Free Hot Wire by Gary Carson

I turned onto University, I saw a couple radio cars and a cargo van speed by in the other direction, their cherries flashing. The sun cracked the horizon, an orange and violet haze to the east, and the city felt like an alien planet. I didn't have any choice now: I had to run. Driving back to the Marina, one eye on the rearview, I saw a helicopter with a spotlight circling the neighborhood where I used to live.
    I had to get my junk. It was all I had.
    When I got back to the Radisson, I parked as far from my room as I could, then I sat in the car for ten or fifteen minutes, watching the motel and parking lot while the blood dried on my hands. I felt like I'd been attacked by a jackhammer and my face in the rearview looked like something out of a Driver's Ed film about a drunk and a bridge abutment. I was shivering and spaced, chilled to the bone. I must've been in shock. After a while, the sun started to warm me up and I tried to get my act together, brushing twigs out of my hair, mud off my jeans. I didn't have much time.
    The Radisson looked normal – whatever that meant. Clouds piled over the Bay and gulls swarmed the Marina, fighting over scraps of dead fish on the boardwalk. I got out of the car and locked the doors, keeping my head down as a van full of tourists drove through the lot, hunting for a space. A jogger ran past the Marina, trying to keep up with a mutt on a leash. After the van had gone by, I walked over to the Radisson, went in through a side door and headed down a long hall past the lounge and restaurant. A family with a kid walked by and the brat gave me a funny look; I guess he'd never seen a zombie before. I dodged the lobby, then limped past the indoor pool and through another door onto a patio and tiled path leading to the next unit. The channel marker chimed and gulls squawked in the harbor. It was going to be a beautiful day.
    I was dragging now, stiff and sore. A TV jabbered in one of the rooms and I heard somebody come down the stairs behind me and go outside. Turning down the hall to my room, I got really gripped for some reason and stopped dead in my tracks. A horn beeped in the parking lot and I could hear a vacuum cleaner running in some other part of the building. Steffy's face popped into my head, gagged and bug-eyed, her cheeks bruised and smeared with mascara. I tried to blank her out, but the memory of her lying on the bed had been scorched across my brain. Whoever had killed her must've picked the lock on the apartment door, or maybe she'd let them in herself, thinking they were cops, but they were long gone by the time I got there. The goons in the black SUVs showed up later, after I'd arrived, but who were they? They'd identified themselves as cops, but the guy I saw in the alley didn't look like any cop I'd ever seen.
    I wiped my hands on my jeans and walked down to my door, checking the hall in both directions. Nobody was around. I pressed an ear against the door and listened for a while, but all I got was this seashell effect. I had to get my stuff and I had to check out or they'd charge me for another night; then I had to find a teller machine and get some cash for food and gas. Unlocking the door, I walked in, trying to figure out if I should call Deacon and tell him what had happened. Then I realized it was too late for that.
    Baldy sat in the chair by the bed, reading a paper, a cup of coffee in his hand. He looked up and gave me a big grin.
    "Holy shit," he said. "It's Little Bo Peep."
    Somebody stuck a gun in my ear.

Chapter Eight
     

    Crewcut didn't say much. He came out from behind the door, nudging me into the room, then he closed the door, locked it and fastened the chain.
    "Over there." He shoved me against the wall by the writing table with its guidebooks and complimentary stationary. "Hands on the wall. Don't make a sound."
    Deja vu.
    I stared at the motel's breakfast menu, my face burning while he patted me down and dumped my wallet, keys and spare change on the