Killer Karma

16

After two tries, he managed to ziptrip to the street outside Sara’s building again. Hunting a reason to bring in Hayes frustrated him, however. How did he make Hamada care about which clothes had been packed. As far as he could tell, the choices were appropriate for a warm climate. The shoe racks had gaps in the section of casual shoes and sandals. One of the partially open drawers still held a few shorts, t-shirts, and tank tops.

Cole leaned on the dresser, drumming his fingers while he peered around. There must be something here they could use to-

A woman’s distant scream broke into the thought. A scream that kept repeating.

He rushed into the front room and through the window to where he could see down the street. A block and a half away, people gathered in the street. The posture of one indicated she was screaming. Smoke rose into the air.

For a moment it took him back to 1989, settling in to watch the World Series at Razor’s apartment while Sherrie and Razor’s first wife Jessie fussed over the five-week-old twins. Only to have the world suddenly wrench beneath them. As the boards and cinder-block bookcase collapsed, dishes spilled from the kitchen cupboard, and beer cans toppled over on the coffee table, they stared at each other, sharing the same terrified thought: was this the Big One? With no memory of having moved, he found himself in the street, leaning against a parked car for support, an arm around Sherrie and each of them holding one twin. The ground continued its spasms for what seemed an eternity. When it went still, for a few moments the world felt eerily silent. Then he heard screams and saw smoke rising into the afternoon sky. Exchanging one glance with Razor, he had thrust Travis at Jessie and the two of them ran toward the screams.

Reflex set Cole running toward today’s screams, too…angling down to the street.

As he came nearer, the screaming resolved into a man’s name. “Steve! Steve! No! Come back!”

The smoke poured from the doorway and a second floor window of a three-story apartment building. This Steve must be playing hero, going back inside to rescue something.

“Has anyone called 911?” Cole shouted.

Distant sirens, one paired with the air horn of a fire truck, answered that question. Moments later a man staggered out of the smoke with a yowling pet carrier. Bleeding scratches covered his hands. In the middle of the street he set down the carrier and collapsed to his knees, coughing.

The woman went down beside him, bursting into tears as she embraced both him and the carrier. “That was crazy!”

“Is anyone else still inside?” Cole called toward the bystanders. He thought he heard pounding and a faint voice.

He ran to the door, straining to hear. He did hear someone inside. A thumping came from an upper floor along with a muffled cry for help. He hesitated, staring into the smoke, then laughed at himself. What was he afraid of? Smoke inhalation? Burning to death?

He charged through the smoke into the hallway and up the stairs two at a time toward the second floor. The pounding and cries for help sounded higher, on the third floor. A woman’s voice. Flames ate at the upper steps and the hallway carpet. Shaking away the reflex that said to run away from fire, he plunged into it.

And halted in amazement. With flames surrounding him, a tremendous surge of energy filled him…even more than a vehicle running through him. Simultaneously, the flames died in the space he occupied…as if he had sucked them in.

A faint cry upstairs abruptly reminded Cole of the reason he came in. He raced to the third floor stairs. Maybe he could use the fire suppression thing to help the woman.

Or not. Smoke filled the hall.

The pounding came from a spot toward the rear of the building. Cole passed through the wall by the sound and found himself in a bathroom. An elderly woman with one arm in a cast used her good arm to slap the handle of a toilet plunger against the wall in time with her calls for help. Wet towels filled the gap under the door. She had filled the bathtub and soaked herself in it. Water dripped from her slacks, blouse, and hair. After preparing herself to run for safety, had the smoke grown too thick for her to brave, or the fire had reached the stairs? Now she was trapped. The bathroom had no window.

Her only hope was to leave her sanctuary and go to the front window, where she could be seen by the firefighters on the trucks he heard arriving. Could he make her hear him so he could give her instructions?

Passing into the bedroom, however, he found it full of smoke, too. To stay under it and reach the front window, she needed to belly crawl. Could she manage that?

“Hello. Hello in there!” Oh for the ability to knock on the door! So much energy filled him, he felt he should be able to. His voice even felt more robust. “Ma’am, can you hear me?”

