A Passing Curse (2011) (38 page)

Reese looked over the report, but could not concentrate. He kept seeing Thomkins. He dropped the report on the desk. It was all bullshit, anyway. The Chief had his man and his evidence. “Did Rawlings hurt the garbage man?”

“Nope. Before he got a chance, the garbage truck driver, a woman, threw Rawlings down and stood on him while the victim called the police.”

Reese inhaled slowly. “Other than emptying his pistol and putting three bullets into his attacker, which didn’t help, Thomkins made no kind of defense. No blood under his fingernails, no swollen knuckles. The assault was that fast. Once he emptied his clip, he was overwhelmed. Same with Ramon. Ramon was strung up, hoisted, three hundred pounds, that takes strength. Yet a woman threw Rawlings down and stood on him until the police came? This is evidence?”

“She’s huge. A big woman. One of those high school shot putters. Hefting garbage all her life. Probably on steroids.” The Chief grinned bitterly like he didn’t believe it himself, but daring Reese to prove otherwise. He marveled at how far the Chief would go to protect Ajax. Or was the Chief putting on a show, distracting everyone, opening the door for him to do what the Chief could not? If that was the case, then the Chief ought to speak up, tell him he wanted his dirty work done for him. Tell him to kill Ajax.

“That’s all you have?”

“I’ve got Rawlings.” The Chief walked around him. “Look at Rawlings, then decide. He’s gotten worse. Not the same man you spoke with yesterday. He’s not even the same man we arrested.” To underscore his point, the Chief added, “Now, even that garbage lady couldn’t hold him.”

They walked out the back door of the station and along the dark flagstone path to the jail. They walked through the Spanish gardens that dripped bougainvillea and rhododendrons. Colored lights set into the grass shot rainbows through the plants, shadowing the adobe walls, a modernistic spider web.

Above the tranquility of the garden, came the screams of someone being skinned alive.

The same jailer who’d released Rusty opened the door. Today, his hair stood in three different directions. He put his hands together, forming a megaphone, and yelled over the keening, “He’s worse!”

Reese followed the Chief down the yellow and green linoleum corridor, the jailer yelling at them to be careful, hanging back.

The walls rattled from the screaming. The corridor got smaller. Time slowed. He fought for breath.

The Chief cupped his hands, shouting, a man in a wind tunnel. “Really something, ain’t he? Don’t tell me that thing couldn’t have taken down a fully armed officer!”

They stopped in front of the same metal door and meshed window that Rusty had looked out of yesterday.

Today, William Rawlings, aka Lung Butter Bill, crouched in the corner of the padded room, wearing the same nasty sport coat, gulping in air and howling like a steam whistle. The Chief was right about one thing: Rawlings was nothing like the drunk he’d questioned behind Cheevy’s store.

He turned to the Chief. “How long has he been like this?” Before the Chief could answer, Rawlings quit screaming. The jail went eerily quiet except for their breathing and a ragged huffing inside the cell.

The jailer broke in, his voice loud, “Twenty minutes. He started twenty minutes ago. He goes on for twenty minutes, catches his breath for twenty minutes, then starts again.”

“What do you think about it now?” the Chief asked, challenging him.

Rawlings turned away from them, as if ashamed.

Reese said, “The killer had discipline. Rawlings is a maniac. The killer has a plan. Rawlings is - ” He stopped, unsure what Rawlings was.

“He had this in his pocket.” The Chief held up a wickedly curved gaff, a miniature scimitar.

Reese turned the gaff over in his hands, similar to those Thomkins had used last night at the cockfight, similar to those stuck in his heels. Anyone could buy a cock-spur. “Fingerprints?”

“Nothing,” the Chief said and took the gaff back. “Wiped clean. Perry checked it.”

Before he could reply, a violent rush, breaking glass, and Rawlings’ head popping through the viewing port.

Reese backed against the wall. Glass showering his chest. Rawlings’ face, blood vessels pulsing, two feet in front of him, smiling, now, in recognition. Spears of glass in his skull. Blood welts crisscrossed, the steel mesh cutting a diamond pattern.

Time staggered. The Chief, the jailer running. Feeling for the butt of his gun, slapping at his side, slightly panicked as Rawlings’ lips moved, closer, trying to speak, the bottom of his jaw now moving sideways, followed by the heat and roar of a shotgun blast.

He turned. The Chief coming down the hallway, light on his feet, jacking another shell in the riot gun.

