Carrion Comfort (59 page)

“I had better get back to the Youth Center and call the fire department,” said Woods. “The phone here was not working earlier when . . .”

Natalie turned to see why the minister had stopped talking. Woods was staring at someone standing at the head of the stairs, just at the edge of the circle of light.

He was young and thin, almost cadaverous, dressed in a torn and stained army jacket. His gaunt cheeks glowed whitely and long, tangled hair hung down over eyes set so deeply that they seemed to burn out of pits in a fleshy skull. The mouth was wide and open and Natalie could see the stub of a tongue moving like a small, pink, mutilated creature in a dark hole. He held a scythe taller than himself and when he stepped forward his shadow leaped ten feet high onto the patched and plastered wall.

“You don’t belong here,” began the Reverend Bill Woods. The scythe actually whistled as it completed its arc. Woods’s head was not completely severed. Rags of tissue and a shred of spinal cord connected it loosely as the body slowly toppled over onto it. There was a soft thump and blood pumped across the green felt top of the pool table, pooling in the nearest pocket. The silent, long-haired figure jerked the scythe blade from the body and turned toward Natalie.

Even as Woods had said his last, absurd words, Natalie was using the pool cue to shatter the window. There were metal bars on all of the windows. She screamed as loudly as she could, the hysteria she heard there surprising her, bringing her back to herself. The flames and shouts outside masked her screams. No one looked up.

Natalie flipped the pool cue so the heavy side was farthest from her and she ran toward the table. The thing with the scythe edged to its right; Natalie edged to her right, keeping the table between them, glancing toward the stairway. There was no way she could reach the stairs in time. Her legs went weak, threatening to drop her to the floor. Natalie screamed, yelled for help, swung the heavy cue, feeling the adrenaline beginning to pump inside her. The longhaired nightmare shuffled quickly to its right. Natalie shifted, keeping the table between them, moving ever so slightly closer to the stairs. The thing lifted the scythe, breaking the glass shade on the hanging lamp and setting it swinging.

There was the sound of water lapping. Natalie looked down and realized that it was blood still pumping from the neck of the corpse on the table. Even as she watched, it stopped. The swinging light threw incredible shadows on the wall and changed the color of the blood and baize from red and green to black and gray with every swing. Natalie screamed just as the thing across the table leaped, seemed to fly over the top of the pool table, and brought the scythe down in a wide arc.

She jumped in under the blade and staff, flipping the pool cue and bringing it up like a spear, feeling the point bury itself in the thing’s jacket even as he crashed down on her. The base of the pool cue hit the floor as she went to one knee and the stick acted like a lever, vaulting the figure over her.

He landed on his back with a thump and swung the scythe at her legs as he lay there, the blade rattling along the boards. Natalie jumped high, clearing the blade by two feet, and ran for the stairs even as the jacketed shadow rolled to his feet.

She threw the pool cue at him, heard it hit, and did not wait to see the result. Natalie went down the stairs three at a time. Heavy footsteps clattered behind her.

She crashed into the hallway, bounced off Kara at the entrance to the kitchen, and kept running.

“Where the hell are you going, girl?” called Kara. “Run!”

The staff of the scythe came through the kitchen doorway and caught Kara solidly between the eyes. The beautiful young woman went down without a sound, her head striking the base of the stove. Natalie slammed through the backdoor, vaulted the railing, landed and rolled on the frozen ground four feet below, and was up and running before the door crashed open behind her.

Natalie ran through the cold night air, across the tumbled wasteland behind Community House, down a pitch black alley, across a street, and down another alley. Behind her the footsteps grew heavier and closer. She heard heavy breathing, an animal’s raspy panting.

Natalie put her head down and ran.

T
ony Harod was only half aware of what Colben and Kepler were talking about as they drove him back to the Chestnut Hills Inn on Sunday evening. Harod was half reclining in the backseat of the car, holding an ice pack in place. His attention seemed to slip in and out of focus with the tides of pain that ebbed and flowed through his head and neck. He was not sure why Joseph Kepler was there or where he had come from.

