Winter Moon

Luther started to speak but was interrupted by a loud crash and a shout

of anger from the front of the station. As the three of them hurried

around the corner, a violent gust of wind made the plate-glass windows

thrum.

Fifty feet away, the man in the Armani suit kicked the vending machine

again.

A foaming can of Pepsi lay behind him, contents spreading across the

blacktop.

"Poison," he shouted at the machine, "poison, damn it, damn you, damn

you, poison!"

Arkadian rushed toward the customer. "Sir, please, I'm sorry, if the

machine gave you the wrong selection--" "Hey, wait right there," Luther

said, speaking as much to the station owner as to the infuriated

stranger.

In front of the office door, Jack caught up with Arkadian, put a hand

on his shoulder, stopped him, and said, "Better let us handle this."

"Damn poison," the customer said furiously, and he made a fist as if he

wanted to punch the vending machine.

"It's just the machine," Arkadian told Jack and Luther. "They keep

saying it's fixed, but it keeps giving you Pepsi when you push Orange

Crush."

As bad as things were in the City of Angels these days, Jack found it

difficult to believe that Arkadian was accustomed to seeing people fly

off the handle every time an unwanted can of Pepsi dropped into the

dispensing tray.

The customer turned away from the machine and from them, as if he might

walk off and leave his Lexus. He seemed to be shaking with anger, but

it was mostly the blustery wind shivering the loosely fitted suit.

"What's wrong here?" Luther asked, heading toward the guy as thunder

tolled across the lowering sky and the palms in the south planter

thrashed against a backdrop of black clouds.

Jack started to follow Luther before he saw the suit jacket billow out

behind the blond, flapping like bat wings. Except the coat had been

buttoned a moment ago. Double-breasted, buttoned twice.

The angry man faced away from them still, shoulders hunched, head

lowered.

Because of the loose and billowing fabric of his suit, he seemed less

than human, like a hunchbacked troll. The guy began to turn, and Jack

would not have been surprised to see the deformed muzzle of a beast,

but it was the same tan and cleanshaven face as before.

Why had the son of a bitch unbuttoned the coat unless there was

something under it that he needed, and what might an irrational and

angry man need that he kept under his jacket, his loose-fitting suit

jacket, his roomy goddamned jacket?

Jack called a warning to Luther.

But Luther sensed trouble too. His right hand moved toward the gun

holstered on his hip.

The perp had the advantage because he was the initiator. No one knew

violence was at hand until he unleashed it, so he swung all the way

around to face them, holding a weapon in both hands, before Luther and

Jack had even touched their revolvers.

Automatic gunfire hammered the day. Bullets pounded Luther's chest,

knocked the big man off his feet, hurled him backward, and Hassam

Arkadian spun from the impact of one-two-three hits, went down hard,

screaming in agony.

Jack threw himself against the glass door to the office. He almost

made it to cover before taking a hit to the left leg. He felt as if

he'd been clubbed across the thigh with a tire iron, but it was a

bullet, not a blow.

He dropped facedown on the office floor. The door swung shut behind

him, gunfire shattered it, and gummy chunks of tempered glass cascaded

across his back.

Hot pain boiled sweat from him.

A radio was playing. Golden oldies. Dionne Warwick. Singing about

the world needing love, sweet love.

Outside, Arkadian was still screaming, but there wasn't a sound from

Luther Bryson.

Luther was dead. Jack couldn't think about that. Dead. Didn't dare

think about it. Dead. Wouldn't think about it.

The chatter of more gunfire.

Someone else screamed. Probably the attendant at the Lexus. It wasn't

a lasting scream. Brief, quickly choked off.

Outside, Arkadian wasn't screaming anymore, either. He was sobbing and

calling for Jesus.

Hard, chill wind made the plate-glass windows vibrate. It hooted

through the shattered door.

The gunman would be coming.

CHAPTER TWO.

Jack was stunned at the quantity of his own blood on the vinyl-tile

floor around him. Nausea squirmed through him, and greasy sweat

streamed down his face. He couldn't take his eyes off the spreading

stain that darkened his pants.

He had never been shot before. The pain was terrible but not as bad as

he would have expected. Worse than the pain was the sense of violation

and vulnerability, a terrible frantic awareness of the true fragility

of the human body.

He might not be able to hold on to consciousness for long. A hungry

darkness was already eating away at the edges of his vision.

He probably couldn't put much weight on his left leg, and he didn't

have time to pull himself up on his right alone, not while in such an

exposed position.

Shedding broken glass as a bright-scaled snake might shed an old skin,

unavoidably leaving a trail of blood, he crawled fast on his belly

alongside the L-shaped work counter behind which Arkadian kept the cash

register.