The Killer Is Dying: A Novel by James Sallis

Author:James Sallis [Sallis, James]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Walker Books
Published: 2011-08-08T12:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

FROM ACROSS THE STREET he watched John Rankin hobble out the side door by the carport and stand in his robe and bare feet. The man had survived the gunshot, would have recovered in short order, but the cardiac arrest had drained him, tapped his body out. You could see the exhaustion in his walk, defeat in the slump of his body. Even at this remove, his skin looked gray. So they’d brought him around, but the heart had been damaged. And once the heart stopped, other organs started sliding south, so he probably had further damage, could be easing into kidney failure. Maybe even a touch of brain dysfunction, to judge by the slight drag of his left foot. A light stroke—or anoxia.

We spend as little time as possible dwelling on the shambles we’re likely to become, and for good reason. TV, movies, they save the guy’s life, the last you see of him he’s getting rolled out of the hospital in a bright chrome wheelchair. Never mind that he can’t feed himself, that his constant drool is so nasty it eats through his shirts, or that he pees himself constantly in little geysers that smell of rot.

Strange neighborhood out here, five minutes from the city, felt more like small town than suburb. Homes with sagging roofs and vehicles parked in the yard abutted others with manicured lawns and monogrammed shutters. One family up the street apparently lived in a front yard packed with chairs, an old couch, children’s wading pools and toys, a table or two, multiple coolers. Walking by another, he wondered when he’d last seen window boxes with flowers in them.

Two days, and no sign of the wife. Social worker of some kind, he remembered. Maybe his information was wrong and they’d split up before this. Or maybe she couldn’t handle what happened, packed it in and walked. Single car, the year-old Hyundai that stayed in the carport. Rankin would come out, pick up the newspaper or look around, go in. Once he came back out right away and half-pulled, half-pushed the recycle bin to curbside. The bench under the picture window in front of the house was thick with spiderwebs. Rankin turned the TV on when he got up in the morning, turned it off when he went to bed for the night. Light flickered against the drapes, and as dark fell you could watch the screen through them.

Okay, so he wasn’t going to let it go.

Not that he had much idea what he was doing here, what he expected. Just he was paying attention, looking as always for the thing that didn’t fit.

Far as he could tell, the cop, Sayles, was out of the picture. He hadn’t expected much to come of that anyway, but hey, good for a try. Hadn’t found out anything more from him and didn’t look like he would. That left Rankin himself.

Christian had been watching for the better part of four days. If the guy’s life was nondescript before, now it had gone positively featureless.

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