Constantine - The Novelization - Whoa is (Not)

into the car. Constantine got in beside him.'What you think they'll call it this time?" Chaz asked, hearing the sirens approaching. "PCP?Crystal meth?""They'll call it something. They always do."Coughing, chewing up another cough drop, Constantine poked a finger through the litter ofbooks on the dashboard. Aleister Crowley. Eliphas Levi. Dion Fortune. Manly P. Hall. "LosAngeles... never ceases to entertain."Chaz started the taxi and drove into the street, the sudden motion making books fall onConstantine's lap, just as the cops and the ambulance arrived."Take Alvarado..." Constantine said. "I know how to go, okay?"Echo Park, Los AngelesTHREEDetective Angela Dodson, LAPD, was running, gun in hand, and she hated to do that. Hated torun with a gun, worse than running with a knife. You run with a knife, you probably only hurtyourself. Run with a gun and trip and it goes off, you might kill anyone. She wore Hat shoeswith her civvies, with her suit-skirt, white blouse and purse - but she could still trip.No time to worry about it. The guy who'd just shot three people at random, including heryoung partner, Xavier, was somewhere up ahead, she was sure of it - though she wasn't sure howshe knew. There Xavier - she'd heard him right on the walkie-talkie: he was lying on his back ina pool of blood, near the base of a tree."Get away from here!" Angela shouted at the onlookers, running toward the fallen man. Shepulled the badge from her purse and waved it. "LAPD! Get out of here!" Xavier gasping, pale.Wounded in the left shoulder. "Get down - get under cover!" Angela shouted at a family gapingat her as she knelt.Where was her backup? There were supposed to be two bicycle cops in this neighborhood.The shooter, serial killer, whatever he was - had he shot the bike patrolmen, too?She pressed an improvised compress against Xavier's wound, and with her free hand reachedto take away his gun. He wouldn't let go of it."You're down," she said. "Let go.""''Cold dead fingers', Angie," Xavier said hoarsely, ruefully quoting the old NRA slogan,fingers tightening on the .44.She nodded, scanning the crowd. Checking out the faces. Feeling that the shooter was stillhere. She stood, drawing her badge, on a slender strap, from under her shirt. "LAPD! Getdown!" she shouted.He's here. The shooter's still here, Angela thought.She was sure of it. Xavier was still alive. And she could feel it: the killer wanted to finishhim off.Turning around, looking at the faces around her, muttering, 'Where are you? Where are you?"Most of the people nearby on the pier had run off at her warning, but there were still gapers: apleasant-looking blond man in a gray suit and a puzzled smile, standing behind a woman and her