Busted Flush Read online

  Ray nodded. He was becoming familiar with the feeling. He glanced at Norwood, who had a wincing, almost sympathetic expression. Stuntman started to say something, saw the look on Ray’s face, and thought better about it. Moon wagged her tail tentatively, while the Angel sipped delicately at the large glass of iced tea that the waitress had already brought.

  Fortunately Ray’s cell phone buzzed. He reached for it in obvious relief. “Yeah.”

  “Director Ray.”

  He knew that voice. “AG Rodham.”

  “What are you doing in New Mexico, Director Ray?”

  Sitting on my ass in a diner outside Alamogordo watching my eggs and sausage go cold and Stuntman drool over my girl, he thought. He got as far as “sitting on my—” before he thought better of it. “Uh, that is, sitting in conference with my agents while mapping out a strategy to contain the danger posed by the escapees who are in imminent threat of recapture. Ma’am.”

  There was a longish silence, then the voice said, “Imminent?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “They had better be.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He gritted his teeth.

  “Since you’re two-thirds of the way there, I’d like you to take that trip to Hollywood we’ve discussed and interview some of the new American Hero contestants.”

  Ray gritted his teeth harder. “Yeah. I’ve heard great things about the Kozmic Kowboy and the Jackalope.”

  His phone went dead. He felt Angel’s eyes on him, and looked at her.

  “Good news?” she asked.

  Ray was saved the embarrassment of answering as the food arrived. The waitress put several platters before the Angel, and then slid a barely singed steak in front of Moon. Her tail thumped more certainly.

  “Oh, Billy?” the Angel asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you cut Moon’s steak up for her? She can’t manage a knife and fork with her paws.”

  “Sure.” Ray savagely slashed at the steak for the smiling dog. He felt . . . he felt . . . he didn’t know how he felt. Except that he wanted to hit something. Really hard. That reminded him. Where the hell was Pendergast?

  “Where the hell,” he asked Stuntman, “is Pendergast?”

  The agent shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe his zipper got stuck.” He sighed, looking put upon. “Want me to go check on him?”

  Ray glanced over at the Angel, who was unconcernedly tucking into her food. She could eat, he thought, like no one else he knew. She needed the food to fuel the metabolism of her fierce and hungry body. He used to love to watch her eat, especially in bed after a long bout of lovemaking. There was something satisfying in watching her quell her appetites. Something vital and vibrant, like watching a cheetah run.

  But now, seeing her, it made him feel, what? Lonely? Christ. “No,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

  Muttering, he got to his feet. He thought he saw the Angel glance at him as he went down the aisle between booths, but he wasn’t sure. What am I, he thought, back in middle school? No, because I wasn’t this bad, even then.

  He went out the diner’s front door and circled back through the parking lot, which was the only way to reach the restrooms at the rear of the building.

  So I didn’t want to get married, he thought, still able to work up anger at the nature of the Angel’s grievance. Was that so bad? Why ruin a good thing? Hell, it was a great thing. He stopped at the door to the “Spaceman’s Room.” There was a thumping sound inside. “Pendergast,” he called out, “you still in there?” Why take a chance at messing it up? Who cares what a priest or judge says? “Pendergast? You all right?”

  Muttering to himself, Ray pushed open the restroom door. Even he was stunned by the sight of blood everywhere, splattered on the floor, geysered onto the ceiling, still running down the metal divider that had once separated the stall from the rest of the room and was now torn from its wall brackets and crumpled as if it had been struck by a giant fist.

  Pendergast himself was crammed into the urinal, sitting in it as if it were an uncomfortably small throne. At least what was left of him was. He was covered with blood and missing chunks of his neck, chest, abdomen, and his entire right arm. Sharky, standing in a pool of blood that had drained from Pendergast’s body, was gnawing on it. Pendergast’s eyes were glazed and only mildly annoyed. In a flash of horrified insight Ray realized that the BICC director never knew what had hit him.

  “Yum, yum,” Sharky crooned as he ripped meat off Pendergast’s flabby arm and wolfed it down. “Nice and fat, yum, nice and fat. Sweet meat.”

