The Love-Haight Case Files (16 page)

She sat next to the gargoyle. “You symbolize—”

“Luke, and that is my name. The eagle is John, the angel Matthew, and the lion Mark. They are not so willing to talk to humans as I.”

“Thank you for talking to me, Luke.” Evelyn pulled out her map and wrote the gargoyles’ names on it, drawing a line to the church’s address, and noting that Luke would talk.

“Thank you, Evelyn Love, for trying to save my kin.”

They chatted about nothing in particular for a while—the park, people walking by, the weather. When Evelyn felt she had established a reasonable rapport, she brought up Arnold and watching Thurman shattered yesterday.

“Did Thurman feel much pain, Luke? Did he suffer? Did—”

“A building is just a thing without one of us,” Luke said. “It has appearance, beauty or plainness, a purpose, but it has no soul. We gargoyles give buildings some of our essence, share our hearts and personalities, breathe life into the stone and protect it, help it stand against nature’s forces. Such buildings have souls. Callously destroying a building touched by such life is an unconscionable thing. A sin. Thou shall not kill.”

So he wouldn’t answer the question, which
was
an answer as far as Evelyn was concerned. Thurman had felt a lot of pain. “I won’t let it happen to Pete. I can’t. I’m going to stop Arnold.”

“Forgive Franklin Arnold,” Luke said. “For he has sinned.”

“He attends this church.”

The ox gargoyle nodded, bringing to Evelyn’s mind the image of a bobble-head. “Yes, he does, Evelyn Love. With his wife.”

“Young, Chinese.” Mark joined them, startling Evelyn. She nearly slid off the roof. She hadn’t heard the lion-headed gargoyle approach.

“They are generous to this church, Mr. and Mrs. Arnold,” Mark continued.

“But Franklin Arnold is oblivious,” Luke said.

“Oblivious that his wife—Mei-li—is Other-Than-Human.” This from Mark. “She appears human, save in confessional. There she takes on her true form.”

Evelyn swallowed hard at the revelation and found a blank spot on the map to scrawl more notes. “Seriously? She is an—”

“OT, as your kind calls them,” Luke said.

Mark sat next to Evelyn, his large form dwarfing hers. “And there is humor in her form. Mei-li means beautiful or pretty.”

“Mei-li is a real foxy lady,” Luke chuckled.

“Enough!” Mark scolded. “I overstepped the bounds. You did not have to join me, brother.”

“A fox?”

“Leave it at your term, Evelyn Love,” Mark said. “An OT.”

Evelyn’s mind spun. “Is she … Mei-li … trying to stop her husband from buying the old buildings? Is she trying to stop him from—”

“Sending wrecking balls against our kind?” Luke asked. He shook his head. “She has her own plans, Evelyn Love. Forgive Mei-li, for she has sinned.”

“And will sin again,” Mark said.

“Tell me!” Evelyn said. “Those plans. What are they? Do you know?”

Luke nodded. “Of course we know.”

“But we cannot tell you,” Mark said. “What is said in the confessional is between the penitent and God. The sanctity of the confessional stands. We cannot repeat what was said
inside
the confessional.”

Luke’s face brightened ever-so-slightly. “And so I can say this: you would do well, Evelyn Love, to think like a good police detective.”

She cocked her head.

“Follow the money,” Mark said. “And follow Mei-li.”

She made a few more notes on the map, replaced it in her backpack, and stood, careful not to slip. Mark reached out a stony paw to steady her. “Thank you, Mark, Luke.”

“You have been most kind,” they said practically in unison. It sent a shiver through her. It was what Thurman had said yesterday.

Luke nudged her backpack. “Perhaps you should not be so burdened on the rest of your journey this day, Evelyn Love.”

She took out the remaining six-pack and the bag of cashews and tin of gumdrops. It made it easier to squeeze through the narrow access door when she left.

Chapter 2.7

Time had melted with the gargoyles. Evelyn left Saints Peter and Paul in the mid-afternoon. Her stomach snarling its demands, she jogged across to Washington Park, stopping at the Benjamin Franklin statue and looking back at the church. It was even more beautiful at a distance. Maybe she’d come back this Sunday.

She usually attended services at Saint Agnes’s in the Haight-Ashbury district. Called “the last chance church” by those in the neighborhood, Saint Agnes drew gays, straights, and OTs, and Evelyn was comfortable there. But it didn’t have highly conversant gargoyles, and it didn’t have Franklin and Mei-li Arnold as parishioners.

