Dark Angel Before the Dawn da-1

by Max Allan Collins

“You up for some pool, home girl?” Original Cindy asked Max, giving her a sideways look.

  Sketchy shook his head and even Herbal's eyes narrowed in warning.

  “O. C.'s a shark, Max,” Sketchy said. “Watch your ass.”

  “My brother speaks the truth,” Herbal said. “Our sister has already made poor men of us both.”

  “Yeah, but it's still all good, right?” Max glanced toward Original Cindy.

  With a shrug and no chagrin, she said, “What can I say? Original Cindy's better with balls than these boys.”

  Sketchy thought about that, while Max grinned and said, “Well, bring it on, girlfriend, bring it on.”

  Leaving the guys at the table, the two young women— though familiar sights around here, they were followed by every male eye in the bar, and a few female, too— sashayed over to an empty table.

  Though her analytical ability and enhanced eyesight gave her an advantage, Max still lost three straight games to Cindy.

  The encounter with the private detective had been replaying in her mind ever since leaving the Laundromat. Jam Pony paid peanuts, and her bankroll from Moody had been eaten up by travel expenses and the cost of living, not the least of which was paying off that cop at squatter's row. Now she needed a cool k, in less than twenty-four hours… and she had no idea where she was going to get it.

  “Had enough, girl?” Original Cindy asked, leaning on her cue.

  Max nodded slowly and they headed back to the table.

  “You okay, Boo? Your mind's on some other planet.”

  “Just a little distracted.”

  They reached the table, where Sketchy and Herbal sat before an empty pitcher, with the slightly buzzed expressions to match.

  “Somethin' Original Cindy can do?”

  “Just workin' out some private stuff.”

  “Well, you call me in off the bench, girl, when the game goes into sudden death.”

  Max smiled at her friend… maybe her best friend. “Yeah?”

  “Hell yeah!”

  Snatching up the pitcher, Max said, “My turn to buy,” and moved off toward the bar. She was almost there when two guys in the far corner triggered her peripheral vision. Crash wasn't crowded at this hour, and two guys confabbing so far from everybody else in the place put them on Max's radar.

  With a seemingly casual sideways glance, she focused in and watched as a wad of cash passed between them… also a package the size of a fist, wrapped in brown paper, passing the other way.

  Drug deal.

  Max had an instinctive dislike of hard drugs— possibly linked to the medical tampering she'd been subjected to— and suddenly, an inner smile forming, she knew exactly where the money for Vogelsang was going to come from…

  She had always been that kind of thief. Moody had made sure to send her after unsavory types; something about crooking a crook just… sat better with Max. This would be like ripping off the Brood, only minus the acrobatics— easy, profitable, and stealing from guys who weren't exactly model citizens, anyway.

  The bartender gave her the pitcher, she paid, and hustled back to the table, her smile wide and genuine.

  “Nectar,” Sketchy said, accepting the pitcher as if an award for Best Bike Messenger 2019, and started sloshingly filling glasses.

  “Just say no,” Max said, holding up a hand to block Sketchy from pouring her another glass; her peripheral vision still trailed the drug dealers, who were on the move.

  So was she.

  “Gotta jet,” she said.

  Original Cindy looked at her with only partly feigned outrage. “Yo, Boo, you just got here! What can be more important than kickin' it with your homeys?”

  “Just remembered an errand I've got to run… for me, not Normal.”

  “Take care, my sister,” Herbal said, in benediction.

  “Catch ya in the mornin', girl,” Original Cindy said, picking up on Max's distracted gaze but unable to latch onto whatever Max was trained on.

  Sketchy saluted her with a beer glass but said nothing, having just moved into a nonverbal state.

  The two drug dealers split out different exits. Max tailed after the one with the cash— dealing the drugs was a line she couldn't cross.

  Outside, the light was little better than in the bar, and Max couldn't tell much about the guy except he was tall, and so skinny he seemed lost in that expensive brown leather jacket; also, he had short brown hair, big ears, and walked with a definite slouch. Except for the short hair, from this distance, he could've been Sketchy.