A gasp of relief came through the door. “Oh, thank God. Yes! I hear you.”

Hallelujah!

“Please…help me.”

“We need to get you to the front window. But you’ll have to crawl to stay under the smoke. Can you do that with your broken arm?” Would he remain audible if she came out? Maybe…if he obscured her vision, had her keep a towel over her head so she never realized no body went with the voice.

She hesitated before answering. “I don’t know. It’d be slow. Don’t you have oxygen or something so I can walk to the window?”

Slow would be bad. Though he saw no smoldering around the floor to indicate the fire breaking through up here, the floor could be hot and he had no way to know. She needed to move fast. “I’ll go for a rescue team. You keep pounding on the wall.”

She paused again. “Keep pounding? Why, when you’ve found me?”

Cole kicked himself. He should have expected that. “To…tell me you’re still all right. I’m going now but we’ll be back shortly.”

Not if he left it to her pounding, though. It sounded half-hearted compared to before. Her life depended on him telling someone about her.

He ran to the front window. Below, uniformed officers pushed onlookers to the far sidewalk and, with the pumper truck hooked up to the hydrant down the block, a hose team was coming in the front door. Could he make them hear him?

He ran down to the second floor and stood in the flames at the top of the stairs, again feeling the incredible flow of energy into him. “Hey!” he shouted. “There’s a woman trapped upstairs!”

But no one in the hose team reacted.

“HELP!”

Still no one responded. Hearing him would be tough even if he were alive. Damn! If only they could see him. Red said a ghost back home could make herself visible for short periods. Urgency wracked Cole. He had to do so, too…or the woman up there would die.

In a foot chase, when his legs began feeling leaden and his throat and lungs burned, he dug for emotion to keep himself going…anger at the perpetrator he chased, hatred of losing a race, whatever lay handy. Now Cole grabbed at his sense of urgency, at his worry and the guilt over what might have happened to Sara…funneling it all into the will to be seen. See me!

Suddenly he felt… different, heavier.

“Holy shit!” yelled the firefighter holding the hose nozzle. “Is that someone up there in the hall?”

They saw him! “Get the ladder!” Cole shouted. “There’s a woman trapped in her bathroom on the third floor!”

“Sir-!”

Cole lost the rest as he raced up to the apartment. At the front window, he waved his arms vigorously. To his dismay, the weight sensation started fading. No! Not yet.

Then someone outside pointed up. Okay! They saw him. The firefighter breaking out the second floor window signaled to the man on the ladder controls. The ladder began lifting.

Cole headed for the bathroom, feeling lighter by the moment. He gritted his teeth, trying to hang on long enough to make sure they found the woman.

Behind him, glass shattered.

“Back here!” he called, and through the door: “Ma’am…we’re coming for you.”

The firefighter appeared out of the smoke. Behind his face shield and above his breathing apparatus, he gaped in disbelief and alarm. Naturally, seeing a man standing there apparently breathing smoke. “Hey- ”

“Don’t mind me. Get the woman in the bathroom!” To give him no choice, Cole let go. As if a plug had been pulled, the last of the weight drained away.

On the ground a short while later, watching the old woman being checked out by a paramedic, he listened to the firefighter recount the incident. “…and he disappeared. I swear to God. One minute he was standing in front of me, and then he…dissolved.”

Another firefighter snickered and tapped his respirator. “You sure it was air you were breathing there?”

The woman wrapped herself tighter in the blanket they had thrown around her. “I’d been praying to be found. Maybe he was an angel.”

The firefighters’ faces went politely blank. “This guy had a suit and tie, not wings.”

She sniffed. “Who says they have to have wings?”

An angel. Cole smiled wryly. That was the last thing he deserved to be called. “But thank you very much, ma’am.” At least he had finally done something constructive.

The question was…how he managed to make himself material enough for everyone to see him. Pull that off at will would be a huge help.

Cole turned back to the burning building, where a firefighter on the ladder shot water in through the second floor window. Red said that when the ghost back home appeared, the room ended up a deep freeze. So…materializing needed beaucoup heat. Which the fire sure gave him. He remembered that energy pouring into him.

