Chapter Forty-six

I was boxing with Jacky.

It was late afternoon and I was tired and my hands kept dropping. Jacky hated when my hands dropped and he let me know it. I was working on a punching bag while he stood behind it, absorbing my blows. Each punch seemed to knock the little Irishman off balance a little more. I had learned not to hit the bag with all my strength, or even half my strength, as such blows would send the little man rebounding off the bag as if it had been an electrified fence.

Even in the late afternoon, with the sun not fully set and my strength nowhere near where it could be, my punches had a lot of pop behind them.

I'm such a freak.

And as Jacky worked me in three minute drills - equivalent to boxing rounds - I was pouring sweat. I sometimes wondered what my sweat would look like under a microscope. Was it the same as anyone else's sweat? Was my DNA vastly different? Would a lab technician, studying my little squigglies under the lens, shit his pants if he saw what I was really made up of?

And what was I made up of? Who knows.

Still, it gave me an idea. A very interesting idea. Hmm....

"Hands up, wee girl. Hands - "

I hit the bag hard, so hard that it rebounded back into Jacky's face and caused him, I think, to bite his lip. Oops. He cursed and held on tight, but at least he shut the hell up about my damn hands.

Easy girl. He's just doing his job.

I was in a mood. A foul mood. I needed to punch something and punch it hard, but I didn't want to hurt Jacky. A conundrum, for sure.

And as I wrapped up the fourteenth round, finishing in a flurry of punches that made Jacky, no doubt, regret taking me on as a client, Detective Sherbet stepped into the gym. The heavy-set detective looked around, blinking hard, eyes adjusting to the gloom, spotted me, and then motioned for me to come over. I told Jacky I would be back, and the little Irishman, wiping the blood from his lip, seemed only too relieved to be rid of me for a few minutes.

I grabbed a towel and soon the detective and I were sitting on a bench in the far corner of the gym. I was sweating profusely and continuously drying myself. Sherbet was wearing slacks and a nice shirt. There was a fresh jelly stain near one of the buttons. The buttons were doing all they could to contain his girth.

"You sweat a lot for a girl," he said.

"I've heard that before."

Sherbet grinned. "It's not necessarily a bad thing."

"I've heard that before, too. So how did you find me, Detective?"

"I happen to be an ace investigator. That, and Monica told me."

I nodded. "And to what do I owe the honor?"

Sherbet was looking at me closely, and perhaps a little oddly. If I had to put a name to it, I would say he was looking at me suspiciously.

He said, "Ira Lang is dead."

"What a shame."

"You don't seem surprised."

"I'm too tired to seem surprised," I said. "There's a reason for all this sweat, you know."

"Don't you care how he died?"

"No."

"His neck was broken."

I made a noncommittal sound. Sherbet interlaced his fingers and formed a sort of human cup with the palms of his hands. He tapped the tips of his thumbs together. Nearby, somebody was kicking a heavy bag with a lot of power.

"It happened last night, in his cell."

I kept saying nothing. Sweat continued to drip, and I continued to mop my brow. I didn't look at Sherbet.

The detective said, "There was an explosion of some type, which blasted a hole into his cell. Crazy, I know, but someone broke into his cell."

"You're not making sense, Detective."

"None of it makes sense, Sam. Whatever broke into his cell appears to have killed him, as well. Nearly ripped his head clean off."

I listened to a woman hi-yah-ing! with her trainer, grunting the word with each kick or punch. I wanted to hi-yah her face.

"Prison officials don't know what to make of it. The explosion rocked the whole building. Everyone felt it, even those a few buildings away felt it. But there was no evidence of an explosion. It was as if a massive cannonball had been launched at the wall."

"Detective, if I didn't know better, I would say you've been sneaking in some of the hard stuff during your lunch breaks."

He mostly ignored me, although he might have cracked a smile. "They're keeping it out of the press. They have to. Something like this can't get out. Besides, what do they report?"

"So Ira is really dead?"

"Yes."

"And this story of yours is real?"

"So far, it's not much of a story. The warden and his men have no clue what happened."

"And there were no witnesses?"

"Oh, there was a witness."

"What did he see?"

"A guard working the tower heard the explosion. Everyone did. He started looking for the source and found the gaping hole in the Death Row wing. A moment later, he sees what he claims is a naked woman jump from the opening." I burst out laughing, but Sherbet ignored me and continued on. "The guard had been in the process of reporting the hole to the warden when the woman jumped out of Ira's cell. The guard was a fraction of a second too late getting back to his light. The woman disappeared and the last he reports is something quite large and black flew directly over the tower. The woman was never found."

"Was she seen on video?"

"The video they have shows the wall caving in from an unknown impact. An invisible impact. Nothing else can be seen. Nothing inside, since the angle was wrong. And not the woman or whatever the guard had seen flying overhead."

"Did he say what the woman looked like?" I asked.

"He did. Slender. Long black hair. Pale skin. Did a swan dive out of the hole in the wall."

"Any DNA evidence left behind at the scene?"

"None so far, but they're working on it."

I nodded. "And how do you know all of this?"

"Warden is a friend of mine. Ira was my business. And I'm an acquaintance of yours, a woman who had physically assaulted Ira just a week and a half earlier."

"I'm just an acquaintance? I'm hurt."

Sherbet had been watching me closely during this whole exchange. I had been watching two women sparring in the center ring. Both women looked like they would have trouble punching through a wet paper towel. One of them actually turned and ran, squealing.

"There was something else on the video."

Uh, oh. "Please tell me you didn't bring another portable DVD player," I said.

