Red Tide Read Free Page B

park itself, normally awash in crack dealers this time of night, was now completely deserted, its trimmed trees and tourist trap totem poles swallowed whole by the liquid night. The sound of hooves on stone heralded a pair of mounted cops. Corso turned his head in time to watch the white-helmeted officers bounce along the line of demarcation at a brisk trot.
    Dougherty kicked at a retreating pigeon and missed. “I don’t fucking believe it,” she said. “This’s gotta be a joke.”
    Corso merely grunted. First Tuesday of the month—Art Walk Night—and Occidental Square had taken on the look of a science fiction movie. One of those end-of-the-world disaster flicks where the city stands deserted after the Martians take over.
    Inside the brightly lit galleries, bottles of wine and trays of hors d’oeuvres waited like jilted lovers. In front of the Parker-Holmes Gallery, a cigarette still smoldered on the rough stones, sending its thin plume of smoke up into the dark night sky.
    “Don’t worry about it,” Corso offered.
    “What do you mean don’t worry about it? The most important night of my life goes right down the toilet, and you tell me not to worry about it?”
    “It’s out of our hands.”
    Her boot made another pass at the pigeon and, once again, missed. “Easy for you to say. You’re the big-time famous author, not the town freak.”
    “Stop it.”
    She opened her mouth to speak, but Corso beat her to it. “I can’t imagine what somebody might have spilled that would necessitate evacuating eight square blocks of a major metropolitan area.”
    “That’s what they always do. Evacuate the city.”
    “Only in the movies. Anybody in emergency response will tell you—”
    “Whatever,” she snapped. “All I know for sure is that my big show is going to sink beneath the waves without so much as a ripple. I’m gonna be back in obscurity so fast it’ll—”
    “Gotta be something super toxic.”
    “Four years of work, and there isn’t gonna be one goddamn thing in tomorrow’s paper but whatever disaster they’ve got going on back there.” Before Corso could reply, she went on. “You know how they love a disaster. By now, they’ve worked up a fanfare and a logo.” She lowered her voice. Waved an arm. “Spill Oh Three,” she intoned. “They wait all year for something like this. A storm. A pileup…any damn thing they can beat to death for a week. It’s like…”
    She skidded to a halt, hands on hips. Corso had stopped and turned around. He looked up into the swirling fog and shook his head. “Where’s all the sirens and lights?” he wanted to know. “This whole area ought to be lit up like a Christmas tree.”
    “Swear to God…I’m cursed.”
    “Stop it.”
    “It’s true.”
    The sound of someone humming filled the spaces between their footsteps. What was the tune. “Time After Time,” Corso thought. He stopped and watched as a middle-aged guy in a green canvas coat cut diagonally across Occidental Street and headed their way. “Looks like we’re the last ones outta here,” the guy said, looking around at the deserted streets.
    “That’s what I keep telling him,” Dougherty said.
    “Where were you?”
    “Smith Tower,” the guy said. “I’m the maintenance supervisor. Had two guys call in sick, so I’m holding down the fort by myself…next thing I know the place is crawling with cops and firemen.”
    “They tell you what’s going on?” Corso asked.
    Guy shook his head. “Just told me I had to get out. Like right then. Said I had five minutes to beat it.” He shook his craggy head. “Hell…I can’t even get to my car.”
    “I hear every taxi and bus in town is down by the stadiums,” Corso said.
    “That’s what the cop told me too.”
    Corso turned to Dougherty. Spread his hands. “What’s all this tight-lipped shit about? A spill is a spill. You send in the haz-mat team; you clean it up. So what? B…F…D.”
    “It’s on Yesler. That I know for