Did he need a fire’s worth for materializing? He hoped not. What about using ovens and boilers? A possibility, but hunting for one of those when he needed it would also be a drag. Cole shook his head. He needed something readily available anywhere 24/7.

The rumble of the pumper truck’s engine caught his ear. He moved toward the truck, remembering the invigorating sensation of vehicles running through him last night. Could internal combustion be his answer?

Closing his eyes, he waded into the pumper’s engine compartment. The staccato jolts of firing cylinders felt even better than he remembered…not the flood of heat the fire brought but an exhilarating riff like a string of firecrackers going off in him.

Then the engine began missing.

Cole leaped free, swearing at himself. Stupid…kill the engine and shut down the hoses. He should have realized that would happen after the way the flames died in his space. In assessing himself, though, he found a respectable level of energy, considering how little time he spent in the engine. This might work.

There just remained the question of how he used the heat to materialize. Before working on that, though, he ought to touch bases with Razor.

Line-of-sight took him to Sara’s window, where he passed inside and found Hamada in latex gloves, going through the middle drawer of the desk.

Hamada pulled out a spiral-bound book with index tabs. After flipping through it, he laid it on the laptop. “Got an address book.”

Since he doubted Hamada meant the comment for him, Cole checked the bedroom. Where he found Razor laying boxes from the closet shelf on the bed.

Cole waved at him from the doorway. “I’m baaack.”

To his dismay Razor showed no reaction, not even a flicker in his eyes as he brought the last couple of boxes to the bed.

Cole moved over to the bed and ran a hand front of Razor’s eyes. “Hey, partner. Have you stopped seeing me?”

Apparently. Razor opened the first box and lifted out a wool shawl.

Oh-kay…reminder time. Cole walked through Razor. “Heads up!” And grinned at Razor’s intake of breath and jump in heart rate. “Can you see me now?”

“That was cute.” Razor stuffed the shawl back in its box.

Cole sat down on a corner of the bed. “It could have been worse. I thought about grabbing your nuts.”

“Not a good way to stay friends.” Razor opened another box. It held a vaquero-style hat. “Have you been lurking since we came in? Do you see anything suggesting Sara didn’t pack?”

“No and no. But…” Cole told him about the fire and materializing. “Now I need to see if I can pull it off again. Do we know yet whether this alleged Sara Benay boarded the plane?”

“She did.”

Then it really was Sara? Cole felt torn between relief she was alive and worry over her possible involvement in his death.

Hamada called, “Are you talking to me?”

Razor grimaced. “Just myself,” he called back. “There’s no sign of a gun or ammunition so far.” He opening another box, whispering, “Dennis called Hamada about it a few minutes ago.”

A thought struck Cole. “Did we check to see if she went all the way to Key West?”

“She missed the connecting flight in Chicago.”

Relief evaporated. Shit. “Then it could be Irah. She went as far as Chicago and flew back on another airline.”

Razor cocked a brow at him. “You realize Chicago’s only a few hours from Bloomington by bus or car.”

That was a thought, too. If Sara gave her family a convincing story about needing her whereabouts kept secret, they might lie about here being there. “Is Hamada having the Bloomington PD check for her?”

Razor nodded.

But Cole’s gut feeling doubted they would find her. The mother had not sounded like someone lying. “I think it was Irah on the plane.” His stomach knotted around lead and ice. “I’m afraid she killed Sara. We need to check flights from Chicago to SFO.”

“We’re not going to talk Hamada into that without probable cause.”

The perpetual problem in dealing with the Flaxx clan. “Maybe I can find out if Irah was at the office on Thursday.” He turned toward the door. “Catch you later.”

“Where and when?”

Cole stopped. “Where will you be in, say…” He checked the clock on bed table. “…two hours?”

“Oh…” Razor opened another box. “…I thought I might talk to Sherrie and tell her what that nurse, Brewer, really saw.”

Cole felt his chest tighten. “Thanks, amigo.” He hoped she listened. Without Sara, Razor was all he had to speak for him. “You’re the best. I’ll try to catch you there.”