“What am I hungry for?” Food, she decided, scanning a row of restaurants across the street on the far side of the park. Any type of food, and a decent amount of it. Her eyes lit on a Thai restaurant, which looked to be the closest. She headed toward it, at the same time catching sight of the man with the cell phone. He was with two figures wearing ball caps and dark gray hoodies, their faces so shadowed she couldn’t see any details.

The man pointed at her, and the two strangers started off on a run.

Evelyn bolted, aiming straight for the Thai restaurant. She would dash inside, pull out her cell phone, and call Detective Reese, the woman who investigated Thomas’s murder. She cut across the grass—shorter than taking the sidewalk—hurtled a small bed of gravel and dead flowers, and raced into the street, narrowly avoiding a rusted-out Datsun.

Not pausing to look over her shoulder, she charged through the restaurant’s front door and skidded to a stop, nearly slamming into the counter. Though it was well past lunchtime, the place was crowded. More than a dozen tables were occupied, the nearest by a middle-aged man and a blue-tinted fey in provocative enough clothes to suggest she was a hooker. The odd pair looked up at Evelyn’s sudden arrival, and then resumed eating. The place smelled amazing and was warm and colorful, the walls a rich red decorated with gilded dragons and watercolors with Thai printing ringing the images.

“Follow me.” A waitress appeared at Evelyn’s elbow and guided her to a small table at the back of the dining room.

Classical music filtered softly from speakers high on the walls, and the sonorous buzz of conversations lulled Evelyn into a little security. Her breathing slowed and she felt the rosy rush on her face fade. She’d be safe here—as long as she remained
inside
the busy restaurant. She hadn’t been followed into the office complex where she’d met Bjoernolf, or into the church, and so they were looking to catch her out in the open.

Catch her and do what?

Maybe just talk to her.

But for some reason Evelyn didn’t think so. Their interest didn’t have the “conversation” feel to it. Rather, it had the stalker-intent-to-do-something-bad feel. Dagger had taught her to never ignore her gut.

“Tea?”

“Yes, please.” Evelyn sat, facing the door and the window, which was cluttered with an assortment of green plants but afforded enough of a view that she could watch for the hooded pair.

Along the wall to her right was a large aquarium, probably a hundred and fifty gallons. Shubunkin, Orandas, and fan-tailed goldfish swam, seemingly in time with the music.

“The red curry chicken, please.” Evelyn saw it among the specials advertised on a placard near the cash register; it was one of her favorites, and so she hadn’t even bothered to look at the menu. Besides, she had enough in her wallet for a “special.” And maybe there’d be money left over for dessert.

“Fried rice or white?”

“Fried, no green onions.”

The waitress disappeared and Evelyn reached into her backpack for the cell phone. Detective Reese first, then Thomas, she decided. Gretchen would be in the law office and so could pick up the phone. Finally, Dagger; she wanted to tell him about the mysterious revelation regarding Mei-li Arnold and get some pointers on investigating the woman.

She watched the waitress bring a plate of shrimp and rice to a man at a nearby table. It made her mouth water. After all the running, she was famished. And running away from something? That usually wasn’t Evelyn’s style. She tended to confront things head-on. But three against one in the park? Evelyn was smarter than that.

She found Detective Reese’s card and flipped open the phone. “Great. Great. Great.” The charge was gone. She looked around the dining room, no payphones; they were practically museum pieces nowadays. She’d ask to use the restaurant’s phone. She turned and gestured to get the waitress’s attention … just as the two hooded figures passed by the window, came in the door, and all hell broke loose.

Everything happened at once.

The figures—one male, one female, judging by their builds—reached into the front pockets of their hoodies and pulled out guns.

Diners shrieked, some seeking cover under tables, some jumping up, their chairs tipping back, plates and teapots clattering and shattering. A table fell over and a portly man slid behind it. Evelyn’s waitress had been approaching, and she threw her hands up and screamed: “Umay! Call the police!”

The figures shouted too, the first of their words lost in the pandemonium. One of the gunmen fired at the ceiling and the panicked diners quieted.

“No one move and no one gets hurt!” the smaller figure ordered. Definitely a woman’s voice, but with a Latin accent. She pointed the gun at Evelyn. “We just want her.” She pulled the trigger, and Evelyn dove for the floor, a bullet whizzing by where her head had been a heartbeat before.