Sherbet chuckled. "No. I learned my lesson with that damned thing. I'll summarize for you. Just after the explosion, the video captured something else. Granted, the camera was only partially facing the wall - and at this time, the spotlight wasn't yet on the hole in the wall - but we can see what appears to be broken bricks and rocks rising in the air and falling on their own."

"Maybe the prison is haunted," I said.

"If I had to guess, I would say it looked like someone - or something - was getting up from the floor. And the chunks of wall were falling away from the body."

"An invisible body," I reminded.

That stopped him. He ducked his head and rubbed his face and groaned a little. He turned and looked at me a moment later, and the poor guy looked truly tortured. The confident detective was gone, replaced by a man who was truly searching for answers.

"What do you make of all that, Sam?" he asked.

"I think someone invisible might have killed Ira," I said.

"Maybe. Is there anything else you would like to add?"

"It's a wild story, Detective," I said, standing. "You boys might want to keep it to yourselves. You wouldn't want the rest of the world thinking that invisible assassins are killing prisoners at Chino State Prison."

I hated lying to the detective, but I had been lying for so long now about my condition it truly came as second nature for me. Still, I hated to see the confused anguish on his face.

Sherbet nodded and looked at his empty hands. I think he was wishing a big fat donut was in one of those hands. Or both hands. The detective nodded some more, this time to himself, I think, and then stood. As he stood, his knees popped so loudly that a girl walking by snapped her head around and looked at us.

The detective looked down at me and said, "I still have questions for you, Sam."

"And I'm still here, Detective."

He nodded and left, limping slightly.

Chapter Forty-seven

Monica and I were in my hotel room, sitting crossed-legged in the center of the bed, holding hands. I had just told her that her husband of thirteen years, a husband who had twice tried to kill her and who, in fact, succeeded in killing her father, was dead. I left out the facts of his death. I told her only that her ex-husband had died suddenly.

Very suddenly, I thought.

Amazingly, Monica broke down. She cried hard for a long, long time. Sometimes I wondered if she even knew why she was crying. I suspected that emotions - many different emotions - were sweeping through her, purging her, one set of emotions blending into another, causing more and more tears, until at last she had cried herself out, and now we sat holding hands in the center of the bed.

"So there's no one trying to hurt me anymore?" she finally asked.

"No one's trying to hurt you," I promised. In fact, Detective Sherbet had just sent me a very choppy and error-filled text message (I could just see his thick sausage fingers hunting and pecking over his cell's tiny keyboard) that he had had a heart-to-heart with the accused hitman. The hitman, currently awaiting arraignment for conspiracy to attempt murder, understood that his employer - in this case Ira Lang - was dead.

The hotel was oddly quiet, even to my ears. No elevator sounds. No creaking. No laughing. And no squeaking bed springs.

After a moment, Monica said, "I can't believe he's dead."

I remembered the way Ira's head had dropped to the side, held in place by only the skin of his neck. I had no problem believing he was dead.

"So I guess you're done protecting me?" she added.

"Yes," I said. "But I'm not done being your friend. If you ever need anything, call me. If you're ever afraid, call me. If you ever need help in any way, call me. If you ever want to go dancing, call me."

She laughed, but mostly she cried some more and now she leaned into me and hugged me, and when she pulled away, she looked at me closely.

"Your hands are always cold," she said, her tiny voice barely above a whisper.

"Yes. I'm always cold."

"Always?"

I thought about that. Yeah, I was usually cold, except when I was flush with blood, especially fresh blood. I kept that part to myself.

"Is that part of your sickness?" she asked.

"Yes."

"I'm so sorry you're sick, Samantha."

"So am I."

She held my hands even tighter in a show of solidarity. And like a small child who's always looking to make things better, she swung my hands out a little. "Did you really mean the part about dancing?"

"Sure," I said. "I haven't been dancing in a long time."

"I'm a good dancer," she said.

"I bet you are."

There was a knock on the door, and I got up and checked the peephole and let Chad in. He came bearing flowers and wearing nice cologne. I mentioned something about the flowers being for me and he said in my dreams. My ex-partner was in love, but certainly not with me. I looked over at Monica who brightened immediately at the sight of Chad, or perhaps the flowers. Whether or not she was in love, I didn't know, but, I think, she was in a better place to explore such feelings. In the least, she was now free to love.

Chad pulled me aside and we briefly discussed Ira's crazy death. He wanted to know if I had any additional information and I told him I didn't. We both agreed Ira's death was crazy as hell and both wondered what had happened. We concluded that we may never know, and it was doubtful the prison was coming clean with all the facts. We both concluded that there was some sort of cover-up going on. The cover-up idea was mine, admittedly.

Chad looked at me, but I could tell he was itching to get back to Monica, who was currently inhaling every flower in the bouquet. Chad said, "She'll be safe with me. Always."

"That's good."

"I won't let anyone ever hurt her."

"You are a good man."

"I love her."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"Do you think she loves me?"

"I don't know," I said. "But I think the two of you are off to a great start."

He nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, I do too."

The two of them left, together, arm-in-arm, and I suddenly found myself alone in my hotel room for the first time in a few weeks. I went out to my balcony and lit a cigarette and stared silently up at the pale, nearly full moon.

My thoughts were all over the place. I was hungry. Starving, in fact. I hadn't eaten in days. I thought of the chilled packets of blood in my hotel refrigerator and made a face, nearly gagging at the thought.

My scattered thoughts eventually settled on Stuart, my bald client. And I kept thinking about him even as my forgotten cigarette finally burned itself out.