  They stared at each other for a long, long moment. Sharky’s predator eyes gleamed with sudden glee. “Yum,” he said, “more meat,” and he dropped Pendergast’s arm and leapt at Ray.

  Ray slammed the door in the creature’s face, but Sharky came right through it, smashing it and tearing it off its hinges. Ray automatically ducked the flying fragments, but he couldn’t avoid Sharky’s grasp. He’s missing his right hand, Ray had time to think. It looked like it had been removed by a dull knife or determined teeth. And then Sharky engulfed him.

  He hit Ray like a sumo wrestler and bore him down. Ray twisted. He almost pulled free from Sharky’s one-handed grasp, then the cannibal fastened on with his immense jaws. Ray screamed with pain. Sharky gnawed where Ray’s neck met his shoulder. He might have had him for good if he hadn’t torn off a chunk of flesh and bolted it down, quickly making a face and saying, “Ugh, stringy!”

  Ray screamed again, in anger this time. “You fucking son of a bitch freak!”

  He felt muscles rip and blood spatter. He hoped Sharky hadn’t hit the jugular, or he was a dead man. He swung a fist, but only skinned his knuckles on Sharky’s tough, pebbly hide. Without wasting a moment he jammed his knee up between Sharky’s legs, and Sharky’s eyes crossed at the sudden impact and he blew a fetid stream of breath on Ray’s face, splattering him with a mist of his own blood and spatters of his own flesh.

  Sharky rolled off, grabbing his crotch and panting too hard to moan. Ray staggered to his feet, clamping his right hand to his neck. It was instantaneously drenched with blood. “Good thing he has gonads,” Ray muttered, moving in on the groaning Sharky.

  Ray heard the sound of feet on gravel, approaching fast. Very fast. He turned to see a blur descend upon him, then something bit deep into the back of his right leg at the knee. Tendons severed, and he fell. The blur braked to a stop in a flurry of dust and pebbles. Looking at him and smiling was a lean, tallish man wearing a dirty, sweat-soaked BICC jumpsuit. The torn-off sleeves exposed lithely muscled, crudely tattooed arms. He had cold, hard eyes, and close-cropped hair, and was carrying an open clasp knife with a bloody eight-inch blade.

  “Racist,” Ray muttered to himself. He tried to get up, but his leg wouldn’t work.

  “Best stay down, boy,” the Racist said, “I cut you good. Hamstrung you like a deer.”

  Sharky lurched to his feet. “Gonna eat your head, little man. Gonna snap it off your neck and suck the meat off your skull.”

  He opened his maw. It looked big enough to do the job. Ray lurched upright, his weight on his left leg, ready to do something, anything, so he wouldn’t die on his back in the parking lot of the Interplanetary House of Pancakes outside of goddamn Alamogordo, New Mexico.

  From between the parked cars Moon flew by, growling. She hurled herself at Sharky, taking him low in the legs, cutting them out from under him. He went down in the dust again, Moon snapping at his hand and head like a wild beast. He windmilled his arms furiously and one caught Moon like a club across her ribs, hurling her to lie panting at Ray’s feet. She was up instantaneously in a guard position before him.

  “Well, what we got here?” the Racist drawled as Sharky shook his head and mumblingly dragged himself to his feet again. “A cunt and a nigger. You government boys sure are getting pussified, hiding behind women and mud-men.”

  Ray was afraid to turn his neck to look. He could still feel the blood pumping from it, and more
running down his leg.

  “Oh, Billy,” a familiar voice said. “Get down before you bleed out.”

  He was feeling a little woozy. He sat down on the gravel parking lot, barely able to focus on her. At least, he thought, she looks concerned.

  “Hey,” he protested, “stop ripping up my suit.”

  “Quiet.” The fabric tore like paper towels in the Angel’s strong fingers. She pressed a wad of cloth into the hole in Ray’s neck and shoulder.

  “That was Italian,” Ray mumbled.

  “Now it’s rags,” she said. “Moon. Hold this in place.”

  Moon shimmered and shrunk in size. Now a fox, she pressed her warm little body against Ray’s neck, holding the rough bandage against his wound. It soaked through instantly. The Angel stood up. Ray didn’t like the look on her face. Actually, he realized, he did.

