Kiss the Girls Page 0,125

punch and caught the side of my head. He rang my bell pretty good. I snorted, bobbed a little, showed him he hadn’t hurt me. This was streetfighting, D.C. style. C’mon, white boy. Come to me, monster man. I needed this time with him so much.

I slammed my fist hard into his lower stomach again. Kill the body, and the head dies. I wanted to mess up the head, too. I hit him for good measure in the nose. My best effort so far. Sampson would have been proud of the shot. I was.

“That’s for Sampson,” I told him through gritted teeth. “He asked me to give you that. Hand-deliver it.”

I hit him in the throat and he started to gag. I continued to bob. I didn’t just look a little like Ali, I could fight like him when I had to. I could defend what needed to be defended. I could be a street tough when it had to be that way.

“This is for Kate.” I hit Sikes in the nose again, right on the button. Then square in the left eye with another right lead. His face was puffing up nicely. Drive a stake through his heart, Alex.

He was strong and well conditioned, and still dangerous, I knew. He came at me again. Charged like a raging bull in the plaza de toros. I stepped aside, and he forearmed the wall of the house as if he were trying to level it. The small house rumbled and shook.

I punched Sikes hard on the side of the head. His head snapped back so hard against the house’s aluminum siding that he left a dent in it. He was weaving now, his breath coming in gasps. Suddenly, there were wails of sirens in the distance. The woman inside must have called the police. I was the police, wasn’t I?

Somebody hit me from behind, hit me real hard. “Oh, Jesus, no,” I moaned and tried to shake off the hurt.

This wasn’t possible! This couldn’t be happening!

Who had hit me? Why? I didn’t get it, couldn’t understand, couldn’t clear my head fast enough.

I was dizzy and hurt but I turned, anyway.

I saw a frizzy-haired blond woman wearing an over-sized Farm Aid T-shirt. She was still holding the work shovel she’d just clobbered me with.

“Get off my boyfriend!” she screamed at me. Her face and neck were beet red. “Get away from him or I’ll hit you again. You get away from my Davey.”

My Davey?… Jesus! My head was spinning, but I got the message. I thought I did, anyway. Davey Sikes had come out here to see his girlfriend. He wasn’t hunting anyone. He wasn’t here to murder anyone. He was Farm Aid’s boyfriend.

Maybe I’d lost it, I thought as I backed away from Sikes. Maybe I was finally burned beyond a crisp, beyond recognition or redemption. Or maybe I was like almost every other homicide detective I knew—overworked and fallible as hell. I’d made a mistake. I’d been wrong about Davey Sikes—I just didn’t understand how it had happened.

Kyle Craig arrived at the house in McCullers within the hour. He was as calm as ever, completely unruffled. He spoke quietly to me. “Detective Sikes has been having an affair with the woman in the house for over a year. We knew about it. Detective Sikes isn’t a suspect. He isn’t Casanova. Go home, Alex. Just go home now. You’re through here.”

Chapter 119

I DIDN’T go home. I went to visit Kate at Duke University Medical Center. She didn’t look good; she was pale and haggard; she was rail-thin. She didn’t sound good, either. But Kate was much, much improved. She was out of the coma.

“Look who’s finally awake,” I said from the doorway into her room.

“You got one of the bad guys, Alex,” Kate whispered as she saw me. She smiled faintly, and she spoke in a slow, uncertain way. It was Kate, but not quite Kate.

“Did you see that in your dreams?” I asked her.

“Yep.” She smiled again, that sweet smile of hers. She was talking so very slowly. “As a matter of fact, I did.”

“I brought you a little present,” I told her. I held up a teddy bear dressed to look like a doctor. Kate took the bear and she continued to grin. The magical smile almost made her look like her old self.

I put my head down close to Kate’s. I kissed her swollen head as if it were the most delicate flower ever put on the earth.