  She stayed with him for several blocks, on foot, on the opposite side of the street, hanging back enough to keep the guy from making her. The brown leather jacket kept moving, and half a dozen blocks melted away, as he led her into a seedier side of the city than she'd yet seen as a messenger. Max was still more than a block behind him when three figures emerged from the shadows and planted themselves in front of the guy.

  They obviously planned to rip him before

  she

  did— and that pissed her off!

  As she crept forward, she watched two of the interlopers move to either side of the dealer, leaving the third facing their mark. These were wide, tough men, buzz-cut white guys in muscle shirts who'd pumped themselves into brawny animals— blocky torsos with arms, legs, and no necks, possibly part of a local neo-Nazi group, the Swatzis, known to loot dealers and then peddle their own shit through intermediaries to minorities… making money off their idea of homegrown genocide.

  The apparent leader, positioned in front of the dealer, stepped forward. Trimly Satan-bearded, he was smaller, still muscular, though he probably depended more on his brain than his brawn. Plus, there was that nine-millimeter auto in his hand…

  “Give up the money, lowlife, and you just might limp away.”

  Traffic was nil; Max didn't even have to look both ways when she raced across the street in an eyeblink, and sprang high; she came down in the middle of the four men as if she'd fallen from outer space, poised with catlike grace in a battle stance.

  Their mouths all dropped open at once.

  One at a time, she closed them.

  Starting with the devil-bearded gunman: she decked him with a left, the automatic flying out of his hand and clattering to the street; then she spun, taking out the nearest would-be Nazi with a sweeping kick. Down low, she swung an uppercut to the dealer's groin, and, coming up, headbutted the last Nazi and watched him teeter, then tumble to the sidewalk, as unconscious as the cement that received him.

  The scrawny, big-eared dealer rolled on the ground, his hands clutching his jewels. The Nazi she'd kicked to the pavement struggled to his knees in time for his face to halt a flying kick from Max. He, too, fell unconscious, his face a bleeding, broken mess. Scrabbling in the street to find and snatch up his pitched pistol, which he managed, the gunman turned, grinning, raising the automatic as he came.

  Just as he leveled the gun, Max dropped and rolled toward him, exploding out of the roll with a vicious blade of a left hand that chopped the gun from the man's hand, then sent a chop across the bridge of his nose, which broke it, leaving him bloody and unconscious on the sidewalk near his buzz-cut companions.

  “I hate guns,” Max said, not winded.

  Sucking air like a two-pack-a-day smoker, the dealer— his hands still protecting his crotch— made it to his knees. “You… you saved my life,” he managed.

  “That's right.”

  “But I think you broke my balls… ”

  Looking down at him, she said, “Ice pack may help. Just wanted to make sure you didn't book.”

  His eyes were as wide as a puppy begging a bone. “But… why? If you were gonna rescue me… why?… ”

  Arms folded, Max stood amid the fallen Nazis, all of whom were slumbering, and said, “Just didn't want you to leave without paying.”

  The Dumbo-eared dealer's face went blank. “Huh?”

  “You think I saved your life out of the goodness of my heart?”

 
“I was… kinda hoping… ”

  Max shook her head, dark locks bouncing. “What world do you live in?… Hand over the wad.”

  The dealer's voice came out a squeak: “You're…

  muggin'

  me?”

  “That's such an ugly term. Let's just say I'm claiming my reward for savin' your scrawny ass.”

  “But… I don't have any money.”

  “Aw, you just want me to put my hands on you,” Max said. “I'm flattered… left front pocket. The money you made tonight at Crash? Selling whatever drugs were in the brown paper wrapper.”

  He winced. “You saw that?”

  “I recommend a dark alley next time. Time-honored thing, y'know. Give.”

  His hands came off his privates and folded prayerfully; begging. “Please… please… you

  can't

  take the money… if I don't pay my connection, he'll kill my ass!”