He left through the front windows again, trying not to think about Sherrie. Right now he had other business. The easiest way to find out where Irah was on Thursday might be to ask. But for that he needed to be visible. The sensations at the fire remained vivid…energy pouring into him, his fear for the trapped woman, the driving urgency to make the firefighters see him. What baffled him was how, exactly, that made him materialize.

To work it out, first he needed heat. If he wanted that to come from internal combustion, he also needed a busy intersection. Letting cars run through him last night had been exhilarating, but collecting heat from groups of stationary vehicles seemed more efficient.

After climbing high enough to go line-of-sight to a street of choice, Cole chose O’Farrell. It not only had busy intersections, its proximity to the Tenderloin gave him test subjects…hotel and store clerks who had seen too much weirdness there to freak out if his first tries were only partially successful.

After checking out several hotels and stores around O’Farrell, Cole found the perfect subject…a clerk in an adult book and video store, whose purple hair and implants under the skin on her forehead and bridge of her nose made her look like one of Star Trek’s aliens. Stepping into the intersection near the store, he reflected that she would probably be thrilled if someone seemed to beam down in front of her.

Beam down! The words echoed in Cole’s head. He listened, stunned. Yes! That explained ziptripping! It was like beaming. Beaming needed coordinates. He must, too…knowing not only what his destination looked like, but where it was. He moved forward again, stepping into the motor of a delivery truck, the excitement in his racing mind surpassing even the pleasure of the machine gun blasts from the engine cylinders. That explained why he went home and to Burglary so easily. Picturing them included their location on his mental map of the city.

The truck’s engine coughed. Cole hurriedly moved to the car in the next lane.

Location also accounted for the Coit Tower and Bay Bridge helping ziptrip to Razor’s and Homicide.

The car’s engine missed. Cole moved on, zig-zagging between lanes. He shoved aside the excitement over ziptripping, and the urge to check right now whether he finally had it nailed, to think about materialization. Trolling traffic seemed to be working. While not the blast of energy the fire gave him, the little blasts, each more intense than the fire, added up. When he had enough heat energy, though, he better have some idea how to go about materializing.

Cole replayed memories of the fire while continuing to work his way through the idling vehicles. To his frustration, he remembered nothing except sucking in heat and desperately wanting the firefighters to see him. Maybe he just needed to will himself visible once he soaked up enough energy. Which felt about now.

He trotted down the block to the porno shop. As he approached the clerk, who stood reading a magazine spread open on the counter, Cole willed himself visible, driving it with a sense of urgency. Visibility had been a life or death situation for the old woman. This time he pictured Irah running away, a distant figure on a vast plain, dragging Sara with her. Whether Sara was alive or dead, he could not tell…just that they were disappearing, and with them, the chance of catching Irah. He needed the clerk to see him. She must see him.

The sense of weight he felt at the fire never came.

Shit. He had the energy…dissipating rapidly as he stood here…and he certainly had the desire to be visible. What the hell else did he need for materializing. Some extra mental trick, no doubt…like everything else in this damn ghost business!

Cole thought about that. Maybe it did take a mental trick. For ziptrips he had to picture himself at his destination. Materializing might need something like that, too. Not just the desire to be visible but imagining himself being seen. At the fire, he might have done that, imagining himself seen through the firefighters’ eyes.

Much of the collected energy had gone but he might as well try again with the little left. He built a mental image of himself, feeling almost as if he molded it from the energy in him, and saw the clerk seeing him.

And…yes! He felt heavier. Not as weighty as before but little beefed-up. “Excuse me.”

The clerk looked up from her magazine. “Yeah?” She blinked. It became a puzzled stare. She reached a hand toward him.

However he looked…she saw him! “I’m sorry.” He shrugged at her, and could not resist saying, “The transporter’s having problems today.” He slapped his lapel. “Scotty, this isn’t working. Beam me back up.”

He relaxed, letting the last bit of weight drain away. The clerk’s jaw dropped. Grinning, Cole left the store. Not bad. He almost had it on the first try. The next try…

No, he decided…forget another practice run. Go for broke. If Sara were still alive, every minute counted.

