Cold Springs(64)

Ella Montrose raised her hands in front of her face and pushed the air away. “No, no. NO GODDAMN DEALIN' in my home. I'm a CHRISTIAN woman!”

She started to close the door, but Chadwick pressed his palm against it. “Ma'am, Race is in trouble. We need to talk to him.”

Her murderous look reminded Chadwick of Samuel, that night nine years ago at the Oakland juvenile detention center. But whatever circuitry once connected Ella Montrose's brain to her face had long ago melted. On Ella Montrose, a scowl held no more menace than the eyes on a moth's wings.

“You two ain't real,” she told him. “I reach in the photo book and pull you out. Just like my Talia.”

“Ma'am,” Chadwick persisted. “Is Race here?”

“I'm not going to no home. I'm not crazy.”

“It's about Mallory Zedman.”

The name seemed to set off a ripple in Ella Montrose's facial muscles. “Seen too much when he was small, that boy. You stay away from him, you hear? Go back in the picture book.”

“Hey,” Jones said. She dug a twenty out of her pocket, held it up between two fingers, then spoke slowly and clearly, as if to a child, “How about you go down to the Jiffy Liquor, buy yourself some lunch, okay?”

“Ms. Jones—”

Chadwick's reprimand was cut short by a young man's voice, coming from somewhere deep inside the apartment. “Nana?”

Ella Montrose licked her lips. “He kill you, I let you in. You got to go back into the pictures, okay?”

“Take a walk, Nana,” Jones suggested gently. “Get you some Bacardi.”

“Christian woman,” Mrs. Montrose mumbled. “Girl got no business—a pet that size.”

She snatched the twenty, pushed past Chadwick into the hallway, and made for the stairwell. The aluminum foil in her hair glinted as she passed the empty windows.

Chadwick looked at Jones. “In the future, no bribery. That woman is ill.”

“So now she's ill and twenty dollars richer. We going in or not?” Her voice was harsh and brittle, as if the old lady had unnerved her more than she cared to let on. She held the door for Chadwick.

On the other side was no apartment—just an enormous loft space, vast open floor and ceiling supported by white concrete columns, huge windows pouring in light. A living room area had been set up in one corner, a bedroom in another, so it looked like a third-rate furniture showroom rather than a place someone would live. Cheap jasmine incense burned somewhere. A boom box played “Mustang Sally.” Strung between two columns was a water-stained pink sheet; behind it, Chadwick could see the lanky silhouette of Race Montrose getting dressed.

Race yelled, without alarm, “Nana? You okay?”

He pushed aside the sheet. He wore his camouflage jacket, bare-chested underneath. Black jeans. One black Nike on his foot, the other in his hand.

He stared at Jones and Chadwick. Then he dropped his shoe and bolted.

By the time Chadwick realized Race was going for a gun—a semiautomatic resting on the windowsill—it was too late to back off. Race grabbed the gun, but with a six-foot-eight wall of white man coming down on him, the boy abandoned all intention of fighting. He started out the window, hooking his leg on a rusty fire escape as Chadwick grabbed his arm, Race pulling away, putting his whole weight on the railing.

The metal groaned under Race's feet, the fire escape peeling away from the wall, taking the boy with it. Chadwick's grip slipped to the boy's wrist just as Race's legs lost contact with the rail and his chest slammed into the side of the building.

Race Montrose hung, five stories up, twisting in slam-dunk position, the gun still clenched in his free hand.

He looked down at the line of dumpsters in the alley below, about the size of pillows, then up at Chadwick. He made a wild and heroically stupid effort to aim the gun at Chadwick's head.

“I tend to drop people when they shoot me,” Chadwick told him. “Let it go. I'll pull you in.”

Race was sweating, making his wrist hard to hold.

“I don't know anything,” the boy said. “I swear to f**king God.”

Chadwick tightened his grip. Kindra was right behind him, her hands latched to the fabric of Chadwick's coat, as if that would be enough to keep him from falling. She was muttering words of comfort and support: “Shit, oh goddamn shit. Crazy mother-f*cking idiot.”

“We just want to talk,” Chadwick told the boy. “Drop the gun.”

He could feel his own pulse against Race's wrist bones, the semiautomatic's line of fire wobbling back and forth across his forehead.

The gun clunked against the dumpster below like a timpani strike. Chadwick pulled him inside.

“Damn!” Jones exhaled. She kicked the boy's bare foot. “Damn, little man! The hell you thinking? You born stupid or you study on it, huh?”

Race huddled against the wall, pushing his back against the bricks. He was skinnier than Chadwick remembered. His breastbone was concave and hairless between the folds of the camouflage jacket, his eyes soft, on the verge of tears.

“I don't know nothing.” His voice trembled. “Didn't say nothing.”

“We're not going to hurt you,” Chadwick said.

“Yeah. You just come from Texas to help me, like you helped Mallory.”