He tried to duck, tried to get away from the next shot, but slipped in all the blood. He sprawled on the floor. His ears rang. Shotgun wadding floated in the air like gray snow.

He crawled down the corridor. The Chief ten feet away. “Hold that fire!” Reese yelled and pulled himself up. He felt his face, surprised he wasn’t shot. He stared at the Chief.

The Chief just stood there, holding the riot gun as if storming a beach. “I got him.” The jailer, standing directly behind the Chief, was now armed with a taser gun.

He jerked the shotgun out of the Chief’s hands. He angled the stock to strike his jaw. The jailer moved up and aimed the taser at his chest. “Easy now,” he warned. “I’ll have to shock you a little.”

Reese stepped back. He worked the shotgun’s slide, chucking shells until the gun was empty, the cartridges sounding like bowling balls on the linoleum. “You killed him,” he said. “He was trying to talk.” He shoved the gun back into the Chief hands. “The fuck you’re doing?”

The Chief said, “Look.” Rawlings’ head was still poking through the door, but he was far from dead. With a look of determination, Rawlings worked the door back and forth. The door jamb crumbled, grating against the concrete wall. Blood ran down the door from the gaping wound where his chin had been. His upper lips flared over toothless blackened gums. Wild, flashing eyes popped from the skull. With trembling strength Rawlings slowly pushed the door into the hall.

“Saving your life is what,” the Chief said as the door broke free and crashed into the opposite wall where he’d been standing seconds earlier.

Rawlings, amazingly, turned to his right, facing them, grinning after a fashion, bottom jaw gone, the door still hanging from his neck. He then forced the door over his head, peeling off both ears in the process. He threw the door down like cardboard, turned, and strode down the hall. He kicked the exit door twice, snapping the bolt, and was gone, his wide back disappearing into the night.

Then a burst of CO2, a loud snap, and the taser darts, hooked to thin wires, spiraled after him. But they snagged only air and dropped to the floor, jumping and sparking until the jailer released the trigger.

The Chief aimed the shotgun at the door, dropping the hammer on an empty chamber. Reese ran down the hall, slipped on the bloody door, recovered, and picked up a vial that had jumped from Rawlings’ jacket. He put the vial in his jacket and ran after the wino.

Under the first streetlight, Reese caught a glimpse of Rawlings running hunched over.

Rawlings ran out of sight. He followed the blood track. Sometimes only drops. Sometimes great brush strokes. He ran with his pistol out. His shadow dancing ahead of him. He saw the blinding white teeth of frightened people, gesturing from passing cars, honking and pointing down the road where the wino had ran.

Around the next corner he saw Rawlings fifty yards off, barely moving. He was tempted to kneel and cap him from a distance. But he needed him alive. He had a few questions for Lung Butter Bill. What kept Rawlings going, he did not know.

He was nearly on him when Rawlings jerked right and disappeared into a dark thicket that skewered up a hill. Tall eucalyptus trees rose against the dark sky. Brush broke loudly as Rawlings ran up the hill and then silence except for ragged breathing. Passing fog softened light from the rising moon.

He followed Rawlings into the thicket. The ground felt spongy. He kept going, kicking through cans, tangled weeds, balled newspaper. He made noise, hoping to drive Rawlings into the open.

The brush was dry and crackly. A bad place to be. Rawlings could be anywhere. He forgot about keeping Rawlings alive. A shadow slipped by and he fired. The shot scoured the brush bright orange. The short blast popped his ears. Parts of a junked car - a front seat, a steering wheel, tires - threw abstract shadows.

He crouched, both feet planted a little past shoulder width, all black in front of him. His vision still bubbling from the muzzle blast. He held steady, ears open, ready to fire at the first sound. He smelled blood and a cat-piss smell from the eucalyptus. He forced his feet into the soft ground, rooting himself.

He needed light. He reached one hand in his pocket and felt the horns of Cheevy’s devil lighter. He pulled out the lighter and rolled the wheel. The valve was set high. Four inches of flame shot out. Then one crazy eye coming very fast.

Rawlings hit him low, knocking him over. A short train in the night and gone. He was on his back, his front slippery with blood, his hand burning from the lighter still shooting flame, his other hand on the pistol, aiming at the stars.

He threw the flaming lighter. He rolled to his knees, gun out. Searching.

