Nocturnal

Bryan’s Dose of Reality

Pookie eased the Buick to a stop. Meacham Place looked quiet, empty. Beyond the black gate, the alley seemed undisturbed. Bits of trash dotted the cracked pavement. On the alley’s right side, four narrow trees stretched up, waiting for the brief window of time when the sun would be overhead and send light down between the two buildings.

Bryan stared at the abandoned, one-story building on the alley’s left. Paint- and graffiti-covered boards covered the old laundromat’s three arched windows. Across the alley from the urban ruin was a three-story, narrow brick building — well-kept, neat as you please. Decay on one side of the street, finery on the other: plenty of that to go around in San Francisco.

At the bottom corner of the abandoned building, where the sidewalk turned under the black gate and into the alley, Bryan saw the place where he had hidden under

[a hunter’s blind]

a blanket watching for

[the prey]

the boy to walk past.

Bryan rolled down his window … and smelled it.

A scent, thick and rich, billowing out of the alley, carried by a breeze that slid into his nose. It was the same odor that had made him dizzy up on the roof with Paul Maloney and Polyester Rich.

The same, but also unique.

“Pooks, you smell that?”

He heard Pookie sniff. “Maybe. Smells like piss?”

Piss. Yes. Piss, but also something else.

Bryan looked to the four scraggly trees growing out of the narrow sidewalk. At the base of the farthest tree, wedged between the trunk and the building …

A blanket, dark and rumpled.

“Bri-Bri?”

A blanket, covering something about the size of a man.

A man … or a big teenage boy.

No. It was a dream. Just a dream.

His tongue tasted the memory of hot blood. His mouth salivated.

“Hey, seriously,” Pookie said. “Are you okay?”

Bryan didn’t answer. He got out of the car and walked to the black gate. He held the square bars the way a prisoner holds his jail-cell door. The pointed tops of the bars were a good three feet above his head. In his dream, an effortless, standing jump had carried him over this gate, but in the waking world he saw that would be impossible.

The dark blanket looked … wet. Wetness on the sidewalk. Streaks of it. Wetness on the brick wall, in lines and patterns, in symbols and words. He vaguely recognized these things, but only saw bits of them out of the corner of his eye — he could not look away from the blanket.

The gate rattled as Bryan climbed it.

The sound of a car door shutting.

“Bryan, answer me, man.”

Bryan dropped down on the other side. He walked toward the blanket.

Behind him, the gate rattled again, followed by sound of big dress shoes hitting the pavement.

“Bryan, this is blood. It’s everywhere.”

Bryan didn’t answer. That scent, so overpowering.

“It’s on the walls,” Pookie said. “Jesus, I think they painted a picture in blood, right on the fucking walls.”

Bryan reached for the blanket. His fingers clenched on fabric, wet fabric.

He yanked the blanket away.

A ravaged corpse. Its right arm had been ripped off. A piece of collarbone jutted out from near the neck. The stomach had been cut to pieces, intestines dragged out then shoved back in like dirt stuffed back into a hole. So much blood.

And that face. Puffy and swollen. Missing eye. Shattered jaw. The boy’s own mother wouldn’t recognize him.

But the hair … Bryan recognized the hair.

Black, curly, wiry.

To the left of the body, a white baseball hat streaked with blood spatter.

“Bryan.”

Pookie’s voice again. Something in his tone forced Bryan to turn. Pookie was staring at the mutilated body. He looked up at Bryan, his expression one of disbelief, perhaps even shock.

“Bryan, how did you know about this?”

Bryan didn’t have an answer. The smell of piss was so strong, it made his head spin.

Pookie’s right hand moved a touch closer to the left flap of his sport coat. “Bryan, did you do this?”

Bryan shook his head. “No. No way, man. You know I couldn’t do something like this.”

Pookie’s eyes looked so cold. Was this the face perps saw when he took them down? A happy-go-lucky man, unless you were in his sights, then Pookie Chang became serious business.

“Step out of the alley,” Pookie said. “Slowly. And keep your hands away from your gun.”

“Pooks, I’m telling you that I didn’t—”

“You knew. How could you know?”

That was the million-dollar question. If there was an answer, did Bryan really want to know it?

“I told you,” Bryan said. “I had a dream.”

Pookie took a breath, then nodded. “Right. A dream. If you had knowingly done this, for whatever reason, you wouldn’t have told me about it, and you sure as hell wouldn’t have brought me right to the body. But it doesn’t change the fact that you knew.”

“Pooks, I—”

“Shut the fuck up, Bryan. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to believe my instincts and not my eyes. You’re going to step out of this alley and stay out until I tell you to move. I’m going to call this in. We’re going to gather evidence and see if anything points to you. Meantime, you don’t say a word to anyone about your dreams or anything else. I’m going to wait and pray that my best friend, my partner, is not a fucking murderer.”

Pookie suspected him? But Pookie knew Bryan, knew him better than anyone.

“I’m not,” Bryan said. “I’m not a murderer.”

Pookie raised his eyebrows. “Yeah? Are you sure about that?”

Bryan opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out.

Because when it came down to it, he wasn’t sure at all.