Read Crucifax for Free Online Page B

DiPesto tonight and he figured Towne could use the practice. Rookies were always shocked to find that most of the people they dealt with were Mrs. DiPestos, and not rapists and serial killers like on television.
    To Grady's left were the back fences of the houses along Whitley; to his right was a tall Cyclone fence crawling with vines and shrubbery and lined with garbage cans.
    The alley itself was quiet, but there were sounds in the distance: cars, music, shouting, a barking dog, a siren. Above the trees on the other side of the fence, Grady could see the glow from the lights of Studio City. The thick, balmy air seemed to pour into his lungs when he inhaled.
    Something clanged behind him.
    Grady spun around.
    His flashlight beam caught the jittering movement of a garbage can lid that had fallen to the pavement.
    Probably just a cat, he thought, but he headed back that way just in case. He doubted he would find the guy, but he wanted to give Towne enough time to finish up with Mrs. DiPesto.
    He started toward Ventura, shining his light between garbage cans and behind trash bins where flies buzzed hungrily. As he neared the boulevard the alley brightened, and he flicked off the flashlight.
    A cat dived from a fence and crouched before him, then darted by him with a low, throaty meeeoowww.
    Tapping the long flashlight against his thigh, Grady stopped and looked around him. The kid was probably in another neighborhood by now, trying to hit another house. Or maybe he was on the boulevard, lost in the waves of other teenagers prowling the sidewalks like stray cats in a wrecking yard. With one more glance toward Ventura, Grady passed between two houses, got back on Whitley, and headed for Mrs. DiPesto's.
    Then he stopped.
    He craned his head around and looked over his shoulder.
    At the end of the street to the right was the corner of a large building. It used to be the Studio City Fitness Center. Before that, it had been a nightclub for a decade or so. When that had closed four years ago, some Arab had bought it and turned it into a health club. A "deluxe health club," the ads had said. He'd bought the lot next to it and expanded the building, put in a huge underground swimming pool and racquetball court—the whole nine yards— then launched an expensive ad campaign to convince everyone that they weren't really in shape unless they were paying an arm and a leg to exercise at his club.
    The place had attracted a lot of movie and television people from the nearby studios, as well as a lot of yuppies who wanted to watch the stars sweat and maybe even find a hard body to curl up with that night.
    A year and a half after the grand opening, "faulty wiring" (according to the papers) had gutted the place with fire.
    Instead of rebuilding, the Arab let the place sit. Eventually, for sale signs showed up on the walls of the building, their red and blue letters seeming bright next to the yawning, blackened windows.
    A few months later, some of the local teenagers had adopted the abandoned building as a meeting place where they went to listen to those damned noise boxes they carried, take drugs, and fuck like rabbits. Grady was one of the three cops who had busted them one night after a series of complaints from nearby residents. They'd had quite a setup: cushions and blankets spread over the bottom of the empty pool, iceboxes for beer and wine, a complete stock of hard liquor—everything a bunch of horny teenagers could want. When Grady and the other uniforms had gone in, the large rooms downstairs where the kids had set up house reeked of marijuana, and the floor was littered with cigarette butts and used condoms.
    After the teenagers had been kicked out, the building had been boarded up and locked more securely than before. Since then there had been no problem.
    Until, perhaps, now.
    Something caught Grady's eye. It might have been the reflection of a passing car's headlights, but he thought he saw a flicker of light through a space in