Killer Instinct (Instinct #2)(84)

“I’m good to go, boss.”

“Then get moving. No slipups.”

“You can bank on me,” said Julian, glad that Loman barked back, “Twenty-two fake dive, slot right long, on one.”

Julian cracked up. He had played ball in college, a very long time ago, but he still had moves. He clicked off the call, sized up the vehicular and foot traffic, and chose his route.

It was go time.





JULIAN SAW his run as a punt return.

He charged into an elderly man in a shearling coat, sending the man sprawling. He snatched up the old guy’s shopping bag, saying, “Thanks very much, knucklehead.”

What counted was that he had the ball.

With the bag tucked under his arm, Julian ran across Geary, dodging and weaving through the crowd, heading toward the intersection at Stockton. He waited for a break in traffic at the red light, and when it came, he sprinted across the street and charged along the broad, windowed side of Neiman Marcus. Revolving glass doors split a crowd of shoppers into long lines of colorful dots filing out onto the sidewalk, accompanied by Christmas music: “I played my drum for him, pa-rum-pumpum-pum.” It was all so crazy.

Julian was still running.

He yelled, “Coming through! No brakes!” He wove around the merry shoppers, sideswiped the UPS man loading his truck, and, with knees and elbows pumping, bag secured under his arm, dashed up the Geary Street straightaway and veered left to cross again.

Another crowd of shoppers spilled out of Valentino, and Julian shot out his left hand to stiff-arm a young dude, who fell against a woman in a fur coat. Bags and packages clattered to the sidewalk. Julian high-stepped around and over the obstacles, then broke back again into a sprint, turning left on Grant Avenue.

He chortled as oncoming pedestrians scattered. Giving the finger to someone who yelled at him, knocking slowpokes out of his way, Julian shouted, “Merry fucking Christmas, everybody!”

God, this was fun. He couldn’t see the goalposts, but he knew that he was scoring, big-time.

Julian ate up the pavement with his long strides as he listened for sirens. He glanced behind him and saw, finally, two people who looked like cops running up from the rear.

He was winded, but he didn’t stop. Show me what you’ve got, suckers. He put on another surge of speed as he headed toward Dragon’s Gate and the Chinatown district. He slowed only when a lady cop’s authoritative voice shouted, “Freeze or I’ll shoot!”





MY PARTNER, Inspector Rich Conklin, was running out of time, and he needed my help.

He said desperately, “Would be nice if she told you what she wants.”

“Where would be the fun in that?” I said, grinning. “You figuring it out is kind of the point.”

“I guess. Make our own history.”

“Sure. That’s an idea.”

We had slipped out of the Hall of Justice to do some lunchtime Christmas shopping in San Francisco’s Union Square because of its concentration of high-end shops. Richie wanted to get something special for Cindy.

Rich had wanted to marry Cindy from pretty much the moment he met her. And she loved him fiercely. But. There’s always a but, right?

Rich was from a big family, and while he was still in his thirties, he’d wanted kids. Lots of them. Cindy was an only child with a hot career—one that took her to murder scenes in bad places in the dead of night. And Rich wasn’t the only crime fighter in the relationship; Cindy had solved more than one homicide, even shooting and being shot by a crafty female serial killer who became the subject of Cindy’s bestselling true-crime book.

All this to say, Cindy was in no hurry to have a family.

It was a conflict of desires that in the past had broken up my two great friends, and it was tremendous that they were back together now. But as far as I knew, the conflict remained unsolved.

Rich pointed out an emerald pendant around the neck of a mannequin in a shop window.

“Do you like that?”

I said, “Beautiful. And very Christmassy,” when I heard a scream behind us.

I turned to see a man in a red down jacket running past us, yelling, “Coming through! No brakes!” He nearly collided with a group of people coming out of Neiman’s, clipped a UPS man, and just kept going.

An elderly man in a shearling coat was hobbling down the street in pursuit, with blood streaming out of his nose. He cried out, “Stop, thief! Someone stop him!”

Rich and I are homicide cops, and this was no murder. But we were there. We took off behind the man in the red jacket, who was running with all the power and determination of a pro tailback.

I yelled, “Stop! Police!” But the runner kept going.





I DIDN’T trust myself to run full out. My doctor had recently benched me for two months owing to a bout of anemia. So I slowed to a walk and yelled to Rich, “You go. I’ll call it in.”

I got on my phone and summed up the situation for dispatch in a few words: There had been a robbery, a grab-and-dash. Conklin was pursuing the suspect on foot, running east on Geary Street, turning north onto Grant Avenue.

“Suspect is wearing a red jacket, dark pants. We need backup and an ambulance,” I said, and gave my location.

I trotted back to the elderly man with the bloody nose who was now on his feet, panting and leaning against a building.