Free They Thirst by Robert McCammon Page A

while Palatazin watched it all through the window of a pizza parlor, buying a twelve-inch mushroom and black olive to carry back across the street to the car. They'd been staking out a suspect in the robbery-murder of a black heroin dealer, and much later, after the shooting was all over and Palatazin had vomited the last stink of gunpowder from his nostrils, he realized that the man must've figured out he was being watched and panicked, shoving his stolen .45 right through the passenger window into George's face. Palatazin had chased him over five blocks, and finally on a tenement stairway, the man had turned to make his stand. Palatazin had blasted him away with a pizza-smeared trigger finger.
    His mother had cried for a long time when he'd told her that he thought he'd felt a bullet hiss past his head. She'd said she was going to the commissioner to have him given safer duty, but of course that didn't happen. The next day she'd forgotten everything he'd told her, and she was talking about how beautiful the summer flowers must be along the streets of Budapest.
    Now Palatazin found himself staring at the hand that had held the gun that July 6. Anya, he thought: the Magyar word for mother. I saw my mother's ghost last night. He looked up into Jo's eyes. "I had a strange dream last night," he said and smiled slightly. "I thought I saw Mama sitting in her rocking chair in our bedroom. I haven't dreamed about her for a long time. That's strange, isn't it?"
    "What happened?"
    "Nothing. She . . . motioned with her hand. Pointed, I think. I'm not sure."
    "Pointed? At what?"
    He shrugged, "Who knows? I can't read dreams." He stood up from the table and looked at his wristwatch; it was time to go. "I have an idea," he said, putting his arms around his wife's waist. "I'll come home early and take you to The Budapest for dinner. Would you like that?"
    "I'd like for you to stay home today, that's what I'd like." She thrust out her lower lip for a moment and then reached up to brush the half-halo of gray hair at the crest of his head. "But The Budapest would be nice, I think."
    "Good. And music! Fine ciganyzene! Yes?"
    She smiled. "Yes."
    "We have a date then." He patted her rear affectionately and then pinched it. She made a mock clucking noise with her tongue and followed him out to the living room where from a closet he took his dark blue coat and a black hat that had seen its day years before. She held his coat for him while he strapped on a black leather shoulder-holster, all the time staring distastefully at the .38 Police Special it held. Struggling into the coat and crowning himself with the ragged-looking hat, he was ready to go. "Have a good day," he said on the front porch steps and kissed her cheek.
    "Be careful!" Jo called to him as he walked to the old white Ford Falcon at the curb. "I love you!"
    He raised a hand and slid into the car. In another moment it was rattling away down Romaine Street. A brown mongrel darted out from a hedge to chase it until it was out of sight.
    Jo closed the door and locked it. The Roach! she thought and felt like spitting because even the sound of that terrible word made her sick. She moved back into the kitchen, intent on washing the dishes, sweeping and mopping the floor, then doing some weeding in the garden. But she was bothered by something beyond the Roach, and it took her a few minutes to find it lurking within herself. Andy's dream about his mother. Her gypsy instincts were keen and curious. Why was Andy thinking about her, dreaming about her again? Of course, the old woman had been insane, and of course, it was better now that she was dead and not wasting away day by day as she had been in that bed in the Golden Garden Home for the Aged. "I don't read dreams," Andy had said. But perhaps, Jo thought, I should ask someone who does? It might be an omen of the future.
    She turned on the hot water tap and for the moment closed the mental cupboard on the age-old art of