Like Jury, his sister was a raven-haired stunner, even on bad days. Sadly, the lingering traumas of childhood had made every day a bad one for Ofelia. She was, as Jury sang, a beautiful mess, and he had frequent cause to rescue her from some not-so-beautiful men. Whether they were lowlifes who exploited her for fun and profit or Lawrence Nightingales who sought to become her savior-with-benefits, they’d all left Ofelia worse for the wear. Some of them had nearly killed her. At Jury’s hands, some of them were nearly killed.
Six months ago, his sister had found solace in the arms of a good woman. Martina Amador was a social worker, a squat and ugly matron who was a full twenty years older than Ofelia. Jury could only imagine their coupling was just another form of self-punishment for his sister, another way to lash out at the universe. And yet under Martina’s care, she actually improved. First she got clean. Then she got hungry. And finally she found employment as a receptionist. She worked now.
Despite all improvements, Jury remained wary of his sister’s lover. When Ofelia declared her intention to move out and live with Martina, the twins fell into strife. They screamed Spanish at each other through her bedroom door twenty-six hours ago.
“How long before she moves on to another fixer-upper?” Jury asked. “How long before she leaves you for a woman even younger, prettier, and more screwed up than you?”
“That’s what you want, isn’t it? You want me to fall back into my old ways so you can be my protector again!”
“You’re wrong!”
“No, you’re the one who’s wrong this time! You’re the one who needs a screwed-up woman to take care of. So just go out and find one already. I can’t be that person anymore!”
Friday was a bad day for Jury Curado, which made it an awful day for the moving violators of Interstate 5. Over the course of his final workday, he reduced three different speeders to sobs and nearly broke the arm of a belligerent drunk driver.
Every Friday night, he played guitar at a tiny downtown coffeehouse. Most of his songs were mellow instrumental numbers, though he’d occasionally sing in Spanish when there was a fetching young woman in the audience. On the eve of his final performance, melancholy and desperation pushed him to snare his chords around a middle-aged bottle-blonde with a screeching, high laugh. He followed her home for drinks and debauchery, then woke up in her bed at 7 A.M. with the scent of bad sex in his nostrils and a thundering drum in his skull.
On the long walk back to his apartment, the oddities of the world began to stack up and unnerve him—the white sky, the chilled air, the blinking traffic lights. He turned a blind corner and was shoved against a building by an unseen aggressor. The guitar case fell to the ground.
“What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy?”
With cold hands and shocking strength, the attacker bent Jury’s arm behind his back.
“You don’t want to do this,” Jury said. “I’m a cop.”
“Shhhh,” a silky smooth voice whispered in his ear. “You hush now, hermano.”
Jury could feel something cool and metallic clasp around his right wrist. He was sure he was being handcuffed, but the second loop never clicked.
“What are you—”
With a warm blast of air, he was suddenly freed from his armlock. He launched from the wall and scanned the area. The only other soul within eyeshot was a tall man in a black T-shirt and slacks, watching him from two blocks away. He tipped his baseball cap at Jury in mock courtesy, then dashed away at a speed normally reserved for cheetahs.
His thoughts in free fall, Jury grabbed on to the nearest logical explanation. That batty woman he slept with must have laced his drinks with something. PCP. Mescaline. There was no other explanation.
Soon he reached his neighborhood, and the end of all doubt.
The debris of a crashed commercial airliner had turned 13th Street into a hellish horror. A battered nose cone lay in front of his local bodega. A smoldering pile of wreckage stood where his apartment building used to be. Jury covered his gaping mouth, stifling a delirious cackle. No. This was just a psychedelic nightmare. A jet plane never crashed into his home, his sister.
Thus Jury Curado, the man of absolute conviction, rode his fervent denial through the end of the world and into the next one. He kept crouched and still in a quiet corner, waiting for the hallucinations to go away.
Unfortunately, the new stranger—this smirking little imp—made the situation more difficult.
“Who the hell are you?” Jury asked.
Evan stood upright and rigid, his lip curled in sharp ridicule. “Sir! Evan Rander reporting for duty, sir!”
“Why is your hand in that cup?”
“Sir! I’m trying to start a trend, sir!”
“Why are you talking like that?”
Evan relaxed his stance. “Can’t help myself. You’re our great leader. Our stalwart commander. You whipped our sorry maggot asses into shape and turned us into a crack fighting unit. Well, except for Mia. Poor little thing.”
Jury clenched his fists, trembling with frustration. Evan exhaled in sympathy. “I know. It’s all very confusing. You want to know why my hand’s in a cup? The answer’s right there on your wrist.”