  “Norwood,” she said in a hard, steady voice, “you take the Racist. Watch him. He’s fast. I got the cannibal.”

  The Racist smiled. “You get the pussy meat, Sharky. I get the dark meat. Let’s take ’em.” He started to run. Away from them.

  “What the hell?” Stuntman said.

  Ray wanted to warn him, but he was having difficulty speaking. He was dazed. A little confused. A little cold. The only warm thing was the fox curled up against his neck, licking his face and yipping softly at him. He should be on his feet, but he couldn’t seem to rise.

  Sharky lumbered toward the Angel. She just stood there. He wanted to warn her, too. He wanted to call her name. To tell her that he loved her. He wanted to beg her to come back to him. But his tongue and mouth couldn’t work.

  Sharky reached her, slobbering, “Nice meat, soft, rich, nice meat,” and Ray wanted to say, “Get your frigging sword,” but he could only think it. She stood her ground, and pivoted away from the joker’s embrace, her hands low and clenched together, and she bought them up and around and slammed them in the middle of Sharky’s stomach and lifted him up off his feet and tossed him a good dozen yards away onto the surface of the parking lot.

  “That hurt,” Sharky said like an outraged child, and the Angel said, “Save my soul from evil, Lord, and heal this warrior’s heart,” and her flaming sword appeared in her ready hands.

  Ray managed to croak, “Look out,” and the Racist descended on Stuntman like a tornado, full speed, total impact. They bounced apart. The Racist skittered backward, but somehow maintained his balance. Norwood slammed into a parked car, crushing in the door panel and setting off the alarm. He bounced back and fell face-first on the gravel, then scrabbled to his knees. The Racist looked at the knife in his hand. The blade had snapped off. There was no blood on the metal stump protruding from the hilt.

  “Goddamn. You made out of rubber, boy?” he asked Norwood.

  The Midnight Angel stalked toward Sharky, who had gotten up and was shaking his head, smiling, his rows of teeth gleaming in the sunshine. Flaming wings sprouted from the back of her shoulders. That’s new, Ray thought groggily.

  “Eat your titties like candy,” Sharky said, and the Angel cut him. His left arm came off. Blood showered like a fountain. Ray, watching, grinned.

  “Ow,” Sharky said, and she cut him again. This time, his head came off. Sharky took a lumbering step toward her, and then he fell, blood pumping with each beat of his slowing heart.

  “Shit,” the Racist said, as the Angel turned to him.

  A car screeched toward them from the back of the lot, the driver shouting, “Get in, get in.”

  He braked, showering the Racist with pebbles and dust, and the ace flung the passenger side door open. He started to climb in, turned, and looked at Norwood, who was coming at him with a hard look on his face. “We got business to finish, boy,” he said, and slammed the door just as Norwood reached for him, and the car fishtailed out of the lot.

  The Angel moved her hands apart and her sword and wings disappeared. She went to Ray and knelt down by him. “Hang on. We’ll get you to the hospital—”

  Ray reached out and grabbed the front of her jumpsuit and pulled her face close to his.

  “Tell the doctor,” he said, making a supreme effort, “to stitch the tendons. Staple the goddamn things together if he has to—”

  “Billy—”

  “Tell him!”

  “All right. Yes.”

  He lay back a little, grinning woozily. “Anybody get the license plate of that car?”

  Moon, still pressing against his neck, made a little yip of affirmation.

  “Good job,” Ray said, and closed his eyes.

  His cell phone rang.

  He opened his eyes. “Somebody get that,” he said, and closed them again.

  Ray felt a strong hand clutching him with the relentless strength of a giant, and he knew that no matter how hard he fought, he would never break free. If I’m going down, he thought, I might as well go down with my eyes open. With a supreme effort of will he pried his eyelids apart and blinked, though the light was dim and the air was cool. He realized that the Angel was bending over him in her dusty leathers. He was lying in bed in a small, antiseptic room, with tubes in his left arm and various electronic monitors stuck up on shelves all around him. He realized that he was in a hospital. He should have. He’d been in plenty during the course of his career.

  “Hi,” he said, surprised at the croaking sound that was his voice.

  “Hi yourself.”