“Pretty damn sloppy if you ask me,” said Kepler. “Yeah,” said Colben, “but tell me you didn’t enjoy it. Did you see the look on the passengers’ faces when that bus driver floored it?” Colben barked a peculiarly childish laugh.

“Now you have three dead civilians, five injured, and a crashed bus to explain.”

“Haines is handling it,” said Colben. “No sweat. We have backing all the way to the top on this one, remember?”

“I can’t imagine Barent is going to enjoy hearing about it.”

“Barent can go fuck himself.”

Harod moaned and opened his eyes. It was dark, the streets almost empty. Every bounce on the bricks or trolley tracks sent spasms of pain up through the base of his skull. He started to speak but discovered that his tongue seemed too thick and too clumsy to function. He decided to close his eyes.

“. . . important part was keeping them in the secure area,” Colben was saying.

“And what if we hadn’t been there as backup?”

“We
were
there. Do you think I’m going to leave anything important to that
putz
in the backseat?”

Harod kept his eyes closed and wondered who they were talking about. Kepler’s voice came again. “You’re sure those two are being used by the old man?”

“By Willi Borden?” said Colben. “No, but we’re sure the Jew was. And we’re sure that these two were involved with the Jew. Barent thinks the kraut’s up to something bigger than settling Trask’s hash.”

“Why would Borden go after Trask in the first place?”

Colben barked his laugh again. “Old Nieman baby sent a few of his plumbers to Germany to terminate Borden. They ended up in body bags and you saw what happened to Trask.”

“And why is Borden here? To get the old woman?”

“Who the hell knows? All those old farts were crazy as cockroaches.”

“Do you know where Borden is?”

“Do you think we’d be dicking around like this if we did? Barent says the Fuller broad is the best bait we have, but I’m getting goddamned tired of the waiting. It takes a hell of a lot of effort to keep the local cops and city authorities out of all this.”

“Especially when you use city buses the way you do,” said Kepler. “They way
we
do,” said Colben and both men laughed.

Maria Chen looked up in surprise as Colben and a man she did not know half carried Tony Harod into the sitting room of the motel suite. “Your boss bit off more than he could chew to night,” said Colben, dropping Harod’s arm and letting him drop to a sofa.

Harod tried to sit upright on the edge of the couch, swayed, and fell back into the cushions.

“What happened?” asked Maria Chen. “Tony baby got caught in a lady’s bedroom by a jealous boyfriend,” laughed Colben.

“We had the doctor at operation headquarters look at him,” said the other man, the one who looked a little bit like Charlton Heston. “He thinks it may be a mild concussion, nothing more serious.”

“We have to get back,” said Colben. “Now that your Mr. Harod has fucked up this part of the operation, all hell is ready to break loose in spade city.” He pointed at Maria Chen. “See to it that he’s down at the command trailer by ten o’clock in the morning. Got that?”

Maria Chen said nothing, showed nothing by her expression. Colben grunted as if satisfied and the two men left.

Harod was fully aware of only parts of that evening; he distinctly remembered throwing up repeatedly in the small, tiled bathroom, he recalled Maria Chen tenderly undressing him, and he remembered the cool slide of sheets against his skin. Someone applied cold cloths to his forehead during the night. He awakened once to find Maria Chen in bed next to him, her skin brown in white bra and pan ties. He reached for her, felt vertigo rise in him, and closed his eyes for a few more seconds.

Harod awoke at seven
A.M.
with one of the worst hangovers of his life. He felt for Maria Chen, found no one there, and sat up with a groan. He was sitting on the edge of the bed and wondering what Sunset Strip motel he was in when he remembered what had happened. “Oh, Christ,” said Harod.

It took him forty-five minutes to shower and shave. He was reasonably certain that any sudden movement would send his head falling to the floor, and he had no interest in crawling around on all fours in the headless dark to find it.

Maria Chen entered loudly just as Harod shuffled out to the sitting room in his orange robe.

“Good morning,” she said. “Bullshit.”

“It’s a beautiful morning.”

“Screw it.”

“I brought some breakfast from the coffee shop. Why don’t we have something to eat.”

“Why don’t you shut the fuck up?”