Nothing. The clearing brightened. He shook his leg, knocking off shreds of burning paper. Flames in the dry underbrush shot a yard high. Newspapers curled and turned black. He swatted his leg. The fire spread to the wall of brush around him. He jumped when the lighter exploded.

Rawlings came at him limping, holding a tire rim. He swung it against a protruding branch, snapping it cleanly.

He emptied the revolver point blank. Rawlings sank to his knees. Burning powder lit Rawlings’ shirt on fire. The rising flames highlighted the missing jaw, the feral eyes. Blood dropping from Rawlings’ jaw sizzled on the burning shirt. He kicked Rawlings in the chest, knocking him over, and quickly reloaded.

“You trying to set the town on fire?” the Chief asked ten minutes later. The fire, which had roared thirty feet high, was now out. Water arced over them from two fire trucks, the air energized with the crystalline spray. Smoking trees hissed as the water hit.

“Lucky there wasn’t any wind, the whole town might have gone,” the Chief said and tapped him on the shoulder. “What’s that you picked up? What was it? Speed? What was he cranked up on? Meth? Acid? Hand it over.”

“I thought you searched him? You found the gaff didn’t you? Or maybe you planted it?” Reese slapped the Chief’s arm away. “Ask Ajax what I found.”

The Chief backed off, stared at him, a hint of a grin, but said nothing. Was the Chief telling him that he was right, but there was little he could do about it?

With hooks and ropes, two firemen pulled the smoking hulk of Lung Butter Bill onto the sidewalk. Another threw an aluminum fire blanket over the body to shut off the air. The shrinking tendons drew the corpse into the fetal position, tenting the blanket. Smoke escaped from the blanket’s edge, along with the smell of burnt ham.

“I heard gunshots,” the Chief said.

“He came at me.”

The Chief snapped his fingers and held out his hand. “Gimme your sidearm until I can straighten this out. You don’t need a weapon anyway since you’ve killed our main suspect.”

“You shot him first.”

“But I didn’t kill him.”

“You should have,” Reese said. “A twelve gauge to the head would kill anyone normal.” Of course, the Chief hadn’t been using silver buckshot.

A fireman touched the Chief’s arm and pointed. “Look at that.”

They turned. A fireman jerked the blanket loose with the flourish of a magician. A puff of smoke and a pile of ash were all that remained of Lung Butter Bill. The Chief walked over, waving his arms, yelling, “What’s the matter with you guys? We needed that body for evidence!”

The fireman shook out the blanket as if for his next trick he would make Lung Butter Bill reappear whole again and said, “Never seen anything like it.”

He was a block away, walking fast, before realizing that he hadn’t given his gun to the Chief. Of course, the Chief hadn’t pushed too hard, probably wanting him to kill Ajax with it.

He walked into a Handi-Mart, bought a beer. Outside he saw a payphone, opened the surprisingly unused phonebook, and looked through the white pages. He spilled beer on the yellow pages, wiped it away, found the number, and called a cab.

The cab driver raised his eyebrows but said nothing about the torn clothes, the singed hair, the bottle of beer. When they were going, he polished off the beer and threw out the empty bottle. It broke on the sidewalk. The driver kept one eye on him, one on the road.

The driver dropped him at the curb. Halloran’s expensive house stood a hundred feet back from the street. Dark trees shrouded the large one-story home. Halloran answered the door, a look of mild surprise. He was dressed in a smoking jacket. A woman’s voice from inside queried, “Who is it, dear?”

“It’s business,” Halloran said over his shoulder. “A policeman.”

“At this time of night?” the woman answered, slightly miffed. A door slammed somewhere deep inside the house. Reese stepped into the foyer and said, “Unicorn Medical.”

“What happened?”

“Tell me about Unicorn.”

Halloran cleared his throat, motioned for Reese to follow, and walked into the den - paneled walnut and green carpet - a desk the size of a small house. There was a half-filled tumbler of whiskey on a leather blotter. Papers strewn on the desk. Halloran pointed to a collection of bottles on a side-table, a crystal bucket half filled with ice. “Drink?” he said with little hope in his voice.

Reese filled a tumbler with ice and topped it with Wild Turkey.

Halloran said, “You want something on those cuts?”

“I didn’t come here for that,” he said, nearly adding he’d no sooner ask a medical examiner for treatment than he would a dog doctor.

“I am a doctor,” Halloran reminded him.

He looked at Halloran. He’d hurt his feelings. “Unicorn Medical. What is it?”