Back at the intersection, he waded impatiently through the stopped vehicles, sucking in as much heat as possible by lingering in each engine to the point of stalling it. He did stall a four-cylinder Toyota…yet he kept pushing, trying to stoke up as fast as possible. As he did, he also mentally reviewed his semi-successful materialization for the clerk…and went over the new plan for ziptripping.

Finally he felt charged up and ready to roll the dice. Ziptripping to the Flaxx offices failed before. Then he had been thinking just how the reception area looked, not the office location. If he had this figured out, now the jump ought to work, right? He unrolled a mental map, pinpointed 2EC on it and visualized the Flaxx offices in the tower, including elevation…saw himself there. “Scotty, beam me over.”

The intersection blurred…and became Gina Galechas’ desk. Cole blew her a kiss. Never had her legs looked better.

He backed out the front door. Now came the roll for all the marbles. He concentrated on the energy in him, in feeling shaped into himself…visualized Gina seeing him. Yes, he needed to be careful about letting people he knew see him walking around apparently alive. That would screw up the investigation. No one was likely to ask Gina when she last saw him. The sense of weight filled him. Quickly, still picturing Gina seeing him…hoping the magazine in her lap engrossed her enough that she failed to notice the door did not open…he walked back into the reception area.

Moments too late he thought of the security camera. Would he show up on tape? Rear vision spotted some kind of reflection in the doors. Not like Gina and her desk reflected, though…just a misty patch. Okay, maybe he was safe.

“Good afternoon, Gina.”

She looked up, and smiled as though seeing him made her day. It certainly made his. “Inspector Dunavan. What can I do for you today?”

“Give me some information, I hope. Can you tell me if Irah Carrasco was here in the office on Thursday?”

She frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t remember seeing her, but lots of days I don’t. She comes early and leaves late, and stays back in her office all day. Like today, I didn’t even see her go out for lunch.”

Rats.

“Would you like me to call Miss Carrasco and you can ask her?”

He would love to see her reaction to him…but not around Gina. “It isn’t that important. In fact, since she and Mr. Flaxx keep accusing me of harassing them, I’d appreciate it if you don’t mention to anyone that I was here.”

Gina put a finger across her lips and nodded. She whispered, “Have a nice afternoon.”

That went well, Cole reflected with satisfaction, turning away…and he still had enough energy for a clean getaway. Then he realized he had a new problem: leaving while she looked at him.

When he reached the doors, he turned back toward her, then abruptly shifted his gaze to the hallway and leaned sideways, as though seeing something beyond the screening plants. As he hoped, curiosity made Gina swivel her chair and peer through the plants. Cole let go.

Gina turned around. “What did you…” she began, and broke off when she found him gone. After a moment, she went back to her magazine.

Cole returned past her and headed down the hallway. What were Flaxx and company up to this afternoon? He looked into Bookkeeping first. It seemed quiet. Everyone worked at their computers, with Hayes and Quon particularly industrious, eyes intent on their monitors each time Gao’s gaze swept the room.

Cole circled Lamper’s office and passed through the wall behind the desk to peer over Lamper’s shoulder. Interesting. Lamper was approving a request for ordering new stock and Cole recognized the store name as one in the Russian Hill area, burglarized last year.

“I take it the store’s doing better since its infusion of insurance money?” Cole said.

To his surprise, Lamper glanced around.

Lamper heard him? Cole leaned down to Lamper’s other ear. “Now look this direction.”

While not turning, Lamper cocked his head for a moment before continuing to type.

Cole backed off. It might be just a whisper, but Lamper heard something. That could be useful. Now if Flaxx and Irah heard, too…

No…being seen offered more potential for rattling them. After all, as a ghost, his job description started with “haunt.” Let Irah come face to face with her victim. Maybe she would make fatal mistakes.

Continuing down the hallway, Cole eyed Security’s door, wishing for another look at the security tape, to see whether Irah showed up on it. Materializing gave him the ability to walk in and ask to see the tape, but he doubted Farrell would cooperate with Cole Dunavan. The effort of materialization probably ought to be saved for confronting Irah anyway.

Before leaving to collect heat, he checked to be sure she was in her office. She was…sitting at her computer. Not playing games this time. She had gone online to a security system manufacturer’s web site. Keeping up to date on the latest developments Old Spice needed to watch out for?

