Part 14 (1/2)

For a minute there, I actually considered smas.h.i.+ng my way in just so I could get my hands on some car keys and beat it in one of their cars. (A family with a house in a neighborhood like this was bound to have at least two.) I could just see myself roaring away down the road, cop cars coming at me from everywhere. I'd be lucky to get a mile.

Escape by car was out. Hiding in the house was out.

Panic was starting to creep in.

Panic crashed in when I heard the helicopter.

Thup-thup-thup-thup .

Maybe the greatest sound in the world if you've been lost at sea for two months in a life raft, drinking nothing but p.i.s.s and eating your maties.

When you're a killer and you know it's gotta be a cop chopper, the sound cramps your guts. It makes you want to grab your knees and a.s.sume a fetal position. Or maybe weep.

Fear is a pretty interesting thing, I've noticed. Some kinds are a great rush. Other kinds are the s.h.i.+ts. I'm no expert, but my guess is that it has to do with how much control you've got over the situation. The more control, the better it feels.

When you're me with a cop chopper heading your way, you don't get a dose of the fun fear. You get the bad kind.

Anyway, I looked toward the noise and spotted the chopper. It was cruising low over the crest of the hills, maybe half a mile away, heading for the fires. Its spotlight was white and sent a bright blade slanting down at the ground.

So far, it didn't seem to be searching for me.

That was bound to change fast.

I had to get out of sight.

In the middle of the yard was a lemon tree. The yard also had a patio with a plastic roof, a picnic table, and a couple of lounge chairs where you could sunbathe if it was daylight. I could duck underneath any of those things and hide from the helicopter.

If I wanted to get found, that is.

By this time, the chopper was hovering over the hillside behind the old bag's house.

Looking for me.

I let out a noise like a sick cat and made a dash for a wooden building off to my right. When I got past its comer, I saw the driveway leading up to it from alongside the house. A nice, wide driveway.

This was a two-car garage. Its main door was shut, of course. But over near the comer was a normal, human-sized door.

It swung open without so much as a squeak. I slipped into the dark and shut it. This place was a lot darker than the night outside. It had windows along one wall, though, and they let in some light. Not much. Dim, gray light that looked dirty. But it was enough to let me see that this was a utility room. It was part of the garage, but separated from the rest by a wall.

The room was sort of long and narrow. Next to me, just inside the door, was a boxy thing that looked like a refrigerator laid on its side. A freezer chest.

I felt around, found its handle, and lifted its lid.

A glare came out that made me squint. Vapor curled up like white smoke. Cold air hit my skin.

I shut the lid fast to cut off the light.

Then I just stood there for a while, nothing to do except listen to the helicopter while my eyes got reacquainted with the dark. Finally, I could see again. There were a couple of wash basins under the windows, plus a washer and dryer in the darker area beyond the basins. I headed that way.

Looking for a place to hide.

Could I fit inside the clothes dryer? I'm not a big guy, so maybe.

As a last resort, I might've given it a try.

Past the dryer, at the very end of the room, a water heater was braced up in the corner. Next to it was a cabinet about five feet wide, with double doors. I tugged the doors. They each gave off a quick little chirpy noise and swung open.

I'd been hoping for an empty s.p.a.ce like a closet. What I found were shelves loaded with all kinds of stuff.

What I might do was unload one of the shelves and crawl into the cabinet and shelve myself. To make a trick like that work, though, I'd have to pile stuff back up in front of me once I'd gotten inside, or else hide on a shelf above the eye level of the cops who were pretty sure to come looking.

Might work. I stretched up to do some exploring, then stepped on the bottom shelf to give myself more height. And that's when I discovered that the cabinet didn't go all the way to the ceiling.

I climbed higher.

Hanging on with one hand, I used my other hand to explore.

Between the top of the cabinet and the ceiling was a two-foot gap.

Nothing was stored up there. It was empty.

Until I crawled in. (Used the shelves like ladder rungs, and luckily they held. Maybe somebody up there does like me.) Once I got on the top, I curled on my side, reached down and swung the cabinet doors shut. Then I scooted myself back until the rear wall stopped me.

I'd found my perfect hiding place.

It was perfect in terms of hiding, not in terms of comfort. In terms of comfort, it was the s.h.i.+ts. Remember, I was naked except for my Reeboks and my little kilt of Connie's hide. For a place like that, I should've been wearing coveralls. Or maybe one of those big white suits that guys wear when they have to mess around with toxic wastes. But all I had was my bare skin and Connie's. Webs clung to me. Spiders dropped on me out of the dark and scurried up my legs and back. They crawled on my face. They got under Connie's skin. It was awful. Spiders give me the creeps, give me goose b.u.mps.

I went to work slapping and rubbing the d.a.m.n things to oblivion. That was disgusting, too. You could hear them go crunch and feel them turn wet. When you went to brush a body off your skin, it rolled like a booger. Sometimes, it stuck to your finger and you had a hard time flicking it off.

Anyway, I kept busy destroying the spider population while the search went on. Except for the sounds I made, the only other noise came from the helicopter. There were probably plenty of other noises, but nothing you could hear. The chopper's roar would fade out, then grow and grow until it shook everything. Sometimes, I thought the d.a.m.n thing was about to land on me. But then it would fade out again.

It was circling.

Circling and circling and circling. I couldn't see it with my eyes, but in my head I sure could. I saw it circling and circling, the whole time s.h.i.+ning its big white beam down at the hillside and the wilds at the bottom of the slope and the back yards and side yards of every house around.

Looking for me, just for me.

The noise alone was enough to drive you crazy.

By now, everybody in the neighborhood was probably wide awake and staring out their windows. They might've slept through the sirens, but you can't sleep through a cop chopper, not unless you're drunk or deaf. Not when it stays and stays, circling and roaring like that.

If you're a regular person, you're p.i.s.sed because it woke you up. More than p.i.s.sed, though, you're worried. Because you know it's up there for a reason. You know it's hunting a bad guy.

Which means a bad guy's running around somewhere near your house.

You look out your window. Just how close is that chopper? Just how close is that bad guy? You pretty much expect to spot somebody running across your yard and you just hope he doesn't try to come in your house.