Deja Dead Page 0,133

Maybe I was showing a learning curve. Maybe I was lucky.

I took a breath and slipped into the darkness of my new passageway. It was like crawling into a Dumpster. The air was warm and heavy and smelled of urine and things gone bad.

I stood in the narrow space, shifting my weight from foot to foot. The belly-up spiders and roaches I’d seen entombed in the barber pole kept me from leaning against the wall. There was no question of sitting.

Time dragged by. My eyes never left the St. Vitus, but my thoughts traveled the galaxy. I thought of Katy. I thought of Gabby. I thought of Saint Vitus. Who was he anyway? How would he feel about having the rathole across the street named in his honor? Wasn’t Saint Vitus a disease? Or was that Saint Elmo?

I thought of St. Jacques. The ATM photo was so poor you really couldn’t see the face. The geezer was right. The guy’s own mother wouldn’t know him from that shot. Besides, he could have changed his hair, grown a beard, gotten glasses.

The Incas built a road system. Hannibal crossed the Alps. Seti occupied the throne. No one entered or left the St. Vitus. I tried not to think about what was unfolding in one of its rooms. I hoped the guy was a short timer. There’s a first, Brennan.

There was no breeze in my tiny crevice, and the brick walls on either side still held the heat that had built up all day. My shirt grew clammy and clung to my skin. My scalp was sweaty damp, and an occasional bead broke free and trickled down my face or neck.

I shifted and watched and thought. The air was breathless. The sky flickered and rumbled softly. Celestial grumbling, nothing more. Now and then a car lighted the street, then passed on, casting it back into obscurity.

The heat and smell and confinement began to crowd in on me. I felt a dull pain in the space between my eyes, and the back of my throat was doing pre-nausea things. I thought about hanging it up. I tried squatting on my haunches.

Suddenly a form loomed over me! My mind exploded in a million directions. Was the passage open behind me? Stupid! I hadn’t checked for an escape route!

The man stepped into the alley, fumbling for something at his waist. I looked down the corridor in back but it was pitch black. I was trapped!

Then it was like a physics experiment, with equal and opposite forces responding. I shot up and stumbled back on deadened legs. The man also staggered backward, a look of shock on his face. I could see he was Asian, though only his teeth and astonished eyes were clear in the murky shadows.

I pressed against the wall, as much for support as for cover. He leered at me in a bewildered way, shook his head as though perplexed, then lurched off down the block, tucking his shirt and zipping his fly.

For a moment I just stood there, talking my heart rate down from the stratosphere.

A wino who only wanted to pee. He’s gone.

What if it had been St. Jacques?

It wasn’t.

You left yourself no out. You’re being stupid. You’re going to get yourself killed.

It was just a wino.

Go home. J.S. is right. Leave this to the cops.

They won’t do it.

It’s not your problem.

Gabby is.

She’s probably in Ste. Adele.

Had me there.

Calmer, I resumed my surveillance. I thought some more about Saint Vitus. Saint Vitus’s dance. That’s it. It was widespread in the 1500s. People grew nervous and irritable, then their limbs started twitching. They thought it was a form of hysteria and hiked off to the saint. Then what about Saint Anthony? The fire. Saint Anthony’s fire. Something to do with ergot in grain. Didn’t it also make people act crazy?

I thought about cities I’d like to visit. Abilene. Bangkok. Chittagong. I’d always liked that name, Chittagong. Maybe I’d go to Bangladesh. I was in the D’s when Julie came out of the St. Vitus and walked calmly up the block. I held my ground. She was no longer my mark.

I didn’t have to hold for long. My prey was also leaving.

I gave him half a block, then dropped in behind. His movements reminded me of the trash rat. He scurried, shoulders hunched, head tucked, bag clutched to his chest. As I followed, I compared the figure ahead to the one I’d seen bolt from the Berger Street room. Not a good match as