What materialization would shake her up the most, Cole wondered. Just walk in and present himself as if nothing had happened? Or maybe take a more spectral approach by coming out of the computer at her. Even better, of course, would be to appear as he most likely looked the last time she saw him…a bloody body with bullet holes in his head. Too bad he could not-

The thought stopped short. Why not? What kept him from doing the horror movie bit? He had to create a mental image for materialization. So he should be able to imagine himself in any shape he wanted.

He leaned close to her ear. “Don’t go away.”

Unlike Lamper, she did not react. His next visit ought to change that.

He looked around the office, feeling its place in the world so he could come straight back. Then he walked out through the wall and around the corner of the building to where he had a line-of-sight to the Embarcadero. After picking an intersection and taking the feel of it so he could zip back there when necessary, too, he began his zig-zag stroll between lanes and stopped vehicles. He ought to be able to appear as anything he visualized. Could he? Only one way to find out.

What shape did he want to use?

Judging by the successes in travel and materializations to far, he had to visualize it clearly. That should be no problem with real subjects he knew well. A bloody body and other apparitions, though, had to come out of his imagination. So he might as well go for something imaginary to see if it was do-able.

Nothing too weird, though. The light changed and he moved to the halted southbound traffic. It should be something people accepted as real or they might still manage to block him out. Suddenly he knew just the form he wanted….not out of his imagination, but believable…and a natural for him.

After several more light changes, Cole crossed his fingers and went line-of-sight to Justin Herman plaza and on into 4EC’s mall. Then in a quiet corner, with no one looking his direction, he stiffened into a mechanical posture. He concentrated, shaping energy into his target shape. When he felt weight, he checked himself out. Yes! He looked covered in metal.

Robocop strode into the mall courtyard.

Around him heads turned. Some brows went up. He spotted a couple of double takes…also rolled eyes. Again, he noticed that he reflected in store windows as a faint haze.

Even this way not everyone saw him, he noticed. One woman said to her girlfriend, “What’s everyone looking at?” A man’s eyes, too, slid past with no indication of registering his presence. Otherwise Robocop appeared successful. Now on to haunting Irah.

Looking around for a spot to inconspicuously pull the plug, he spotted a security guard coming up behind him. Young, husky, a hint of swagger in his stride.

“Hi, there. That’s a cool costume.” The guard smiled, but above it, his eyes were wary. “It looks just the movie.”

Cole smiled back. “Thank you. I built it myself.”

“And you’re wearing it this afternoon because…?” The friendly tone did not quite hide the edge on the question, nor the direction his eyes drifted…down toward the holster on Cole’s hip.

Maybe an armed shaped had been a poor choice. Cole kept smiling and stood as relaxed as the Robocop form could manage. “A friend bet I wouldn’t have the nerve to walk clear through the mall in it. I stand to win fifty bucks.”

“Is that a real Desert Eagle?”

“Nah…just a plastic replica.” Cole felt himself starting to run out of steam. Holding this shape was harder than materializing as himself. Worse, another guard, female, strolled toward them. Trying to look casual but no doubt coming in response to the first guard’s call for backup.

“It certainly looks real. May I see it?”

Meaning: hand it over. With that being impossible, the time had definitely come to pull the plug. The male guard’s eyes had narrowed and his partner eased into a position off to Cole’s side, her thumbs hooked over her duty belt near the pepper spray. He had to let go of Robocop here in front of them, too, since running for somewhere might create a situation endangering bystanders. Well, this ought to be interesting.

“Scotty, beam me up.” He let go.

The guards, and bystanders who had been watching them, started, then gaped in disbelief. “What the hell? Where did he go?”

The female guard frowned. “It must have been some kind of projected image.”

“No way.” The male guard shook his head. “He was as solid and three dimensional as you are…and we talked.” He glanced around. “Where would a projection come from?”

Cole left them peering up at the promenade and lobby levels above. However much it bugged them trying to explain what happened, with luck, that hinted at how much he could mess with Irah’s mind. Grinning in anticipation, he zipped back to the Embarcadero.