Maria Chen smiled and set the white carry-out sacks on the counter at the far end of the room. She reached into her purse and pulled out the Browning automatic. “Tony, listen. I’m going to suggest once more that we have breakfast together. If I get another obscenity from you . . . or the slightest hint of a sullen response . . . I’m going to fire this entire pistol-load of bullets into that refrigerator. I would guess that the noise would not be helpful to your precarious state of health at this moment.”

Harod stared at her. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Maria Chen pulled back the slide, aimed the cocked weapon at the refrigerator, and looked away with eyes half shut.

“Wait!” said Harod. “Would you care to have breakfast with me?”

Harod brought both hands to his temples and rubbed. “I’d be delighted,” he said at last.

Maria had brought four covered Styrofoam cups and after they finished the eggs, bacon, and cold hash browns they each had a second cup of coffee.

“I’d pay ten thousand dollars to know who hit me,” said Harod.

Maria Chen produced Harod’s checkbook and the Cross pen he used for initialing contracts. “His name is Sheriff Bobby Joe Gentry. He comes from Charleston. Barent thinks that he’s here after the girl, the girl is here after Melanie Fuller, and they’ve all got something to do with Willi.”

Harod set the cup down and mopped at spilled coffee with the flap of his robe. “How in hell do you know
that
?”

“Joseph told me.”

“Who the
fuck
is Joseph?”

“Ah, ah,” said Maria Chen and pointed a finger at the refrigerator. “Who is Joseph?”

“Joseph Kepler.”

“Kepler. I thought I’d dreamed that he was here. What the goddamn hell is Kepler doing here?”

“Mr. Barent sent him down yesterday,” said Maria Chen. “He and Mr. Colben were outside the hotel yesterday when Haines’s men radioed about the sheriff and the girl getting away. Mr. Barent did not want the two to leave. It was Mr. Colben who first Used the bus.”

“The what?”

Maria Chen explained. “Fan-fucking-tastic,” said Harod. He closed his eyes and slowly massaged his scalp. “That goddamn cracker cop gave me a goose egg the size of Warren Beatty’s ego. What the fuck did he hit me with?”

“His fist.”

“No shit?”

“No shit,” said Maria Chen.

Harod opened his eyes. “And you heard all this from that inflammable hemorrhoid J. P. Kepler. Did you spend the night with him?”

“Joseph and I went jogging together this morning.”

“He’s staying here?”

“Room 1010. Next to Haines and Mr. Colben.”

Harod stood up, caught his balance, and lurched toward the bathroom. Maria Chen said, “Mr. Colben requested that you be at the command trailer at ten
A.M.
”

Harod smiled, returned to pick up the automatic, and said, “Tell him to stuff it up his ass.”

The ringing began at 10:13. At 10:15:30, Tony Harod sat up and groped for the phone. “Yeah?”

“Harod, get the hell down here.”

“Chuck, that you?”

“Yeah.”

“Stuff it up your ass, Chuck.”

Maria Chen answered the second call that evening. Harod had just finished dressing to go out to dinner.

“I believe you’ll want to take it, Tony,” she said.

Harod grabbed the phone. “Yeah, what is it?”

“I think you’ll want to see this,” said Kepler. “What?”

“The sheriff you went waltzing with yesterday is out and moving.”

“Yeah, where?”

“Come down to the command trailer and we’ll show you.”

“Can you send a goddamn car?”

“One of the agents at your motel will drive you down.”

“Yeah,” said Harod. “Look, don’t let that shithead get away. I have a score to settle with him.”

“You’d better hurry then,” said Kepler.

It was dark and snow was coming down heavily by the time Harod stepped into the cramped control room. Kepler looked up from where he leaned over one of the video screens. “Good evening, Tony, Ms. Chen.”

“Where the fuck is this cracker cop?” said Harod.

Kepler pointed to a monitor showing Anne Bishop’s home and an empty street. “They went up Queen Lane past the Blue Team observation post about twenty minutes ago.”

“Where is he now?”

“We don’t know. Colben’s men were unable to follow.”

“Unable to follow?” said Harod. “Jesus Christ. Colben must have thirty or forty agents in the area . . .”

“Almost a hundred,” interrupted Kepler. “Washington sent reinforcements in this morning.”