They wanted her, all right … they wanted her dead! So much for her thinking inside was safe.

Evelyn rolled and jumped to her feet as another bullet zinged by. The third shot caught her in the shoulder and spun her around. It felt like a red-hot ice pick had been plunged in, and she slammed her teeth together, stayed on her feet, and dashed for the door in the back that she suspected led to the kitchen. Behind her, the dining room erupted into even greater chaos.

“Call the police!” Evelyn hollered as she burst into the kitchen. She heard six more shots fired behind her, and more screams. “Call 9-1-1. Please call—” Someone was already doing that, she realized, the eldest of the kitchen staff.

“Shut up!” she heard from out in the dining room. Three more shots. “Get down, everyone! Or we’ll kill all of you!” It was the female thug barking orders.

The kitchen was cramped. There was a large grill immediately to Evelyn’s right, pieces of chicken and beef on it that had been attended by an elderly Oriental man, the one on the cell phone. “Police,” he said. “Send police right now please.”

A fry cooker next to the grill had something sizzling in baskets, and pots boiled on the stove. A long, aluminum-covered counter directly behind had chickens and slabs of beef and pork on it. One of the cooks, a young man with a hairnet over his beard, apparently had been chopping at racks of ribs with a cleaver. A waitress had been holding a tray with someone’s meal on it—but this was dropped in shock, and she fumbled for her phone, dropped it, and ran out the back door. A busboy followed, both fleeing into the alley. Evelyn registered blurs of white aprons, elbows, and heels. The dishwasher, a ghoul dressed in something like hospital scrubs, turned and stared slack-jawed.

“Run!” Evelyn encouraged the three who remained in the kitchen. She grabbed at her shoulder, which was throbbing. It felt like she’d stuck her hand in warm pudding; that much blood had soaked into her sweatshirt. She’d never felt such pain before. It was making it difficult to think. “Run.” She started toward the alley door, hoping they’d follow. “Run! You have to—”

“Police,” the elderly cook continued on his phone, standing defiantly at his grill. “Thai-One-On Café. Many guns are here.”

Two more shots rang out in the dining room, there were more screams, though they sounded muffled now, and the door behind her flew open.

“Mano toca!”
The male gunman.

“Run!” Evelyn screamed at the top of her lungs. “Just get—”

“Para!
Stop, Ms. Love, or I will kill them all!”

Evelyn froze, back still to the man. Her knees locked and she felt dizzy. She heard her own ragged breath, the woman thug out in the dining room shouting: “Stay down!” followed by another gunshot, sizzling and popping from the grill and the stove, frightened voices from out in the alley, the elderly cook still talking to the 9-1-1 operator, and then a faint siren.

Thank God,
she thought. There must have been a close police car.

“Alvar! We’re getting company!” the woman hollered from the dining room. “Just gack her and let’s get out the back. Car’s waiting.
Rápido!”

“No!” Evelyn forced herself to move. She whirled on the gunman, arms up and fists out, bringing her leg up too, guessing he was directly behind her, and being rewarded by landing a solid kick to his hip. At the same time he fired, and he would have hit her dead-center if she hadn’t been spinning. The bullet caught her just above the left wrist, another ice pick driven in.

“Awesome.” Evelyn jabbed up with her knee as she moved close and catching him in the groin, but not hard enough to do any damage. He leveled the gun as she jumped back. Lord, the pain was intense! It was getting hard to think. There was little room to maneuver between all the big appliances.

Before she could do anything else, the bearded cook rushed past her with his cleaver, chopping down on the thug’s gun hand. The gun and most of the thug’s fingers fell to the floor, and he tottered off balance as he screamed.

Evelyn squeezed in and kicked the thug again, her heel striking his knee and bending it backward.

“Police!” The elderly Oriental cook was still on the phone. “Much shooting. Much blood. Hurry now please. Someone will be dying!”

“Damn straight someone’s gonna die. You bring guns into my kitchen!” The bearded cook with the cleaver brought it viciously down again, and missed. The thug—still hollering in pain—had pulled his injured hand in close and barreled forward as much as the space allowed, pushing Evelyn against the fryer and knocking his hood back. He was Latino, and had tattoos on his neck, a pierced nose with a sparkling stud, and a pierced eyebrow. She would never forget his rage-filled face.