  Ray blinked. “What the hell happened?” The words came out in a husky whisper. He felt kind of hollow. Drained.

  The Angel shrugged. “After you passed out I got you into the rental and drove to the hospital at Holloman as quickly as I could.”

  Ray was glad that he’d been unconscious during that drive. “And Moon and Stuntman?”

  “On the trail of the Racist and his accomplice who was driving the hot-wired car. Another one of the escapees named Deadhead.”

  Ray nodded, satisfied. “Good. And did you give my message to the doctors?” He lifted his head and looked down his body. His neck hurt like a son of a bitch and his numb left leg felt like dead weight and was swathed in bandages, like a mummy leg. On the plus side, the wasp stings had stopped itching.

  The Angel pursed her full, so attractive lips. “Yes, but—”

  “But, nothing.” Ray tried to sit up, but the Angel put a hand out on his chest.

  “Billy, you have to rest and heal. You almost bled out. The doctors here aren’t too familiar with ace metabolism. They had your medical records e-mailed—well, not all of them.” She shook her head. “They fill seven complete CDs. They say your healing factor is slowing down. Your body can still repair itself, but not like it used to. You were very lucky this time.”

  For one moment his temper surged and he felt like shoving her aside and leaping up out of the bed. But he paused. Though they’d never actually tested it, in the best of times her strength was equal to his own. Maybe, as much as he hated to admit it, even greater. And this was not the best of times. He was weak. He felt tired.

  Ray stared into space. “You’re not telling me something I haven’t realized. It’s all catching up to me. I don’t know how much I have left.”

  “Oh, Billy,” Angel said, “you’ve got plenty—you’re like a force of nature. Unstoppable. Fearless—”

  “No. I can feel it in my bones.” Ray took a deep breath. This was hard. “And you were the only fear I couldn’t beat.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Me?”

  “I was afraid of needing you,” he said. “I’d never known anything like you. You became part of me so fast. But these past few months I’ve faced an even greater fear. A fear of never being with you again. Never sleeping, never waking, never eating, drinking, screwing, laughing, sharing the everyday stuff with you. Jesus Christ, Angel, someone’s got to tell me what to do about Hillary Rodham. Someone’s got to help me get through the crazy shit I call my life. God knows, you don’t deserve to be stuck with the job, but only you can do it. I can’t make myself whole anymore. Only
you can.”

  “ ‘You’re in my blood like holy wine,’ ” she said, leaning over and kissing him. The touch of her lips on his was like coming home again. He could feel his heart beat, the blood pound through his veins.

  “This marriage thing—”

  The Angel shook her head. “I know—”

  “No,” Ray interrupted. “Listen to me. Is my wallet around here somewhere or did someone steal it?”

  “They put your personal effects in the bed stand,” she said, leaning over and opening it. She took the wallet out and handed it to Ray. He looked through it, quickly counting the money and credit cards, then found a folded slip of paper, creased and dust-stained after the parking lot fight. He held it out to her.

  “What’s this?” she asked, taking it from him and unfolding it. Her eyes grew wide as she scanned it. “A marriage license!”

  “I took it out a couple of months ago. I’ve been carrying it around. I just couldn’t find a way—”

  The Angel practically fell on him. Her hand went behind his head and she pulled his face to hers, and Ray nearly shouted with the sudden pain in his neck. They kissed again, this time with the fierceness he remembered so well. After a long moment, they broke apart, and Ray said, “I take it that’s a yes.”

  “Yes,” said the Angel.

  “Good,” Ray said, smiling freely for the first time in a long time. Son of a bitch, he thought. This might all work out. He scooted over in the bed, careful of the tubes coming out of the bags pumping antibiotics into his arm. “Come on, babe, join me.”

  “Billy!” She looked around. It was a private room, but with an open door and a big window on the corridor and nurses’ station beyond. “Not here!”

  “Nah, not for that,” he said. “I just want to feel you next to me again.”

  Carefully, she climbed up. He put his unencumbered arm around her, feeling foolishly triumphant. He soon fell asleep. Some time later, his cell phone rang. He awoke instantly, feeling refreshed and alert, untroubled by dreams. The Angel, still at his side, reached out and took it off the bedside stand and handed it to him.