“A hundred fucking G-men, and they can’t follow a fat, white cop in a ghetto full of jigaboos?”

Several of the men at consoles looked up disapprovingly and Kepler motioned Harod and Maria Chen into Colben’s office. When the door was closed, Kepler said, “Gold Team was ordered to follow the sheriff and the young blacks who were with him. But Gold Team was unable to carry out orders because their surveillance vehicle was temporarily disabled.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Someone had slashed the tires on the fake AT&T truck they were in,” said Kepler.

Harod laughed. “Why didn’t they follow on foot?”

Kepler sat back in Colben’s chair and folded his hands across his flat stomach. “First, because everyone on Gold Team was white that shift and they thought they would be too conspicuous. Second, they had standing orders not to leave the truck.”

“Why’s that?”

Kepler smiled ever so slightly. “It’s a bad neighborhood. Colben and the others were afraid that it might be stripped.”

Harod roared. Finally he said, “Where the hell is Chucky baby, anyway?”

Kepler nodded toward a radio receiver on the console along the north wall of the office. Static and radio babble muttered from it. “He’s up in his he li cop ter.”

“Figures,” said Harod. He folded his arms and scowled. “I want to see what this damn sheriff looks like.”

Kepler keyed the intercom and spoke softly. Thirty seconds later a video monitor on the console lit and showed a tape of Gentry and the others passing. A light-enhancement lens spotlighted the scene in a green-white haze, but Harod could make out the heavyset man among the young blacks. Pale numerals, codes, and a digital time record were superimposed along the bottom of the screen.

“I am going to see
him
again soon,” whispered Harod. “We have another team out on foot, looking,” said Kepler. “And we’re fairly certain the whole group will be going back to that community center where the gang’s been congregating.”

Suddenly the radio band-monitor began squawking and Kepler turned it up. Charles Colben’s voice was almost quaking with excitement. “Red Leader to Castle. Red Leader to Castle. We have a fire on the street near CH-1. Repeat, we have a . . . negative, make that
two
fires . . . on the street near CH-1.”

“What’s CH-1?” asked Maria Chen. “Community House,” said Kepler, switching channels on the monitor. “The big old house I just mentioned where the gang’s headquartered. Charles calls it Coon Hole 1.” The monitor showed the flames from half a block away. The camera seemed to be in some vehicle parked along the curb. The light-enhancement equipment turned the two burning cars into pyres of light that blobbed out the entire image until someone changed the lens. Then there was still enough light to see dark figures scurrying from the house, and brandishing weapons. Kepler switched on the audio. “. . . ah . . . negative, Red Leader. This is Green Team near CH-1. No sight of the intruder.”

“Well, goddammit,” came Colben’s voice, “get Yellow and Gray to cover the area. Purple, you have anybody coming from the north?”

“Negative, Red Leader.”

“Castle, you copying this?”

“Affirmative, Red Leader,” came the bored tones from the agent in the control room of the trailer.

“Get the E-M Van we used yesterday over there to douse that fire before the city gets involved.”

“Affirmative, Red Leader.”

“What’s the E-M Van?” Harod asked Kepler. “The Emergency-Medical Van. Colben brought it down from New York. It’s one reason this operation is costing two hundred thousand dollars a day.”

Harod shook his head. “A hundred federal cops. He li cop ter. Emergency vans. To corner two old people who don’t even have their own teeth anymore.”

“Maybe not,” said Kepler as he put his feet up on Colben’s desk and made himself comfortable, “but at least one of them can still bite.”

Harod and Maria Chen turned their chairs and sat back to watch the show.

On Tuesday morning Colben called a conference to be held at nine
A.M.
at five thousand feet. Harod showed his disgust but boarded the he li cop ter. Kepler and Maria Chen smiled at each other, both still slightly flushed from their six-mile run through Chestnut Hill. Richard Haines sat in the copilot’s seat while Colben’s Neutral pilot remained expressionless behind his aviator glasses. Colben swiveled his jump seat around and faced the three on the rear bench as the helicopter followed a pattern south to the river and Fairmont Park, east to the expressway, and then north and west to Germantown again.