  “Here's how this works— I just gave you a reprieve. Next death sentence, you're on your own. You rather I knock your lights out, so you can wake up about the same time as the master race, here?”

  “I'm not kidding, lady… really, he's a badass… he'll kill me… real slow.”

  Max sighed, shook her head. “You run with a rough crowd, son, you break a toenail now and then.”

  “Jesus! This is

  serious shit!

  ”

  The gunman seemed to be rousing, and Max kicked him in the head, then said to the jug-eared beggar, “If you run you might get away… you can start over. Find a new life, or stay a lowlife, down in Portland or Frisco.”

  He got himself to his feet. “What the hell with?”

  “With your skin for starters. Hock the jacket.” She pulled back, ready to hit him again. “Or lights-out… ”

  “All right, all right!”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the wad.

  Taking it, Max asked, “How much?”

  “Fifteen hundred… Maybe you could steer your way clear to… ”

  She glared at him. “Disappear.”

  The dealer took her advice.

  She trotted off toward Crash, where her bike waited, even as the dealer's shoes hammered the concrete as he ran-limped as far away from her as possible, making hollow echoes in the night.

  The next afternoon Max found Vogelsang camped behind his desk, stuffing an Oreo into his mouth.

  “Health food?” she said, stepping from the shadows.

  The big man jumped— he hadn't heard her come in. His eyes shot from her toward the double doors and the front of the laundry where the Asian woman was supposed to screen his visitors.

  “I found another way in,” she said.

  “What the hell… what the hell you doing here?”

  “Didn't you pencil me in?” she asked, stepping up to the desk, arching an eyebrow. “You did say a thousand.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  She tossed a thick envelope onto his desk. He looked at it as if it might bite, then picked it up, juggled it once, twice. He looked in the envelope— it wasn't sealed— and studied the thickness of green admiringly.

  “That's a thousand,” she said.

  “It would seem to be.”

  “Go ahead and count it.”

  “Naw… I wouldn't insult you.” He set the package of Oreos aside, wiped his mouth with the back of a hand, and sat back in his chair. “Now… who is it you want me to find?”

  “Two people.”

  “But this is

  one

  thousand. What, are they together?”

  She shook her head.

  He cocked his bucket head and made the peace sign. “Max, that's two cases… one, two.”

  “Be that way,” she muttered, and reached for the wad of bills. “I'll find somebody who likes my money.”

  “Whoa, whoa— no need to go off like a little firecracker… I like your money just fine. I'll take this as a down payment, if you understand with two cases, more time is obviously gonna be involved… and we'll go from there.”

  Max didn't move for a long moment, then slowly relaxed and dropped into the chair behind her.

  “Tell me about your two people,” Vogelsang said, the money disappearing into a desk drawer.

  “First one is male— white, about my age, athletic, badass.”

  “Distinguishing marks?”

  She paused. “A barcode on the back of his neck.”

  Vogelsang looked up. “A what?”

  She repeated what she'd said, adding, “Just a funky tattoo… you know how it goes with us weird-ass kids.”

  That seemed to answer it for Vogelsang, who began scrawling some notes. “Any idea where he is?”

  “Here. Seattle.”

  “It's a big city.”

  “And it's your city, Mr. Vogelsang. That's why I'm hiring you. If it was easy, I'd have found him by now.”

  “Give me a more detailed description. More than just a badass with a barcode.”

  She thought about that, then said, “Six-one, one-ninety maybe, dark hair… I think.”

  Vogelsang's eyes vanished into slits. “You think?”

  “Saw him for ten seconds on a crappy video feed.”

  She explained about what she'd seen on the news show, and that she thought she'd recognized a long-lost “relative.”

  “Might be able to get that clip from somebody I know at SNN,” Vogelsang said, almost to himself. “He got a name, this long-lost relation?”

  “Seth.”

  “Last name?”

  She shook her head. “Don't know. He'd be using different ones. Maybe even different first names.”

  Vogelsang studied the pad, then looked up at her. “Anything else? This is pretty slim.”

