Inherit the Dead

won the night.

The rain pounds against the glass and you try to stay calm, tamp down your adrenaline as you stare through the windshield of your parked car, lights off, just one more vehicle in a parking lot of vehicles, concealed by darkness and veiled by the weather.
    The neon sign casts wavy colors into the night, and across the parking lot puddles like a psychedelic light show.
    You watch him get out of his car, collar up against the downpour, dash to the motel door.
    You imagine him stripping off his wet clothes, plodding naked to the bathroom, standing under a hot shower—that scene from Psycho suddenly playing in your mind, along with the piercing sound track of harsh and distorted strings and screeching violins. But this time it’s you—you’re in it!—opening the bathroom door, about to tear back the shower curtain and then, then—But how can this be? It’s not him but you in the shower and the kitchen knife is stabbing you, piercing your flesh over and over, blood spurting and mixing with the shower water, and you can’t clear your head or stop the movie.
    You gasp for breath, press the heels of your palms against your eyes until everything goes black.
    It’s the drink. You know you’re not supposed to—not with the meds—but you couldn’t help it.
    You open the car window and lean out. Rainwater spills over your face. It feels good, like a baptism, like you are with Him, your Maker, and your mind starts to ease and your breath to slow because you know He is there for you, just for you, on your side, and everything is going to work out just fine.

7
BRYAN GRULEY
    T he next morning it was gray. Perry had had his fill of the gray, his fill of the Hamptons. He just wanted to get back to the city. Then he spotted the car in his rearview mirror. The same car. Again. Like the gray.
    “Enough,” he said. He sped down the road, then swerved onto the shoulder, his car crunching to a gravel halt. As the car neared, he saw it wasn’t the Toyota but a Mercedes. It slowed, the driver perhaps considering a U-turn that would have been a giveaway, though at this point, Perry wasn’t sure of what. He waited. He had stopped on a stretch with some distance between cross streets so the Mercedes wouldn’t be able to duck away easily.
    He caught a quick glimpse of a woman at the wheel, a brunette in aviator shades, and her license plate. He grabbed his notebook off of the passenger seat and jotted the number down. Ten bucks says it’s Upper East Side, he thought. Only Upper East Side brunettes wore sunglasses in this weather. He checked his rearview once more before pulling back onto the road.

    Waiting in a windowless conference room at East Hampton Police Headquarters, Perry smelled something cooking. He realized he washungry. He’d bought a bagel from a deli near the motel but hadn’t been able to eat it. He’d swiped off half the cream cheese before taking a bite and had gotten some on his pants. He glanced down now at the white streak between his zipper and right pocket. Jesus, he thought, anywhere but there. A cop seeing it might think he’d had a hooker in his passenger seat. Of course, he’d made it worse by trying to wipe it away. Why did they have to slather on so much cream cheese anyway? Was there a surplus they had to bring down? He’d thrown the bagel away after two bites.
    At first, Perry thought the room looked like any other cop-shop meeting room. But he saw no coffee cup rings on the long oaken table. He scanned the beige carpeting. It could have been cleaned the day before. It took him back two years to the Southampton PD, something he wanted to forget. Then there were the framed photos lining the wall facing him, all of various East Hampton chiefs squinting against sun in grip-and-grins with celebrities: Donald Trump, Wendi Murdoch, Dennis Franz. Perry thought of Franz in his NYPD Blue heyday. What would he do to find Angelina Loki? Round up a suspect or two, slap the truth out of them between commercials for beer and tampons?
    A door to Perry’s left swung open, and an officer entered in full uniform: hat perched on head, navy tie knotted and clasped, pistol on hip, handcuffs dangling from belt. Perry couldn’t help but think of Barney Fife. A brass nameplate over the officer’s right breast read GAWAIN . Perry stood, offering his hand and a tentative smile.
    “This isn’t a round table,” he said.
    Gawain had heard the joke, such as it was. “Guh-VAN,” he said, giving