skunk. She did see the alley continuing on the other side of the road. She dashed into the street.

Down the block, the Cadillac's headlights flashed on. They caught Jo in the middle of the road. The Caddy roared at her. Fighting a scream, she hauled Sophie across the road, aiming for the alley.

Behind her tires squealed to a stop. She looked back and saw Skunk jump out of the car. He was close. Oh, God, he was going to see them. She ducked into the alley, aimed for a group of trash cans and pulled Sophie down behind them. Crouching low, she peered between them at the street. Skunk was standing in the road looking for her.

The alley was dark. He couldn't see where they'd gone. He inched away from the car, peering into the night.

A new idea jumped in her mind. She leaned close to Sophie's ear and whispered, "Ssh."

Feeling on the ground in the dark, she found a rock. Please, Lord, grant me one major-league pitch. She picked it up, twisted, and hurled it down the alley. It hit. Glass rang to the ground.

Skunk spun and ran after the sound. Crouching behind the trash cans, Jo saw his legs go past at eye level.

She pulled Sophie to her feet. "Come on. Fast."

The Cadillac was idling in the center of the road.

The Cadillac was facing downhill on a steep grade, with the driver's door open. Jo shoved Sophie inside and jumped in after her.

The car was as big as a 747. The interior was like a 1950s travesty—a malt shop, underwire bra, shiny chrome nightmare. Scarlet leather glowed under the dashboard lights. Jo felt as though she were sitting in a wet red mouth. She grabbed the gearshift on the steering column.

Christ, how did you put this whale in gear?

She pulled, she twisted, yanked, felt the gearshift move. She stomped on the gas. The car leaped forward.

Straight at the curb. She spun the wheel and straightened it out. Behind her, she heard Skunk shouting. Then she heard the back door open. Sophie started sobbing.

Skunk was in the car. Or half in the car. She drove, veering down the street, heard him grunt with effort, heard his hand smack hold of the bench seat right behind her shoulder. Beneath the growl of the engine she thought she heard his boots scraping on the asphalt as his legs dragged out the door. She jammed the pedal down.

Like an oil tanker, the car gained speed. With a hard groan Skunk pulled himself all the way in. Then he started to climb over the front seat. Sophie sobbed wildly.

Jo shouted, "Sophie, on three, jump out and run."

She heard shrieking again. A little outbreak of the collective unconscious, the id rising to scream its will. In the rearview mirror Jo saw the monkey spring at Skunk. Its tiny hands clawed into his hair.

"One, two—" She braked, screaming to a halt.
"Three."

The car slewed to a stop. Skunk slammed against the back of the bench seat and bounced around. Sophie jumped out. Jo hit the gas again. In the rearview mirror she saw Skunk right himself and rise up to lunge for her.

Mr. Peebles was clinging to Skunk's head. He had one small hand on an eye, the other in Skunk's nostrils. Skunk was clawing at the creature. Jo floored the car, opened the driver's door, and thought,
If I break something I'm cooked . . .

She rolled out.

Hitting asphalt at thirty miles an hour, even rolling, hurt like a mother. The breath clapped out of her like she'd been hit broadside with a door. She rolled to a stop facedown and lay there stunned. Then she breathed.

Junkyard dog, mutt. This was no worse than losing your grip on a boulder problem and hitting the dirt. Get the hell up.

She pushed up. Her hip killed. Her knees killed. Her entire left arm was abraded raw, and she knew gravel was embedded in it. She struggled to her feet.

The Cadillac sailed down the street. The dome light was on and she saw Skunk, still trying to get over the seat.

The car reached the lip of a steep hill and flew past it, an out-of-control white whale. The hot-nozzle taillights dropped out of sight.

Chest heaving, Jo staggered down the road to the cusp of the hill. The Cadillac was racing toward an intersection at the bottom. Its headlights caught the scene that awaited it. Power lines were down at the corner. A telephone pole had fallen and was hanging by the wires. The top of it was aimed this direction, about four feet off the ground, like the barrel of a cannon.

God. She knew what was coming and couldn't look away.

She heard Skunk scream.

Full speed, carrying two tons of momentum, the Cadillac speared the telephone pole. It skewered the windshield of the car like a roasting spit. With a cacophonous crash, the Caddy slammed to a halt. The tail humped into the air and slammed down again.

Silence.

Jo stood motionless for a moment, staring. Through the open driver's door, Skunk's arm flopped limply. It hung like his neck and head were maybe pinned someplace in the backseat. She was too far away to see clearly, but something dark began dripping onto the street.

She backed away. Turning, she saw Sophie standing near the curb, hands balled and pressed to her mouth. Her zombie costume glittered in the moonlight. She was shivering. Jo limped to the curb and put her arm around the little girl.

"We're all right."

Sophie was rigid under her embrace. Jo hugged her, hoping to warm her and to thaw her terror enough to get her to move.

In a tremulous voice, Sophie said, "The monkey."

Jo looked at the lip of the hill. "I know."

"Is he okay?"

"Hope so."

Sophie's fists shuddered against her mouth. "Poor little guy."

Jo rubbed her hand up and down Sophie's back. "Yeah. Come on. We need to get to the police station."

Gently she turned Sophie and got her walking back along the sidewalk. Jo's entire left side was throbbing. This might be a little worse than hitting the dirt without a crash pad. In the morning she was going to look like a raw steak.

But right now she could still move. "Let's go."

She held tight to Sophie and limped along the sidewalk. The buildings around them remained bleakly dark. They neared the construction site, and for once Jo wished for hooting carpenters with heavy tools, and a big F-150 pickup to ferry her and Sophie down the hill.

She saw that much of the building's scaffolding had collapsed in the quake. The site was a mess.

"It's only about six blocks from here," she said. "And when we get to Columbus Avenue, there'll be people. Maybe even a cab."

Sophie said nothing. This Halloween was no treat. Just a dirty trick to play on a kid.

"The police will be able to contact your dad on the radio. We'll talk to him."

A freakish noise set all her nerve endings alight. Sophie jumped. The noise came again, from the dark behind them. Jo's hair was standing on end. It was an electronic buzzing. High-pitched, inarticulate, simian. An artificial robotic voice.

She turned around.

From a doorway behind them, Mr. Peebles teetered into view, walking upright. He had a device in his hands. He shook it, turned it around, and put it to his mouth. When he shrieked, so did the device.

It was an electro-larynx. A voice synthesizer.