Free Dead Mann Walking by Stefan Petrucha Page B

cops really were headed this way, I swear I could hear their brows furrowing. It was only when the brakes squealed right outside the building and the police tromped into the lobby that it finally occurred to them something was up and they stopped trying to move the bike.
    Great entertainment, but Turgeon was the only one expecting an actual rescue. The rest of us figured the cops would end up on the hakkers’ side, especially with two liveblood corpses upstairs, three, if the werewolf died in the crash.
    Any minute now, we’d be facing guns along with the chain saws.
    Loud and irritated the way only cops can be, their commanding voices filled the air, demanding to know what the fuck was going on. We all got quiet the way only dead things can. The silence is kind of a group thing. If one of us does it, everyone joins in. It’s like yawning. We’re great to be around in libraries, except for the smell. It also made it easier to hear what was going on above.
    Not that it was tough. The boys in blue made as much noise as possible, like they wanted to give any LBs in earshot a chance to vacate and avoid trouble. That was a good sign. Another good sign was the sudden change in the hakkers’ topics of conversation. Instead of macho whoops and gleeful academic questions like, “Who wants a piece of this next?” they were talking about packing up and getting the hell out.
    But one idiot straggler—there’s always one—drunk as a skunk, unable to believe his eyes, actually screamed at the cops, “What the fuck you doing here?”
    I was almost thinking I’d pull through this mess in one piece until I heard the sandpaper-against-a-bass-drum voice that answered. Angry, full of bile. How do I put it? It was the kind of voice that even if you knew the owner was supposed to protect you, you’d rather take your chances with the crooks.
    â€œYou’ve got a lawyer stuck down there, dipshit! Get that twisted hunk of crap away from the door before I put you in lockup and introduce your fat ass to some real criminals.”
    Boyle blew out his lighter. A metal groan filled the dark.
    â€œHey, man, easy on my bike, okay?”
    So the wash-and-werewolf had survived the impact. Only two bodies, then.
    He was told to shut the fuck up. The mangled doorknob jiggled; the door shifted like a sarcophagus lid, then froze. It wouldn’t give.
    I heard that voice again: “There a Sturgeon down there?”
    From the gloom, my client’s shiny head rose like a miniature sun. He shifted past the quiet dead, a twitchy smile on his face, and stopped at the base of the stairs.
    â€œTurgeon. William Turgeon. Yes. Could you . . . identify yourself?”
    â€œYou hurt?”
    â€œI don’t think so. I’m not bleeding. Could you identify yourself, please?”
    â€œHe won’t answer,” I whispered. “Not even with the magic word. It’s Tom Booth, head of Fort Hammer homicide.”
    Turgeon gave me a quizzical look. “Isn’t he . . . ?”
    I nodded. “My old boss.”
    Also the man who diddled my wife and found me standing in a pool of her blood. Small world. Tiny world. So tiny, sometimes I wish I could put it between my thumb and forefinger and crush the damn thing. Booth must have caught a night shift, thanks to the budget cuts. Dragging his ass out here was the last thing either of us needed.
    A stubborn son of a bitch, he went at the door again, pulling, yanking, kicking, growling. Much as he might be our savior, no one from our side helped. I could feel the dead stiffen around me, worried they’d fallen from the pan into the fire. They must have heard me say his name. Booth hated me most, but after that, it was any other chak. He figured we were all RAR. Any overturned conviction was like someone tracking mud across his nice clean kitchen floor.
    After a few full, long minutes, the yanking stopped.
    â€œCould you ladies stop scratching