  “The news story said he might be working with an underground journalist— Eyes Only?”

  The detective's eyes widened, and one of them twitched at the corner; he seemed to turn a whiter shade of pale. “Is that right… ”

  “Why? Is that gonna be a problem?”

  The big man shrugged. “Could be. This Eyes Only guy, he's on the g's shit list. Politics make me nervous. Plus, this Eyes Only dude, he's messed some people up… doesn't like to be interfered with. Takes himself

  way

  too serious… ”

  Max offered the investigator a reassuring smile. “You find Seth, I'll take care of Eyes Only… I'll take the heat…

  if

  there's a problem.”

  Flipping a page in the notebook, Vogelsang said, “Okay— who's missing person number two?”

  Max sighed. “Afraid this is gonna be tough, too… maybe even tougher: a woman, Hannah, and that's all the name I've got.”

  “What does she look like?”

  Max considered the private eye's question, replayed that first night of freedom in her head. In her mind's eye appeared a woman in her thirties with dishwater blond hair to her shoulders and wide-set blue eyes the color of a mountain stream… staring down at Max in her memory, as if the nine-year-old were still on that car floor.

  She gave Vogelsang the description.

  “Anything else?”

  The Tahoe dived into a valley, then roared up beside Max, the tires sliding a little as the driver stomped on the brakes and locked them up. Max glimpsed the Wyoming plate, AGT 249, then the driver finally got control of the vehicle and pulled to a stop.

  Max told him the license number.

  “That's it?”

  “She may have been a nurse, or some other kind of medical personnel. Maybe for the federal government.”

  Vogelsang wrote that down. He looked up, his smile friendly. “Okay… give me a week. You got a number?”

  “Pager.” She gave him the number.

  “Okay, Max— I'll call when I've got something.”

  “For a grand— you better.”

  Outside the Sublime Laundry, Max hopped on the Ninja and headed for her crib. She felt both closer and farther from her sibs than she ever
had.

  Unless the media attention had spooked him, Seth was somewhere in this city,

  right now

  …

  In the meantime, while Vogelsang did his thing, she'd be doing hers, just fitting in with her new Jam Pony family.

  Funny… in her brief time on the planet, Max had been part of… and lost… three different families. First the Manticore sibs, then the Barretts, and finally the Chinese Clan.

  She'd been separated from her siblings by a strange confluence of force and circumstance; and fleeing Mr. Barrett had been self-defense.

  Still, sometimes late at night… and tonight would be one of those… she felt a twinge of guilt for abandoning Lucy, and for running out on Moody and Fresca and the others.

  She wondered if the Jam Pony bunch would be just as impermanent.

  Chapter Seven

  THEATER PARTY

  THE CHINESE THEATRE

  LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, 2019

  Two days ago, it had begun.

  A quartet of Moody's kids— ranging in age between fourteen and eighteen— had been cut down by sniper fire from the half-standing structure of the former Roosevelt Hotel. Two boys, two girls, shaken like the naughty children they were, were dropped in a mist of blood to the cracked cement squares where hands and feet of forgotten celebrities remained on pointless display.

  Every attempt to leave the building, through whatever exit, had resulted in a hail of slugs flinging Moody's people to the pavement in a sprawl of death. Pinned down like this— based upon the food and ammunition on hand— Moody and his crew couldn't last longer than a week. But should be time enough to plan, to react effectively, even to wait for support from the city or the feds.

  The youth of his clan, however, was a problem— even in a cavernous auditorium like that of the Chinese Theatre, a sense of claustrophobia could descend… that is, when you knew that stepping outside the building would end your life in echoing gunfire. Sandbags, furniture, crates, old theater seats, and anything else not nailed down had been arranged throughout the theater as little aboveground bunkers. Moody would move among them— floating like a silver-ponytailed shadow, a flowing black bathrobe loose over black T-shirt and jeans, for melodramatic effect— calming them with words and gestures, assuring them their fortress was impregnable.